I'm screwed.

(Dropping something) Ava: "Oh Dan!"

Me "Ava. No ma'am, you do not say that word."

Ava: "Why, Dan's not a bad word. {thinking} But DAMN sure is, right mama?!"


She found a loop hole.

Damn.

Ava Prayers

Ava: "Thank you God for my mommy, my daddy, for making me and my 'Angel Kiss' (her birthmark) oh! And for palm trees. Amen."

Happy New Year!

Boo!

{More to come from Minnie}

*Lovin' the tights...

One little, two little, three little pumpkins....

Getting into the Halloween spirit we HAD to decorate baby pumpkins! We've had the house decorated since early September so now we can add to the festive feel a bit more. After dinner we grabbed our paints, stickers, googly eyes, glue, cotton balls, feathers, markers and more and set to decorate! With all the pumpkins I was a little excited too but...I got one. Yes, ONE and Miss A claimed the rest. Darn! Guess I'll let the 3 year old have her fun ;-)

Just getting started

This one is hilarious. I asked who the next pumpkin was for, she said "Uncle Andy" and then I had to "not look" until she was done. When I turned around I saw this. A bunch of googly eyes and nothing else. She said "That's it mama, that's what he likes. Googly Eyes." Who knew? Happy Halloween Bro!

Isn't my steady hand amazing in these iPhone pics? My sweet Paiger's will be so proud. She can take these as examples in her super cool photography class and show them what a true "candid" shot is supposed to look like. *I should show up to that class with my iPhone camera ready to roll!

Ok, I digress....

The finished Products! Cole's (the black one) is supposed to be a transformer, his favorite! Lili's is the cotton ball/ghost head on the right. Bammy's is covered w/stickers, Carter's is on the top right with more cotton balls, daddy's is next to Carter's on the left, then mine for Ava and then Ava's for me on far left.

Checkin' out her masterpieces

This is her pose she's showing me "from school" she had her class pics last week. "See mama, this is what I do with my hands and see my feet? Like this. Then I smiled like this."

Then Ava's shot of me. Probably best this was fuzzy my friends.

Happy Halloween!!!

Thank you

Ava's great Nana K gave her a gorgeous necklace recently. I thought we needed to write her a sweet thank you note and boy was Miss A excited! She ran to her coloring book and started to color her a Strawberry (we're loving Strawberry Shortcake right now) then I suggested we write a note....I was F.L.O.O.R.E.D. at her little writing skills. Yes, I know she's my one and only, so I have nothing to compare to, but I still am so proud at three little years what she can write so well. You go girl! Mama is beaming over here!

Thank you Nana! Original will be mailed soon :)

*Ava's writing is the Red and mine in the blue. I love the "hearts" she's working really hard on these, it's her favorite and learning her K's.
Yes, pics are sooo fuzzy since I only have an iPhone for a camera so....this is whatcha get for now!

Beautiful Ava

{Random} pictures too cute not to add, they're all from the last month or so. I (like all of us) have been super busy and blogging has had to take a back seat for a while...BUT I want to make sure you all can see some fun pics of my sweet pea. Enjoy! *Yes, I have tons more from our adventures to post, so be patient I promise I'll get more up soon.

xo,
Mommy & Ava Hope

Painting her Hello Kitty "piggy" bank

HA! Silly girl!

These pics are from an AH-MAZING nursery right by our house. Seriously, the coolest place in the heart of downtown. You wouldn't realize how big it is from the street, then you pull in the parking lot and it's like a completely different world. This elephant is nowhere to be seen from the street!

*My sis and mom both said this didn't even look like Miss A in the photo above. Think she just had a funny look on her face maybe???

There's a huge pond Ava loves to feed the goldfish

This wind chime is the biggest I have EVER seen. It hangs from a huge oak tree in the middle of the nursery. It is INSANE.

There's a great coffee house and organic cafe (of course) at the nursery as well with amazing wraps, sandwiches, treats and more. We stopped for a little snack before cruisin' around...

This is from a Beer Garten by our house on one of our "after-dinner" walks. She was mesmerized listening to the band.

Our favorite treat...Amy's Ice Cream!

Fuzzy but so precious. *I may have posted this pic before. If so...that's OK. Too cute not to duplicate! Love this outfit she picked out. How is my baby so big?!

