Over before it started..

My weekend that is. At least it feels that way.

It’s hard to believe it’s Sunday night and tomorrow is back to work already. But, I’m thankful I have a job to wake up and go to so no complaining.

It was a fairly uneventful weekend but it was good. We’re still trying to get Ava completely well so we kind of laid low. We had dinner with friends on Friday evening and as we were leaving, I told Ava to tell them good bye. So she turned around and yelled “BYE!!!!!” and waved to the people walking out behind us. And then yesterday, we were out running errands and while sitting at a stop light, she all of a sudden yelled “GO!!!!!!”. Cute kid.

Just to give you an idea of the sassiness we are dealing with these days:

This was earlier tonight when Ava got mad at her Daddy for taking something away from her. She ran and opened the door, grabbed her purse, “bracelet”, and coat and said bye and tried to go out in the garage. Total drama queen.

Today was SUCH a nice day. I’m SO ready for the sunshine and warmer days to stay. I’m also ready for pedicures and flip flops!! These are some of the flip flops I’ve been eyeing:

Love me some yellow box flip fops! What kind do you like?

We watched two movies this weekend. Well, Zach watched one. We watched Couples Retreat together and it was funny. I watched The Time Traveler’s Wife and I didn’t really get into it. It was just kind of weird.

Life is kind of quiet for the moment so we’re just enjoying it until the crazy starts again. Hope y’all had a good weekend!

Have a happy first day of March!!!!!

the past few days

How pitiful looking are these eyes??? They’ve endured much cleaning out and look so awful underneath!

Ava’s had some sort of cold/allergies/sinus infection/ear infection and her poor eyes have been pitiful! I don’t really know what she has because I called her pediatrician yesterday afternoon and I didn’t hear back from them until 6:30. They just called in a prescription and said to call back and bring her in if she didn’t improve. I was soooooo thankful we didn’t have to go in and sit in the waiting room for a couple hours. Her poor eyes had so much goop in them yesterday – they were awful!! She couldn’t even open one eye this morning. But, they looked remarkably better tonight. She obviously wasn’t feeling too poorly though because today she managed to accomplish the following at my parents’ house: she learned to climb the piano bench and played the piano and she also climbed up and down the kitchen table chair. Girl loves to climb.

And now some random pictures from our weekend-

Zach sells drinks during lunch to raise money for his program so each week he has to stock up. Ava hitched a ride on his flat bed this weekend. She thought she was pretty cool! 

This girl knows how to open the pantry door and this is one of her favorite places to play She also loves to run to it when she thinks she needs a snack.

It looks like she has a rat tail – I promise she doesn’t. Some of her hair is really light and you can’t see it.

And that’s all I’ve got for y’all tonight! Hope your week is going well!

Booboo and high heels

My sister picked Ava up from school today and when I talked to her, she said that Ava had just gotten hurt when she got there. She said she went face first down a slide and that she had a red mark on her face. I had NO idea it would look like it did..

She was super cranky when she got home. I think she was hurting because after a dose of tylenol she perked up a little. She did crash pretty hard when it was time for bed though. I’m wondering whether she intended to go down head first… it totally sounds like something she might do. With all the she gets hurt, you’d think she was a rough’n’tumble little boy…

However… she can also be as girly as they come. She was feeling better later on and came to me with a pair of high heels from a wedding I was in. I helped her try them on and she went prancing around the living room. She actually walked really well in them!

I’m excited tomorrow’s Friday, y’all! Hope it’s a good one for you!!

Free entertainment!

I love being entertained by this girly. She keeps us constantly laughing!

The nosy neighbor – ha! 

We had our first bubble bath the other night… and she was a little concerned. She wouldn’t sit in the water! Funny girl. She so doesn’t deal well with things out of the ordinary. She is definitely a creature of habit.

Is your week feeling as long as mine is??? It seems never ending, yet there’s still two more days! And they will be more difficult days since Zach is leaving us at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow (Side note – Ava saw Zach getting out his suit case this morning and putting some stuff in it and she walked up and said “good-bye” and then left! Love that her vocab is growing!!). I seriously don’t know how single parents do it! Zach’s been gone the past two evenings and those are never easy, but I’m seriously dreading getting Ava up and ready tomorrow and Friday by myself! Our routine will definitely be altered! Oh well – it could be so much worse – it just makes me even more thankful for what I have!

♥♥♥full of love♥♥♥

Happy Valentine’s Day!!!!

We got our little valentine a card that sings – she LOVES these and carries them around the house dancing! She was SO excited when she realized this one sang!I love this precious face! She’s so into music and dancing these days and it is just adorable. When she hears music she turns and grins at us and then starts getting down!

Here’s our little valentine before church this morning. I don’t have any recent pictures of me with my other Valentine, but I’m so thankful to have an incredible husband who loves me like he does! He’s been cleaning the house and doing laundry since we got home from church trying to give me a break from it. He’s the best! Love you, honey!

