It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It's like Christmas around our house... it's oscar season, and today is THE DAY! Brent's jumping up and down in the other room I think ;)

Last Sunday evening we invited two couples from our ward to come to a "Disney move night." We had treats and popcorn and had so much fun! One couple has a girl who Ava is friends with (age 4) and when I opened the door to let them in, Ava started jumping up and down, giggling, and grabbed the girl's hand and they ran off and played. It was so funny.

On Tuesday we went out to Brent's new favorite hamburger place for a post-Valentines date. With a 2-year old accompanying us ;) The hamburgers are HUGE!

I told Ava to say cheese for a picture and she scooted close to Brent and cuddled up for a picture.  

That night we had a new friend over that Brent met at church. He is a major movie guru and so Brent's all excited to have someone to talk shop with. This friend collects cars and brought one of them to show us. This is a Mercury from 1950. Almost everything in the car is original (except for the tires) and it was way cool! Since the picture is dark I put it by one taken in the light so you can see. 

We watched a movie that was nominated for the Oscars (actually I slept) and then we talked and talked. It's nice to be making friends! 

This week I worked a lot (hello busy season) but I did have a chance to take Ava to the park on Friday morning. She had so much fun playing with her little friend from the ward. I took this picture because I thought they looked so cute together. Ava was all "see you mom, I have places to go with my new friend." 

On Saturday I FINALLY got my hair cut. My hair was all gross and long but now I'm kind of missing my long hair. Ah well. It will grow back. A little before and after:

Today for church I put Ava in Laura's dress from when we lived in the Philippines. Ahhh cute! Ava was excited to wear it but not excited to get her picture taken, so they all turned out blurry and this was the best I got. 

Those are the highlights of our week! I worked 35 hours but luckily since I work from home I still feel like I got to see Ava quite a bit. Next week we'll be reporting in on her SECOND birthday! 

Happy Valentines Day!

On Thursday our friends from the ward hosted a little party and Ava got to exchange her first Valentines! I took her to the Dollar Store the day before and she picked out Minnie Mouse valentines and candy necklaces to share with her friends. Both of which are her favorite :) Here she is prepping her valentines the night before. And by prepping I mean drooling on the ones we weren't going to use ;)

Here she is at the party:

We had some really beautiful weather this week and Ava got to go to the park a few times! She is so smart and will point in her stroller the direction of each park she wants to go to. Once we went around the block on a walk and were in a different spot, and she still pointed the direction of the park. She has a good sense of direction! We have what we call the "little park" which is just outside of our circle (about 15 second walk) and then the "big park" is about a 4 minute walk, through a walk-way, past our pool. Here is our big park:

Both parks have the shades so that it's bearable in the heat. At the big park Ava is fascinated with this monument thing and loves jumping off of it. Hahaha.

Ava has been really grumpy this week and throwing a lot of tantrums. She still has a cough so I'm not sure if it's because she hasn't felt well, or if it's because she's entering the REAL terrible twos now. Oh boy. But one day when we were home playing together she was being sooo dang cute and funny. She said, "mama?" then took my hand and made me sit down on the couch. So I decided to video since she was being so cute:

In case you can't understand in the video, she says "stuck" (guck) and "there" (dey).She's been saying those words a lot this week. 

She has also been saying "hmmm. hmmm" as she taps her chin and looks at the movies. We think she got it from Brent, haha! She does this about 3 or 4 times per day.

On Saturday, Valnetines, Brent went to the theater in the afternoon to watch some Oscar-nominated shorts, since it's that time of the year. For Valentines dinner I wanted to stay in and make our own dinner. We made chicken pot pie soup and parmesan drop biscuits, which was deeee-licious. Then we went to Target and had fun in the dollar aisle. Then we came home and exchanged love letters. I don't think it's any secret that I am CRAZY about Brent so we'll skip the part of this post where I declare my undying love for him. But seriously he makes me soooooo happy :) 

Then we made a blanket pile and watched some creepy yuck movie that is nominated for the Oscars (sorry Brent, I don't like it!). 

Happy Valentines, we hope you had a good one too! Thank you to both of the grandmas for sending Ava valentines in the mail- she loved both of them and has been carrying them around the house. 

There's an Echo in our House!

This week there has been a little echo in our house. Ava repeats so many of the words we say, and random expressions we make, with the perfect intonation. It cracks me up and makes me think about what I'm saying!

