We are stressed over here

Let's keep this blog real. This week was hard for me. Nothing serious, just one of those blah weeks you are glad to get behind you. This week was filled with too much work, stress, sickness, home-sickness, and a little bit of fun too, luckily. 

Here's my mini-me who's observed me working and wants to imitate me. Also she is getting really good at anticipating when a break is over, or when I'm about to start work. She runs and actually beats me into the room so that I can't shut her out. It is so cute to see her booking it to my room when I tell Brent something like "ok, I better get back to work."

Ava is really loving the days when she goes to the babysitter, which makes it a lot easier for me to send her off in the mornings. She has started galloping around the house, jumping up and down, and yelling "bye!!! play!!" because she is so excited to go. Her babysitter has sent me some really cute pictures this week:

On Friday night we got a babysitter and went to our ward party. It was Texas themed, so we had a bbq dinner and then we had individuals from the ward perform dance numbers. We had a really fun time and love our ward! (We so live in Texas- the centerpieces were cowboy boots. Love it!)

On Saturday evening I went with my neighbor Rita to the women's conference. She is the one that was baptized 3 months ago and I love seeing the gospel from her point of view. She is just so amazed with everything and the occasional "hallelujah" comes out during meetings. The conference was the perfect pick-me-up to the end of the week.

Today Ava was sick so we didn't get to go to nursery. She was so disappointed that she didn't get to play with her friends so I took her to the park by our house- more like she pulled me to the park! I love holding hands with my little girl :)

This is completely random but I find it kind of amusing. One of the girls I visit teach is really into cats. Especially hairless cats. Like really into them. She raises them, takes them to cat shows, etc. Well today when we went, one of her cats had had 6 kittens 1 day ago. Tiny hairless kittens!!!

Ava has decided that our shed is a great stage. And her favorite song to perform is "If You're Happy and You Know It." Today I checked on her in the backyard and she was doing it all by herself up there. Haha I can't wait to get her into dance classes. Here's a little performance to end this post:

Spring Break!

Poor Brent, for his Spring Break he got to stay home and watch Ava for me while I worked :( Is busy season over yet?? I can't wait until I'm working 20 hours a week. We had one nice weather day where Ava could go out and enjoy her water table.

On Thursday, my day off, we decided to do something fun. We went to the aquarium in Grapevine. It was a perfect time to go because Ava is still very much in love with the Little Mermaid. She was so excited to go see fish!

See the shark swimming over Ava's head?

The shark tunnel

Aaaahh!!

I think the jelly fish were my favorite. They had a light shining in the tank that made them seem to be changing colors.

We got to pet star fish and also see an unfertilized shark egg.

We also liked watching the sea horses get fed.

After the aquarium we went to a 50s diner by our house for shakes and "bies" (fries).  Ava is so obsessed with fries lately.

That night (Thursday) we watched "Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day." I don't know why but I thought it was so funny. I was laughing my head off the whole time. Brent was cringing the whole movie and it was stressing him out. Which was making me laugh harder.

Since I worked a crazy lot on one of my audits my boss told me and Brent to go to dinner and a movie and send him the check. So I chose to see the movie Cinderella, and go to Outback. We went on Friday afternoon and I loved the movie! Brent thought it was forgettable, in case you were wondering. Brent wanted to bring Ava along and she did pretty good. As soon as it was over she asked for more horses. She liked that part.

(That is drool! Ava is still drooling. Oh my gosh).

Afterwards, at Outback, Ava was pretty cute for part of the time and pretty crazy for the rest of the time. I told Brent I'm getting a babysitter next time so we can have a real date! Because, you can't have a real date when your toddler does this:

And sometimes she tries to steal your man:

And forget the romantic car ride home:

On Saturday after our chores and homework, we went to meet our friend Chris at an old-fashioned ice cream shop in downtown Denton. Denton is pretty small, so their downtown is just basically one block, called "the Square," which kind of reminds me of the "plazas" in South America. It's pretty ugly if you ask me, but we took a picture in front of one of the pretty places:

The ice cream shop:

Side note from this week: Brent introduced Ava to Peter Pan and he helps her fly around our living room during the appropriate moments. She yells "fly! fly! wahooo!" as they go. It's so cute! Yesterday Ava was being a little naughty (can we say that yet Tammy, now that she's 2? Haha!). She was getting into everything and being super busy. So Brent said, "Ava, this isn't going to fly. If you don't behave you're going to your bed." And Ava just perked up and said "fly???"

