Backyard Improvement Part 2

Finally, after almost 5 years in our house, we have a fence!!  And having a fence is better than we ever imagined.  :)  We would have guessed that the fence would make our yard seem/feel smaller (it's not very big to begin with), but we have actually found that it feels bigger.  And it feels so homey and safe.  I LOVE that I can let Ava go outside and she can't fall in any window wells OR get to the street (or the empty lot full of dirt and weeds).  Wonderful!

I am SO thankful to have a handy husband.  A husband who can do things like build a fence in a weekend.  He never ceases to amaze me.  And we are SO thankful for his dad (Grandpa) and Tina (Gigi) who helped out so much.  It is very convenient that Grandpa has access to useful machinery.  :)  It always helps to have connections.

Tim and Grandpa set the posts on the first day:

Mr. Bobcat really made things easier!

The girls were big helpers . . . playing in their sand table.
Ava was representing in her Bobcat hat!

"What's all that racket?"

"My big sister is so cool!"

At the end of the day Ava got to take a ride in the
 Bobcat with Daddy.

She didn't like it.

Just a girl and her parasol!

On day two Tim and Grandpa pretty much got the fence finished!  Gigi came up, too, and she was a big help both with the girls and hauling pickets all around so that they were easy for the guys to get to:

Starting to take shape!

Ava spent most of the morning in her pool.

Good work, men!

Tim spent one more Saturday finishing things up and building the gate, and then it was done!  Hurray!  Ava is finally corralled.  All that is left is to stain it one of these days.  I would say he did a pretty good job myself:

The guy can just build a gate.  Just like that.

The gate from the front side.

And that's that!  I know pictures of fences are not that exciting . . . but we just like our fence a lot.  :)

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!

Three Years Too Many

Today, April 13th, marks three years since a certain one-of-a-kind guy left this earth.  It's just a day, like any other day, but I can't help but feel my sorrow renewed each year as we mark the passing of time.  Three years without my dad.  Three years of life experienced without being able to share any of it with him.  Some of the grief subsides with time, but there are days when it feels fresh, new and even still a little confusing.  Can he really be gone?  Sometimes I still don't believe it.

I love our beautiful girls so dearly and they are such a joy to my life, but I can't tell you how many times I look at them and feel my heart break because they will never know their Papa Tony.  I do my best, but I feel that I will never be able to make them truly understand what a fun, funny, boisterous, silly, brave, strong, smart and sometimes oh-so-cantankerous man he was.  So much of who he was has made me who I am today.

I am realizing that most of my favorite pictures of him have not yet been made digital.  I'm going to have to change that.  But here are just a couple good ones.

I love you, Dad, and I miss you every day.

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:

Lip Smack-a-Lack-in'

With this most recent round of sickness/teething/whatever-it-is, June has found a favorite new skill:  smacking her lips.  She does it all the time, although she does it most in her highchair.  However, I don't think it really means anything (maybe it feels good on her gums?), since she often won't take a bite once she has gotten to lip-smacking.  :)  She thinks it is pretty funny when we do it with her, too.

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.