a couple of cute pics

Peek-A-Boo

My Fairy Wings

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the many faces of Ava

Snow Angels

When Ava had just turned two, she loved and still loves to play with her little doll as "they make snow angels". She learned it from TV...even though my little Arizona girl has never been in snow before.

Mommy Wrinkles...

It's happening...my sister tells me that her girls have always had a knack to telling the truth, but for insulting her with it. Yeah, its happening...first is was, "Mommy, I have curly hair (in an adorable bragging voice)...and you have...that hair". Ok, really funny. Not so bad. So I have really straight hair and she recognizes it as less than hers : )
But Not only has she giving me stretch marks, she...well, the other day she lifted up my shirt to see my growing belly, so she could talk to the baby. I could tell she was really concentrating and thinking about something. Then she points to my stomach and says, "You have wrinkles, Mommy". I couldn't help it. I started laughing. I told her she made those wrinkles on my tummy when she was growing inside of me as a baby and that they were 'mommy wrinkles'. She then lifted up her shirt to look at her tummy and said, "I want mommy wrinkles on my tummy"...ok, so she totally made up for it. That was adorable. Hey, I know. We should all be proud of the mommy wrinkles! I had been thinking about how ugly my deflated wrinkly tummy would look once my baby was born...but instead I'm going to be grateful. Mommy wrinkles are so worth it...

"the clarnet and the fute"

a while ago, Ava and I went to a band concert my nieces, Alyssa wasplaying in. Alyssa plays the clarinet and Sarah plays the flute, which Ava now loves can calls "clarnet" and "Fute". My wonderful, yet embarrasing sister relentlessly told Ava to yell things to the girls...especially when it was quiet so everyone could here...oh yeah, and she gave her a lollipop to make sure she was good and loud...ok, I did think it was cute and pretty funny...what a great influence Aunt crazy is! Oh, wait, and I forgot to mention that she brought along two presents for Ava...two flashing shirts! that would light up everytime she moved...Just in case she didn't get enough attention.
For Christmas, I bought her a recorder from the dollar store...I know, I'm crazy. She loves practicing now with Sarah and Alyssa. She takes practicing with each of them...taking it very seriously...

My Baby Einstien

My brother was going to garage sale this...uh...Einstein wig...or maybe it's suppose to be a hat. But we put it on Ava. Oh my gosh! It was hilarious...but the funnier thing was she actually liked it. This was in early January and we were living with my sister Rachel. We were going to the store and my nieces told Ava she should wear it in the store...of course, they go off and Rachel and I are left with baby Einstein! You couldn't' tell it was a wig! I've never gotten as many double takes before...ok, I know I'm beautiful in all...oh, wait, it wasn't even me, it was my Einstein baby. Yeah, it was embarrassment. Ava loved it.

reindeer

Oh, my cute Ava...

"Happy Thanksgiving Everyone"

I will never forget how Ava learned to love to yell, "Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!" at the Thanksgiving Day parade in Fountain Hills. In fact...she still does. You would have thought she was in the parade! She frequently relives the event where she got candy and coloring books thrown at her. Very exciting! This is also where her passion for candy canes began. It was my favorite parade of all times.

Turkeys and Leaves

Thanksgiving...what could be more festive than turkeys and crunchy leaves...

We use to walk a lot : ) We will again soon...but in our neighborhood, there was a house with huge turkeys...Ava would love to go "visit" them. Poor neighbors...we went trampling over their yard and their rocks were even raked! Who does that! Sorry, if you do...if you do, then maybe you should come over and clean off my porch or something. Anyhow, Ava also loved the fallish leaves at Jeremy and Karina's house...you can't find them much here...the leaves that is...

Ava's Name and Baby's name?

So at the beginning of next month we should find out if this baby is a boy or a girl!!! I can't wait! I have no idea! With Ava it was so easy! We both immediately thought she was a girl...knew she was a girl...not that we preferred either way...she just was and her name was Ava. Which has a story to it as well. Adam was going to get me a bird as a pet for Christmas, which was a bit of a sacrifice for him, but I really wanted one. For Christmas he took this big decoritive egg we have and put a cute note from my future bird in it, describing his breed and what breeder he was coming from and so forth...really cute...he is always great at presents. The day before New Year's Eve...and my birthday, we found out we were pregnant. We knew her name would be Ava...what we didn't know is that Ava means "bird like" also they think it was dirived from the Hebrew word meaning "life". Even after we knew her name...but not the meaning, I really wanted a name that reflected God's grace and the freedom we have in him...It's prefect. Thanks, God.
As for this baby....do you hear the crickets. Well, I guess we still have a while. I really like the name Selah for a girl, pronounced "say-la", it's a word in Psalms used at the end of the stansas, thought to mean 'reflective pause' because you are to think about what is just said...such a simple, almost quiet word with a lot of power. but...we really, really don't know. that's all for now.

