Ava the Dancing Queen

Ava started a dance class on Friday afternoons at our church in early February. The classes are put on by a Christian organization that teaches young children about prayer and worship and how they can praise The Lord through dance and music. Ava LOVED going to her weekly class (it didn't hurt that her best friend Sydney was in the class!) and looked forward to the performance that they would do at the end of the 12 weeks. Every week they practiced their big dance number.

On May 2 the Summitview Church auditorium was packed with adoring fans and parents. Ava's class of three year kids went about halfway through the whole show and they did quite well. 

Ava knew her dance so well!  She loves to do it at home for us. Here is a video from her big performance. She is a little hard to pick out, but she is in the back row, second from the right. Partway through she comes up to front center before they all go to the back of the stage. Then at the end she is the first one to throw up her arms. :)

We were so proud of our little dancer!

Ava's Big Birthday Weekend

On June 25th our little Ava Marie turned three!  I can hardly believe it.  She's such a big girl anymore.  And she has been looking forward to her birthday for months.  She still doesn't totally understand the concept (she seems to think that her 'birthday' is just the part where we sing and she blows out the candle, not the whole day) . . . but she knows that it is something great and fun!

We were very fortunate to have Nana and Papa come down from Montana to spend the weekend with us.  It's always a party when Nana and Papa are around!  Papa helped Tim with building Ava's birthday present from Mom and Dad and Nana and Papa:  a new backyard playset!  They started the construction on Friday morning, but then we went out to lunch (vodka gimlets and burgers at Coopersmiths . . . YUM!) and to do some shopping and errand running and . . . ear piercing!!  In case you haven't seen the pictures yet, our little girls are pierced!  It's super cute.

On Saturday, Daddy and Papa really got busy working on the playset (after our tasty brunch of bacon, eggs and mimosas that we enjoyed on the patio).  At first we had planned to try to hide the construction of it from Ava, but you just can't keep the girl away from her Daddy, no matter what he is doing.  :)  She didn't really have any idea what it was until the basic frame was put together and they put the little door on.  Then she started referring to it as "my house" and went in and out the door about a million times while the guys continued to put it together.  They were able to finish it while she was *supposed* to be napping.  We brought her outside to see it after she got up and she was so excited!  She kept saying, "It's beautiful!" and, "It has swings . . . and a slide!"  She started swinging right away.

The framework.

Ava being a big helper.

It's beautiful!

Even Nana made a few trips down the slide!

She was a great playmate.

Eating snack on the bench by her "house"
with her new snake.  :)

Swinging with Nana.

Junie grilling with Papa later than evening.

On Sunday morning we dedicated June at our church.  Unfortunately it is really hard to take good pictures due to the lighting in our church, so I'm not posting any here.  It was a special event and we were glad to have family here to celebrate it with us.  That afternoon we had Ava's birthday party!  Things didn't time out so well; Tim's Grandpa had to have heart surgery the Wednesday before in Denver.  He was still in the ICU on Sunday and not doing that well so Grandpa and Gigi were unable to make it to the party.  Tim's Grandpa is doing very well now, though, and is back home in Grand Junction.  So it was a rather small crowd at the party, but Ava didn't mind.  Her best friend Sydney was the only kid that came who was old enough to play with her on the playset and boy did they have fun!  They ran all around until their cheeks were nice and rosy and their heads nice and sweaty.  :)  We enjoyed having the Fitzgeralds, Uncle Toby and Nana and Papa here to celebrate with us.

The party was sort of themed "Pizza Time and Cookie Dough".  Ava used to recite that phrase all the time and we are still not completely sure why.  We decided that pizza and cookies were good ingredients for a party, so that's what we had; pizza for dinner and a giant 12 inch decorated cookie from Eileen's Cookies as our "cake".  Ava's face lit up when we sang "Happy Birthday" to her (because, as you know, she believes that to be the actual birthday part).  It was cute to see how happy it made her.

Yummy Eileen's Colossal Cookie!

"Happy Birthday, Dear Ava!"

Mmm . . . delicious . . . 

Then it was time to open presents!  Woohoo!  What kid doesn't love that part?  Even at 3, Ava already knows present are a good thing.

PRINCESS SHOES!!!!

