Christmas Morning 2008

This year we spent Christmas at home for the second year in a row. Last year I got sort of sad b'c I missed a lot of my family's traditions. So this year we started some traditions of our own and had a really GREAT christmas! Christmas Eve we went to Opryand. On Christmas morning we woke up to find what Santa had brought Ava Laine. Which since she is a Mickey Mouse fanatic was a Mickey Mouse Talkin Bobbin Clubhouse and a Mickey Mouse Bandstand. In her stocking he left her a Mickey Mouse DVD, Some Color Wonder Paint and Markers, a cook Mickey Mouse tumbler cup, Stickers, Play Doh and two candy canes (cane-canes) which she wanted to eat before she would even think about opening her presents! After that Ava opened her presents from Mommy and Daddy, Nana and Uncle Mo. She Also had a table and chairs and an easel from Mimi and Papa waiting on her even though they were in KY celebrating xmas. And she opened presents from Papaw and Angie at Thanksgiving. So, Ava has been on a present opening marathon since her bday! After everyone opened presents we had breakfast casserole, hashbrowns and fruit for breakfast. Nate's mom and I made Christmas Dinner and Nate, Uncle Mo, Soon to be AUnt Audrey, Nana, Ava and I had dinner together. Ava was super excited to see her Mickey Mouse things when she woke up. She loved the football uncle mo got her and was ready to start throwing and catching it as soon as she opened it! She was also very excited to get a pig from Nana that she has fallen in love with at pre-school. And she loves her toaster that matches her kitchen set. Toast may be her favorite food so she loves to pretend to make it! She opened every single present and wanted to get every last inch of paper off of them! One of the best memories from the day is that Ava sang "Happy Birthday Jesus" all day. It was just so sweet!!

Opryland 2008

Christmas Eve we had dinner at Opryland with Nana and walked around to look at the pretty Christmas lights and decorations. Ava loved it...her favorite parts were the pond/waterfall/fish, and the lights/water show.

Family Picture Time

We had our family pics done recently by photographybyrinn.com
We love our pics! Here are some of the ones from the sneek peak:

Twick or Tweat!

This year Ava was Minnie Mouse for Halloween because Minnie and Mickey Mouse are her most favorite people (or mice:) EVER! Thanks to Mrs Candy Donegan for getting Ava a Minnie costume for her birhtday!
We went to Trunk or Treat at our church, HHCOC, on Sunday night. Ava really enjoyed it! She preferred to get the candy herself and put it in her bag though :) On Halloween we went to Mt Juliet and trick or treated with the De Araujo Gorge Family...We had a lot of fun! Ava and Garrett made a great Minnie and Spiderman duo...After we convinced Ava that she didn't have to go in to the houses that she was trick or treating at and the people weren't going to take her she had a lot of fun! She loved to say "TWICK OR TWEAT!" and "Minnie Mouse Twick or Tweats" Ava and garret rode their Radio Flyer tricycles around the neighborhood (well mostly pushed by mommy or daddy) and they were super cute..I've only got one pic from Trunk or Treat and hope to have more from Halloween soon!

Happy 2nd Birthday Ava Laine!!

I know this is pretty late, but here are some pics from Ava's second birthday party. She had a lot of fun with her friends and blowing out her candles! Now every time anyone sings Happy Birthday she thinks it's for her and gets pretty excited :) We did a circus theme and rented moon bounce for the party. We had chili, cake and some other snacks...overall it was a great day!
I can't believe my sweet baby girl is 2 years old! What a blessing these two years have been!!

We love FALL!!

I'm so excited that fall is here! I love the fall weather, the colors, the pumpkins, halloween and thanksgiving! I decided that Ava should love this time of year as much as I do and have been enjoying time outdoors, lots of mum and pumpkins shopping and taking a trip to hicklen farm. She had a great time and cried when we had to leave :( Sarah went with us and thankfully had her camera so we got some cute pics of Ava at the farm...B was in school that day so we will have to take him back some other time!