"Aunt Rachel..."

Aunt Rachel (or Aunt crazy, as we like to call her), I just thought you'd like to know that I left Ava's room at 7:30 on the dot and had her all tucked in....it's 8:30 and she's still talking...well, not talking exactly..actually she's singing...about you. It's a song about Aunt Rachel...and pizza...I have no idea! um, she is definitley excited you are coming over tomorrow.

oh, now she is yelling "baaarrrrrk, baaaarrrrk". I really don't think that has anything to do with you, Rachel, though.

"I pee pee in the potty"

Ok, the title was support to reflect Ava talking...not me! So I'm excited to say we on our way to being potty trained...and when I say we...I mean Ava..I mean I'm already...you know what I mean. Anyways, Ava has had a potty chair for a while, but we haven't really tired to potty train yet. Until a couple of days ago...well, it was all Ava's doing. She carried her potty chair out of the bathroom and into the living room, then proceeded to take all her clothes off, which she has grown accustom to doing, including her diaper...sat on the potty...and went potty!!! You should have seen her face...she was SO excited...SO was I. We broke into her halloween candy to celebrate (and we wonder where emotional eating comes from). She has been doing GREAT ever since. Seriously, this was suppose to be so much harder!!! and I know it is for so many...my heart is with you! It's pretty crazy though. I don't have to remind her or anything. She is using the last of her diapers at night and pull ups at bed time and when we go out for now, though she frequently keeps them dry. She loves calling her daddy, aunt, and nana to them them how she pee peed or poo pooed in the potty. It's so cute. She said "I so proud!" over and over after she potties...I think she got it from one of her potty books. Man! I guess she was ready!!! Nice!

"I'm a big sister"

So we were trying hard to tell our some of our friends and family that we were pregnant. My sister, Rachel, was watching Ava for me while I went to the doctor. I called her on my way home and told her that it didn't look good and I could have tumors or something (which is what I had thought before seeing the doctor...wow, a baby is WAY better!). She was very supportive, poor thing. I stopped by the store to pick up two matching bibs, because my sister happens to be a month farther along in her pregnancy. When I got to her house...my nieces, Alyssa and Sarah, and brother-in-law, Jay, were there as well, I said, "hey look what I got at the doctors" (ok, so that doesn't completely make sense), "I thought our kids could wear them together". They looked a little confused for half a second and then my sister, pregnant mind you, started jumping up in down saying "I told you! I told you!" (which she had been telling me I was pregnant and I was thouroughly annoyed by it because I knew I wasn't). It was great!
THEN Rachel helped me pick out a plan shirt for Ava and I ironned on letters that said, "I'm a big sister". Ava really got it. Especially after she got to see the baby on the ultrasound, which she called "peeking at the baby". She laughed so much and thought it was so funny. I asked her if she knew what being a big sister ment and she said, 'baby in mommy's tummy'. She could have melted my heart. Anyways, I went over to Becki's house, who I had told that I probably had tumors or something, and as soon as she opened the door and read Ava's shirt about 5 times, she started jumping...and I mean jumping up and down, screaming (oh, yeah, did I tell you she was about 6 months pregnant, oh man, was it a sight). Serioulsy now, that will go down in my funniest memory book in my head.
Ok, so I have more to tell you...but I want to break it up so you'll actually read it...so more of all that later : )

Suprise!!!