A classic.

She's getting pretty good at tearing that paper.

Junie thought the paper was fun.
Later she started filling Skylar's car seat with it.

Putting on some princess shoes!

New tiara.

Helping Sydney put on some princess shoes.  :)

Practicing walking like princesses!

A little piano time for the two princesses.

Papa Ernie was having some fun with the balloons.

All in all I'd say it was a successful, fun weekend.  We are so thankful for our little Ava!  Now . . . on to June's birthday . . .

Biggest Girl

As Ava gets closer and closer to her 3rd birthday (just under 3 weeks away!) we are in with the "big girl" and out with the "baby"!  Tim and I decided that it was time to do away with the mullet and schedule Ava for her first real haircut.  So this morning I took Ava to see Kari, the hairdresser that I have been going to for several years now.  She has recently renovated the basement of her home a little to have a studio/salon in her home.  It was very nice and comfortable, especially for Ava's first salon visit!  My little wiggle-worm did SO well, believe it or not!  She sat more still than I have ever seen her sit before while Kari cut off those wispy little waves.  It took only a couple minutes of actual cutting, and the results are pretty darn cute!

Watching cartoons before we leave.

Although still cute most of the time, it was a bit of a mullet.  

At the "beauty parlor"!

Cute stuff!

"Please stop taking my picture, Mom!"

Snuck up on her while she was playing.

"For the love of God, Mom . . . "

Ha ha.  This girl hates having her picture taken, in case you couldn't tell.  And it's impossible to get a smile from her other than a cheesy, scary, toothy, clown grin.  Anyway, there it is!  Her first real haircut!  Sometimes I hardly even recognize her because she has gotten so big; there's very little baby left anymore.

Water Fun

With the weather being SO beautiful lately, we have been doing our best to get outside as much as possible! I have been breaking out the water table and even got the girls all suited up in their swimsuits a couple days so they could really "go to town" playing in the water.  It was Junie's first time in a swimsuit!  She still does NOT enjoy the feel of grass, so I had to put a towel down for her to stand on.  It still took her a little while to warm up, but then she got into the fun.  She is pretty much a water baby like her sister; June loves taking baths (especially now that they take their baths together - FUN)!  I signed Ava up for swim lessons in July.  Hopefully with a little practice she'll be ready to swim with her cousins in Montana this summer!

I can't wait until we have a fence so that Ava can play more freely in the backyard, and I won't have to worry about her running off!  Soon enough, I hope.

Here are just a few pictures from our recent water table fun.  I really need to start posting on here more often!  This is just a small start:

I can't believe how old Ava looks in her swimsuit!  She doesn't have baby legs anymore . . . she has little girl legs!

And here is a little video of Ava playing in the water table with her friend, Lana, the other day.  They were giggling up a storm!

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Ava

I realized that I haven't done a blog post in a long time!  Whoops.  I don't have time for much of one now, either, but I thought I would at least brighten your day with a couple of silly videos of our cuties.  Hopefully soon I can upload some pictures of what we've been up to lately.  But for now:

LOL

The other night Ava was taking a bath.  June loves to watch Ava take baths.  Ava started doing something silly in the tub repeatedly and June thought it was pretty much the funniest thing ever.  So of course Ava kept doing it and doing it and June kept laughing and laughing.  I'm pretty sure these were the best belly laughs we have gotten out of June yet.  Here is some video, although I think it's difficult to tell just how hard Junie is laughing because she has her hand in her mouth.

The best part is that every time Ava takes a bath now she remembers exactly what she was doing and tries to recreate the event to make June laugh again.  Unfortunately it has never had the same effect again.

Sister Love

Now that June is crawling all over the place, Ava seems to think she is a little more fun to play with.  And, of course, June still thinks Ava is the coolest thing around.  They are starting to have more and more fun together (when Ava chooses to plays nice).  After lunch today June was crawling all around and Ava was crawling after her.  June thought that was very funny; and once June got to giggling, Ava started giggling.  They were crawling all around and giggling together.  It was enough to make a mama's heart burst (or her head explode, one or the other).  :)

Here is a video of it, although this was toward the end of the fun so it wasn't quite as good as the beginning stuff.  But you get the picture.