Other Ava news...She went to Mimi and Papa's while I was out of town for a wedding shower and met Aunt Kennedy's new hamster, Chloe. Well the next week she kept singing "Old McDonald had a hampster(yes she says it with a P)..EIEIO" and after about 175 verses of old mcdonald had a hamster I told her to "say something different next time" So now my silly child sings "Old McDonald had a different" She is such a mess! She is for sure a different is some sort of animal and even asks me to "draw a different" in which case I draw a half cat half bunny :)

This weekend we went to the Cowboy Show. It's a show that Nathaniel's club from college puts on every year where they perform a variety of country songs. We know that Ava loves music so we bit the bullet and paid for the overpriced tickets. She LOVED it...she sat in awe, clapped along to the music and waved at the singers. After almost every song she would turn to me and say "I like that song!" Ava and I did leave early so she would get in bed at a reasonable hour.

We are gearing up for Ava's birthday party this weekend in the Miller house. We have her birthday supplies in the guest room and she likes to go in there and tell us "it's for my party." I'm so glad she knows that the party is for her...I was worried she wouldn't get it when we started planning it, but she has been to a couple birthday parties now and she's pretty excited about it...she knows there will be "cake and boons(balloons)" there so she's pumped! Watch for party pics next week!!!

Ava's First Day of Pre-School!

I can't believe my baby is in pre-school!! Tuesday was Ava's first day. We had to put in her application back in February and I was going to be so upset if she didn't get in...well the closer it came to her first day I was wishing she hadn't because I was getting pretty sad about letting her go two days a week. I know it's going to be really good for her though...she is such a momma's girl and really does need time away and to be around other kids.

Of course on her first day she slept until 8:00 (most days I would kill for this!) and we needed to leave around 8:30. But we got out of the door and didn't forget anything! Actually that's not true...I forgot my keys and we were locked out of the car and the house! Even after this we were still on time for pre-school...AMAZING! We went into class, got her settled and took some pictures. Her teachers are great and they said that she did really well all day besides nap time . I wasn't surprised by this and felt sort of bad for not warning them...Ava has been seriously resisting the naps the last week and half. Today she just sat in her bed for two hours reading books playing with stuffed animals. Anyway...I got a lot more accomplished between 9 and 2 than usual and that felt great! I was surprised that I didn't cry when I left her...just a little teary eyed a couple times b'c I was missing her about half way through the day.

Ava's school supplies:

Her stickers...I LOVED them:
Ready to go!:
Getting situated in her new room:
She loves puzzles...and she got attached to that dinosaur:

Ava video

This video is classic Ava. In the span of one minute she is silly, sassy and talks about Bennett. Pretty much the norm.

:)

Holding onto Summer...

Ava went to stay with her mimi and papa for the weekend at the beginning of the month while Nathaniel and I went to the lake with friends. We had a great time tubing, hanging out with friends, and eating lots of food! At the end of the weekend we REALLY missed Ava. I drove (30 hrs in one weekend) to cincinnati to get Ava and stayed for the rest of the week while Nate was on a work trip. Needless to say...he was really missing his boo bear by the time he got back.  While in Cincy Ava went to the zoo and we went to Kings Island where she rode quite a few rides, but did not even attempt to crack a smile. She wasn't scared...just clearly not in the mood...

I finished our bathroom update while Ava was out of town and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. The first week it was finished I just stood in it for no good reason once in a while :)

This week we have been getting together Ava's school supplies for pre-school next week...I'm pretty sure I'll cry her first day. I didn't think I would, but the closer it comes I'm having anxiety and second thoughts about this pre-school thing :( I don't think I can give her up two days a week...I wish it were just one day, but I know it will be good for her and her social skills. My little loner :)

This weekend we went to the zoo which was fun. The zoo is one of two places that Ava actually asks to go to. She says "go zoo?... monkeys, gaffs, ela-ents, rhinos??" There are no rhinos at our zoo...I think the Nashville zoo and the Cincy zoo have merged in her brain. The other place she asks to go to is "the poo-ol" where she is pretty sure Bennett and Sarah live because she says "the poo-ol? beenah? sarwah?" :)

