Ice cream... yum-o!

A few things that you should know about Ava:

She loves ice cream
Any food that she doesn't like is said to be "pluck" (a variation of yuck, but reserved exclusively for food)
Food is not "yuck" (it is "pluck", see number 2), but things like mud or anything else gross is "yuck".
Food that she likes is some variation of "yum", lately it has been "yum-o"

While in Tahoe we went to Cold Stone Creamery each night for ice cream. Dad always got some kind of chocolate. Ava had "cotton candy" ice cream one night and "mint" the other night.

Snow scraper

On our vacation to Tahoe it snowed one night while we were out having dinner. After dinner we got back to the car and found about an inch of snow on it. Dad was smart enough to have packed the snow scraper. Ava helped brush off the windows. Mom also showed her how to "catch" a snowflake on your tongue. Ava loved the snow but didn't care for the cold.

On the computer

Ava hasn't been much interested in TV or computers or anything like that. She does like to learn and loves numbers, letters, and spelling words. Some of Mom's friends had a Christmas party for the families and the children brought gifts and then had a gift exchange. Ava received a "computer". It looks a lot like a real laptop computer and has a real keyboard layout and a mouse. There are a bunch of programs that are number and letter games. She has a couple of favorites. This kept her entertained in the backseat of the car all the way to and from Tahoe.

At the playground

Even though we have a swing set in our backyard Ava still loves to go to the playground. Maybe she likes the social aspects (eg. other kids to watch, and sometimes play with). The things there are just bigger and more fun to climb on. She likes to climb on the ropes and there is also something that you can spin around on until you are so dizzy that you can't walk. The baby swings are still a big attraction because she knows that she is too big for them... enjoy it while it lasts kid soon you will be too big. She can swing on the big kid swings when she wants to and has recently learned how to do "kick-bend" so that she can power herself on the swing. Mom and Dad like the playground because it gets us out of the house and gives Ava some exercise. She usually rides her bike to the playground. Mom and Dad hopes that all of this tires her out for bedtime, but that usually isn't the case... Ava is tireless.

Family portrait

Dad took the opportunity to make a Christmas family picture. He gets this tradition from Papa. Two times per year (Easter and Christmas since everybody was dressed up) Papa would mount the camera to the tripod and get everybody arranged, set the timer, then run around and get in the picture. Dad tried to do the same, but it was much easier with only three in the picture! Papa also had to deal with Uncle Trent who always seemed to put up a fight when it came to the picture.





Later on Christmas day at the park a beautiful picture of Mom and Ava with the setting sun shining on them.

Big girl bike

Ava has been riding her "kitty" bike all summer long. It was only a 12" bike and she was getting too big for it. Mimi and Papa gave her a new 16" Schwinn bike for Christmas. It is powder blue and has little flowers on the frame and the fenders. The helmet has rockets, planets, aliens, and the moon on it. You may remember that Ava is fascinated with the moon and the planets.

We got the bike out for a ride down to the p ark on Christmas afternoon. Ava did a good job of pedaling and getting used to the bigger bike. Her favorite thing to do on her bike is to "chase" Dad.

Christmas morning

Ava slept all through the night and woke up ready to go at 7am. That was pretty good because Mom and Dad thought she was so excited that she might not sleep at all. Ava was amazed that the cookies and carrots were all gone. She knew that Santa Claus had come.

There were three different batches of presents under the tree. Some from Grandma and Grandpa, some from Mimi and Papa, and some from Santa Claus. She loved every gift and was excited about all of them. Ava is a very careful unwrapper, she removes every piece of paper and tape from the package.

Mimi and Papa gave her red "sparkly" shoes (the only thing that she consistently said she wanted) that look like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz (though she has no idea since she has never seen that movie). She wore them to Christmas morning mass. Princess barbie, a couple of cute outfits, and a big bicycle.

Grandma and Gtrandpa gave her two very neat crafts (clay and soap), some nice clothes and hats, and books. They also gave her a subscription to the "Highlights" magazine. This is a children's magazine that has stories and games and pictures. It is in lots of pediatrician's offices. Ava has a few copies and insists upon having them read over and over, so she will enjoy the magazines for the whole year!


The big present from Santa was a complete set of Snow White figures, which Ava calls "guys". She plays with these for hours and hours on end with her dollhouse. Everything from "school" to re-enacting the The Nativity. Finally in her stocking were a few little treats including a "Jasmine" Disney princess and Snoopy stickers.

'Twas the night before Christmas...

Mom and Ava made cookies for Santa and rice krispy "gingerbread" houses. Mom made a delicious ham dinner (Ava loves ham). We all drove through town and looked at the Christmas lights. Before bed we read all of our favorite Christmas books. Ava helped put out the cookies and milk for Santa and the carrots and water for the reindeer. Even with all of the excitement for tomorrow Ava went right to sleep tonight. Merry Christmas!

