...

It's only 7:30am and I am remembering all the words I left off Ava's word list, lol. Because in the last 10 minutes she has also said: I want Daddy, outside, bubble, pop, I want up, I want chair, swing, ready-set-go!, weeee, inside, and wower (for flower). If you put all those together you can probably figure out that she wanted to go outside, blow bubbles, and swing:) Which we did and are now inside approximately 9 minutes later. Gotta love that 2 minute attention span!

Happy Monday!

Happy 18 months Ava!

Funny "cheese" face with crazy hair (always) and feeding herself yogurt



Technically, Ava isn't 18 months old until Tuesday, but since I have a few minutes I thought I would do this post now. It's hard to believe my baby is already 1.5! She is growing up so fast, she's such a little girl already and not a baby any more. She still adores her binky and her Pinky Bear (I have a feeling breaking her of her binky might be tougher than it was with Aiden!), but she is talking so much and is very independent.

She loves to follow directions and especially likes to throw things away (she always claps for herself too), use the broom to "sweep" the floor, put her clothes in the hamper, and pick up crumbs off the floor and bring them to me saying, "Dank you! Dank you!" She's talking so much these days, even combining 2 and 3 words together. I doubt if I'll get a complete list, but here is what Ava is saying at 18 months:
Mommy, Daddy, Aiden (she also calls herself Aiden, apparently their names are too similar, lol)
Hi, bye, hello, see ya (for see ya later)
Car, wee-ooh wee-ooh (for fire truck), ai-bo (for airplane) buh (for bus)
Ball, choo choo (for train), baby, juice, num num (for any type of yummy food)
Thank you, all done, all gone, no, yay, wow, yee-haw (when she is riding on my back), giddy-up, wook (for look)
There she is, there it goes, I want this, I want juice, balloon
Duck, cow, neigh (for horse), meow (for cat), roar (for tiger and lion)
Booh (for book), go...

I'm sure I'm forgetting some of them! She surprised me the other day when Chuck left for work and she ran to the window saying, "Bye Daddy, go car, bye, see ya! All gone." So cute!

Happy 18 months Ava! You are a silly and adorable girl and we love you so much!

Cute video

I've been getting some flack for not taking more video of Ava since she's been talking a lot more lately. This video isn't actually of her talking (sorry Liz!) but it is too cute not to share. It is really long, almost 5 minutes, but she was so hilarious. Aiden was napping (for once!) and she was playing with Bailey and couldn't stop laughing. So cute!

Hanging plants make the best homes...

Is it Thursday already? This has been a weird week. I finally drug myself to the Dr. on Tuesday and got some meds for my sinus infection and bronchitis, so I am on the mend. Thankfully, the kids seem to have fully recovered from their illnesses and Ava's molars are starting to come in on the bottom. I will be sooo glad when she is done teething--she is even more miserable than Aiden was, and I didn't think that could be possible!

I don't remember if I mentioned it, but my OTHER hanging plant on the porch has some new inhabitants:) Apparently, hanging plants make really good homes for baby birds, lol. There are 5 eggs, and 4 have hatched, so we'll see if the 5th is a dud just like in the other nest. Aren't the babies cute? Very newborn--2 of them hatched just hours before I took these pics!

We've also been trying to play outside in the afternoons, when the driveway is in the shade. It is so HOT, but the kids love playing in the sprinkler and Aiden's new favorite thing is cleaning the moss off of the trees, lol. Wonder who he gets his cleaning instincts from? ;) I like the pic of Ava going backwards down the slide, just like Aiden did when he was a baby. It's such a SMALL slide, but she really feels like it's the most dangerous thing she has ever attempted, lol.

Pic of the day

I couldn't resist posting this picture from yesterday. How adorable is she? Hair in her face, like always, lol. Don't you just want to eat her up?

Misc.

Well, we are all mostly feeling better--finally! This bout of coxsackie that is going around has really been terrible. Thankfully, I *think* it is over! Chuck also finally made it home yesterday morning. His flight got cancelled Monday evening and he ended up having to spend the night in an airport hotel. I'm glad he's home safe and we're waiting till the end of the week to hopefully hear some news on the position.

Here are some misc. pics from the past week or so. Even with the kids being sick, I've been trying to find fun things for them to do around the house. We've been spending the afternoons outside playing in water to keep cool--Aiden loves the pool and Ava really likes our Thomas sprinkler and getting drinks from the water table.

Yesterday I made an edible peanut butter playdoh, and it was so good! I've tried doing playdoh with Ava a few times and she keeps trying to eat it, so I figured I might as well just make one that she could eat, lol. It was a lot of fun, and the dough was really yummy!

Ava's room

I realized this morning that I never posted any pics of Ava's new room, and it's finally complete so now seems as good a time as any. I took down Aiden's old wall border last weekend and today I made this adorable flower hook hairbow holder for all of Ava's cute hairclips (I wanted it to also have a hook for headbands, even though she currently only has one, lol). It was a fun and easy project: I just took an unfinished wooden flower hook from Hobby Lobby, painted it, and hot glued a ribbon to the back to hold all of the hairbows. Didn't it turn out cute?

(On a side note, Aiden is very sick again--it appears to be another round of coxsackie. Please cross your fingers that he feels better soon!)

How cool!