Little Fish

Ava LOVES water.  So much so that it's pretty ridiculous.  In fact, it's starting to drive me crazy.  I would say that about 75% of the naughty things that she does somehow involve water.  :)  A few weeks ago she figured out how to turn on each of our bathroom sinks by herself.  In her bathroom she stands on her step stool and then gets one leg up on the counter so that she can reach the faucet and turn it on herself (by the way, one of her new favorite sayings is, "Do it self!").  In the half-bath/laundry room she moves her other stool around to the side so that she can turn the water on and then moves it back to get her hands in the water.  And--most annoying of all--in our bathroom she stands on the toilet seat and leans way over so that she can turn on my sink and play in the water.  And this is where she gets into the most trouble.  That girl finds all kinds of different objects to fill up with water.  Her favorite is this:

Her baby's sippy cup.  She unscrews the lid, climbs up on the toilet and fills it up time and time again to drink from it (also filling up her diaper!).  One day I found her doing this and there was water everywhere.  I mean, all over the door even, which is across the bathroom from where she was standing.  I'm still not sure how she accomplished that.  Last night, after dinner, she snuck up and grabbed my glass off the table and I found her in the bathroom filling it up.  The other day she was trying to fill up her empty chapstick container that she plays with.  The girl will drink water out of ANYTHING.

She has had this love of water for a long time.  I've never known a one year old that loved to drink water as much as she does.  We have to limit how much water she drinks.  She drinks from her Camelbak water bottle like it's her job.  It often becomes a problem, as she soaks through diaper after diaper (and outfit after outfit).  I never worry about whether or not she is hydrated . . . not even when she's sick!

Not only does she love to drink water, but she also loves to play in water.  All the time.  Anywhere.  Any water.  Nasty water on the side of the road.  A wet spot on the couch where Mama just cleaned off the crayon that she got on there.  The water (which is actually not water!) in Mama's contact lens case.  If there's a liquid around, she WILL find it.  Yes, she drinks her bathwater.  I know it's gross but, honestly, there are only so many battles I can fight.  We do discourage her from drinking it after we have washed her up with soap . . . but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen!  Last time Nana was here she turned Ava on to bubble baths.  So now we always put a little soap in with the running water to make bubbles.  Well, she still drinks the water as she plays, saying over and over again, "I drink soap."  Apparently it never occurs to her that it tastes bad.

The most trouble she has gotten in with water came two weeks ago at Tim's company picnic.  It was held at the Island Marina in Fort Collins.  Basically it's a small lake in south Fort Collins with a few islands.  They set up big canopies, decks, tables and such on these islands and rent them out for parties.  They also have those giant water trampolines in the lake, paddle boats and canoes.  You have to catch a ride on a boat to get out to your island.  It's really quite fun.  We knew Ava would have fun playing in the water there, so pretty much as soon as we got there (they held it on a Friday, so Tim came home early from work and we headed down there together) we suited her up in a life jacket and Tim waded around with her.  It didn't take her long to spot those giant trampolines out in the water.  Since she also LOVES jumping, that was right up her alley.  My first reaction was to say that there was no way Tim was going to take our two year old out there, so he tried to hold her off for quite a while.  Next thing I know he was loading her up in a paddle boat and taking off toward the middle of the lake.  Oh my.  He tried to appease her by just circling around one of the trampolines in the paddle boat . . . yeah right.  Pretty soon he was hoisting her up and the two of them were jumping on the trampoline in the middle of the lake while their paddle boat drifted off.  I won't go into details, since this post is getting really long, but they did make it back to shore safely.  Minutes later Ava wanted to go back, but we corralled her toward dinner.

