Family pictures

Right around Ava's 1st birthday we did family pictures. We took them at the park in old town Sherwood. It was hard getting a good picture with everyone smiling, but here are a few of my favorites.

pictures taken May 2011

Art

I bought Andrew some finger paint on Friday and we had fun making some art together. I love hanging out with this little guy!

6.15.2011

Andrew's 1st tattoo

Fake tattoo! Last Thursday we went and got ice cream and a police car pulled into the parking spot next to us just as we were leaving. Andrew was pretty excited so I told him that I would ask him for a sticker. He was out of stickers and gave Andrew a tattoo instead. As soon as we got home he wanted to put it on and as soon as we put it on, he wanted it off! We told him that it would come off in a few days and then he seemed to really like it and kept showing me and talking about it.

14 months

Ava turned 14 months last Thursday. I tried to capture a few pictures of her from the day, but she didn't want to stop for one second.

At 14 months she is busy, busy! She wants to walk, but can't yet unless assisted. So my day consists of holding her hands and walking her all around the house. She prefers to only one one hand. She can stand by herself for about 15 seconds before she drops to the ground. If she isn't walking, she's crawling the stairs or getting into every cupboard in the house. She's really into the exploring stage. She still loves books and that is the only thing that will keep her attention for more than 5 seconds. She is pretty noisy and loves to hear herself talk. Words that I think she is saying: mama, dadda, papa, and brabra (which I think means brother). She doesn't like to be held much, she prefers being on the ground to explore. She waves bye bye and hi to everyone. She can be really shy when people try and talk to her. She doesn't like being in the car anymore and screams and cries a lot when we drive over 10 minutes....it's not fun! She now shakes her head yes when you ask her a question. It's adorable and I need to try and get it on video soon. She laughs a lot and is our little ham. She's been having strange sleeping patterns recently. Somedays she will sleep until 9:30am, take about a 1 hour nap in the morning around 11:15 and then not take an afternoon nap. She is so cranky at night when this happens. Other times she will wake up at her usually time and sleep her usual 1.5 hr nap in the morning and 2.5 in the afternoon and go to bed at 8. I think she is teething a lot which is messing up her sleep. She now has 8 teeth. She got her 2 bottom 1 year molars on her birthday. I'm pretty sure her top front tooth will be coming in this week, we'll see. Such a fun stage with my sweet little Ava!

Food

Ava LOVES food. She eats so much. I have no idea how she is only in the 3 percentile. She eats way more than Andrew does and sometimes more than myself. Lately she seems to be kind of interested in feeding herself with a spoon. So at lunch today I let her use her spoon while she was eating yogurt. It was a huge mess! She would use her spoon and then use her hands. She thought it was pretty cool that she could use the spoon herself.

7.13.2011- almost 14 months

Little moments

I feel like I have weeks that I take a ton of pictures of the kids and then other weeks where a barely take any pictures. This week is one of those weeks. We haven't done much picture worthy. A lot of just hanging out. Today I did capture a funny picture of the kids. Andrew was playing his Nascar video game and Ava found the other wheel and thought she was playing too. So Nate set her up on the couch and she had such a fun time. It was pretty cute!

Birthday x2

My in-laws birthday's are only a few days apart from each other, so we usually end up having a joint family birthday party for them. This year we spent the day at their house hanging out and enjoying the sunshine. Andrew rode his tractor and jeep and had a blast going to the store with Papa & Pama to pick out lots of new toys. Nate and I, along with my sis & bro in-law made dinner for Bud & Twyla. It was such a fun day and I'm so blessed to have married into such a wonderful family. I think the highlight for Andrew was playing Buddy Papa's new Nascar video game. It was pretty hard, but he loved it :)

Ava sitting in her princess chair. This only lasted for a few seconds before she wanted to get down and crawl everywhere!

She was really cranky so Twyla laid her in Andrew's bed and she loved it. I think she was really tired, even after her nap.

Helping them blow out their candles.

7.9.2011

Mini golf

Last Wednesday night we took Andrew to play mini golf at Bullwinkles. It was his 1st time playing and he loved it and he was good at it. It was probably high 80s that day so it was such a beautiful night to be outside. After a round of golf we went inside to the arcade and Andrew loved playing the Nascar game. Ava did great and just watched her brother the whole time. It was a fun summer evening with the family!

7.6.2011

Water fun!

Since getting back from camping we've had a very low key week. A few days this week it was in the mid 80s and absolutely beautiful! We've hung around the house a lot and played outside. I turned on the sprinkler and let Andrew play in it for the 1st time this summer and he loved it. I washed off all the kids outside toys and cleaned up the water table. Ava and Andrew both loved the water table. We &#9829: summer!

Our 4th

This year's 4th of July was pretty low key. Since we got back from camping the night before there was lots of clean up and laundry to do. Nate spent the majority of the day cleaning up the boat while I stayed with the kids and did laundry. That evening we went out to dinner since neither of us wanted to cook, nor did we have groceries. Buffalo Wild Wings just opened by our house and the fireworks stand was right next door. We got a few fireworks since we weren't sure if Andrew would like them, then headed to dinner with my parents.

We headed back to our house after a quick stop to get some frozen yogurt. Andrew really had no interest in doing fireworks, so we started by showing him the popits. He loved them! Unfortunately we only bought one box. We moved on to sparklers, which he didn't like, and then the fountains which also freaked him out. He really had no interest in any of the fireworks until our neighbors came home with their twin boys who are about the same age as Andrew. Then Andrew perked up and had tons of fun. They gave him a few more box of popits and he was screaming and yelling "yeehaw" while watching all of the fireworks. It was hilarious! He stayed up till probably 10 that night, thankfully he took a nap that day. Everyday since he's asked to do more fireworks.

p.s. Ava got her 6th tooth on the 4th....front, top right

Retirement Party

While we were camping my dad had his official last day of work at Millstone. He worked there for 24 years...amazing! Millstone has been so many things for our family: it brought us to Portland (thank you Dad!), gave us the opportunity to go on some fun vacations (Hawaii, the beach...), was my first job, and became a 2nd family for our family. My dad started at the beginning stages of the company and grew it by leaps and bounds. I'm so proud of him. He was a great boss, mentor, and leader.

He didn't really want a big retirement party, so we decided to throw him a little party on our camping trip on his official last day, Thursday. Kayla brought all the decorations and a few batches of cupcakes and I spent half of the evening trying to make cupcakes in my trailer which was quite an experience. After dinner we did everything to try and get rid of my dad so we could decorate. Thanks to my hubby for distracting him for awhile, we were able to get everything set up for the party. I loved the reaction on my dad's face when he came back to camp. It was a fun night of cupcakes, coffee, friends, and celebrating my dad. I love you Dad and am so proud of you!