Toddler {trash} Talk Thursday

Soooo... here we are nearing the end of the week and these City girl's are gearing up for the weekend! When I picked up Miss A today at school we headed to the cafeteria for "Dollar Dog Night" which is a little fundraiser with hotdogs, chips, cookies and school shirts. Super cute:

Cute huh? Yeah, it was.
Then we get home, get comfy. I start loading laundry in the washing machine:

Ava: "Mommy, can I help?"

I put her on the dryer to help me load. I hand her a pile and as she's throwing them in the washer a few items fall on the ground

Ava: "Oh Damnit."

ME: "What did you just say?" (stunned and stifling back laughter)

Ava" (annoyed) "I saaaid 'oh damnit' cuz I was mad."

So I then explained that we do not use that word in our house and it's not a nice word.

(Few minutes later we're on the phone with my mom)

Ava's talking to my mom and rolling around and hits her head on the wall...

Ava: "Ouch! Damn mama!"

(I grab the phone and my mom's laughing..."well Bridget, it could be worse...") True. I'm cracking up and decide to ignore.

(Putting her to bed tonight)

Ava: "Mommy, you forgot to give me honey for my cough:

ME: "Oh yeah, that's right" (I leave the room to grab honey & a spoon, it's dark & when I get back in she's talking to herself)


Ava: "Oh damnit, she forgot my honey..."

Mother of the year? Not so much.
Maybe....next year.

Ava chat...

Driving to school this morning, chattin' w/my sidekick.

Mommy: "Ava, there it is!" (Our favorite "I Spy"...the capital)
Ava: "Hi Cafeterium! Oh wait! I mean, CapitAAAL!!!!"

Mommy: "Ava, what's on top of it? What do you see?"
Ava: "Flags!!!"
Mommy: "That's right baby! What flag is on the top?"
Ava: "Oh...that's the American Idol Flag!" (American Flag)
Mommy: (CRACKING UP)
Ava: "And on bottom... It's the Dancing with the big stars flag" (aka: Texas flag with the one BIG star)
Mommy: "Good job baby!" (still laughing and dialing my mom to tell her)

Nope. Didn't correct. Statements like those make my whole day :)

SCHOOL UPDATE: Ava's had a verrrrry hard time adjusting to her new school. We love it but it's been a rough TWO MONTHS. Yes, two months. She's perfectly happy when we pick her up, it's drop off and the first part of the day. I mean, screaming, crying, "mama/daddy PUHLEESE don't go!" Yes, heart wrenching. I've had many a tear over it, many a call to MANY friends and my mom gets daily calls :) The Director and I are best buds and her teachers are so sweet. Needless to say, Ava's voice is NOT quiet so the whole staff knows her well. She's had a ton of changes the last few months so a new school can be quite the adjustment. The director keeps assuring me to be patient and she will get in her groove. Well I enrolled her in a gymnastics class every Wednesday which she LOVES (and she thinks the teacher Miss Piper's real name is Miss Nastics. No lie. She will not call her by Miss Piper and corrects me if I try. I also put her in dance on Friday's) I swear this made all the difference. We knew she would like it but she LOVES both classes. ***Today, she walked in holding my hand and when we got to the room she started to walk off and play! What?! No "hold me! don't go! I don't like (insert any staff member's name here)" None of that. So I said (shockingly) "Uhmm, ok Ava well I'm gonna go to work, bye" Ava "Bye mama, have a great day!" Floored. Two months people. Two very hard long months.

When we got home she said, "I miss my teachers mama" Ahhhh music to my ears!

Here's a few completely random pics of the little lady from the last few weeks:

Think our bud Jagger may have these. Ava's LOVES them....until she face-planted on Congress Ave. then the tides turned and she's now "frustrated" with the frogs... so they're in time-out until the don't give her boo boo's.

I got a little crafty a little early... yes, well aware Halloween is over a month away but we are decked out in our house!

Go horns!

Date night!!!!
Cheers! More to come I promise.

Ears

I have a post coming...several actually, as I am way behind. But it's late and I'm super tired so just wanted to post that Little Miss A was a ROCK STAR on Friday morning when she got tubes and adenoids removed. Poor little bit has been on the brink of having this done for years and finally the ENT said (just last Monday) it was time. So I will post pics but wanted all to know that she is doing great!!! Will post some pre-op and post-op pics and updates soon! :o) Thanks for all the sweet thoughts and prayers!