Snow Angel

Ava was on school vacation and Dad was on vacation from work so we headed up to South Lake Tahoe for a long weekend. We left on Sunday and returned on Tuesday. In Tahoe we enjoyed the snow and did lots of snow tubing. The hill was pretty long so Ava couldn't go down alone but she did a good job of making sure that both Mom and Dad got an equal share. We also made little snowmen (the powder snow didn't pack all that well) and Ava learned how to make snow angels. Monday night brought four inches of fresh snow and we made the most of it.

Christmas Pageant

Friday Dec 18th was the Christmas pageant at Ava's school. The preschool and kindergarten put on their own performance in the morning. The kindergarten children played the parts of the nativity scene and narrators. The preschool children were dressed as cows, sheep, and chickens. They sang a several Christmas songs complete with hand gesturing. Ava had a hard time sitting still for all of the rehearsals that they had over the past few weeks, but she stood on the platform and was very still for the entire performance. Mommy promised her "gummy" treats if she was good. Afterwards they went to the grocery store and Ava picked out gummy treats that were themed on the game Operation.

Where is my chair?

Can you believe it? I had to stand here on this stool and eat my dinner. I didn't have a chair! What happened to it you ask? Well, I didn't listen to Mom even though I was warned so she took away my chair for dinner. The other night Mom took away my pillow too. These are the new parenting techniques that they have tried on me. Some people might think it works but it really doesn't bother me. I can make a game and a fun time out of pretty much anything. Look at my face, it is supposed to be my "mad" face, but it is just pretend.

Gingerbread man

Ava's class made gingerbread cookies on Wednesday. One of the mothers baked the cookies and brought them in. The children decorated the cookies with frosting, sprinkles, and M&Ms. Ava brought her cookie home and at a little piece every day.

Bookworm

Check out these glasses! All the better for reading. This week at Ava's school they had a read-a-thon. It was actually a fund raiser for a scholarship that they offer to families in need. They gave the kids these glasses as a little joke. She is cute in them, but if she has these glasses when she is a teenager she'll probably opt for lasik surgery.




Mom was one of the guest readers. Ava just loves books, she can read them at home for hours. But at school she had ants in her pants and couldn't really sit through all of them. As part of the fun it was "free" dress day, meaning that she could wear whatever she wanted. She chose her best Christmas dress and furry coat.

All you can eat

Ava likes going out to restaurants. Her favorite one is El Pollo Loco, which she calls "favorite chicken place". It looks like a fast food joint, but honestly they do have pretty good chicken. Lately we have been able to convince her to try some other places. We went to "Fresh Choice" the other week. It is an all you can eat buffet with mainly salad and some entree dishes. Ava's idea of all that you can eat is a bowl of macaroni and then as many bowls of ice cream as you can eat, or rather as many as your parents will let you eat.

Puppet show and popcorn

The festival of lights had a puppet show for the children. It was a small stage with the puppets singing Christmas carols. Ava watched if for a few minutes... until she ran out of popcorn. This was bag number one, there were two more bags to follow. She would have eaten more if we had let her.

Sledding

Another big attraction at the festival of lights was sledding. They bring in a bunch of snow and make a hill in the middle of the street for the kids to sled down. The hill was about 10 feet high and 50 feet long. The line was one hour. Ava was such a good girl waiting in line. Most other kids her age were only going down the hill with a parent. But when Ava finally got to the top she hopped on all by herself. She went down without tipping over. We think there is some of her Boston instinct in there and she is a natural when it comes to snow.

More Santa

Ava saw Santa again at the Campbell "festival of lights". We were one of the first people to get there so the line wasn't long and Ava was excited to see Santa for the second time this year. She went right up to him and took a beautiful picture. After that Ava had cookies, juice, and three bags of popcorn at the "festival".

Christmas ornaments

Mom helped the children in Ava's class make Christmas ornaments to decorate the tree in their classroom. One of the ornaments was a pine cone angel. The body is a pine cone, the wings are leaves and the head is a styrofoam ball. The children drew on the face and glued on yarn for hair. It turned out so well that Ava and Mom made some Christmas ornaments on Saturday for Ava's teachers.

Our Lady of Peace

On Saturday we went to see the Our Lady of Peace shrine in Santa Clara. We went to the bookstore to find a baby Jesus statue that they could have blessed at the mass next week. Then Ava played on the playground. We went up to the shrine and Ava said some prayers. She seemed to be quite taken with the place and said her own little prayers at some of the other statues too. And she said special prayers for her Aunt Kris and Uncle Andy.

