My Sweet Ava Claire is TWO!

At 2, Ava can count to 10 independently, sing her ABC's, recognize her name in print, sing Twinkle Twinkle, sing Hush Little Baby, sing It's a Small World, sing Happy Birthday, recognize the 8 primary colors independently, draw a line and a circle, pee in the potty (pooping is still in progress...) and is telling stories like crazy. Her sentences and questions amaze us every day!! We were checking out the sharks at Sea World and talking about how big they were...and she found a small aquarium and said, "See these tiny fish, mom?" Last night she brought me a Barbie and said, "See her shoes and her socks?" She is such a ham, happy, silly, smart, and LOVES her sister! She is also very strong willed, so it is sometimes hard to draw a line between disciplining her and breaking her spirit, which we don't want to do. Ava Claire, we love you to pieces and can't wait to see what the next year brings!!

Clearwater Beach, September 2009

It was really windy on the beach, but I think our pictures turned out great!

Ava didn't like walking in this part of the sand -
there were several broken shells, so it kind of hurt to walk on them.

So fun!

One of my favorite pictures of the whole trip.

Hughes' and Jones'

Madison, our cousin. She was 1 in August and is so sweet!!
She's very well behaved and a happy little camper!
This was our first time to visit and I was so glad we got to meet her and her mom.

Sweet picture of Hadlie and Julie.
Hadlie wasn't fond of the ocean, but this picture doesn't show it.

Avie loved the water - and Ellie like it more than I expected her to.

Disney 2009

Oh, we had a blast at Disney!! Our good friends went with us and our girls had so much fun together. This was day 1 at Disney - the Not So Scary Halloween Party! Lots more pictures to come!!!

Dizzy

Yesterday was the girls' first day back to Mother's Morning Out. We call it "school" for both of them and Ellie's class is very much like preschool. They had a great time! Ellie loved it - Ava didn't like me leaving her and some of the other kids were already crying, so she cried for a little bit, but settled down and had fun. She only had one accident while she was there, which I thought was pretty good!

We finally got to go to one of Elizabeth's (Dizzy's) games. She is a cheerleader and it worked out for us to go to a football game to watch her cheer last night. She did really well and my girls loved watching her (so did the rest of us).

Tishie and Landy got to go, too!

JD looks like a little stinker in this picture. :-)

The star of the show!!

Hank!

Our kitty is the best. He's just a great cat. Fun, easy going, playful...and he makes us laugh all the time. This morning, the girls were jumping on the trampoline with Jeff and I heard Jeff tell me to look at Hank. This is what I found. Looks like he is saying, "Back off, birds. This is my house!"

this one's for you, Landy

this week in pics

ellie was showing me how she can do a toe touch like her Diz

Mom and Dad took the girls to Dizzy's game to watch her cheer

I rode to Arkansas with Landy so she could go to Tishie's doctor appointment...
we slept in the same bed and as we were getting ready to lay down, we noticed a similar trend...
at least I'm not the only adult who still sleeps with my baby blanket!

Landy and Tishie on our way to IHOP

Avie saying, "So big" with her big girl panties on.
we decided to do the 3daypottytraining.com method.
the potty training is going...mostly still in the floor, but she has learned to stop mid-stream and finish in the potty - good progress, right?