Accessorizing & Visit from Uncle Jim

Lately Ava has been way into wearing accessories such as her beads and mismatched mittens and water shoes. Nice look!

This one might be a framer for future reference although I am sure it is bound to get worse when she starts picking out her own clothes!

Macy gets the privilege of wearing the beads sometimes too!

This past weekend Uncle Jim was in town to go to a concert and stopped in to visit with is little niece and play in her kitchen.

Not always as quiet as she seems

Some of these videos are kind of long but I wanted to post them so you can see that yes Ava does talk (she gets asked that all the time because she is so shy) and she can belt out some killer songs! This girl cracks me up. Never a dull moment with her, especially when we are in the comfort of our own home.

On this video she wanted me to show her the screen on the camera so that she could see herself, hence the stares and shy faces, and then all of a sudden Daddy came home from work which I wasn't expecting so I got her usual reaction to him coming home on video. So adorable! She talks a mile a minute and tries to recount everything we did that day.

Singing a medley of her favorite hits- Amazing Love (learned at the kids program at church), Ring-Around-The-Rosie, ABC's, and Hosanna (another church song)

Demonstrating her drawing skills (straight lines, circles, and dots) and we have also been working on the concepts of "same" and "different".

Attempt at 2 year pictures

Last week my sweet friend Vaune, who has some mad picture taking skills, was kind of enough to take a few pictures of Ava since I am too cheap to pay a photographer for pictures every year. I was mostly there to help get her son Luke (as in Lukie, Ava's bf) to smile and look at the camera so she could get some 3 year pictures of him. The fact that she took some of Ava was an added bonus to our day. We didn't get as many great ones of Ava as we would have liked but that is simply do to the fact that she doesn't sit still for more than 2 seconds and she doesn't smile on command. Add her boyfriend Lukie, his baby sister Vivie, and some rain showers into the mix and all they wanted to do was play and be silly. Oh well! It was still fun and Vaune got a few cute shots of my sweetie pie. Thanks friend! My goal this summer is to take an online photography class and get better at this picture taking stuff. Vaune got me inspired!

The picture are on our shutterfly link.

My 3rd Mother's Day

I had a wonderful 3rd Mother's day with this precious little munchkin.

After church we went to brunch.

She must have known it was a special day for mom because she was all about giving me endless hugs. I told her that is all I needed for Mother's Day!

After naptime she presented me with a beautiful handmade card that her and Daddy created. Very beautiful and just might be my favorite card of all time (handmdade cards are Mikey's specialties and I treasure every single one)!

It definitely had a real flower and real grass taped on it. :)



I will never get tired of these moments!

Close up of the card from Ava

I'm pressing the flower so hopefully it will still look pretty for years to come.

I also got a card from Macy and Daddy, hehe

After I opened my cards (I asked for no gifts but time with my family) I made us some fruit smoothies and we went to the park to feed the ducks and geese.

This was the geese family we were feeding. The babies looked like they were going through their awkward "teenage" years but they were cute nonetheless. The momma goose was hissing and giving Mikey the evil eye so we didn't stick around too long.

If only I could get her to smile on command


For now I will just settle with the gaze off in the distance pictures (with Daddy's nose in the corner- oops)

There was a park near the pond with lots of shade, other than the swings, so we played till we were wiped out....and sweaty! It was a HOT day!

This is actually a look of excitement rather than terror. She insisted that Daddy jump with her.

Doing a little modeling


Did I mention it was also super windy?

We ended my fun Mother's Day with a walk around the neighborhood after dinner. Ava insisted on wearing her heels, carrying her purse, and pushing her baby in the stroller.

I had my doubts for awhile but I think I have a girly girl on my hands. Even when her hard plastic heels were rubbing blisters on her feet she did NOT want us to take them off or carry her....true woman! Guess she is already adopting the beauty over comfort philosophy.

Ava Marie, never in my dreams could I have imagined how wonderful a feeling, how great an honor, it would be to have you and be your mother. This precious time that I have with you at home and all the fond memories we are making will forever be in my heart. Thank you for all your sweet hugs, kisses, hand holds, and "Hi Momma's". These are the "I love you's" that I know you are showing me. I love YOU precious girl and I'm so very proud to be your momma.

For LOTS more pictures from our day check out the shutterfly site!

Weekend Update

This past week/weekend was full of visitors and good times! Gigi and Bpop came in town last week to visit for a few days. Gigi got some special Ava time in and Mikey and Ben were able to play golf, twice!

Ava seems to think it is so fun to pester Gigi

and aparently Bpop as well!

Not really sure about this one other than we were watching the Royal Wedding and then afterwards she wanted to wear her sunglasses and princess shoes. I guess she thought that was her way of dressing up like the princess.

After Gigi and Bpop left, this Momma left to meet up with some of her best friends for a girls weekend to celebrate my 30th birthday. We first met for brunch at Breadwinners followed by hours upon hours of shopping at Northpark and then dinner at The Porch and dessert at La Duni. The weekend turned out just as I imagined it would. So many of my sweet friends showed up and we had a blast doing girl things and not worrying about our kids!

Speaking of kids, they were in EXCELLENT hands with their daddies all weekend. Zack and Bekah stayed at our house with Mikey and Ava while I stole Jenny away for the weekend. Many of the other Dad and children combos joined in while the moms were away and it sounds like they had fun as well. They all went to Chickfila for lunch, played at the park, then came back to our house for pizza and more playing that evening. All of us moms were talking about how we wish we had a camera to watch them. The dads did an outstanding job of taking over all the parenting duties! So well in fact, I think we need another girls weekend again soon! ;)

These are out of order but I took these of the girls once we got back home on Sunday morning.

Mikey coloring with Ava and Bekah

The girls wanted to wear the butterfly wings and fly around the house

so cute!

classic, pose by the front door with your best friend picture.

This is when it really started to getting entertaining....when the girls walked around in my heels and Bekah broke out in modeling poses for the camera

Work it Bekah!!!

She's a natural! She even had the pouty lips and everything!

What precious friends!



Here are pics from our girls weekend

Brunch at Breadwinners

I didnt get any pictures of our shopping extravaganza but Vaune and Tana met up with us too!

Amy and I at The Porch for dinner

(Amy these are all stolen off your blog. Thanks for taking pictures for me!)

Jenny and Christy

Meagan and Rebekah

Carla and Cassie

(my bffs from high school, including Jenny and Christy)

Paige (my bestie from college), me, and Amy

Christy and I with the "med school" wives as we refer to them as. They all met and became friends because their husbands were in med school together. I was blessed enough to be introduced to them by Jenny and they are as great as they come!

The girls surprised me by taking me to La Duni and ordering a delicious Tres Leches cake for me!

Here are a couple more pictures taken from some of the guys' iphones while we were gone

Ava and Brinley at the park

Dinner time!

Thank you to all my sweet friends (and their husbands) for making this such a special weekend for me!