And look at this! Is it not awesome??Jennifer made this for me - is she talented or what?? This sweet necklace is on a scrabble tile!! I don’t know where she gets her crafty ideas but I love! it love how it is a thick backing – it reminds me of a canvas print. Thanks again, Jen! You’re too sweet!!

Oh, and one more picture to show you! They made these at Ava’s daycare for the kiddos’ mommies and daddies. If you know me at all, you know how hard it is for me that I can’t stay home with Ava and have to send her to day care. It breaks my heart but getting these things sent home just absolutely warm my heart! I love how thoughtful her teachers are to do sweet things like this for us – can imagine trying to do this with 15 one year olds???

We’re having lots of family time this weekend before a hectic week. Zach and Ava are off school tomorrow, and then Zach will be gone Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and all day Thursday and Friday. Luckily his being out of town coincides with my parents being out of town so my sister is staying with me and it’ll be nice having her help because Ava adores her Aunt Stephanie. We’re celebrating tonight by grilling some yummy steaks and watching one of our favorite shows – the Amazing Race. It may sound boring, but to me it is perfect and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

You know what they say about paybacks…

So. There’s an old saying about payback and I think we all know what that is.

These past couple of weeks we’ve been on the other side of the fence incident report signing. And Ava has learned a lesson (or three) about payback.

Our girl who was once the biter has now become the bitee. Twice in one day last week and once today. Zach called me last week on their way home to tell me and I just had to chuckle. Obviously, I cannot get upset over this for the simple fact that she has done her fair share of biting. Today’s bite happened around 10:00 they said and when I got home you could still see the marks. I hate that for the girl… but I guess she’s never too young to learn that what goes around comes around. I do hope she doesn’t get too much more of it though. I guess those chubby hands are good for gnawing on!

Now then… as I was trying to get a picture of her chomped hand, I realized she kept repeating herself. And after a minute I had to laugh… …because this wide open mouth kept saying “top”. I looked at Zach and asked him if she was telling me to stop and he said he was pretty sure she was. She’s into copying these days so I said stop to see if she repeated it, and sure enough, that’s what she was telling me!

We did at least get one good picture though!

The one with random topics

I am SO. OVER. THE. SNOW.

Please come quickly, spring! I'm so sick of worrying about whether or not I can make it to work and what it will be like when 5:00 rolls around and I'm trying to get home. No more snow this year, please, Mother Nature!

Ava and her Daddy enjoyed a lovely day off of school while I was busy working hard to review payrolls so everyone can get paid on Friday. Days like today are SO hard while Zach and Ava are at home with out me. :(

Anyway... enough complaining. How's this for a sour face? Girl hates the camera. She purposely scowls or looks away every time I get it out!

She is obsessed with "putting her shoes on". (Still needs a little work, doesn't she?) She can do this forever! Sometimes she'll run away to her room and I get a little anxious when she's in there alone and it's super quiet, but when that happens she's usually sitting her with about 3 pairs of her shoes putting them on and off.

The playing with shoes brings me to another item - Ava's attention span really seems to be increasing. She's had several occasions where she's watched a full episode of Mickey Mouse without getting up to run off and do something else. She's sticking with things for a much longer period of time. Here she is watching some tv while loving on her baaaybee.

If she gets to go to school tomorrow, they are having one of their Valentine's parties (they get 2!). We worked over the weekend on putting together some treats for her friends.

She really wanted to help so I wrote the names on the valentines and she put each item in the baggies. It will be fun to work on these types of things with her as she gets older! And by the way, check out that red hair!

Another thing I've noticed lately is that Ava is doing A LOT of mimicking. She's repeating the sounds for a lot of words. The other night at dinner she was incredibly messy and I told her she was yucky and she sounded out that word which sounded more like two other possible words, neither of which are appropriate for a 1 year old to say, so we switched to saying ewwww! I've also been fighting a cold the past 4 days and yesterday I woke up coughing, and Ava started fake coughing after me every time I coughed! Sweet kid I have, making fun of me being sick!!

So there’s your update on our house. Word on the street is that we could get more snow on Thursday – blah! Hope you’re staying dry and warm where you are!

I’ll end with a couple of cute pictures her daddy took after naptime today!

(Why does she pose for him and not for me??????)

Copy cat!

So as I was reading about Kelly’s simple pleasures, I started thinking of what mine are. Then I saw Page’s and decided to make my own list.

So here they are – not just pleasures, but treasures:

• Pulling into the garage and seeing Ava open the door to greet me
• Laughing with good friends
• Open mouth slobbery kisses from my girl
• Getting things in the mail
• Riding with the sunroof and windows open on a sunny spring day
• Dark, rainy mornings perfect for sleeping in on the weekend
• Frozen milky way mocha from Sweet Bay
• Random emails/calls/texts from friends just to say hi
• Hearing Zach talk to Ava over the monitor when I’m getting ready in the mornings
• Favorite tv shows
• Blog comments
• This smile!

• A clean house
• Waking up to find out it’s not time to get up
• My iPhone
  
• Lunch dates
• Getting a little alone time every once in a while (like tonight!)

The simple things are free – Jim Brickman (oh.. except my Milky way mocha and my phone) :)