We're back from our trip and finally unpacked, so I'm taking the morning off to post on the trip and share pictures. Despite battling a couple of colds, we had an awesome time.
The morning of our departure, Ava woke up stuffy and miserable. Of course she was so excited for the trip that she was trying to act perky, but I knew she wasn't well. By Friday afternoon, we were on the road and Ava started grabbing her ear and complaining. Great. Another ear infection. Luckily, I called her pediatrician and she was able to call in a prescription to be picked up near Mike's parent's house. Saturday morning Ava woke up feeling icky but ready to celebrate her birthday at the Purdue v. Central Michigan tailgate. Purdue tailgates are one of my favorite past times and a tradition that I am happy to share with our kiddos. Sunday, we had Ava's official birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. I so miss the days when I could host do-it-myself birthday parties in our home. Unfortunately, living so far away from everyone does not lend itself to this tradition. Ava, of course, could care less. She loves Chuck E. Cheese! She had the best time. Unfortunately, by Sunday morning, Emily had caught Ava's cold she she was a runny, coughing, sleepy mess at the party. Poor baby. On Monday we met my sister in law and nephews for lunch and hit Carter's and Keystone Mall for a fall shopping trip. Tuesday, the girls and I explored the Indianapolis Zoo with their Grandma Pammy. I know that Mike was having a good time too. He hit the golf course with his dad and brother on Monday and spent Tuesday boating and fishing the day away. On Wednesday we headed up to my parents where Ava loves to run wild and free on the farm and sit around the campfire before bed. Thursday and Friday Mike and I went away and my parents watched the girls. Ava had her first sleepover with cousin Riley. When I called to check in at nearly 10 pm they were drinking root beer and running around the lawn playing spaceship. My, how parents change when they become grandparents! On Saturday Mike, my dad, Mike's dad, his brother, my sister Angie's husband Dave, and I trekked to South Bend to cheer on the Boilers (a fruitless effort) as they took on Notre Dame. We wrapped up our trip on Sunday at my niece Ella's baptism and made it home by dinner time.
It was a wonderful trip and so good to see all of our loved ones, but as always, it is so good to get back into our normal routine and sleep in our own beds!
Here is a link to the pics of the trip:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbNnDlq4ZN2LV
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
She's 4! She's 4! No baby anymore!
Ava turned 4 today. I can't believe how much she's grown up in 4 years. Seriously, the conversations that we have seem so sophisticated for a kid who has only been talking for 3 years. I was just thinking how fast it goes. In another 4 years she'll be 8. That's what, a second grader? Wow. Before I know it she'll be wobbling up to our tailgate party in a trashy dress on the way to the football game from her breakfast club 21st birthday party.(Hold on...I need to shake that image from my head) Did I mention that we spent Ava's birthday tailgating Slayter Hill at the Purdue game? The breakfast clubbers were out in full force. Ava definitely enjoyed seeing all of the students dressed up. Kinda like going to a parade (of drunk freaks). Nothing like good, wholesome fun on her birthday! As Ava admired the men painted blue and the girl dressed as Barbie's slutty sister all I could think about was: Ava will be in college one day. My baby is growing up so fast!
Seriously though, Ava had a wonderful day with friends and family. Perhaps we've planted the seeds for a Purdue education (wait...wait...that darn breakfast club image...NOOOoooooo!) Or not. Can she get a home school college degree? Online courses maybe?
Happy Birthday to my beautiful girl!
We're away, so no fun pics or videos today. Next week though. I'm saving em' up
Seriously though, Ava had a wonderful day with friends and family. Perhaps we've planted the seeds for a Purdue education (wait...wait...that darn breakfast club image...NOOOoooooo!) Or not. Can she get a home school college degree? Online courses maybe?
Happy Birthday to my beautiful girl!
We're away, so no fun pics or videos today. Next week though. I'm saving em' up
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Does this baby look sick to you?
I snapped these on Monday night after bathtime. Emily had a temp of 100. I thought maybe she was teething again. She'd been fussy all Sunday night and most of Monday. By the time we headed to the pediatrician the next morning, her temp had climbed to a whopping 104. Diagnosis: sinus infection. Apparently she had lots of thick yellow and green mucus running down her throat. Sorry for the visual. I answered the doctor's questions: Has she been coughing? No. Runny nose? No. Then the doctor said, "Wow. She's acting really great for as sick as she is." That's our Emily. Such an easy baby. Totally miserable and still manages a smile. Granted we've been up quite a bit for the last two nights. Poor baby. I just gave her the second dose of antibiotics so let's hope we see some improvement tonight.
Don't you just love her post bath hair? Her hair grows straight down, so when I comb it back, this is the result.
