Ava's Christmas Program

You never can tell what a kid is going to do in front of an audience. Ava decided that it was a good time for personal hygiene. Obviously, I need to clean her ears. It may also help with the tone deaf condition. Ava did hit a pretty shrill and interesting note at one point in the song which prompted the parent behind me to laugh, "That one is yours, isn't it?"

The program was cute. Each class had a costume. Bells, Angels, Animals, Mary and Joseph and the shepherds. Obviously, Ava's class were the candles. I think the costume was a bit of a distraction. Her "flame" kept slipping off of her head.

The highlight of my night: As the processional of children paraded into the auditorium, Ava caught my eye and blew me a big kiss and proudly announced, "That's MY mommy!" I wish I could bottle moments like that up and let them out on those days when she is testing my patience.

Ava is the one with the microphone blocking her face. Sorry for the crappy filming. It's not my forte and it's difficult to watch the program and film at the same time. I get distracted, them I'm like, "Oh yeah, I'm filming. Keep it steady."

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Deck the Halls

On Saturday we began decorating for Christmas. Mike brought most of the Christmas decorations out and the girls and I started sorting through them, trying to decide where they will go in a different house. I must say that the 1980's peach carpeting and dark wood panelling do not provide the same lovely backdrop as the white trim and hardwood flooring from last year. That said, it is cozy and we're making the decor work. This year is especially fun because Ava is taking an active role in the decorating. Emily is even getting in on the action. Ava puts up an ornament and Emily takes it down. Ava puts up another ornament and Emily takes it down. And so on... While moving the furniture to create room for the tree, I heard Emily giggling and lots of rustling noises. She had climbed into one of the boxes and was unrolling ribbon. She looked so proud of herself when I came around the corner.

On Sunday we brought home the tree and started decorating it Sunday night. The decorating took longer than expected, so we ended up finishing the decorations on Monday morning. Now all that's left are the outdoor lights. Man this is a process! We might get all of the decorations up before Christmas...I hope.

Here are some of the pictures from the weekend decorating and a little clip of Ava hanging the stockings.

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Saturday Morning Breakfast

I think I've mentioned before that I love low key Saturday mornings. Here are the girls this morning having breakfast on their picnic table and watching 'toons.

Okay, so she really doesn't have enough hair for a pony tail. However, I am able to fashion the craziness that is my child's hair into a spike on her head that shouts to the world: I AM A GIRL! I long for the day when her hair grows long and lush enough to put it into braids and pigtails. But this will have to do for now. I'm tired of that old guy at Walmart calling my pink-clad baby girl "little fella".

Isn't she cute?

In other news...I finally got a "mamma" from her last week. And now she knows how to use it. Sometimes it's a sweet, like "Ahhh mamma" because she's happy to see me. But she uses it when she's ticked too. Like when I take something away from her or she wants something that I'm holding. Then she's screaming at me, "mamma mamma mamma!" She's repeating lots of other words now too. Nothing consistently, of course. If I want to show off her skills to someone, she won't speak on cue. But I know she can and that's what counts. : )

An Anatomy Lesson followed by Christianity 101

Never a dull moment with a 4 year old in the house. Tuesday night after dance class, Ava was especially energetic. Dare I say, annoyingly so? She was bouncing off of the walls! After dinner, Mike was trying to wipe off her hands and face. She was bopping this way and that and making it near impossible. And she had a bad case of the giggles. She was giddy. I saw the frustration all over my dear husband's face. Then Ava yanked down the top of her leotard and flashed him. "Ava!" he said sternly, "pull that up, I don't want to see your boobies!" And then Ava went silent...long enough for the 'tude to fall over her face. "Daddy!" she said sharply, with her hands on her hips. "They are NOT boobies. These are my breasts." AHHHH. I could've died right there. I had to turn around. I was shaking with laughter. Boy is he in for it. Three women in the house and him. Poor guy.

Yes, never a dull moment.

Tonight as I was tucking her in, she said to me, "Mommy, why did Jesus die on that X." I asked, "You mean, the cross?" "Yeah, that." she answered. This led to a very long conversation. I kept it pretty basic, but she had lots of questions. I need to brush up on my theology. Lots of questions from my pretty girl.

Boy, do they grow up fast!

First Dance Class

Another first. Ava has been begging me for months to let her go to a dance class. Since September the requests happen daily. I finally called around and found a school with an opening. You can imagine her excitement when the day of her first class finally arrived. She was so excited, in fact, that she couldn't stand still long enough for me to take a picture before we left. She was "practicing". Because she's a ballerina, you know. I hoped the experience would live up to her expectations...and it did. She loved it! Even better yet, her friend Anna will be attending the class with her. She had such a good time demonstrating what she learned in class while I made dinner. She wouldn't take her leotard off.

