The E Family does 2010!

2010 was another crazy year! It definitely had some wonderful moments, and the end of it was kind of rocky (more on that in the future), but each step of the way, our family was together and God was with us. There’s nothing else we need! So here’s a look back at our year!

January We had several snows in 2010 and Ava loved going out to play in it!!

February Ava and the playground had a fight and I think the playground won!!!!

March

 

We had another big snow in March!

Zach and I spent a fun day away at the horse races!

April Easter!!

 Zach’s Birthday!

May I went to Nashville for a girls weekend and almost didn’t make it home due to the horrendous flooding that affected Tennessee that weekend.

My cousin got married and Ava was the flower girl!!!

June

Ava took her 1st (and hopefully last for a long time) trip to the emergency room!

July 

We went to Lake Michigan for a week!

We also got to visit Notre Dame while on our vacation!

August

My birthday!

September  Happy 2nd birthday to our sweet Ava!!! Lots of parties!

October We spent the day at a farm and Ava had more fun than she knew how to handle!!!

November

November was the month of never ending ear infections for Ava! We were glad to finally have her well!

December 

December was filled with lots of family time and just enjoying celebrating the Christmas season! It was a fun month!!!

Thank you, Lord, for an abundantly blessed 2010. We’re thankful for the blessings, as well as the trials, and know that all we have is because of You!

Happy New Year! May your 2011 be full of joy and happiness!!!

Christmas 2010

Whew! Christmas was a whirlwind of activity! We had such a good Christmas. Ava was SO excited on Christmas Eve. She knew something was going on, but wasn’t quite sure what it was! She found out quickly enough!

Our Christmas celebrations began with Christmas Eve Children’s Mass. I wanted a photo of Ava in her dress and this is how it started:

After church, we went to my grandparents’ house. My little cousins all love American girl dolls and earlier this month, one got the AG wheelchair. Ava LOVED it and my grandma got her one for Christmas. Is that not the funniest little thing?

Happy birthday to Jesus!!!!!! Blowing out birthday candles on Jesus’ birthday cake!! One of my very favorite Christmas traditions!!!

After leaving my grandparents, we went to my parents’ house to do Christmas with my immediate family.

Stephen and Leslie – so cute!

My parents got Ava this motorized four wheeler. My sis went upstairs to get it and missed the directions to leave it in the hallway. Ava saw it and jumped up and screamed “What’s that?!?!?!?!” She was sooooooooooo excited!

We woke up and did our family Christmas on Christmas morning!! Ava had a lot of fun opening her presents!! She still has one present that she doesn’t know about yet. She has a play house waiting for warmer weather. Seeing as how we had to get ready to travel that day, we didn’t want to fight with her to get her away from it.

 

After presents, we got around and traveled to spend a couple of days with Zach’s family. After arriving at his grandma’s and eating Christmas lunch, we had another round of Christmas! Ava got lots of new things she loves! She spent an hour tonight playing with her Mr. and Mrs. Potato Heads!

Ava had so much fun all three days we celebrated Christmas! She was sooooooo good considering the lack of sleep she was running on!

For a while, I’ve wanted to take Ava to the Build-a-Bear workshop to make a new animal!! We had the chance to do that yesterday! She wasn’t crazy about the stuffing process, but was all about giving her new doggie a shower!!!!

Carrying her new doggie home! She looks SO grown up to m here! *tear* Can’t believe how grown up she is getting!  This was SUCH a FUN Christmas! I love seeing how excited Ava gets and how much magic there is in her little eyes! I hope you had a Christmas that was as full of magic as ours!!

P.S. – I finally got my Kitchen Aid mixer – woohoo!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Riding the Christmas train!

Time to get caught up to date!! We’ve been busy with lots of Christmas celebrations and festivities. I must say, this was probably one of the most fun Christmases to date!

Last week, we met up with our friends for a quick bite to eat and then headed to ride the holiday train at the park!!!

K and Ava had fun playing in the booths!

K’s mommy was smart and brought suckers for the girls while we waited!!!

Ava was sad when she got off the choo-choo! She cried for “Ava’s choo-choo” halfway home! Guess we’ll be going back next year!!!

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

We’re enjoying a quiet week gearing up for Christmas!!!! Tonight we are going to ride the train at the local park and look at all the lights they have and Ava is super excited! She likes choo-choos!

We bought Ava some panties recently to try and get her a little more excited about potty training. Well, she was excited about the panties! In fact, she wanted to wear all 3 pair at the same time!

She looks like a ragamuffin! She wanted her shirt off – she thought she could get the panties on as a shirt! Sadly, as much as she loves the panties, she’s no more interested in using the potty!

We’ve been listening to lots of Christmas music and Ava’s very favorite song is Deck the Halls. When we get in the car, she asks to hear the “la-la song”. Sometimes I sing with her and other times I like to just listen to her. If she notices me not singing, she’ll say “sing, mama!” It’s so cute! It’s also cute that (sometimes) when she hears the music, she’ll say “Daddy’s Band!!!” – of course it isn’t, but it’s cute that she thinks so! Here’s our little concert!

Cheese, Mama!

Recently Ava has started “smiling” for pictures! She’ll say “Cheese, Mama!” and then make the silliest faces!

Today was one of two Christmas parties at Ava’s school and it was pajama day! Since they have kids that come on various days, they usually have 2 parties so all the kids get to participate – and kids like Ava get to have 2! She’ll get to wear jammies again tomorrow! She looked so cute this morning! Such a goofball!! I know she had fun today and will again tomorrow! She and Zach are out of school after Friday! I have to work 4 days next week and then I am off for 10 days and I CAN NOT WAIT!!!!!!!! Hope YOU are having a good week!!

Still not a Santa fan…

We got Ava’s Santa pictures from school yesterday and thought I’d share all of the ones from her 3 Christmases. You’ll notice a theme!

Ava’s 1st Christmas – 3 months old – what 3 month old cries with Santa? MINE! And yes, Santa really did make that face!

 

Christmas #2 – They had Santa at her school and I knew it probably wouldn’t go well so I took a break and ran over there. The only way we got a picture was for ME to sit (or hover) with Santa. And she still cried.

Christmas  #3 – We knew Santa was going to school again but didn’t know when (somehow I’m so good that she wore her “Santa Rocks” shirt the day she had her pictures!) Zach called me after he’d picked Ava up yesterday and asked if I’d seen her Santa pictures. I hadn’t … and he said they were hilarious. See for yourself. Concentrating on her candy cane but still not happy!

We also went to Breakfast with Santa at church Sunday and that didn’t go so well either! I don’t have that photo yet but rest assured that it’s more of the same! She cried in my arms – I have NO clue how they got her in Santa’s lap at school! Maybe next year we’ll get one with no tears!