I just found out that my friend Holly who makes the adorable hairbows at www.pixiebows.com was contacted by Tori Spelling to make special ladybug hairbows for her daughter Stella's 1st birthday party goody bags! Check them out here: http://www.pixiebows.com./categories/sku_default.php?product_id=7&category_id=21&categoryType_id=0. They are absolutely adorable and I am sure the guests all loved them! It feels kind of neat to know that Tori Spelling saw Ava on Holly's website!

Dressing up to stay in...

Well, the good news is that Aiden is feeling a little bit better today. He's eaten a little, and is also talking again, sort of (a few words at a time--nothing like his usual chatterbox self though). The bad news is that now I have come down with the sores in my throat, and Chuck leaves for Cleveland tomorrow. But we'll hang in there and of course we are wishing him the absolute best of luck! We love you honey!

I can't believe tomorrow is Friday. We've spent the entire week at HOME. So unusual for us. I did manage a quick trip to the Dollar Tree this afternoon, to get some more toys for the kiddie pool, and we had a major incident! I turned the car on to get the air conditioning running, buckled Aiden into his carseat, and shut the door. And then? The DOORS LOCKED THEMSELVES!!! This has happened once before, a long time ago, but I left the car running that time for at least 10 minutes before it self-locked. This time was less than one minute after turning on the car! Poor Aiden was so scared, and I had to run inside with Ava and use the store's phone to call Chuck at work. Then Chuck ran home to get the spare keys and finally came back to the Dollar Tree to open the car for me. I am sooo thankful that the air was running, otherwise I am sure I would have called the Fire Dept. to rescue Aiden! In the end, everyone was fine though, and I am taking my VUE into Saturn next week, as they think there might be a short in the locking mechanism (or something like that).

Anyway, here are some pics from the last two weeks. Some of Ava and her buddy Oliver painting and coloring (I watched the babies while my friend Susan took the big boys to a movie), and then a few of Ava in her most favorite accessory as of late: her beloved tutu! Every morning, she runs to find her tutu and brings it to me asking, "This? This? Umma?" Umma is her word for "up" and "on", lol. She's so stinkin' cute!

Sick babies:(

Well, the kids are sick. They've been sick since the weekend, but initially I thought it was a tummy bug and then Aiden got a ton of sores on the inside of his mouth and I took them to the Dr. this morning. They both have Coxsackie (hand, foot and mouth disease). Ava had this once when she was very young, so I should have recognized the symptoms earlier. Unfortunately, there isn't much I can do for them. Ava doesn't have the sores yet, but since she did have the diarrhea, the pediatrician said that it was probably just going to be a day or two before she comes down with the sores also. Here's to hoping it passes soon--Aiden is really in agony. You know your kid is sick when he refuses a MILKSHAKE because it hurts too much:(

On an unrelated topic, I made a YUMMY soup for dinner last night and thought I would share the recipe. It is from the Bride & Groom Cookbook, a book written by identical twins who are both married and decided to write a cookbook together. There are some great-sounding recipes (I'm trying several this week actually!) but this was the first one I've ever tried, and it turned out great! Sooo easy too.

Ingredients:
2 cans of chicken broth
2 cans Mexican-style stewed tomatoes
Dab of chipotles in adobo sauce
1 can black beans
Shredded Monterrey jack cheese
Deli-style rotisserie chicken, shredded
Bag of tortilla chips
Lime and sour cream, for garnish
(Optional: avocado and cilantro, also for garnish)

Combine the chicken broth and stewed tomatoes in a saucepan on the stove. Add a dab of the chipotles in adobo sauce. Simmer on medium heat for about 5 minutes.
Warm the chicken and black beans in the microwave. In each bowl, put about 1/2 cup of the shredded chicken, 1/2 cup of black beans, and avocado (if desired). Add a handful of cheese on top of the mixture.
Strain the tomatoes out of the broth mixture, and add the broth to each of the bowls. Add a dallop of sour cream and a spritz of lime juice. Crush several tortilla chips and add to the top of the bowl. (Add cilantro if desired, I left this out because I hate cilantro) Dig in!

Selective color

It's been a while since I've done any selective color photos and a friend inspired me to start doing them again. This was my favorite of the bow pics I took the other day, so I thought I would start with this one. So cute!

Patriotic bow photo shoot

My dear friend Holly makes the most adorable bows for little girls (www.pixiebows.com) and she asked me to have Ava pose for some shots in one of her patriotic 4th of July bows. She also lent me this adorable tutu--isn't it so cute! We took some pics at Holly's house, but I took some more at home and these were the good ones from my shoot. I wanted to share them--I think Ava looks so adorable! She just won't sit still these days, I had at least 60 pics I couldn't use because they were blurry while I chased her all over the yard, lol.

Flown the coop

If you've been following my updates on the baby birds that hatched in my hanging plant on the porch...well, today is a sad day. But also a happy day, I suppose. The birds have flown the coop.

Yesterday I opened the front door to peek at them and saw two of the birds teetering dangerously on the edge of the nest, wings outstretched. Then 3 of the birds suddenly flew into the yard, to hop and explore. One lone baby bird was left in the nest, and he sat there overnight continuing to look alone and scared. This morning he was gone too.

It amazes me that just 4 short weeks ago the mother bird laid her eggs (6 total--2 never hatched), they hatched 2 weeks later, and 2 weeks after that the birds were already adults, strong enough to leave the nest forever. One month total--from conception to adulthood.

I am very happy that things do not happen that quickly in the human world. I can't imagine only having my children in my house for 2 short weeks. How lucky we are that growing up as humans takes so long!

One last picture of the birds a few days ago (and their VERY poopy nest! My plant is ruined, lol)