Ava's first boat ride out to the island

 After dinner Tim introduced her to the giant catfish in another part of the lake that the kids can feed with dog food.  She made me nervous the whole time by standing right on the edge of the deck.  I just had a bad feeling.  A little while later (right after I changed her diaper and got her out of her swimsuit, of course), Tim was holding June and talking to some coworkers, while I was cleaning up our dinner stuff and getting ready to take June.  Ava had been standing by Tim, but I looked up and saw she had wandered off to look at the fish at an unspecified dirt bank with no rope and a sharp drop-off into the water.  Lights and sirens starting going off in my head and I started making my way over there slowly, not wanting to cause a scene.  I glanced away at Tim for a second and when I looked back over she was no longer standing there.  Instead I saw her head just above the water and a crowd beginning to form where she had been standing.  Without even thinking I was over there in a flash.  In a split second I assessed the situation, heard Ava starting to cry and saw that she was moving further out in the water that was already up to her neck.  I threw down June's blanket and my Coke that I was holding and jumped in that nasty lake water, with the catfish.  I scooped Ava up and handed her to some guys who were standing at the edge of the bank.  One of them took my hand and helped me up and we were out in a matter of seconds.  And Ava and I were soaked in a matter of seconds.  The water hit me right about at my chest, so my clothes were pretty wet.  But what else are you going to do?  It's amazing how that instinct kicks in without any necessary thought or plan of action.  I know that any one of those people that Tim works with would have jumped in to get her if I hadn't gotten there first, and I am thankful for that.  But I'm glad it was me who had to do it and I'm SO thankful that that party didn't have to end in tragedy.  Many people congratulated me afterwards and a couple moms called me a "hero".  All I know is that if someone's kid had to fall in the water . . . I'm not at all surprised that it was mine.  :)  And now all of Tim's coworkers will probably remember me as "the lady who jumped in the lake to save her kid".

The best thing I can do is try to channel this love of water into healthy activities.  I set up a sprinkler in our lawn a few weeks ago and let her run through that.  Here is some video:

Of course her favorite thing was sitting on the sprinkler

Unfortunately it wasn't the greatest day weather-wise and got pretty cloudy and windy.  It was chilly so she didn't play for too long.  Last week I got out her baby pool on a hot day and she had a ton of fun playing in that for an hour or so.

Eating her first popsicle!

I wanted to do the pool again this week but it often clouds up and gets windy in the afternoons (although it never rains!) and that makes it a little cool for that sort of thing.  One of Ava's good friends (her parents are on our Discipleship Team) that we play with sometimes has a really neat water table that Ava enjoyed one day.  I think she would love having one of those, and it would be a little easier for me to set up quickly.  We have a Babies'R'Us gift card so I think we might go this weekend and see if we can get one on sale.  Why not feed the addiction, right?

There's a reason we call her Ava "Crazypants" Kelleher!

Ava Turns Two!

On June 25th, we celebrated our little girl's 2nd birthday.  She's not so little anymore!  We didn't do anything very momentous.  On Sunday the 24th, Grandpa and Gigi came up and spent the afternoon with us.  They brought presents, including her first baby doll, equipped with all the accessories.  Tim and I had wanted for her to get a baby before our baby came along.  I thought it might be helpful for her to have a baby to take care of while Mama takes care of hers.  And believe it or not, the girl didn't have a baby yet!  We celebrated by opening presents and eating cupcakes and that was about it.  On Monday--her actual birthday--we had cupcakes and sang to her again after dinner.  Then we had a nice conversation with Nana and Papa Ernie via Skype.  Not a bad birthday for a two-year-old.  

Here are some pictures from it.  Ava really likes to look at her birthday pictures on the computer (she loves to watch Picasa slideshows - mostly just pictures of herself, though).  She likes to sing "Happy Birthday" while she watches.  "Happy birthday to youee, youee, youee . . . " is usually how it goes.  :)

Having a snack before opening presents.  Grandpa and Gigi came while she was napping, so she was a little surprised to see them when she woke up.

Reading her "Peekaboo Duck" card.  She still loves it.  :)

Sidewalk chalk?  Yes!

Reading one of her new books with Grandpa.

Opening her baby.  Ooh . . . what could it be?

The look on her face says, "What the heck IS this thing?"

Too bad all babies don't just come nicely wrapped in a box!

So many fun accessories!  It took forever to get them all out of the box.

Baby needs her pacifier.

On a walk with her baby and diaper bag.  As soon as she opened the baby and saw what it was, she was quiet for the next 15 minutes or so . . . so serious about playing with her new baby!

Coloring Outside!  So fun.

Coloring your feet is especially fun.

Attempting to eat a cupcake . . . 

THIS is how you eat a cupcake!

Such a good little mommy!