A Big Day!

 Today is Ava's first day of preschool!  She woke up ready to go this morning and she was in such a good mood that she gladly tolerated ten minutes worth of pictures!

Yesterday we packed her backpack, made her lunch and worked on her chalkboard.  She talked all day about Ms. Sherri and the kids she met on Friday.  She has big ideas of everything she wants to do today! 

 I hope she's always this excited about school!

 She put her things away in her cubby and Ms. Sherri showed her where to "sign in" every morning.  When I left she was playing with her new friend Zoey and only had time for a quick wave for Mom.  I'm sure she will have lots to say when I pick her up later :-)

 When I got home Jeff had cleaned up the kids' table from outside and set it up with crayons & books for Keegan.  I talked about doing this last week but I had forgotten about it until I walked in and saw it all sitting there.  Just another reason I LOVE the man God gave me!  Sweet as it was I'm pretty sure he thought there was less of a chance I would cry when I got home if there was something waiting for me to do. Ha!  It worked. 

Keegan and I played school for about um.....maybe twenty minutes until he realized climbing up and down on the table and chairs was much more fun than coloring!

August Randoms

Today I uploaded some fun pictures from the last few weeks.  August has been a busy month getting ready for the fall semester.  Ava got a "big girl" haircut a couple of weeks ago that makes her look so much older now.  She is so excited about starting preschool.  We had 'Meet the Teacher' on Friday and she has not stopped talking about school since we left.  I think she's going to have a fun year!

On her birthday we had cinnamon rolls for breakfast and took her ice skating for the first time.

All laced up and ready to go!

She and Daddy had a lot of fun but Daddy was worn out after about half an hour!  It's much harder when you're skating for two :-)

Two of Ava's best girlfriends celebrated birthdays the following weekend.  We had a morning princess tea party and an afternoon princess tea party on the same day.  I'm pretty sure it was Ava's idea of the perfect day!  She decided to dress as Belle for both parties.  Here's a picture of Princess Ava & Princess Abigail.  Sweet friends since 19 months old!

Wednesday was Ava's first day of dance this semester.  She has the same teacher but all new friends this year.  She tapped and twirled and loved it as always!

Friday night Jeff & I headed to the Ballpark to watch the Rangers play the Twins.  It was a fun and much needed date night!  We used to go a lot before Keegan was born.  The weather was great and we won 8-0 so it was a great game to see! 

We thought it would be a good time to get away because next week Jeff starts softball, Ava starts preschool and Jeff will take on coaching Ava's soccer team.  A busy but exciting new year! 

And because our little man has been missing in the last couple of posts, here are some bonus pics of when I caught him playing with Sissy's headphones last week (which he had to crawl up the couch and onto the bar to retrieve.)  Love this little boy!

Swim Lessons

Ava started swim lessons for the first time three weeks ago and Thursday was her last class.  She was so excited about learning to swim and even more excited that her good friend Luke was going to be in her class.  But about ten minutes into the first session they quickly decided that swim class was not their favorite place to be!

It was so funny to watch them evolve over the three week session. 

Week two Ava actually started enjoying it and she was swimming well under the water.

And this last week she was asking to go to Miss Mimi's house to swim.....

And she and Luke were jumping off the diving board and swimming to the side alone!

She's been swimming without her floaties the last couple of weeks and I'm so proud of the progress she has made.  The beginning of the summer she wouldn't go under the water and now she's swimming around me at the pool!  I love that she loves it and I love that she knows how to swim to "safety."  We are thankful that our good friends referred Miss Mimi :-)

Ava's Pinkalicious Bithday Party

We gave Ava a few different choices this year but every time we were at the beach pool this summer she insisted that her birthday should be there again.  So that's where we celebrated last weekend!  We've had every party here since she turned one but I think this one was my favorite.  She has a great group of friends that she adores and it was so fun watching them actually run around and play together this year. 
Ava was all smiles, all day!

She greeted each new guest with big hugs.  It was precious!  Her excitement grew with every friend that showed up.  She is such a big girl now.

She decided on a Pinkalicious birthday party months ago.  It's her very favorite book.  I found the plates & napkins online made some cupcake toppers and favor bags to go with the theme as well. 

The favor bags were full of green candy & toys....the only cure for pinkititus according to the book :-)

Here are some pictures of her fun day!

A very happy 4 year old!

And a very thankful family!

Four Years Old

Our sweet Ava is FOUR years old today! I cannot believe we have a four year old.  The years just keep flying by and our baby girl continues to grow into a little lady.  She is funny, sweet and sassy and she keeps us on our toes all day, every day.   I could write a book about Ava's entertaining personality but I'll try to sum it up in this post in hopes of always remembering this precious age.

She has definitely entered the world of make believe!  All day long she loves "pretendin" as she calls it.  For the last month she has requested that I call her "Princess Ava" and she calls me "Lady Mommy."  I think she gets this from a couple of books we read but it always cracks me up.  She is all about manners and loves to point out when Daddy & I forget to say please or thank you.

She always wants to know what's going on.  It does us no good to spell words like "pool" or "ice cream" when we are trying to decide on something to do because she wear us down by asking "what are you talking about?"  or "what did you spell?"  over and over!  It's easier to just reason with her.  She wants a valid answer for everything.

She is such a Type A personality.  She needs everything in it's right place and when I'm tucking her in bed at night she always needs to know where we are going and what we are doing the next day .  She loves to be on the go!

She treasures her friendships and loves to spend time with her friends.  She will randomly stop me and say "Hey, we haven't seen _____ in a while.  You need to call his or her Mommy this week!"  And if she gets a new toy or outfit she gets so excited about showing it to her sweet friends.  I pray that she will always be surrounded by loving, Christian friends that encourage and look after her.  And I pray that she will always be the same kind of friend.

She loves to dance and she loves to paint.  I love to watch her dance around the house and our fridge is covered in her paintings. She is such a girly girl.  She wants her toenails painted and jewelry around her neck at all times. 

I'm so proud of the big sister that she is to Keegan.  She plays with him, loves on him and defends him.

Oh sweet Ava, words can't say how thankful we are for you and what you brought to our lives four years ago.  You are full of passion and full of love.  You can be so sassy and so emotional but I love, love, love our days together. 

 You are so excited to start pre-school but I am fighting tears at the thought of days without you!  I don't want to get groceries without you because I love that you call out things we may need and tell me that "watermelon is four dollars today" and you "saw cookies are on aisle six."  And I don't want to go to story time without you because I know I will see so many little Avas around me making the motions to your favorite songs.  But you have grown!  And it is such a joy to watch you become the little person that you are.  We are proud of you, thankful for you and totally in love with you! 

Happy Fourth Birthday Ava Noelle!