Yesterday we went to the church wide picnic at the Hardeman's. Ava had fun on the inflatable moonwalks/slide and such. However, the fun ended when we were waiting in line to ride the ponies and Ava started to projectile vomit ALL OVER ME. Like six times in  a row...but don't worry she was still asking to "ride pony." From there we went home...Me wearing Nate's shirt, Nate in his wife beater(excuse the politically incorrect term), and ava wearing nothing. On the way home she threw up again and continued to thow up every thirty minutes until 9:00...it was our first experience with the throw up and it wasn't fun. She is completely recovered today...so luckily it was short lived. Unfortunately, I literally just got a text from my friend Katie that says "Pete (her little boys nickname) is throwing up. Glad it's short lived"...well shoot...hope no one else comes down with it ( including myself:)

Summer Update

As usual it has been a while since I've blogged. And as usual I'm going to try to do better :)

So far we have had a great summer...lots of outdoor fun.

This weekend we went to Mammoth Cave with Papaw, Angie and my brothers.  I'll hopefully have some pictures of that soon. It was a lot of fun and Ava did really well. She enjoyed taking the cave tours and kept saying "OH WOW!" It was pretty cute.

A few weeks ago we went to the lake with Mimi, Papa and the girls...Ava loved the boat and even kept the life jacket on!

Yesterday we played at the pool with our play date group and Ava had lots of fun. It was a big day for her b'c she let me dunk her quite a few times without a melt down. I wouldn't say she enjoyed it, but she is getting used to it. She would prefer to sit on the ledge or a step and play with a watering can.

She is talking up a storm lately. The other day she ran into nate with a push toy and said "I sorry daddy!! It was precious.  Lately she's been a ham for visitors too. Which if you know Ava that's unusual...she usually has the best poker face ever! 

Right now Ava's favorite food is "cerall"... she eats a bowl Fiber One every morning. She loves to color, do puzzles, read and have tea parties with "ceam" and "suga" :)

Time Out!

Well Ava is climbing on everything at this point...dressers, end tables, kitchen tables, toys backs of couches, etc. We have implemented time out to try to get her to stop climbing on everything. So we put the pack n play in the guest room and that's where she goes to time out for 90 seconds. Well it did cause a decline in climbing. The first day we went from climbing on the kitchen table about 15 times a day to about 5. However, now she has realized that she can climb out of time out. So a couple days ago she she climbed on the kitchen table and looked at me and said...."Tie Ow Moma!" I filmed her in time out and I'll post it on here if I figure out how. It's pretty funny.

We bought a zoo membership this year so we have already been a few times and Ava's favorite part is the monkeys. She was cracking up at the swinging monkey the other day. She also really likes the petting zoo... especially the ducks!

Deadbeat Blogger

Well I've been a deadbeat blogger that's for sure, but I plan on updating once a week from now on. I'll give a quick Ava update since for a.) Nate and I have nothing to update about and b.) You only care about Ava news anyway :)

She is growing growing growing! She is a tall girl 85% in height and 50% in weight...I don't remember the exact numbers on her height, but she was 24 and a half pounds at her eighteen month check-up last week.

About a month or so ago I was a big dork and wrote down all of her words and she was up to fifty something...she is saying new words all the time and will repeat pretty much anything...I never thought "oh shoot" was a bad word until I heard it come out of my precious 18 month olds mouth! So we are on nice words alert in the Miller house. One of her cutest words is "come on" she has a distinct southern twang with this one and says "come own, momma!" while motioning me to come on with her hands...she's a mess! She pretty much never says no, but "done" instead. Which I've decided is her sassy version of no. Ava do you want some peas? "done!" she says as she shews them away with the back of her hand :)

She loves to go on walks and to the park, which we do almost every day. After a couple of hours of hanging out in the houses Ava tends to get stir crazy and we have to get OUT! Otherwise she makes everyone around her crazy too :)

She is climbing on pretty much anything that she can...sometimes she falls, but typically she's a pretty good climber and takes her time making it to the top of things. I guess she learned that in her my gym class...she is much braver since she's been going to My Gym and she squeals and claps whenever we walk in the door!

We are loving the nice weather and looking forward to all of our walks, pool, zoo, and park trips this summer!