December 30, Day 330

This little boy slept in until 8:45 this morning!! That has never happened with him before. He is usually up by 6:30.. so this was a nice change!

The kids did not get out of their pj's until we went to Greenwood this evening.. It was a nice lazy day, complete with a pretend indoor picnic. Ava even fed True some soup (and made him gag a little..) I'm getting sad that our long Christmas vacation is coming to an end!

December 29, Day 329

I'm thinking maybe I should rename my blog "A Picture When I Feel Like It." I haven't been very good about updating it lately, and I have a feeling it will only get worse when school starts back up! Anyways...

This picture of True shows one of his newly acquired skills: lunging. He lunges for me when I'm sitting close and he tries to climb all over me. I feel like he has really changed just in the last week and half that I have been home with him. He has definitely started rolling more and he is getting very grabby. Ava moved to the other side of BJ tonight when we were sitting on the couch because True wouldn't stop grabbing her hair.

Here is Ava painting with watercolors.. The watercolors are no longer there original color: she mixed all the colors up, but she had fun! She is getting pretty sassy: BJ asked her for a hug and she said, "Don't bother me, Daddy. I'm busy." Oh my...

December 27, Day 327

One of Ava's Christmas presents was finger paint. We got it out today and Ava had fun painting! She really didn't make a very big mess, either. Not bad!

We also had visitors! Daniel, Emily, and Audrey came over. Ava is still learning to share her toys.. will she ever learn??

December 26, Day 326

Ava found a new use for the tree skirt. She is queen Ava!

December 25, Day 325

Merry Christmas! True's favorite part of Christmas: tissue paper!

Ava's favorite part: her new "buitar"

December 24, Day 324

Nothing like waiting till the last minute to get everything wrapped! Merry Christmas Eve!

December 23, Day 323

Ava got to decorate cookies with her cousins and great-grandma today. She went a little crazy with the sprinkles..

She also got to open some presents today! This girl got spoiled.. notice the flashlight. She got that in her stocking and then needed to use it to "see" her presents. Seriously.. she had me hold it so she could see her presents as she upwrapped them. If I tried to turn it off and put it to the side, she found it and had me turn it back on..

December 22, Day 322

No picture again.. I'm on vacation!

December 21, Day 321

Like father, like son?? He was all smiles holding onto mommy's phone...

December 20, Day 320

I wrapped presents today, but failed to take a picture of anything exciting...

December 19, Day 319

True was feeling pretty good when he grabbed this ornament. He was not very happy when I took it away! He is definitely starting to realize what he wants!

December 18, Day 318

We looked at possible vacation spots for this summer with Brad and Pamela. I can't wait till vacation 2011!

December 17, Day 317

Ahh... that is the sounds of 17 vacation days just starting! I am SO excited about these next two weeks with my babies! At school today, some students brought me presents.. One of my students bought Ava and Truett this book. Her mom wrote a little note how this was her kids favorite Christmas book and she hoped my kids would enjoy it. Wasn't that sweet!?

December 16, Day 316

Ever since I got Ava some snow boots, she is pretty excited about tromping through the snow. We went out in the backyard for a little bit tonight and she had fun playing in the snow.

She tried to make a snowball, but the snow is not sticky... then she wanted to switch pairs of gloves... then she wanted the gloves off.. then her hands were cold.. yep, time to go in!

December 15, Day 315

Happy Birthday to my Ava bean! Looking forward to many more birthdays with my girl!

She got to blow out a candle on a brownie.. She was not to keen on sharing that brownie either! She was definitely on a sugar high for an hour or so afterwards!

December 14, Day 314

Somebody had carrots tonight... and that somebody did not enjoy them! He made the funniest faces after each bite...

December 13, Day 313

This is such an Ava moment. She yelled to us that she had made an A, while we were in the kitchen. When I looked, she had made an A out of her musical instruments. I told her if she laid by it, I would take her picture. So, like I said before, she can't smile and look at me. She has to make some kind of face!

December 12, Day 312

We attempted to play Candyland tonight. Ava got it as a present yesterday (thanks Nicole!) and she really wanted to play it. Since it has lots of Christmas-y pictures on it, I'm counting it as our Christmas activity! You can't tell from this picture that she was excited.. when I get the camera out she refuses to look up and smile.. how aggravating! This is not a great picture, but I did not take any others, so here it is!

In other news, Truett started clapping yesterday. Right now he is looking at me and clapping.. what a cute little boy! (He's trying to make up for bombing me with poo - I picked him up and held him only to get poo all over my shirt. Needless to say, he had a bath and I had another load of laundry to do!)

Lastly, two hour delay tomorrow! Yay!

December 11, Day 311

She almost got them out with one breath! We celebrated Ava's third birthday today... crazy how fast time goes by! When I told her this morning that we were having her birthday party she asked where her party hats were. So BJ took her to pick out some party hats - she wore it almost the entire day. I'm not sure where she picked up that party hats must be worn, but she was pretty insistent.

