Moments from the last 3 weeks

Catch up time on the blog! It got pretty crazy around here in the days leading up till April 15th, so I only have pictures from the last 2 weeks. But we have some funny and sweet moments!

Moment #1:
Ava was not listening and Brent had given her enough chances. He started counting down for a time out. "Five...four.." As soon as he said "five," Ava gave him a huge grin and said "fives!" and gave him a high 5.  I think she distracted us out of a time-out.

Moment #2:
Sometimes we have a cat roaming our yard and Ava loves to watch it out the window. One day the cat was sneaking around looking for food. I asked Ava, "what is the cat going to eat?" and she answered so matter-of-factly, "fries."

Moment #3
When we play at the park Ava loves to sit at the picnic benches and pretend to eat food. One day I brought some goldfish and oranges to the park and thought I would surprise her with having real food that day. She was sooooo excited! I love being a mom to a two year old because you just do simple things and they think you are the coolest :)

As we were eating the oranges, we had this conversation:
Me: Ava, this is called a picnic.
Ava: Mmmmmm!
Me: A picnic is when you eat outside.
Ava: Oh! Fake laughs.

Moment #4:
Ava and I were at the grocery store when we saw a lady in a motorized cart have something fall out of her cart. I saw her as she was struggling to figure out how to manage to get out and pick it up. So I called out to her that I would grab it. I set Ava down and put the thing back in her cart and the lady was so appreciative. I told her it was no problem and picked Ava up and we walked off. Ava looked up at me and said "help?" And I said yeah, did we help the lady? And she said "yeah!!" I don't always realize how much Ava watches me and understands what I say and do. Having a little mimi-me that watches me and mimics me really helps me want to be a good example for her.

OK, on to some pictures from activities of the last couple weeks.
We went as a family to see Monkey Kingdom. Ava could not stop talking about it afterwards. Doing monkey sounds, and talking about the mama, dada, and baby monkey. I liked it. Brent says it wasn't his favorite of the Disney nature documentaries. He can give you a more in-depth review if you ask him :)

After the movie we went to Chick Fil-A and Ava had a blast playing in the play place. We could not get her to leave. It was a fun family date!

For one of Brent's classes he had to read a book. He has been listening to the book on CD and one day he had a few hours left to finish it. So he took Ava on a loooooong walk. He walked all the way to Best Buy! I couldn't believe it (4.6 miles according to my phone). Ava took a nap for part of the time and was really good for the rest of the time.

Then they went to the mall where she played and he listened to his book. Once they were done I drove to pick them up. We had recently been given this jogging stroller from our neighbors so Brent and I didn't know how to fold it down to put it in the car! We were standing there in the parking lot trying everything and there was a guy in the car next to us just watching us, haha. I got an idea to google it. So I found a youtube video of a lady showing you how to fold down this brand of stroller. I watched it for like one minute then told Brent, you gotta open these clips! Easy-peasy, we got it in the car and the guy next to us could stop staring. Saved by google!

The many faces of Ava as she eats her yogurt:

The rose bush in our front yard:

Cute Sunday dress. (We had to put her on the kitchen table so she wouldn't run away)

Last Sunday Ava was in her terrible twos like no other. I was saying bye to Rita at the door for like 10 seconds. No really, TEN seconds. And she did this:

She was just getting in to so many things that day! While I was trying to get some cookies in the oven she climbed in the pantry and dropped a can on her toe and it started bleeding. She was just a crazy girl. Oh and she stole one of the cookies off the counter as they were cooling. She totally would have gotten away with it except for she exclaimed "mmm! cookie!"

We were big spenders and bought a new recliner for our bedroom! I've been wanting one for years so we bought this fancy leather one at a furniture close-out sale.

Brent, the miracle worker somehow got this HUGE recliner that doesn't come apart down our narrow hallway and through our super narrow bedroom door. It was crazy. He worked and worked and  somehow maneuvered it just right and got it wedged through the door way. Then he slightly reclined it and got it the rest of the way through. He rearranged our room so we have a little reading corner. I'm so happy!

Some friends in the ward invited us to go to a play place in a Baptist church about 30 mins from here. It's $1 to get in and they have so many toys for kids to play with, a jump castle, etc. Ava was in toddler heaven. She loved the grocery store area.

And she chose this in the dress-up area. It was making me laugh so much.

A video:

She also wanted to be a beautiful batman girl.

Last night Brent went with his friends and professor to a screening of a documentary in Dallas. The subject of the documentary, an actor, was there and they had Q&A with him and then Brent got his signature.

He had lots of fun with is film friends.

We have been having TONS and TONS of rain like 5 or 6 times a week here. Sooooo many Texas thunderstorms. Here's a video- you can't quite tell just how hard it was raining but it reminded me of when we lived in the Philippines.