Here she is before we left for dance class tonight.

First Snow

It started snowing here the week BEFORE Halloween and we've seen flurries off and on ever since. However, this is the first real snow of the year. The one that stuck. We were all excited to put on our snow gear and slide around. Yesterday after I picked up Ava from school, I put Emily down for a nap and took Ava out to play. We built a little snowman. Before we could give him a face, Miss Emily was paging me through the monitor. What to do? Leave him with such a blank expression? Nope, I put him on a cookie sheet and brought him in so that we could all share in the decorating fun. He got mini oreos for eyes, the traditional carrot nose, and a pepperoni smile. Emily had fun eating snow. She'd take a big bite and make a horrible face from the cold and then go back for more.
More snow fell overnight and so this morning we bundled up again and this time Emily got to share in the fun. The forecast predicts snow every day through the weekend, so there is no end to our fun in sight.

Here are the pictures from last night and this morning.

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First Word

Emily said her first word last Tuesday. She was in the bathtub, which is one of her favorite places, and she stood up and lovingly patted the faucet and said, "Bath, bath." It was so darn cute. The next morning she expanded her vocabulary to "Dada". This week, if you ask her to say grandpa she says, "Ga Pa" or "Papa". She's putting together lots of new sounds this week, so who knows what she'll say next. Can we get a mama?! Please? Here are a few pics of her last week being her cute lil' self.




And one of her this morning with some serious hat head after playing outdoors. See all of those teeth? #6 is on it's way through!

Emily's 10 Month Report

She's 10 months now! I know that I keep saying this, but I've forgotten how much fun babies are at this stage. One of my favorite developments that has really emerged in the last couple of weeks is that Emily knows what to do with "stuff". If she picks up a phone it goes to her ear and she babbles away. If she picks up a comb she puts it to her head and tries to give herself a little baby hairstyle. Yesterday she found Mike's belt laying on the floor and she carefully wrapped it around her mid-section. She knows where it goes! It's a nice change from just putting everything in her mouth. Oh and baby dolls....she loves baby dolls right now. She gives them kisses and says "Awwww." No other words to report yet, but she knows the sound to express affection. It's very sweet to watch.

She's still into everything. Tearing laundry out of baskets, Tupperware out of cupboards and books off of shelves, to name a few. She's cruising all around the furniture and starting to stand on her very own. She's a climber just like her big sister was at this age. She climbs onto the rocking chair, love seat, dishwasher....

Her favorite place to be right now is on the stairs. I know, not good. We have them barricaded, but as soon as she hears the gate move, she's off like a rocket toward the stairs with the hope that we might let her climb. She's pretty brave. Our stairs are scary. There are big spaces between them that she could fall through! Mom, if you're reading, I promise that she is never on the stairs unchaperoned. The video clip not only shows her climbing the stairs, but also her ability to stand. A little.

I do have to brag on Ava's problem solving skills for a moment here. Ava loves her High School Musical dance mat. The problem is, so does Emily. And why wouldn't she, it's got that crinkly texture babies love, not to mention lights and music. She's like a moth to a flame with that thing. Consequently, throughout the day I hear, "Mom! Emily is on my dance mat again. MOM! Get her!" and "Get off baby! This is not for babies. Get off!" followed by poor Emily wailing broken-heartedly. Finally, this morning I told Ava that if Emily was bothering her that she just needed to move the dance mat into another room and play with it there. Then it got quiet. Ahhh. Sweet silence. Then the music started again. I was just getting ready to remind Ava that I asked her to take the mat to another room when I looked up to see Emily bouncing to the music on the AquaDoodle water paint mat and Ava happily dancing away on her dance mat right next to her. Problem solved...at least momentarily. Go Ava. Good thinking!

If you can look past Ava's crazy dancing, you'll see Emily behind her and to the right, trying to get up off of the floor and dance along. Oh, and please pardon the mess. I promise that the house got cleaner as the day went on. Here are Ava and Emily from this morning:

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One Last Hurrah

This week has been absolutely beautiful, but I know these perfect Fall days are fleeting and winter is just around the corner for us. In fact, the forecast for the weekend predicts rain mixed with snow. As I type this I hear the rain that precedes the cold front pelting my window. Batten down the hatches!

At least we took advantage of the nice weather while it lasted, playing outside as much as possible this week. I wanted to squeeze in one more little adventure before the trails here become snow covered, so I took the girls on a little nature hike yesterday. The pictures don't do the beauty of the day justice.