Monday, September 15, 2008
The Weekend
Despite the gloomy weather, we had such a fun weekend. For weeks Ava has been begging to build a bear for her birthday. It's been on our agenda, but Saturday's nasty weather and the fact that we will be otherwise engaged next weekend for Ava's birthday provided the perfect excuse to hit Build-a-Bear a little early. What's better than the mall on a rainy Saturday (that is if you've got young kids and you can't just cozy up on the couch and watch old movies)? "Beary" has been quickly welcome into our family and Ava was so excited to bring her home. Here are a couple of clips of her at Build a Bear:
Then on Sunday, after church we had a little girls outing to a local arts festival. Not that Mike didn't want to come along and be cultured with the rest of us, but I think he appreciated a whole Sunday of uninterrupted football. The festival was awesome! I really enjoy art, so I was happy to be able to spend a day sharing one of my loves with the girls. It was seriously the best free entertainment I've come across in a while. I spent $1.50 (for a bottle of water) for the whole day! Can't beat that. The venue (on a lake) was beautiful. The sun finally returned to the sky. Aside from a good amount of vendors there was live music, performance art, and tons of activities for kids. Ava got to make a pin, a Japanese koi fish, some bead work, and a sailboat. They had other projects to choose from as well. Ava even joined in on one of the performances. A little band had instruments out for kids to pick up and play along. Ava was up there in a flash, ready to shake her maracas. She also did the limbo. I could not stop laughing. Her form is hilarious. She understands that she's supposed to bend backward, so she assumes this exaggerated pose as she approaches the limbo stick. However, she has not figured out that she needs to bend at the knee as well. When she finally gets up to the stick, she ends up just walking under. Maybe you had to be there to appreciate the hilarity and see her determined little face, but I did include a clip at the end of this slideshow that I put together from pics I took at the festival yesterday.
Luckily we made it home before the next round of storms hit and record high winds knocked out power around the city.
So that was our awesome weekend....despite a loss for Purdue. Let's hope they Boiler up and come back strong next weekend!
Friday, September 12, 2008
The Alphabet Bag
Ava had her first ever in class presentation today! She brought home the class Alphabet Bag on Monday with instructions to fill it with 5 things that start with the letter "A". She took the bag back today and got to show her class what she brought. I decided that she needed a practice run so I asked her to show me her 5 things before we left for school. This way you all get to see her presentation too.
If you're not sick of all of my video clips yet, then click on the link to see Ava and the class Alphabet Bag
If you're not sick of all of my video clips yet, then click on the link to see Ava and the class Alphabet Bag
8 Month Progress Report
This kid is MOVING! Emily was just starting to crawl/scoot when I gave the 7 mo. progress report, but now she's a pro! This has been so fun to watch. Ava didn't crawl. We waited and waited and then right around 10 months she took off walking. This week Emily is having a great time tearing books off of shelves and impersonating a vacuum cleaner. Everything goes in her mouth...which means that I vacuum 1-2 times a day. Seriously, where does all that stuff come from and why didn't I notice it before? Again, it's fun to see the difference between my two kids. Ava never put anything in her mouth. Never. She wouldn't even eat the birthday cake at her one year party. Emily- no fear. Mulch, lint, and who knows what else lurks in our carpet, it all becomes a tasty snack. She watches me now. She targets the next nasty floor snack and creeps toward it, periodically looking at me to see if I've noticed. When she's close enough, she strikes. The piece of dead leaf is no match for her little pinchers. It is snatched up and popped into her mouth in the same moment that I am diving across the room to stop her and she is turning to crawl away as fast as her little hands and knees will carry her. And she's giggling. And chewing. As Ava would say, "She's berry sneaky."
Some other fun skills: waving and clapping. Oh, and I think the very beginning of talking. I've been waiting for a "Mama" or "Dada". Not yet. But several times this week she has repeated the word, "Hi". She's even paired it with the waving of her arm in a big enthusiastic greeting. I swear she also said "up". She held her arms up to me and said, "up up up". This could be purely coincidental, though. She probably doesn't know that the sound that she was accidentally making was also the word "up" and she just happened to use it at the same time she wanted to be picked up. Or, maybe she's a baby genius. Could happen, right?
Ava loves that Emily is actually old enough to play with her now. Ava sets up tea parties. While Emily is nowhere near the pretending stage, if handed a teacup, she appropriately puts it to her mouth. For Ava, that's good enough. A guest that will sit at her tea party and pretend to drink the tea and eat the plates. Ava really is good with her. She doesn't even get mad anymore when Emily crawls over the tea party and wrecks it. Yesterday morning they played for 2 hours in the playroom. I was working around them and from time to time would step out so that I could eavesdrop. I love listening to Ava make up the scenarios for Emily to "act" out. For instance, while playing pirates: "Alright, sister. You sit there and stand watch, matey!" Emily sat and stared out the window. She takes direction so well! The fun came to a screeching halt when a 3 foot tall cardboard crayon "accidentally" fell onto Emily. I overheard Ava screaming at poor, sobbing, Emily, "I told you to move, baby ninja! I told you!" Apparently they'd moved on from pirates. It was time to swoop in and take Emily, um, I mean, the baby ninja up for nap time.
So that's the update on Emily. It feels like it's going so fast. Ava must feel the same way too....yesterday she asked me when we could start praying for another baby sister. Uh-I'll get back to you, Ava.
