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!

This & That

We pass by this pirate ship that serves snow cones a few times a week and last week Ava started asking questions about what snow cones are like.  We realized when she asked if they tasted like ice cream that she had never had one before so to the pirate ship we went!

She had cherry and grape just like daddy and enjoyed it until it melted.  But given the choice she said she'd rather have ice cream :-)

Keegan had his first haircut over the weekend.  He has needed a it for a while but I had been putting it off.  It does look so much better now and we had so many comments on Sunday about how much older he looks.  Maybe that's why I was putting it off.  I still can't believe how blonde he has become!

So much better!

Ava is registered for soccer for the Fall and she is so excited.  Jeff bought these goals last week and she's been getting a little practice in.

She loves scoring on Daddy :-)

Yesterday was her first day of dance camp!  She has four good friends in her group and she's having a blast.

She quickly found her cubby and headed off to see her friends! 

They are learning a ballet dance and tap dance to perform on Thursday and she is so excited to be tapping again.  We took a month break from dance and she is really enjoying being back.

And I'm enjoying a little one-on-one time with this little guy!

Sweet Little Boy Things

A year and a half ago I couldn't imagine what life would be like with a little boy running around the house.  But now it's here and it's so, so sweet and hard to remember life before precious little boy things!  I'm in love with the clothes, the noises, the toys and just the overall little personality and fearlessness of this little boy.  I say this all the time but I would love to freeze him at this age and I thought I would share a few recent pics.
Jeff worked in the yard a couple of weekends ago, doing some much needed planting around our tree and mailbox and Keegan was oh so helpful with the wheelbarrow.  We may have to get him one his size that he can actually move.  He gave up after a while on this one but he was quite entertained.

.  He found this lawn mower demo at the entrance of our Kroger last week and after he pushed it around the store for half an hour we decided it would be a good purchase for him.  We go for walks in the evenings around the neighborhood and he pushes it alongside Ava on her scooter.  It's by far his favorite toy right now.  He loves it almost as much as he loves running around with no clothes on!

He loves to push his trucks around the house making 'vroom, vroom' noises and just recently he has started banging them into each other.  It's a funny contrast to see this in a room where sissy is singing along with her musical 'my little pony' on the couch.

He loves yogurt but he has been begging for the spoon lately while I'm feeding it to him.  So I reluctantly gave him the spoon this week and I think you can tell by the photos how that's going.

I'm not sure which of the three of us babies him the most....

But I think it's very clear to him that he is so loved!

Last Week

Today I finally uploaded all the pictures we took last weekend and over the July 4th holiday so this is a catch up post.  I worked three days last week, filling in for the event coordinator at the golf club I worked at before Keegan was born.  It was fun but exhausting and I had four loads of laundry to do and a lot of groceries to buy over the weekend so blogging had to take a back seat! 

Last Saturday we headed to east Texas for the day to see some friends and family.  My first job ever was at a nine hole family owned golf course when I was in high school.  I spent two years with this family, working in the pro shop and often looking after their sweet kids.  I think I needed them more than they needed me at that time and I was more than grateful for the job and my time with them.  Jeff actually ran into Mark & Angela at the Byron Nelson golf tournament recently where thousands were gathered so I took that as a sign it was time to call and catch up!  So that's what we did on Saturday after 10 years of thinking about it and it was as much fun as I thought it would be.  They actually live on the golf course now so it was fun to see the course too. Here's a pic of me and Angela...

And the whole fam...minus Jacob who had to work.  It was very surreal to see the kids again.  I think all week long I had envisioned seeing them as kids but that was clearly not the case.

These are the last pictures I took with Lily & Joshua in 2001 just a couple of years before moving to north Texas.

And this is Birdie.  She walked up as a puppy when I was there in '99 and she is still hanging out at the golf course.  I loved this dog.  She was less than enthusiastic to see me and refused to come out from under the deck.  I couldn't be too upset with her since she's almost 100 in dog years.

The kids had fun running around.  Ava made friends with this sweet kitten that kept her entertained all afternoon :-)

We stopped to have dinner with Grandmama & Grandaddy.  The kids enjoyed running around the "piano room" at their new home.  Keegan and Grandaddy played a little ball...

And Grandmama played a little piano....

And Poppy wore Keegan out which made for a long nap on the way home :-)

It was such a fun road trip and we are looking forward to going back!

On Wednesday we celebrated July 4th almost entirely outdoors.  After the pool we headed to church for our life group's outdoor picnic. 

Keegan obviously wanted nothing to do with my camera or silly noises before we left.

A family pic since it's been a few months....

Big boy Keegan decided he could eat at the table with Garrett & Ava.

Everyone brought fun treats to share and every time I looked up I saw Ava with yet a different form of sugar. I'm pretty sure she took down this cupcake, two popsicles, two cookies and a ring pop.  Oh the holidays!  She had such a fun night running around with her friends.

This little guy, however, struggled after the first hour.  I think he was ready to go home at 7:30 and the fireworks didn't start until 9:45.  We did our best to keep him happy!  And he was usually happy as long as he was eating...

He couldn't get enough of the glow sticks that the kids ran around with at dark.  Ava wore hers like a necklace but of course all he wanted to do was swing it around as hard as he could.

Although hours past his bedtime, he came alive for the fireworks show.  He pointed at almost every firework that went off and clapped in between them.  I enjoyed watching him more than the sky :-) 

It was a fun night but I don't think any of us recovered for a couple of days!  But all exhaustion aside we are thankful for our country, our church, and our community.  And of course the two that make us so tired :-)

The Sweetest Sound

Ava is still talking about the fun she had a vacation bible school this summer.  She learned the same songs in chapel that the 'big kids' learned and I meant to download them to listen to around the house and in the car but I never got around to it.  So here we are, a month later, and I hear her singing this sweet song that I will admit I had forgotten besides a few words in the chorus.  I couldn't believe she remembered this.  She has never performed a dance or a song around the house for the camera so I was shocked when she continued singing it for me this morning.  She has grown up so much the last six months and as age three disappears I am a little sad but mostly enjoying our little almost 4 year old.  But that's for another post!  I will just say for now that she is so much fun and I am loving my days with this little lady :-)