Hi friends!
Adam, Ava, and I have some excited news if you haven't already heard...We are pregnant!!! It was a real surprise to me, because I had taken 4 pregnancy tests which were all negative! I finally went to the doctor thinking that something was definitley wrong with me. I don't want to gross you out of anything...but I couldn't do the urine sample at first because I had only just drank a bunch of water. I went through the whole appointment with my doctor and the options weren't looking good. She said if they found out my pregnancy test was negative, they'd send me in for an ultrasound to see what was going on. Well, I got an ultrasound anyways!!! Let me back up. After I had finally peed in the cup, I sat waiting in the...waiting room. I started smiling really big wondering if I really was pregnant....I thought "Leah, you are going to look ridiculous, smiling from ear to ear, only for the nurse to say, 'what? why are you smiling, weirdo? It's negative like you thought it would be". Luckily, it happened very differently...and frankly, if she would have talk to me that way...well, pregnancy hormones, you know. Anyways, she opened the door to the hallway smiling ear to ear as well. The nurses gathered round this really sweet young nurse who said "You're pregnant!" I was SOOOOOOOO excited! And dumb founded! I really felt like I was dreaming! I told them that too. I think they thought I was pretty funny. The nurse told me how she talked to the other nurses because she wasn't sure how to tell me and showed me how bold the pregnancy line on the test was. Then I rambled on and on to the nurses and doctor who had now all gathered. It was great!
You a Daddy...Again!!! I couldn't wait to tell Adam! I couldn't wait until that night and I didn't really just want to tell him over the phone, so I called Candace, who works at his branch, and she so thoughtfully bought balloons tying them to a baby bottle and a card. The funny thing was, Adam wasn't having the best day and as I've heard, he didn't look very happy as his staff approached his desk with the balloons. They took a picture as they gave him the balloons, while the whole "your a dad again" hadn't quite set in...he quickly realized what was going on and said, "oh, take a good one!" Everyone thought it was pretty funny after the fact. He is very excited as well and has been so supportive with backrubs, lots of cleaning, putting up with pretty crappy dinners and a dirty house for the whole first trimest.
The day after we found out we were pregnant. I got an ultrasound and I was already 9 weeks!!! Oh, wow, that's why I've had no energy!!!

Wow! Sorry that was so long. I had no idea...I even left stuff out!!!

Birthday with the Fam

Birthday with the Fam

For Ava's 2nd birthday with my family, we went to Organ Stop Pizza, as suggested by my Dad. Good call, Dad, good call. Ava LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it. A man plays this huge organ, whose pipes run through the whole building (the organ...not the man). Not only did Ava absolutely adore being a ham as she danced to the music, she loved these cat puppets that would 'perform' ever so often (then the curtain would lower over their stage). She was so distraught when the curtain went down. I told her when they went behind the curtain, they were taking a nap. She was ok with that. Every time after they would dance and the curtain went down, she would proclaim that they were taking a nap...she still is talking about it at least twice a day! When she talks about it, she looks up to the sky and dances her hands in the air like she immetating the cats. The organ player man played every style of music imaginable...but we came on the right now because tons of people had b-days (he plays requests through out the night) and not only did Ava get to hear him announce that it was her birthday and she was turning the ripe old age of 2, but she thought they were playing 'happy birthday' (which really does happen to be her favorite song) all night long (especially since we would sing it to her every time). She had so much fun (and so did her parents) between the music, dancing, puppets, pizza, balloons, light up bracelets, happy cake, and nana, papa, aunt Rachel, uncle Jay, Alyssa, Sarah, and Uncle Matt...not to forget her presents! She loved her presents! She got a McDonald's cash register food, head set etc. thanks to my sister's fam and a great gift card to Barn's and Noble's, which she already used. I can say without a doubt that the books and McDonald's set is about the only things she plays with all day every day. So good job, fam!!! Ava thanks you so much!!! And we have memories to last a life time!!!

Super Ava!

So, for a while now Ava has been running...or flying...around the house, shouting, "Super Ava!" (she draws out the beginning of the word 'super' and also 'Ava'...it's hysterical) I have no idea where she learned it. She also plays 'super bunny' and will call us 'super mommy' and 'super daddy'. The only influence we can think of is 'super Grover' from Sesame Street. Right after she started playing that game, I walked into her bed room to see her slipping her arms into a spaghetti strap tank top to wear as a cape! And it totally worked! So now she frequently uses the tank tops as cape...she actually always refures to those shirts as capes instead of shirt now too. It's quite funny.

Soccer Game

Game! Game!

Ava now thinks that when she plays ball, such as just throwing a ball across the room, it's a soccer game. I think she's actually thinking of baseball...because just about every time she plays ball she puts on a baseball hat..that's too big for her. It's really the cutest thing ever. Well, along with all the other 'cutest thing(s) ever' she does all the time. She also likes to play with this stuffed football. Maybe she is trying to play football. Who knows.

Shoes!

So I didn't need to teach this girl to love shoes! I'm not much of a shoe girl myself...but she loves them!!! In fact this picture was taken in July when we were shopping for wedding shoes. She was sitting behind where we were looking. I turned about and she had done that ALL by Herself!!! It was so funny! For the last week she has insisted on wearing on big shoe and keeping the other barefoot. Every time I turn around, she's wearing this one shoe thats too big for her. She's so funny! She also gets very excited when she sees shoes in the store...man, we are going to have to watch her...and our money as well. Just Kidding.