We’ve been busy!

We’ve been busy since I last wrote! With the school year coming to a close, we’ve had lots of end of the year things!

On Friday, Ava’s school went on a field trip to a gym for field day. Ava was SO excited to get to ride on a big yellow school bus!

Saturday morning we met Ava’s first little friend and we had fun at a local farm and picked strawberries!     

After that, we headed to NWA to get this beauty!!!!  

I’m officially a minivan mama! And I never would’ve thought I’d be so excited to drive one, but oh, I am!!! i LOVE it. The kids love it, too! I had my old car for seven years and it is incredible how much they’ve changed since then. I don’t even have a key to turn it on – it turns on with a button!!! The kids and I are having fun driving around in it!

Sunday after we got home from church, we did a massive garage clean out. We wanted to park both vehicles in there and needed to get some stuff off the floor to make it easier to walk around. We got some shelves and got it arranged to fit both the van and the truck in there. I’ve been wanting the garage cleaned out for a while so I told Zach my ploy to get it cleaned worked! ;)

Sunday afternoon, we went to Sam’s to look for the shelves we wanted. The kids had been so good on both Saturday and Sunday and we promised them an icee. They were excited!

They had food out and Reed went to town. Sometimes he eats his best meals at Sam’s. ha!

We didn’t actually do a whole lot on Memorial Day. It was nice to have an extra day around the house! I tried to get a picture of the kiddos and they were so not amused!

This week was the last week of school. Ava is looking so grown up – I cannot believe she is going to start kindergarten in the fall!

She wanted to write her teacher a note and this is what she wrote.  

We’ve been so blessed by her teacher this year. While we have another amazing teacher coming for kindergarten, we’re all a little sad to be leaving this one behind! 

She gave her kids these sweet little summer gift with the cutest little poem!

So, I guess with that, let’s bring on summer break!!!

Ava lost a tooth!

Last night we sat down to dinner, and we were about halfway through eating, when Ava spit something out of her mouth into her hand. She was eating a salad, and what she spit out was something tiny and white. I asked her what it was and she said she didn’t know.

Around the same time, she, Zach and I all realized that it was her tooth! It had fallen out while she was eating!!!! She is incredibly lucky she didn’t swallow it!!!!!

She was sooooooooooooooooooo excited. Then she picked up the tooth and somehow dropped it so a moment of panic set in. We knew she doesn’t like blood, so when her tooth first came loose, we warned her that it would bleed. She held a napkin to her mouth and wouldn’t move it. We thought maybe the tooth was stuck to the napkin and when I tried to take it from her mouth to check it, she flipped out a little.

We finally found her tooth on the floor and put it away for safe keeping. Then she had to run off to the bathroom to check out her gap in her teeth! She was so ecstatic!!

When I went to get Reed out of bed, she was awake and holding her money from the tooth fairy! She was one HAPPY girl!

She is growing so fast lately. These milestones are so bittersweet. I love seeing her excitement and watching her grow, but I just cannot believe how fast it has gone!!!! She’ll be graduating before I know it! ha! :)

A little girl rite of passage

Ava got to do something very exciting on Saturday – she got her ears pierced!!!! We had attempted to do them over Spring Break, but we’d walked in the store and right back out.

This time she had talked about wanting to do it, and I told her we could maybe do it while we were in OKC. She wanted my sister to go with her, so we asked her to come along. The day we went, Ava was very excited. We pulled up the website to see what kind of earrings she could pick. She was all smiles on the way there!

She had her heart set on some peace sign earrings, but I thought those might be hard to keep her ears clean with, so we convinced her to get something else. My sister told her if she got a different pair and was brave, she’d buy her the peace sign earrings for when she could change them!

When we got there, she climbed right up in the chair and picked out the earrings she wanted! 

The lady working there told us she was all by herself so they wouldn’t be able to do the ears at the same time, like we’d hoped. But, she talked to Ava and told her it would be over really quick, but that she’d have to go through with the 2nd ear if she did the first. I was a little concerned, but she really did great.

They did the first one and she didn’t cry but her face shriveled up and she was fighting those tears hard! I was so proud of her. I was worried she may not want the 2nd one, but she didn’t say anything. However, when it was time to do the 2nd ear, she scrunched up her face so she wouldn’t cry!!!              

When the lady held up the mirror for her to see after she was done, she was ALL SMILES!

Such a proud and excited girl!!! She did so well and is so excited for her new earrings!

She couldn’t wait to get to school on Monday morning to show her friends her ears!!!

One of my favorite parts of being a parent is getting to experience excitement through my kids! I love when something makes them SO happy and proud!!!! I was so very proud of how brave Ava was!

Catching up!

I’m a little behind on documenting things so I am going to try and get a little caught up!

Last Monday we were supposed to meet some friends for dinner at Chick-fil-a. Shortly before meeting, there was a torrential downpour. We decided we didn’t feel like wrestling our kids through the rain. The kids knew about our plans and I knew when I got Ava she was going to be so sad. And she was.

Zach had to work late that night, and since we didn’t have any other dinner plans, I thought I’d just stop and pick them up dinner. Well, when we got there, there was a small lull in the rain, so I decided to be brave and we just went ahead and went in and ate.

When we got home, I let them run through the rain for a little bit!