The trail ran along the edge of a pretty deep ravine. I quickly had to ditch the stroller and Emily piggybacked as there were crossings like this one along the trail. I think this mini-ravine was just cut from water running down to the lake below. You could actually walk down and up to cross, but here Ava shows her balancing skills by crossing on a fallen tree.





What are we going to do all winter!?

Raking Leaves and Halloween

I combined two sets of pictures in the slide show below, leaf raking and then Halloween, so I'll post about both here. On Thursday, the girls and I spent two hours in the yard raking leaves. I have not had to rake leaves in SO long. I forgot what a workout it can be! Last year in Georgia, we only had two little trees. Not too bad. Before that, I hadn't raked since I moved out of my parents house, 13 years ago. Now ask me about my tortured youth, that's a different story. We lived in a woods. A woods! And we had to rake our giant expanse of a wooded yard. It took us days and days. Maybe I just imagine that it was such a humongous task, but it felt like we never stopped raking. Anyway...back to the present...the kids had a wonderful time playing in the leaves while I worked. If you look at the pictures you'll see Emily crying in the leaves. I swear she was having fun and then nap time hit her like a train and she was DONE. Anyway, it was good to have some outdoor time. We're taking advantage of the nice days here. We know they are numbered.

Yesterday was beautiful. After seeing a little bit of snow and ice here on 2 days last week, I fully anticipated that the girls would have to trick or treat in their winter coats. Not so. We welcomed Halloween with the sun...and almost 65 degrees. Of course, the evening was cooler, but still very nice. Ava was totally psyched for the holiday. She could not wait to go trick or treating with her good friend Anna. We met up with our friends, Dave and Staycie and their kids and then some of their friends joined us with their 4 children. We were like a Halloween parade as we trick or treated through the neighborhood.

Emily was totally content to cruise along in the stroller and watch everything that was going on. I wonder what she thought about what she was seeing. Everyone in costume, ringing the doorbells of strangers. Hmmm. In honor of her first Halloween, Emily did try to consume our jack-o-lantern yesterday. I took a phone call and after a few minutes of conversation, I noted that Emily was no longer at my feet. I tracked her down around the corner eating our pumpkin. I took a little video clip, it's in the show below. Sorry for the shaky filmography, I was trying to keep the pumpkin pieces out of her mouth and kept losing my subject in the lense.

Here you go...pictures of leaf raking and Sleeping Beauty and the Scarecrow on Halloween.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Just for fun, here is Ava wearing the scarecrow costume at 13 months and Emily yesterday at 10 months.

Fall Trip to Indiana

After Ava's Fall Party last Monday, I packed the girls in the car and headed for Indiana. We had such a fun schedule of events planned for our visit. We spent the first half of the week with Mike's parents whom Ava affectionately calls "Gramma Pammy" and "Papa Nick". Tuesday was a trip to the very pumpkin patch we visit every year. My sister-in-law Stacey and her two little boys, Nicholas (3) and Tyler (2 months) accompanied us. This was Emily's very first time to the pumpkin patch and she seemed to love every minute, especially the straw pile and picking out her pumpkin from the field. On Wednesday we hit the Indianapolis Children's Museum for their annual Haunted House. We left the babies, Emily and Tyler with Grandma Pammy and Aunt Katie in the lobby while Stacey and I chaperoned our little seekers of spookiness through the kid friendly hours of the Haunted House (actually a haunted train theme this year). We also checked out the Super Hero and Dinosaur exhibits as well. Emily was happy to abandon her stroller and explore the museum on all four for a bit (see video clip).
For the second part of the week we went North to my parent's. Ava and Emily had fun playing with cousins Riley(3), Hudson (1), and Ella (5 months). On Thursday night they even got to play with many of my cousins' children. My grandparents have 11 great-grandchildren (and one on the way!) all age 5 and under. 9 of them were at my grandma's house for dinner on Thursday. It was so cool to see all of those crazy kids running wild under my grandparent's roof...it so reminded me of doing the same thing with my cousins when I was little. On Friday I took the girls to meet my friend Amy and her sister and their kiddos for lunch. It's always so good to catch up with old friends! After lunch, I stopped at the apple orchard on the way back to my parents. (See the next post about that). Friday night I cooked for everyone and Ava and Riley carved pumpkins (again...see the clip below) and finally on Saturday we had a girls day out with my mom, grandma, my sister Karla, her friend Sarah, my sister Angie, her baby Ella, Emily, and Ava. Ava headed off to paint-your-own-pottery with my mom and grandma and somehow, I got roped into coming along and finishing some of the painting. I am excited to see how Ava's snowman mug turns out. She did that all on her own. She "can't wait to play in the snow and sip cocoa out of her mug." That wraps up the trip. We set out for home on Sunday after church and here I am, finally catching up on the blog!
Please check out the slideshow/video clips:

