A few randoms from Ava

 

My child keeps me laughing. Our house never has a dull moment and I wish I could capture everything she says or does on film, but as we all know- too often as soon as we break out the video camera they instantly stop! I have been writing down things for while that she says or does so I can remember them. I figured it needed to post it before it got too long and I will start another one :)

One of our favorite things to hear Ava say is “Snow White” which she actually calls “Snow Wipe”, I just can’t bring myself to correct her because it’s so darn cute.

Another cute thing she says is when she says Bathing Suit, which she actually calls, Bathing Soup, of course Adam and I think she just has wisdom beyond her years and knows that by August and September, our pool water temp is warm enough to be bath water, say maybe she is referring to that?!  Ha!

 

Nothing like thinking your child is grown as she answers you with phrases such as, “Yes, I think so…” and “Of course!” No lie, she has used both phrases repeatedly.

 

Aunt Ro Ro bought Ava her first treat from the Ice Cream truck. She picked out a bugs bunny ice cream bar. I would just like to note that now, every time she hears the ice cream truck coming, she wants to get ice cream…thanks for that Auntie Ro Ro ;)

Speaking of ice cream, our new favorite activity is tea parties, we have even begun using water in our tea cups. How does this relate to ice cream? Well, Ava will ask you, after she pours the tea if you would like ice cream…can you figure it out? I couldn’t until she held up the creamer and sugar bowl- haha! She was asking if I wanted any cream or sugar :) I could see where she would get ice cream from that :)

The other day Ava was wearing her Cinderella jammies and insisting on Adam to play the piano. As soon as he began to play she ran to put on her “glass slippers” which are are light-up shoes that she has to wear with her cinderella dress. After a couple of minutes of dancing around while Adam played, she walked into the living room where I was and “somehow” her shoe came off and she told me that it came off on the step (which was apparently next to the couch) and said she needed the prince to put it on her, so she immediately picked it up and carried it to her daddy and said, “Put it on like the prince!” I think she did it no less than 10 times- haha!

A few weeks after she did this, we found out from one of her Waumba Land teachers that she had taken her shoes off and were running around one Sunday morning when they were cleaning up and getting ready for the parents to pick them up, Ava took her shoes over to her and asked her to put them on her- like the prince! Only my chid!

Another story from Waumba Land: One Sunday morning she picked up a toy guitar and made another little girl sit down and listen while she played for her- I wonder where she got that from?!

   

Adam was judging a talent show competition one night (that’s a whole other story for a whole other post-ha!) and Ava and I dropped him and we were going to run a few errands. This is how the conversation went down after he got out of the car:

Ava: I don’t feel good

Me: What’s wrong?

Ava: My eye hurts

Me: What happened?

Ava: I need Chic-fil-a to make me feel better……

We were riding in the car one afternoon heading into town and she said with such excitement, “mommy, mommy, I see Goofy” I was puzzled at first and after asking a few more questions, finally realized she was talking about the clouds. She saw Goofy’s shape in the cloud and then a few minutes later she saw Mickey- both of the characters Adam and I agreed could be seen if you gave it a little imagination :)

The other morning we were sitting on the couch before we left for work and she leaned back across my legs and said, “Ahhhh, this is the life…” (complete with the sigh mind you)

We experimented with makers on the legs….enough said….good thing we had hardwood floors put down after this photo!

Of course it wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t post Dad’s biker babe on the back of his motorcycle, complete with the bikini :)

Father’s Day

 

**** I should have posted this before the swimming lessons, but it got lost in all of the posts!

 

Adam is such a good Daddy to Ava, we are so lucky to have him! :) I’m grateful to have someone who understands the importance of being involved in his daughter’s life. Adam was playing guitar at church, so Ava didn’t get to give him the card she picked out for him until we got back home that afternoon.

He had already gotten his father’s day present (a new 55” LED TV and a new driver for his clubs- since his other driver mysteriously broke…) so all that was left to give him was his card, which Ava picked out and signed all by herself. :)

 

It was a Minnie Mouse card- just in case you were wondering ;)

This year, Ava has understood a little more about Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and would say “Happy ‘Fodders’ Day, Daddy!” over and over! So sweet!

Swimming Lessons: Week 2

 

Week 2 of swimming lessons started even better than the first week! I had the girls I teach at church (11 year olds) stay the night with me and we had a slumber party (with little slumber I might add) and when Ava saw them jump into the pool, that was all it took- you couldn’t get her to stop wanting to jump in! Too bad they weren’t there the first day! :)

She also mastered the swimming under the water and has been doing great ever since. We are now working on getting her to move her arms the correct way and she is really starting to get the hang of it.

You can’t keep her out of the water now. She wants to swim all of the time now and what’s great is that we are both confident enough for her to swim in the pool by herself (of course I am always very close by).