This weekend was a fun one! On Friday night I had a much needed girls night. It was so fun! A few of the girls in my ward drove together to the stake relief society activity. I am trying to get out and make more friends, and Brent was so nice to watch Ava for me all night.

On Saturday we decided it was an IKEA day. It's about 40 minutes to the east of us (which is only part-way across the top of this huge metropolis we live in) so we made a day of it. Ava was a little bonkers in IKEA, running around like a crazy girl, jumping on furniture, etc.
Sample video:

Oh, did I mention the highlight of the day was that I put PIGTAILS in Ava's hair??

Back to IKEA. The reason we went there was to buy Ava a little kid's table and chairs, because she really loved the ones my mom has at her house, and Ava's birthday is coming up! But sadly after the whole trek through IKEA, they were out of it :( So we'll have to go back I guess... We did end up getting a few other random things there.

On Saturday night we got dinner and then watched the Devil Wears Prada, which I all of a sudden got a hankering to watch. We watched it on a blanket pile, which Ava has been obsessed with lately since we did it the last time. She will pile up blankets and then just giggle and giggle as she jumps on the pile.

On Sunday Brent gave a great talk in church, and of course he found a way to use his movie quotes about destiny in it. :) Ava was not happy that she could see him up there and she kept yelling "dada!!" and finally during his talk she bonked her head and had to be taken out. I could still hear his talk in the lobby though and he rocked it! I wish I took a picture of him in his suit...

Those were the highlights of the week- since I'm doing this a day late on Monday it's like my brain forgot most of what we did during the week! Lots of work- oh yeah, we couldn't take Ava to the babysitter because she got a cold, so lots of taking turns watching Ava while the other worked. Luckily we had a great weekend to finish off that week!

Oh, the white chocolate pecan bread I made: yummmm.

Bonus video we took for Laura:

Snuggle Time

This week Ava and I both got colds- thank you nursery! Luckily the weather was rainy on Saturday so I declared it snuggle/cuddle day. We stayed in and played all day, except for venturing out to get pizza. Today Ava and I stayed home from church to not spread the cold to the rest of the nursery. So basically, this is a boring week for the blog! Not very many pictures!

On Monday night we took Brent's friend to a pizza restaurant as a thank you for taking us to the airport at Christmas time. The restaurant is called "Mellow Mushroom" and Ava thought the mushroom guy at the front of the store was Donald Duck. She went running for it but when she got closer, she stopped in her tracks and then turned to me and hunched up her shoulders to say "scared."

She spent most of dinner dancing like a crazy girl by the exit.

We are having nap rebellions at our house. We are weaning Ava from the binky (bitter-sweet) and she thinks that means she doesn't need to sleep anymore (she currently is going on one hour of nap rebellion in her crip as I write this). One day she was jumping in her crib, laughing, and singing "E-i-e-i-ooooo." After about 20 or 30 minutes of that, all of a sudden she fell dead silent. I hurried to her door to make sure she was ok, and she was out like a light. Singing to asleep within 5 seconds, not even kidding. Video from that day:

We were given this little potty and have kept it in her room, but now we want to put it in the bathroom and start having her learn to use it. But she REFUSES for it to be in her bathroom. She has to move it back to her bedroom which is an issue since she randomly gets up and might pee on the carpet!! Here she is sitting on her special chair in her room :)

Today I secretly moved the potty into the bathroom in hopes that she might see it in there for a couple days and then be ok with trying to pee on it in the bathroom. Seriously like 20 seconds after I moved it in there, she comes walking down the hall, passes the bathroom, does a double take and goes into the bathroom saying, "no no no" and she moves it back to its rightful place in her room.


I guess with the beginnings of potty-training, binky-training, and having a cold, you would think this might have been a rough week for Ava. But she still was in a funny mood and kept us laughing the whole week. We sure love our little Ava girl! 

In case you wanted to know, this week she was very into: 1. The Little Mermaid 2. Shrugging her shoulders about 80% of the time she is talking 3. Inviting me to watch her come play with her new little kitchen. If I came into the space uninvited though, she would try to push me out. 4. Saying "miiiiiiine" constantly (we were on a walk and passed a kid's bike in a yard and she yelled out "miiiiiine!") 5. Leaving the house to go anywhere, "I go?"