Here are a couple of clips of Emily crawling:
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Some other fun skills: waving and clapping. Oh, and I think the very beginning of talking. I've been waiting for a "Mama" or "Dada". Not yet. But several times this week she has repeated the word, "Hi". She's even paired it with the waving of her arm in a big enthusiastic greeting. I swear she also said "up". She held her arms up to me and said, "up up up". This could be purely coincidental, though. She probably doesn't know that the sound that she was accidentally making was also the word "up" and she just happened to use it at the same time she wanted to be picked up. Or, maybe she's a baby genius. Could happen, right?
Ava loves that Emily is actually old enough to play with her now. Ava sets up tea parties. While Emily is nowhere near the pretending stage, if handed a teacup, she appropriately puts it to her mouth. For Ava, that's good enough. A guest that will sit at her tea party and pretend to drink the tea and eat the plates. Ava really is good with her. She doesn't even get mad anymore when Emily crawls over the tea party and wrecks it. Yesterday morning they played for 2 hours in the playroom. I was working around them and from time to time would step out so that I could eavesdrop. I love listening to Ava make up the scenarios for Emily to "act" out. For instance, while playing pirates: "Alright, sister. You sit there and stand watch, matey!" Emily sat and stared out the window. She takes direction so well! The fun came to a screeching halt when a 3 foot tall cardboard crayon "accidentally" fell onto Emily. I overheard Ava screaming at poor, sobbing, Emily, "I told you to move, baby ninja! I told you!" Apparently they'd moved on from pirates. It was time to swoop in and take Emily, um, I mean, the baby ninja up for nap time.
So that's the update on Emily. It feels like it's going so fast. Ava must feel the same way too....yesterday she asked me when we could start praying for another baby sister. Uh-I'll get back to you, Ava.
Here are a couple of clips of Emily crawling:
'>http://
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Do you believe in magic?
I should start this by saying that Ava really wants to plant things and watch them grow. She's been hung up on this topic for a long time. She's already begging for a garden next year. Even last spring, she planted a peach pit in our backyard and then sat, very still and very quiet for a long time staring at the ground. Finally I asked, "What's wrong?" "Shhh. Mommy, I'm growing my apple tree" she answered in a serious tone. She thought that if she planted and watered that seed, a tree would shoot right outta the ground. I didn't even bother to explain that apple trees don't grow from peach pits. I did however, have to explain that it takes a looong time for trees to grow from a seed. An apple tree wouldn't be popping out of the ground anytime before dinner so she'd better head on in and wash up.
Two weeks ago we headed back to Indiana for a visit. As soon as the wheels stopped rolling and my gearshift popped into the "P" in Mom and Dad's driveway, Ava jumped out of her booster seat, leaped from the car, and was up my parents sidewalk as fast as her little feet could carry her. She was screaming and gesturing toward a patch of sunflowers. "My magic! IT WORKED! Yes! YES! Look, look Mom! My magic! I grew them! I grew them!" After calming her down enough to get an explanation, we found that she had, in fact planted the seeds that had grown into those sunflowers. My mom, a meticulous gardener had been so busy for the last month or so that she'd meant to get around to pulling the unsightly "weeds" that popped up by her back door. The task had gotten put off long enough that those "weeds" bloomed into sunflowers. It was a curiousity that neither of my parents could figure out. Certainly neither of them had planted sunflowers. So here is what Ava explained: She and Riley, my nephew sorted through the bird seed from the bird feeder in my parent's lawn. They pulled out all of the "big" seeds. The sunflower seeds. Then they dug a hole and planted and watered them with the hose, getting extremely dirty in the process. That's a fact. I have pictures of them on the day that those seeds were planted, from our visit back in June. Here are a couple of Ava the Gardener:
And a couple of video clips of her in front of the sunflowers, explaining "the magic" she created. I like the part in the second clip where she says, "I was very sneaky"
Two weeks ago we headed back to Indiana for a visit. As soon as the wheels stopped rolling and my gearshift popped into the "P" in Mom and Dad's driveway, Ava jumped out of her booster seat, leaped from the car, and was up my parents sidewalk as fast as her little feet could carry her. She was screaming and gesturing toward a patch of sunflowers. "My magic! IT WORKED! Yes! YES! Look, look Mom! My magic! I grew them! I grew them!" After calming her down enough to get an explanation, we found that she had, in fact planted the seeds that had grown into those sunflowers. My mom, a meticulous gardener had been so busy for the last month or so that she'd meant to get around to pulling the unsightly "weeds" that popped up by her back door. The task had gotten put off long enough that those "weeds" bloomed into sunflowers. It was a curiousity that neither of my parents could figure out. Certainly neither of them had planted sunflowers. So here is what Ava explained: She and Riley, my nephew sorted through the bird seed from the bird feeder in my parent's lawn. They pulled out all of the "big" seeds. The sunflower seeds. Then they dug a hole and planted and watered them with the hose, getting extremely dirty in the process. That's a fact. I have pictures of them on the day that those seeds were planted, from our visit back in June. Here are a couple of Ava the Gardener:
And a couple of video clips of her in front of the sunflowers, explaining "the magic" she created. I like the part in the second clip where she says, "I was very sneaky"
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