Breakfast with Santa (Part 2)

The "dining room" for Breakfast with Santa had a nice nativity display, which Ava calls "the manger". Ava loves looking at the nativity displays but she is a little critical of the fact that baby Jesus is in the manger before Christmas. She knows that this isn't right and that baby Jesus doesn't come until Dec 25th.

The last event was sitting on Santa's lap and getting a picture. Santa asked what she wanted for Christmas and we couldn't really hear that well, but Santa repeated it for us and said that she wanted "something special".

Breakfast with Santa (Part 1)

Saturday was Breakfast with Santa. Ava was very excited about it and wore her new Christmas dress that Mimi got her. The breakfast was at a church down the street. It started with a few tables where the children could to holiday craft projects. Ava made a Santa hat and also used some stickers to make a gingerbread house.

We went into the breakfast room and were served a pancake breakfast. This is the second such pancake breakfast that Ava has been to. The other was at St. Lucy back in November when Papa visited. Ava just loves pancake breakfast. She had three pancakes, two sausages, and some eggs. She would have had more if we had let her.

Santa came in and read a story to all of the children. Ava listened pretty intently to the story as you can tell from the expression on her face. The story told about the birth of Christ and Ava actually knows most of this from school. She knows about Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph, the manger, and the wisemen.

Ava's December calendar

Ava made a December Christmas "calendar" at school. It has one ring for each day of the month leading up to Christmas which is the big gold star on top. Each morning she wakes up and rips off the bottom ring. We'll have to move it down a bit in a week. Mom also has another "calendar" that has a little wooden box for each day. Mom puts something in it every day for Ava to find. Ava always hopes it is candy!

Storytime

Last night before bedtime Ava insisted that Mom take a picture of her and Dad. She has been pretending a lot lately about pictures, but this time she wanted to take a real picture. Not sure why but it is cute. She was all ready for bed in her "frosty the snowman" pajamas and took a really nice picture. Then we read a bunch of books and she went to bed. Though she did her usual antics about not going to sleep and getting up and crying, etc. Overall about an hour later she was asleep. Then she slept in and missed the first half-hour of school on the playground. Poor kid, we think that the week really wears her out. But she is already excited for the weekend.

Ava the astronaut

Ava has decided that she would like to go to Neptune. She has a book and on one page of it lists all nine planets. She picked out Neptune as her favorite. She wants to take the cats on the trip with her.

In school last year they learned a little about the planets and she could name a few of them. But after looking at her book a few times she now has memorized all of them. Here is a clip of her naming all of the planets.

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday!

We were all very grateful to have such a long weekend to spend together. With the hectic pace of life, work, and school it was great to have four days with nothing much to do. We told Ava that this week was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, and Sunday. She thought that was pretty funny and repeated it several times over the weekend.

The first "Saturday" (Thursday) of course was Thanksgiving. On the second "Saturday (Friday) we decorated the whole house for Christmas. Ava helped with everything, especially the lights and the trees. She was excited to see all of the ornaments for the tree. Her favorites were a silver bell that rings and a little painted ornament that has a Siamese cats head painted on it, she calls it the "Sishi" ornament.

On the third "Saturday" (really Saturday) we went to see the Monarch butterflies at Pacific Grove. There were hardly any there so the trip started out as kind of a disappointment. So instead of spending time watching butterflies we went to a playground in Pacific Grove followed by a trip down by the water. The day was beautiful but the water was freezing as you can imagine. The waves were very rough and Dad had to watch her closely or else she could have been swept away. There were a bunch of guys in wetsuits surfing. Ava didn't have a bathing suit and she managed to get pretty wet playing in the waves. She had to ride home in her "birthday suit". That is another expression that she recently learned, we explained why being naked is called your "birthday suit" and she completely understands. But we all suspect that Mommy was actually born in sweatpants.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving day was lots of fun for all of us and the weather was beautiful too. We started early in the morning with Mom doing lots of cooking and preparing in the kitchen. Dad stuffed the turkey. We called all Ava's grandparents and wished everybody a happy Thanksgiving.

Ava and Dad played outside in the backyard and the weather was so warm and sunny that Ava wanted to eat outside. We go the table all set and brought out the food and then the yellow jackets came. So we went back inside. Everything turned out really good. Ava liked the cranberry sauce and rolls. She also like the sparkling pomegranate juice. Desert was the best with Mom's from scratch homemade apple pie. We asked Ava what her favorite foods were and she said the Redi-wip (whipped cream) and ice cream. She liked it so much that she had two servings of it.

Happy Thanksgiving message from Ava

Happy Thanksgiving from Avahontas

In school for the past month Ava has been learning about the story of Thanksgiving. She knows how the Pilgrims took a long boat ride to get to Plymouth Rock and away from the mean King George. She has proudly told the class on several occasions that Plymouth Rock is in Massachusetts where she was born.

Wednesday Ava's school put on a Thanksgiving performance. Her class dressed up in Indian costumes and sang a couple of songs.

