I thought the picture of Ava looked familiar...

{6 weeks}

{19 months}oh the difference 18 months makes!

rockstar

our little rockstar!

silly girl

this is her "woe is me" pose---oh the drama of a 19 month old {excuse the outfit}

now life is good!

taking care of her sweet baby

I didn't have much luck trying to pack today w. ms Ava asking me "what doing, mama? what doing?" every 2 seconds. Of course as she is saying this she's reaching into boxes and pulling stuff out to see what I am doing. She is quite the character! I did manage to get a few boxes packed. My most successful part of the day was talking my 19 month old out of wearing a purple croc, a brown mary jane and one pink polka dot sock while we were heading out to Target with no tears. I'm pretty sure the FBI will be calling for me to be on there negotiation team any day now :) {although I'm pretty sure they don't use silver sparkly shoes as a bargaining tool}

congrats!!

We got some wonderful news on Friday that Steven got a big promotion! We are incredibly blessed that work is going so well and he got this new job. His new title is Perishable Accounting Manager {which apparently is exciting---I'm still learning what his last job was :) } Mr BigShot now gets his own office {with a view!} own business cards and his own stationary {however he does lose his day off---aww} Ava is already busy making lots of new art for the walls. We are incredibly proud of dada for doing such a great job at work and providing for us {since he knows how we love to shop :) }

Congrats dada! We are so proud of you!

NINETEEN! {monthly update}

Our baby is growing bigger and bigger every day! Ava's language and dramatic play/imagination have really taken off this month. It's just amazing watching her play pretend and act out different things. She just loves being a mama to her dolls and cooking up a storm in the kitchen. I love watching her carefully pick out each outfit for her dolls and bring them to us. If she's missing a piece she knows exactly what she needs and runs over to get it. I love watching her pack up her baby in the car seat, pick up her purse and her carseat and say "bye bye!" and go shopping. We'll ask her to bring us back m&ms, coffee, bread etc and she'll pick up some imaginary food and run it over to us. Obviously she is used to a camera in her face, because she is always in her babies' faces with a camera commanding them to "eeeeeeezzze" and telling them to "sit richt dere". I love watching her sit her babies on the potty and clap when they "pee". {however her babies do not get the coveted m&ms :) } She is so meticulous in the way she lays her babies and makes sure to feed them, burp them and put them to bed. The other day at school she was performing a puppet show for her babies with a hand puppet. She is such a sweet mama to her babies!

Ava is known as the boss at school. Her teachers tell me they always know when someone is doing something wrong because Ava runs up waving her finger saying "oh no no no! No thank you!" She loves following the teachers around to help them control the room. {Future hall monitor, perhaps?} She always tries to help the other kids from helping the younger ones walk in the halls to helping with the nap sheets. I love how proud she is when she does something right & helps out a friend.

Ava gets hooked on certain things and will retell it over and over. It's great to see how she remembers things. This weekend a dog came up the stairs to the porch door. I was asleep at the time, but when I went out on the porch with her she talked non stop about the "woof" at the door. She'd show me the door and say "woof there" and "no mo woof". It's so great seeing her memory working and how she retells events.

I swear her language just gets better and better every day. She still signs a few things but just uses spoken language for the most part. It's so crazy how much she picks up. Ava says "please" and "thank you" for everything {although sometimes she needs a gentle reminder} and this weekend started saying "bless" when mama would sneeze. {She also said "screw" after hearing nana say go screw---oops!} She is so into reading books and makes up her own versions to go along. I swear she could talk for hours and hours! I think we're in trouble when we get the phone bill in her teenage years! This weekend everyone ordered Chinese food and once they were off the phone, Ava took the menu and the phone and "ordered". She leaned on her elbows while pointing to each dish saying "buy dat" and "oh yes this". The way should would pause and say "yes" and "bye bye" you'd think she was actually on the phone. She is quite the ham. This weekend we were watching the rain come down. Ava looked at it for a minute and then pointed and said "wawa" {water}. I had no idea that she knew rain was water!

She still, of course, likes to test us but thankfully we've only had to do a few timeouts. Her biggest thing is saying "no" back to us and running away when it is time to clean up. Ava also loves telling us that "she no like dat" when she needs to do something or if we take something she shouldn't have away. She's gotten very good at pushing us to the last second and then running over and cooperating with a big smile on her face. She always gives us a big hug and kiss when she needs to say sorry though. She's trouble :) She always seems to know when she needs to listen. I've been teaching her to always keep 2 hands on the car when we are unloading & loading at daycare. She does amazingly well and keeps both hands firmly planted until we open up her door and she can climb in. She always looks at me with this big grin and says "mama on...mama on" I always tell her how proud I am and she gets all excited. I love that this age they are all about pleasing the parents...most of the time :)

She's growing more and more every day! So far she still is interested in going potty which is great. There have been a few times where she will tell us that she needs to go and she does! Ava is a huge fan of wearing her "melmo" undies and thinks she is quite the big girl! We are working on her pulling her pants/pullup up and down since potty training is no good if she can't get undressed! :) So far she does really well. She always has trouble getting her pants back over her booty :) but is always so proud of herself when she does it. Ava also loves picking out her outfits---especially shoes! She also brings us our shoes and will help us get dressed by picking out outfits for us. She doesn't quite get color combos so we'll have to work on that :)

Happy 19 months baby girl! We love you!

Memorial Day Weekend!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend! We had a nice relaxing long weekend. Unfortunately, Ava and I have been miserable from our allergies so every day we've been enjoying 2hr + naps :) Thankfully giving her some Clairitin seemed to really help. Friday, I got out of work early which is always a treat! I came home and played in the water table with Ava. It was a great way to cool off. She loves splashing around.

Ava helped out dada and uncle mike with the raking...until she decided it was too much work.

we enjoyed a nice walk before cooking out. It makes me so sad to think there will be a day where she won't want to hold my hand :(

We found another push trike on the side of the road so as I was washing that Ava would run through the hose and was soaked by dinner! Saturday, we were back at the water table! Ava was dripping wet but had a fantastic time. She loves sending the Little People down the slide.

PIGTAILS!! {finally!!}

dada fixing the slide...again :)

uh oh, dada

Ava soaking herself

payback!

mama's turn

she thinks it is SO funny to try to splash us. Of course by the time she gets over to us there is no water left in her hand :)

once Ava dried off we played on the porch for a bit while dinner was on the grill

uncle mike being a good sport and playing dress up!

off to the store!

her babies have quite the closet!

Sunday morning dada came home with munchkins. By the look on Ava's face you'd have thought she was in heaven. We looked in the box at one point and realized she had taken a bite out of half of them and put them back! oops!

Sunday we cheered on uncle mike at his first baseball game! {that's him pitching} walking the field
mama & Ava :)
Ava was more interested in playing dolls but she was cheering in spirit :)

Monday, we met up with grammy and headed to our town's parade. Ava wasn't too sure what to think at first but she ended up enjoying it. Of course the first thing to go by was a police car which was just a little loud for her. She loved the music and seeing all the kids.

eating grapes & watching the parade


play-doh while waiting for dinner


on a walk!

Hope everyone had a happy & safe Memorial Day!

Thank you to everyone who serves our country