This is girl is crazy about her daddy! Here's a video of them that's so cute but for some reason silent. Also you should know that Ava's sign of affection is tickling, so when she does "ticka-ticka-ticka" on his face you know she's really loving on him.

Dress up

Ava's favorite food is spaghetti ("betti") recently. She eats it by the fistful!

We went to the park and she sported her first ponytail:

 Since Ava is transitioning to no naps now, she sometimes gets really tired in the afternoon. Spacing out at the park:

She loves this place under the slide and she pretends to talk and laugh on the phone.

We met a boy her age at the park and she immediately ran up to him and wanted to play with him. He was a little scared at first but eventually warmed up and they had fun copying each other and going down the slide together. A few days later we ran into him again at the park! They are so cute together.

On my day off I thought Ava looked so cute so I did a little impromptu photo shoot in our front yard. A couple problems: I can only get her to do a super squinty smile, and a fire ant crawled up my jeans and bit me a few times while I was taking the pictures. Ouch! But the pictures are still pretty cute, nonetheless. (Also for those of you that haven't seen our house yet, here's your chance!)

Here is Ava at two years old: loving being pretty and pink, and crazy about her baby.

And a couple extra photos:

Everyone says that Ava and her "hmmm" pose is just like Brent. So we got them doing it together, and a little video.

On Saturday evening our friends from the ward had a "mocktail" party. We dressed up and got a babysitter, and spent the evening drinking pina coladas and chatting with our friends. It was fun!

  

That was our fun week! 

Happy Birthday to me

I got spoiled for my birthday! I worked until 2pm and then Brent, Ava, and I went shopping which is my favorite thing to do :) We got lots of fruits and veggies at Sprouts and I got some presents at Kohls. We also went a couple other places. It was rainy and about to turn into snow so we were racing against time. On the way home from shopping we decided to go straight to my birthday dinner at Black Eyed Pea.

When we got home we got in PJs and started watching only the best present ever, Downton Abbey! It was starting to snow outside and the three of us were all cuddled up. It was perfect and I felt so loved :) Thanks to everyone for the presents and money for my birthday! I'm one lucky girl! Ava also enjoyed getting money and cards in the mail for her birthday.

It's been raining so much here the last couple of weeks. I took a picture of our yard so you can see how it just floods instead of soaking into the ground. Our yard is so muddy! Thursday was another snow day which was sad for Brent but good for me since I had so much work to get done.

On Friday night Brent had invited some friends from school over for a movie. Here is Ava getting all dolled up for the party:

And here's a mirror picture because sometimes we do that.

One friend he had invited for dinner before the movie since she doesn't have a car and would have to come home from school with Brent. She is from France and we had a lot of fun with her. I loved learning about her country and she got to learn about LDS people. Our ward had called a few days before to see if we could feed the missionaries that night so they were there too. Brent's friend Chris came and he baked a cake for my birthday. The number of candles on the cake was unsafe.

During the movie Ava squished on the couch right in between me and our French friend. I thought it was cute :)

Oh, Chris brought his other car, which is the same year and model that Lucy drives in I Love Lucy.

On Saturday we had a birthday party for a little girl in the ward. Ava had fun, of course. Other kids, fun, and food! Although she did try to help the birthday girl unwrap her presents and couldn't understand that it wasn't her birthday.

That afternoon I took her to the park and she had a lot of fun playing with a little boy that happened to come who is her age. She kissed him, by the way, and she also kissed a boy at the birthday party. Haha, at least she's sweet to other boys! Here's my little Ava-worm at the park:

Another week has flown by! We can't wait until Grandma and Grandpa Cowley come in a few weeks!