Happy Santa Claus!

This was Ava's first encounter with Santa Clause and it went as well as you could expect

We tried one more time, but she had a pretty good grip on Daddy


Later on tonight, Ava decided to to play dress-up with Mommy's strainer -- all the toys in the world can't replace the plain old every day items laying around the house. By the way, I should mention that she hates hats on her head, but strainers or other random objects are just fine....figures!

Weekly Playdate!

So many new toys

Ava is taking a spin in the bowl

She looks like she's really enjoying it....she really was though

After all that spinning, she got thirsty...mmmm...yummy...dog water

Then she came home to cuddle with Daddy

That's her favorite

Grandma Joyce's Pizza Party!

The family is enjoying a beautiful 75 degree December day!

Jack's enjoying some sun

I don't know what these guys are doing, but they sure look silly.....

Ava was inside taking a nap,

so Jackson thought he'd try to pet her, without her running away,

but that woke her up and it was NOT pretty. They will have more fun on the next trip, I'm sure.

Uncle's Christmas Party!

Ava sees something she likes...

is it the dog or the little girl? Hmm....either way she had fun at her first Christmas party of the season.

Happy Graduation Auntie!

Kaden's 1st Birthday Party

That sure is a mess of babies, it makes it hard to track your own.

High heels

Mmmm dum dum!

She was so good this weekend for Daddy's birthday, the play date, the store and she worked so hard to unwrap this, that I just let her have it.

I know, pretty lazy parenting,

but just like anything else she shows an interest in, she so easily gets bored and moves on to the next thing...so she threw that aside a few licks later and we cleaned up her sticky little fingers, face, hair, shirt, arms, etc...

Gingerbread man!

We decided to get up early on this beautiful Sunday morning & go to the gingerbread house building play date

So she knows how to lick the frosting off the stick...

...and she started to smear the frosting on the gingerbread man...

...and VOILA! A GINGERBREAD man!

Okay, so Daddy caught mama cheating....but we still had fun and Ava got to run around with some other babies. Oh and the picture above may seem like Ava's putting decorations on the cookie, but she's actually taking them off and attempting to put all of it in her mouth. Gotta love this stage of development!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Play date!

This is our 3rd play date and it seems to be going smoother with each visit. The children are warming up to each other relatively quickly and Ava didn't poke anyone's eye out this time!


This is Ava's friend, Kaden.

Nap Training

Okay, so months and months ago we had given up on the Ferber napping and a little birdie encouraged us to revisit it.

Day 1: I put her down while she was still slightly awake and she started to fall asleep and I stupidly pushed my luck by turning on the vacuum, which she usually sleeps through, but not this time. So, I had to let her cry it out for about 30 minutes before I was able to sing her to sleep.

I just had to sneak in to check up on her.

Day 2: still going strong...

...she slept so long, I got worried and went into check on her breathing (I know that sounds weird, but when she sleeps so quietly, I check to see that her chest is moving up and down) & I accidentally woke her.

We may just get this down by the time we head back to Texas and have to start it all over again -- hahaha