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Apple Picking with Ava

Soon after we moved here, we took Ava to an apple orchard near our house. They were having some sort of flea market/festival. She was excited to pick apples, but we explained that it wasn't apple season yet. We promised we would come back in the fall and pick. This seemed to satisfy her that day. She did periodically remind us about our apple picking promise. When the leaves started to turn, she spoke of apple picking more frequently. She had the whole scenario plotted....what bucket she wanted to use...what she would do with the apples. Then about a month ago we went back to that orchard. You can imagine her excitement. She practically skipped into their store. "Hello! We would like to pick some apples, please! Where do we get our bucket?" she sang out to the grouchy old lady behind the counter (not a very nice description....but she was not a very nice lady) She grouched at us,"No apple picking here. If you want to go in the orchard you need to come back on the weekend and pay for a tour." So I nicely asked her, "Oh, will we be able to pick apples then?" to which she all but growled, "No. No picking." The look on Ava's face....she just crumbled. Her little lip started to quiver. She held it together, though. I told her we'd find someplace else. But you know how it is. You get busy. You forget.
And then last week I was back home visiting family. We had lunch with some friends and I was hurrying to get home to put Emily down for a nap and get dinner started. I was cooking for everyone at my mom's that night. I remembered that there was an orchard on the way back to my parent's and I wanted to buy some apples to make applesauce. My car felt toasty warm against the freezing cold rain and I really was in a hurry. I almost drove past the orchard. Then at the last minute I turned into the parking lot. I'll just run in really quick, I thought. I got the girls out and Emily into her puffy Eskimo-like winter coat and ran through the icy splashes on our face. Once inside, Ava realized that we were at another orchard. She started asking about the possibility of picking. "Oh no, not today honey. We really need to get back and it's freezing cold and raining and muddy....." I tried to explain. She wasn't hearing it. She launched into a great screeching tantrum. I unsuccessfully tried to calm her down. I was pretty embarrassed by her behavior and getting kind of angry with her when I took a deep breath and thought about why she was having such a total fit. All she wanted to do was pick a friggin' apple. How hard could that be? I walked up to the counter and asked, "Are we allowed to pick today?" The lady looked at me from under her glasses like I was stupid (is it a prerequisite to be a curmudgeon to work the apple orchard counter?). "Yes. You're allowed, although I don't think you want to do that. It's freezing cold and terribly muddy and you have to walk ALL the way to the top of that hill out there." She didn't shake me. "Okay, thanks. We're just going to go out and pick one or two. Can I pay you now?" Ava is now getting pretty psyched and tugging at my leg whispering, "Bucket! Bucket, mommy, get a bucket!" The lady glared down at Ava. "You have to bring em' back in here to be weighed before you pay. If you're only picking one or two, you don't need a bucket." I was on the verge of forgetting my manners at this point. "Could we please get a bucket?" A little edge creeping into my tone of voice now. She begrudgingly handed me a bucket, which I handed to Ava and we headed out into the cold, pouring rain again. After a quick pit stop at the mini van to get the stroller and look for the umbrella (no luck there) we headed up the hill. Luck was not in our favor and about halfway up, it really started pouring. I was about to abort mission once again, and then I looked down and saw Ava's determined little face as she focused to keep her footing up the slippery hill. We pushed on to the PICKING sign. I pointed out the apples and Ava hurried toward a tree. In her haste, her foot got caught on the stroller wheel and she fell hard onto the muddy grass. It's one of those moments when you see your kid fall and think, "Uh-oh. That one had to hurt." As I bent to pick her up, I anticipated the wails and tears. Instead, she pushed up on her own, turned toward me and said, "Alright, lets pick some apples." and off she went. She picked 3 apples, carefully placed them in her bucket, carried her bucket back down the hill and hefted it onto the counter top for the old lady to weigh. She paid her dollar for the 89 cents worth of apples and kept the change. She was definitely feeling like big stuff.

Back in the van, I cleaned off one of the apples and she took a big, juicy bite as we pulled out of the parking lot. "Mmmmm. Mommy, this is the best apple I ever tasted. It's delicious. Mmmm....." I got a food review on the merits of this perfect apple that she picked herself for the next 5 minutes down the road.