There are definitely times for boundaries, and there are times when I enjoy being a spontaneous, yes-saying mom. These little moments with the kids are so much fun and I hope they have good memories of the yes times!

Later that night, Reed was scared of the thunder and he didn’t want to go to bed, so he fell asleep in my lap.

One thing I love about Reed at this age is that after he eats a meal, he always picks his dishes and cup up and takes them over by the dishwasher. He does this without us even asking!

Last Wednesday Ava finally got to go on her field trip. That morning she wanted to show Reed her cape and mask, so we went to see it before school. She made her superhero pose which made me laugh!

On 5/15, I picked Ava up from school, and she greeted me with the very enthusiastic news that she had a loose tooth!!!! She is SO excited and can’t wait for it to fall out!!!

We were supposed to spend the weekend at my parents’ house because my grandmother from Illinois was going to fly in. Earlier in the week, she started having some issues and had to be hospitalized. She’s since been released, but was obviously not well enough to travel. Zach had a ton of homework and school stuff to do this weekend, so the kids and I went on without him. He ended up being sick most of the weekend with a weird little bug, so it was probably better he stayed home.

The kids and I had a good time, though it isn’t the easiest thing traveling with them alone. They don’t sleep near enough in the car! ;)

The worst part about traveling is the kids sleep so poorly and wake up SO EARLY. Like 5:00 am early. Reed fell asleep on the floor instead of his blow up mattress.

My parents have some neighbors across the street who have two little girls, one Ava’s age and one Reed’s age. Ava and the little girl have loved playing together when we’ve been there and it was so cute seeing her go across the street to see if she could play. I wish we lived in a neighborhood with lots of little neighbor friends! 

Reed had to check out their storm shelter.

We went out for dinner Saturday night and the kids were so tired they were almost delirious. Reed was eating his sopapilla and I was using the camera to take a picture of him, where he could see it. He made his eyes really big and leaned in really close to the camera. It was hysterical. Then he couldn’t stop. He’s so funny!  

It was very cold outside Sunday morning, but the kids insisted on eating breakfast outside. They had to wear jackets and bundle up in blankets. But they sure were happy.  

They didn’t get to play, but Ava got to say goodbye to her friends before we left! They are looking forward to seeing each other again soon!

Ava also had a big day on Saturday, but I’ll save that for my next post!! Ok, I think that catches us up!!!!

Have you ever had one of those days?

Most mornings, Zach helps me get most of the stuff done in the morning. By the time he leaves, I usually only have a few things left, including doing the kids’ hair, packing my lunch, and loading the car.

Last week one morning, Zach left, and things were going very smoothly. I had my lunch packed, my stuff ready to go and headed out to go put my stuff in the car. A lot of mornings, the kids like to go and play in the garage and ride their bikes until we leave. This particular morning, they were out there. I walked out to put my bags in the car, and noticed Reed standing funny.

I IMMEDIATELY knew that the way he was standing meant he was pooping. In his underwear. I dropped my stuff and grabbed him to take him into the bathroom. At this point, I set my keys down. I put him on the toilet, cleaned up the mess and told him to sit there and finish. I washed my hands and while he was standing there, got the rest of our stuff to take it out to the car. When I was getting ready to head back in, I saw Reed, standing pantless in the door of the garage, saying he was done. I took him back to the bathroom where he’d managed to get poop on the toilet seat. I got that and him cleaned again, washed my hands and got his pants on. I took him and Ava out and put them in the car and then had to hunt for my keys.

As I was looking for my keys, I went into the kids’ bathroom, where I discovered that while I’d washed my hands, I’d somehow gotten toothpaste on my pants!!! I looked down and noticed that Ava had smeared toothpaste all over the front of the counter! So I had to go to my closet and change pants.

At this point, I was getting slightly frustrated. After changing pants, I finally found my car keys. I headed out and as I was backing out of the garage, Ava yelled “OH NO!” I looked in the mirror and her hand was on her head. Her hair rubber band had just spontaneously popped and broke. I’d spent like 5 minutes fixing her hair that morning so it’d be super cute for her field trip. At this point, I was about to lose it. I pulled back in, parked the car, went back into the house to get her brush and a new rubber band. I think I also may have walked in and yelled at God “Are you kidding me?!” This was like 10 minutes after I’d first started getting my stuff out to the car. I went back out, pulled Ava’s hair back into a pony tail. Then we started to pull out again.

As I was sitting in the driveway waiting for the garage door to close, I got a text. It was from Zach and it said “Poor Ava. She was so excited.” At that time a 2nd text came in that Ava’s field trip was cancelled because the performer had laryngitis. Doh! She’d come in our room at like 5:15 saying “It’s Stephen Fite day!!!!!” She had been waiting for DAYS! When I told her they weren’t going, she was SO bummed. She cried the better part of the way to school.  

When we got to school, her teacher explained to her why they weren’t going. She was still pretty sad. 

She was able to turn her frown around pretty quickly.

So yeah. That was a fun morning. It was one that while I was living it I was pretty much cursing the day. I mean, really, that was a lot of stuff to happen in less than a 15 minute span. Thankfully the rest of my day got much better! This was just one of those days that I needed to have written down so I could look back one day and remember what mornings were like with two kids! And lucky for Ava, her field trip was rescheduled for today! :)