School, Soccer & Keegan

Ava is finishing her second week of school and just as expected she LOVES it!  She says her favorite thing is gym but she also loves painting during art.  She's learning colors in Spanish class right now and she loves me to quiz her in the car by calling out colors in English.  Her pronunciations crack me up but I'm so proud her! 

She had her first soccer practice last night.  She's been excited about playing soccer for weeks!

 Here she is with Coach Jeff  :-)

 Watching 3 and 4 year olds practice soccer for the first time is pretty entertaining. 

 One thing they didn't lack was effort.  They ran hard for 45 minutes in 102 degree heat.  Ava told me on the way home that she had never been that sweaty. Ha!  It's definitely not dance class!

Her sweet friend Mason is on her team and they were all smiles...

 Poor Keegan just didn't understand why he couldn't play too!  He will be the most challenging part of soccer practice.

 I think they all had a good time.  We have one more practice before our first game.

And lastly, I thought I would mention what a little ham we've had on our hands lately. 

Keegan is cracking us up every day just doing random silly things.  Lately he's been pulling his shorts up and waddling around the room trying to make us laugh.   

And he loves doing the exact opposite of what we ask him to do.  Jeff will ask him to say MaMa and he will run through the house laughing and screaming "Dadadadadadada."  But his favorite thing to do is grab one of Ava's dolls while her back is turned, wait until she notices and run as fast as he can hoping she will chase him.  We probably think it's a lot funnier than she does :-)

But who could stay mad at that face?

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!