I will say, that despite my hurry to get back and the freezing cold rain and the muddy clothes it was all worth that look of pure joy on Ava's face when she picked those apples. She shined. She really did.

That was apple picking with Ava...and Emily too. She seemed happy to be along for the ride.

Update on the girls

I'm still here! I know it's been awhile since the last update. We went on a week long trip back to Indiana. Now with unpacking and the laundry and the new blog: Krista's Kitchen, I've found it difficult to update lately. Here's what the girls are up to:



Ava seems so grown up lately! She's so perceptive....even making comments about the presidential candidates. She's all girl too. Very into Barbie and anything to do with teenagers. Thanks to the additional religious education that she's getting at preschool, she has quite a few ideas and comments regarding her faith too. Today she was talking about her "Redeemer". Also, she's finally made the transition from the belief that she wants to live at home forever with mommy, daddy, and Emily to dreams of being and teacher and having "lots of kids." She has this whole theory about love and marriage too. "Uh, I don't know which of my friends will be the best husband yet. (insert eye roll) You kind of have to love each other. Duh." Deep stuff. By the way, I can't stand this little attitude. My baby should not roll her eyes or say "duh"!
Here she is playing games on Mike's Blackberry before bed.

And working on her "homework" today. A feather for the class turkey bulletin board.



Emily is so great. This kid has a phenomenal personality. I know, I'm her mom....I'm going to think that. Really though, she's so easy and entertaining. Her laugh is infectious and she laughs ALL OF THE TIME! I forgot how much fun this age really is. She is into everything. She wants to do whatever we do. That includes eating what we eat. She is my favorite person to cook for in the whole house. No complaining. She boycotted baby food almost 1 month ago. With 5 teeth she has no problem. She just happily eats what I put in front of her...and then rubs it into her hair like some kind of beauty treatment. Here she is last night with her Shepherd's Pie hair gel.


She loves being in the kitchen...and tearing all of my things out of the cupboards.

What's for dinner mom?

She's an expert crawler, but she's venturing into the world of the upright. She can stand all on her own for a second or two. I'd say she'll be walking by Christmas. Heck, maybe even Thanksgiving.

Ava and Emily really are the best of friends. Like any siblings, they have their moments....but Emily adores Ava and Ava is an awesome, protective, loving big sister. When Ava gets up in the morning the first thing she does is give Emily a great big hug.



I really can't believe how fortunate we are to have such perfect, precious gifts. I know that when you're in the trenches of parenthood, there are moments of frustration (don't talk to me about my parenting skills between 5:30 and 8:00 pm...I'm toast) But really mostly, I feel so blessed and so thankful. What a beautiful time of life.

Just in time for Halloween

This is the beast of a spider who has made her home on our sliding glass door. We can watch her kill and drain tiny insects of their blood right from our kitchen table. It's better than the Discovery channel! Lovely.





Seriously though, I'm pretty sure that she's full of eggs. You can practically see them bursting out of her big...well...what is that thing called? Forgive me. My biology classes elude me right now. Ahhh, there it is, thank you Google: abdomen - the belly, also called the opisthosoma. It contains the guts, heart, reproductive organs, and silk glands.
Ahem- yep...reproductive organs!
I need to go out and smash her before she lays those eggs and we have 200 of her precious babies building their webs on my deck or possibly scuttling under the door to set up housekeeping in my kitchen! Arrrggghhh! The problem being that I do not want to engage in hand to hand combat with this mother. She's got 6 to my 2. Okay, I'm off to the gargage to see if we have some sort of spray that can take care of this problem.....from a distance! Sorry Charlotte.

Announcing....

My new blog: Krista's Kitchen! It's a blog about meal planning and everyday cooking with a little baking thrown in here and there. Feel free to save it as a favorite and share it with everyone you know.

Here's the link:

http://cookingwithkrista.blogspot.com

I look forward to seeing many of you dear readers over there too!

Absolutely Gorgeous!

Gorgeous weather, gorgeous landscape, gorgeous leaves, gorgeous time with our precious little family. Our latest family adventure took us to Brandywine Falls. The beauty of the falling water was complemented by the fabulous fall foliage and vivid blue sky. After viewing the falls we explored a trail, but when the terrain got to rough, we ditched the stroller and the trail and just explored on our own. We ended up following the stream...that water that we'd just watched plummet over the rocks. Lucky we did. Along the river was some quality clay. Mike and Ava had a good time mushing it in their fingers and making pinch pots (a term I remember from elementary school art class). Emily had a good time exploring too. She's quite the little leaf collector (and eater!) Hope you all enjoy the pictures.

Absolutely Gorgeous Part II