Swimming?

Today Dad washed the cars. Ava thought that it would be fun to play in the water, so she ran upstairs and got her bathing suit and rain boots on. But she also knew that it was cold outside so she put her winter hat and scarf on. She was so cute. Mom and Dad didn't let her go out like this though. She had to put on pants and a jacket over top of her bathing suit. Ava helped Dad wash Mom's car, then she played in the car with her stuffed animals and took turns putting them in her car seat.

Talent show!

Ava put on what she called a "talent show" in the garage today. Mom and Dad were the audience. Ava sang and spun an umbrella around. Then she rode her scooter and Dora car. She also rode her bicycle and managed to crash into a box and fall on the ground. She was not hurt though, instead she though it was quite funny. Since today was the UM v. Ohio State game we got out the Michigan car and Ava rode it around the garage. Finally, notice her hair cut. It is adorable and cut perfectly... and it should be, it only cost $30!!!

Ava helps at Mass

Every Friday at Ava's school is the Preschool and Kindergarten Mass. They pick three children to present flowers at this beginning of the mass. The children also get to extinguish the candles at the end. This past Friday was Ava's turn. She carried the flowers in at the beginning and the teacher helped her put them in the vase. Afterward Father Patrick called her name and she walked slowly to the front (they emphasize "slowly", she ran a little, but for Ava it was "slow"). She snuffed out the candle on the first try. Mom and Dad were quite proud.

All of this and she actually had a sick tummy. Dad gave her some Coke on the way to school to try and settle her stomach. But she still ended up having to come home from school early. No worries though, she is not sick or anything.

Moving on!

Last weekend we moved out of our old house and into a new house. We won't miss the old place too much, but it did have one thing that Ava really liked... the swing! Papa gave Ava a few final pushes on the swing. The new house has a whole swingset in the back yard, so the swing will soon be forgotten.

Ava helped a lot with the packing. She put lots of her toys, crafts, and clothes in boxes. She even got up on the ladder and watched Dad do some packing in the garage. She liked the view from up high. She also liked the fact that Dad was a little nervous about her standing up so high on the ladder. She is a little daredevil.

Saint Helena

Last Monday was All Saints day at Ava's school and it was also grandparents day! The school put on a special mass and performance by each class. Ava dressed up as Saint Helena who "discovered the true cross." Mom picked out Ava's costume and even did a modification to it by raising the hem a couple of inches. Papa and Dad made a cross that was perhaps a little too big for Ava to carry, but she liked it and carried it in the procession.

The mass was pretty long and Ava got a little tired. But she still did a great job when they went onto the stage to sing "I just want to be a sheep."

Afterwards Ava took Papa back to her school to show him some of the things that she does in the classroom. Ava had a great time and was happy that Papa could come.

More of our little trick-or-treat'er in action. At this house they didn't answer right away so she turned around with the "what am I supposed to do now?" look on her face.

One of the "tricks" that she got was a set of plastic vampire teeth. These were in one of her books from the library so she knew just what to do with them. I would have to say that she is the cutest little vampire that I have ever seen.

Halloween!

Catching up on some past blogs... Halloween was a lot of fun this year, and not just for Ava! She was very happy with her smiley face costume and was excited for Halloween for weeks. When the big day finally came she told us that she wanted to go to 48 houses. She got this idea from one of her books from the library.

Daddy asked her what he should be for Halloween and she said a ghost. Daddy tried making a clown mask instead, but Ava didn't like it and insisted on a ghost costume. As it turned out the ghost costume was a hit and even the other parents liked it.

At every house Ava would say "Knock. Knock. Trick or treat." When they came to the door she would say "I am a smiley face and I am a girl, my daddy is a ghost, and my mom is at home in case other kids come to the house." Probably more information than most people wanted, but it was cute. We did Halloween in two shifts. First was Ava with Daddy and Papa, then the next was Ava with Daddy and Mom. She did get to all 48 houses and got two full bags of candy. She is alredy pretty sure that next year she will be a smiley face again, or a ghost. And Daddy will be a.... ghost!

Pull-UpTown

The other day we bought a new box of pull-ups at Costco. She opened the box and put all 88 of them in a circle and called it "Pull-UpTown." First she pretended to do circle time with some of her guys and then moved on to something else. She even wrote her name on a few of them! Afterwards, she helped me pick them all up like a big girl!

Last night we put her to bed with one of these new pull-ups on. At 3am we were awakened by Ava screaming and crying. Apparently, she had taken off her pull up right after we put her to bed because it was itchy. She usually gets herself dressed for bed and I think it may have been a little twisted. Anyway, everything was soaked so we had to change her and take her into our bed. Of course, I had just washed the sheets the day before. Tonight I made her promise to never do that again.