 

 

Ava and Bella with Minnie- I think if Bella had just one more week of lessons she would have been zooming all over the pool. She had come a long ways in overcoming her fear of going under :)

Ava has no fear of jumping in either- she loves it! It’s amazing the power of influence those 11 year old girls had on her :) And even more amazing that I wasn’t even trying to get her to do it, she just saw them and said she wanted to do it!

We have also been working on diving down under the water and retrieving things off the bottom. She can get stuff off even the deep end but still hasn’t quite figured out how to push herself down to the bottom, we usually have to push her and she will grab it and push herself back up.

   

Miss Lindsey showed her how to do a pencil dive and she tried to do it, but as soon as she jumped she would change her form- it was so cute watching her try!

  

I’m so proud of how far she came in 2 weeks time. I actually didn’t think she would be able to swim on her own at the end of her lessons, but boy did she surprise me, especially after her initial fear of being underwater!

The pool has become our new best friend, both mommy and Ava’s since a good time in the pool is followed by a good nap or better yet, a good night’s sleep! :)

Swimming Lessons: Week 1

Our first day of swimming lessons started off great. I had been talking up the lessons to Ava. She doesn’t take quickly to anyone new and I wanted her to just absolutely love Miss Lindsey since I knew she would be the one to continuously push her under the water :)

Elijah, Bella, and Ava were all in a group together on day 1. They started with the basics, working on their kicking and floating.

Ava has always loved the pool, but has always been very timid around it. She was never a child I had to worry about jumping in when I wasn’t looking, which is great- execpt when you want them to jump in. She had such a fear of going under that she just wouldn’t relax and float, nor would she jump off the side. I had been working with her for a little while this summer and made her go under a few times, but she still wasn’t sure about the idea.

Since we have a pool, swimming lessons were a top priority this year. I didn’t want any type of floatation device to become a crutch for her. When we started the swimming lessons she would tread water like no one’s business, but the problem with treading water is, you don’t go anywhere, so eventually she would wear herself out and still not be any closer to the edge, something I didn’t want to keep happening.

We would laugh because towards the end of the week she was the only child who would be able to tread water and then stop and just float when she got tired, which was a little bit better than where we had started, but still not where I knew she could be.

She was so scared about going under that she couldn’t bring herself to lean forwards on her stomach to propel herself forward. However, if you had a hold of her, even with just 1 finger, she was doing exactly what she was supposed to do, but as soon as you moved that 1 finger, straight up and down she went. It was amazing!

Thanks to Uncle Brian for the goggles, they were a lifesaver and made all the difference in the water.

We would try to get Ava to jump in and she would push against the idea and I could pull her to the edge and make her jump, but she would always hold someone’s hand. On the second day after about 3 times, I got tired of hearing her whine and decided that she was going to do it or I was going to throw her in. Apparently she didn’t think I was serious, so I tossed her in the pool. Oh. My! You would have thought I was the meanest mom on earth- not by Ava, but her Gigi! My mom was there and couldn’t believe I had thrown her in, of course, Lindsey was right there and she cried after she came up and had stopped by the time she made the 5 foot length that it was to the steps. When I asked if she wanted to get out she looked at me and said, no- so I took it from that no harm was done and she realized it wasn’t so bad to jump in….

Elijah and Ava loved being in the pool and the idea of swimming, even if Ava didn’t like for her head to be under. Elijah had to opposite problem, he would swim with his head under and not come up for a breath, so they worked with him to try and get him to remember to breathe! Bella on the other hand- didn’t want anything to do with swimming. She was perfectly content playing on the top step of the pool and would cry anytime they pulled her out beyond it.

Elijah and Ava

I think one of Ava’s favorite people in the whole world is Hallie. She would always try to get Hallie to watch her and amazingly she did so much better if she thought Hallie was looking. We used that to our advantage often the first week!

Ava has this little Belle toy that floats on top of the water and all of the girls enjoyed playing with it, so I remembered seeing Princess dive sticks at Target and thought that maybe I could get Ava to put her head underwater (willingly) if she had to rescue the princesses! Haha! It worked, but for the first week it was only look at them on the top step, but at least she was putting her face in the water.

Ava’s favorite thing to do the first week of lessons was to sit on the step and kick and kick and kick.

Towards the end of the week she was gradually getting the concept of swimming on her belly, but she still didn’t want to swim with her head down in the water, which would be the best way for her to swim at this point.

She was still an excellent treader and probably has the strongest legs of any 2 year old girl from all the treading!

Ava would do great, as long as that finger was there underneath her- I guess it was her sense of security.

Hallie and Ava and their matching suits :)

Ava trying to show Hallie what to do! :)

At the end of week one she had done better than I had hoped as far as her willingness to participate. My main goal was for her to be able to jump in the pool and be able to swim to the side or steps in order to get out, she wasn’t quite there, but I felt confident with another week she would be close.