A Big Milestone

Now, this may not seem like a big milestone to most of you out there but I, on the other hand, am pumped to say that yesterday was the first time I was able to put Ava in some of her very first PIGTAILS. Oh man, let the fun begin! She, of course, ripped them out the second she saw her reflection (in the oven door, mind you) but still, at least I know it's possible!!! I'm going to have to get some of those really small rubber bands to put in there so it's harder for her to rip them out and so that the stay nice and snug for as long as possible. Of course in order for her to sit still, I let her dump all the other hair ties all over the floor. Eh, whatever works...for now!


More importantly, as far as milestones are concerned, AVA ATE CHICKEN. The girl LOVES HER SOME CHICKEN. Aahh, the joy I find in knowing that she's finally starting to branch out. CHICKEN, people. CHICKEN!

Hmmm, what else. Lately Ava's been obsessed with a couple things. Counting, everything. The steps she takes, the toys she has, the pages in her books... I mean, if it can be counted, she's all over it. We're all the way up to 11! The second thing she's all about it colors. I'd like to say she's one of those kiddos that says, "yay-ohh" instead of "yellow". But, no, friends. She's very articulate with her l's and it comes out oh-so-delicately, "yellow". It's still pretty darn cute if you ask me. We like to go through our ring stack and proudly exclaim each colors respective name. "Boo, Geen, YELLOW, Orge, Red". Rinse and repeat....repeat, repeat, REPEAT. I also really love watching her put her "ba-bee" into the bumbo and she makes her way over to the Elmo kitchen, fixes the baby a snack, and then feeds her. SO COOL. She LOVES the "Mar-Mer", better known to us as a "Farmer" and all his little buddies. Other than that she's still climbing, running, splashing, hopping, skipping, jumping...she's on the go! Where's Da??? Mommy's tired!!! But, overall, I think my favorite thing she does now is when she carries her shopping basket around like a purse and just prances around the toy room. (Hmmm, where did she learn that???) :) My little own mini-me. Evidently I've been shopping with Ava quite a bit lately because when we get to the check out she says, "Money"! Ha! Yup, time for the money.

Her vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds. Lots of two word sentences when she's asking me for something, or, better known as ordering me around. BOSSY!!! :) She loves to get my attention by yelling, "mommy! watch!" or telling me "there it is" and "what's this?". I seriously can't take it how quickly this is happening. The best is when she looks at her picture and says, "Aaah-Vaaa" for "Ava".

(Just Because... A New Bathing Suit!!!! Man, I love Target.)

For those of you that follow me in FB you know that about 12 hours after Curt let for Utah and Nevada Ava decided to have a nightmare of a virus. Ugh. I'm not sure I'm even ready to talk about it. I called the nurse hotline THREE TIMES in 4 days and went to two doctors appointments. A part of me thinks that this was a reaction to her MMR vaccination that she had a week prior and we just had some trouble recovering for that. She ended up getting some blood work done (nightmare!) and a urinalysis (via catheter, mind you) which was quite the experience to say the least. It was a long week and although I'm still waiting on some lab results, the initial tests showed that she had one small abnormality which implied she had some sort of a viral bug. Whatever it is, I'm glad it's made it's exit. Good riddance!

I've been on a roll lately in regards to crossing things off our "to-do" list for our house. I've made some pretty big/important purchases over the last week or so in hopes of getting some things done and in place by the time Curt gets home. I just ordered a TON of prints from our TLohse sessions and I'm going to have them framed and matted to hang on the walls. Sure, we could hang some "decorative" things on the walls, which I will, but I'm more interested in getting some pictures up of our family! This is finally OUR HOME and I want to do everything I can to make it feel that way. Sure, we may move every three years but there's no reason for us not to make ourselves comfortable in the interim.


Here's a little preview of somethin' I did in the kitchen. Obviously these are the top of our cabinets and I have to say, the angle of this shot isn't that great, but I bought a bunch of stuff from HOMEGOODS (love that place...) and Michael's to try and spice up the kitchen. I love the cathedral ceiling but without anything up on the cabinets, it was lookin' a little sad. If you can't already tell, my decorating style is VERY traditional. I'm all about the dark wood, wrought iron, tans, chocolate browns... You catch my drift. I plan on finishing things up here in a few weeks so I'll be sure to post some pictures of the whole house when we're done. Almost there!!!

I'm excited to have Curt back home in a few days! We miss the Da, big time! I'm happy to say that most big trips on the horizon involve the entire family and it's all about the weddings this year! Both Curt's brother and sister are engaged and we're just so thrilled to be a part everything.

Well, I'm sure I can find something to work on in the house right now and I have about a million and one errands to run so I'll leave you with this. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone out there who helped me with Relay for Life! We're doing our walk this weekend so I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and let you know how it turned out.