December 10, Day 310

Day 10: decorating Christmas cookies with friends! Tait liked tasting his cookies. I think they would have all rather eaten the frosting right off the knife instead of on the cookies! We had a fun night - Ava said, "I miss my best friend, Ethan."

December 9, Day 309

We did a snowman sticker activity tonight.. but I think Ava had more fun piling on top of Eden. She told me tonight that she, "had fun with her friends Eden and Adi."

December 8, Day 308

8th day of Christmas - cookie exchange! It was a fun evening with friends (lots of teacher talk) to eat and visit! Ava enjoyed the result of the cookie exchange, she got to eat one when I got home!

December 7, Day 307

The seventh day of Christmas was spent reading some Christmas stories! Glad my girl loves to listen to stories! (True was taking a cat nap!)

December 6, Day 306

For the sixth day of Christmas, I thought, wouldn't Ava like to paint a Christmas tree? Yeah, she really did like the paint. Unfortunately, her picture looked nothing like a tree! She had a lot of fun, though!

December 5, Day 305

I tried to upload my pictures last night, but our internet was down. So here they are! Today, True wore a Christmas outfit and he looked darn cute. So our Christmas activity: taking pictures in front of the tree (lame, I know.. I'm just not very good at this game!)

One cute Ava-bean.

Two sweet babies in front of the tree!

December 4, Day 304

Fourth day of Christmas: Ava decorated a little gingerbread man stickerbook I found at the teacher store - got a few different ones, so look for those in the future :) She liked changing around the stickers...

She refuses to look at the camera.. how aggravating..

December 3, Day 303

The 3rd day of Christmas: BJ had his staff Christmas party. They always have an ornament exchange and I got this one for Ava: A Chatty Cathy. She liked pulling the little string on the back to make her talk!

December 2, Day 302

The second day of Christmas: watching a Christmas cartoon on TV. I know, I know, I'm not really a fan of Ava watching TV, but I'm hoping to use the weekend to get some more creative ideas in place. We'll see what happens!

December 1, Day 301

Quite a few of my friends are doing the 25 days of Christmas. I don't know how successful I'll be at it, but I thought I would give it a shot. Today's activity was easy: we got our Christmas tree! Ava enjoyed "helping" the big kids (BJ and I are the big kids) decorate (she's just a little kid, she can't help). She did a great job handing me ornaments to hang. We'll see how many of them are rearranged tomorrow! Here she is hugging the tree.

November 30, Day 300

I had book club tonight, so I walked in when Ava was getting ready to go to sleep. She ran to give me a hug with "Mommy, mommy, mommy" sigh... I love these two little people!

November 29, Day 299

One of the girls in my class asked me to read this book for her. She is reading another one right now and wanted to know if this was good. So, I thought why not? I'm not reading anything, so hopefully it is decent!

November 28, Day 298

Aww... My sweet little man fell asleep sitting on Grandma's lap. He is starting to be more mobile - he has been rolling over a lot more lately. He has also started shaking his head no (he doesn't know what it means yet, thank goodness) and opening and closing his hands like he is waving bye bye.. Right now he is making happy squeaks.. such a happy guy!

November 25-27, Day 295-297

So the pictures are a little out of order, but here is my True-baby who was the sweetest baby this weekend!

We spent Thanksgiving with BJ's family. Ava got to play with an Adi who wasn't her arch enemy...

This is what I woke up to this morning - all four of us in one bed! I am looking forward to everyone sleeping in their own beds tonight!

Ava got to put up her Christmas tree today... so exciting (she kept saying, "Hurray, hurray!")

November 24, Day 294

I'm thankful for a night out with friends! We got to go to dinner and Barnes and Noble with our friends, Daniel and Emily. I really miss our Springfield friends, so it is nice that they have family here. Whenever they come to visit family, we try to visit too! We meant to take each other's pictures, but forgot till it was too late. Instead, when I was changing Truett's diaper (Thank you Jim and Sarah for watching the kids for us!) I found that he had one of Ava's diapers on. I know he is a big kid.. but that made me laugh!

November 23, Day 293

I'm thankful for a night out with friends. It's so nice to have friends to talk and laugh with!

November 22, Day 292

I'm thankful for a night off my pic. a day! I haven't been very creative with it lately... sigh... There are not enough hours in the day!

November 21, Day 291

So thankful for my sweet-natured True baby... He really is a great baby!

True got some cereal for the first time today! He wanted to put the spoon in his mouth all by himself. I'm a little sad that he is starting to eat food.. he is growing up! Already 6 months have flown by!

November 20, Day 290

I'm thankful for a game night! Even if it was a bit aggravating... I think Kyle was the most aggravated! Ha!