Snowed in and Ava's Birthday

Last week we were snowed in for a lot of the week. It only snowed an inch or two, but the snow here is not light and fluffy like Utah's snow. It turns to ice and since they have no snow plows here, they just shut down the city. It was kind of fun, I thought. Although Brent got cabin fever. His school was canceled on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Wednesday he has no class, so Tuesday was the only day he went. You can't tell so well from the picture, but our driveway and the street are clear ice in this  picture.

To break up the monotony we had several glow in the dark bath times in the middle of the day. Cher told me about just putting glow sticks in the tub and Ava loved it!

During baths Ava loves to sing "Mermaid," you know with all the "aaahhhhs."

When I went grocery shopping I bought myself flowers. My favorite, tulips! And hyacinths. It should be spring time around here!

On Friday night Brent had been stuck in the house all week and said he needed to get out. The roads only had an inch or two of snow/ice. So we decided to go out to dinner. Yikes. The drivers here are horrible at driving in the snow! So many people were doing such dumb things! And there's a hill by our house where several cars had gotten stuck because they stopped on it for a light. So we had to wait while they were pulled up the hill. It was crazy. Aside from the few horrible drivers the place was a ghost town. The only place we found that was open for business was Chilis. So that's where we ate! I said a prayer of thanks that we made it there ok. And I told Brent no more venturing out when it's a snow day! Here we are at Chilis. Ava was such a good girl the whole time.

On Saturday evening we went on our first real date here in Texas, leaving Ava at her babysitters! Brent's friend invited us to dinner at his house. It was the BEST prime rib ever. They gave me the hugest slab of meat and I said, "wow, that's huge, I can't eat that much!" They said just try, and I actually ate almost the whole thing. Dinner conversation consisted largely of movie talk :)

This friend also has the hugest dog I've ever seen in my life. Bigger than the one that lived in our apartment building in Brazil and took up the whole elevator. We tried to get a picture but didn't get a good one that showed his size. Here is the friend with the dog. The dog comes up to about my belly button when he's standing on all 4 and weighs 180 lbs. Oh they have two. Surprisingly I wasn't scared of them! They were just mellow. 

On Saturday we kept telling Ava that it was almost her birthday. She seemed to understand that a birthday is a fun celebration. She was soooo excited. Here's a couple videos showing her anticipation:

Sunday was Ava's birthday, her "da-day." She wanted to wear her favorite dress, the pink one. I thought she and Brent looked cute going into church.

While Ava napped I made two kinds of cupcakes since we had invited a few friends over to sing to her with cake and ice cream. When Ava woke up she spotted them in the kitchen. I told her I made them for her birthday and she said "wohoo!" and started jumping up and down. She asked "one?" and I told her she had to wait for her friends to come. She kept trying to sneak them!

Here's a video of it:

She opened her presents with both sets of grandparents on FaceTime and she was so funny! She was very appreciative of everything and just loved it all. 

We had several of her friends and their families over to sing to her and she was so excited to have people here! She loved it all! Here she is FINALLY getting to enjoy her cupcake :)

We love our Ava girl so much! She brings so much light and happiness to our home!