Mims and Papsi Visit CA

Mimi and Papa arrived a few days ago. Ava was delighted to to see them. She has since changed their names to Mims (pronounced Meems) and Papsi (pronounced Pupsie). She even occasionally calls them Dave and Judy, but we try to discourage that! The first few days Ava had school and swimming so there wasn't time for much else. Today was our first free day and we headed to the beach in Santa Cruz. We spent the first few hours in the water and playing in the sand and then headed to the Boardwalk where Ava went on all of her favorite rides. The highlights were the Dragon rollercoaster with Papsi and the train ride with Dad. Ava was going to ride on the train with Papsi, but some guy decided to pass out in line so they had to clear everyone out! I suppose it was the 90 plus degree heat. These people in California don't understand anything about humidity and heat though!

Alligator Rap

Here Ava and Dad are doing the "Alligator Rap." It is a song and dance from a magazine that we were reading. Mom read and Ava and Dad got up and danced. It goes something like this "Tap, tap, tap do the alligator rap. Spread those scaly claws on your alligator paws. Tap, tap, tap do the alligator clap." It's a pretty catchy tune. Hope you can get it out of your heads!

The next day, Ava decided to display some of her most recent artwork. She painted them with her new "Dot Art" paints. She did the two paintings that she is holding and Dad did the other one. If you look close enough, you will be able to see the "7" she made all by herself. She was quite proud of herself. After all, seven is her favorite number! By the way, the blanket on her head is hair. Not sure how she thought that one up!

Lincoln logs

Ava has been playing with Lincoln logs lately. Uncle Andy got her a box of them for Christmas and Grandma gave here another box that are vintage Lincoln logs from when Uncle Peter was little. She built this little "elevator" all by herself.

Sunday we went to the circus. Afterwards there was a little park nearby. It didn't have swings or slides, but it did have this really neat pyramid made of rope that kids can climb on. Ava surprised Mom and Dad by climbing right up to the top. She was literally 12 feet off the ground! She even managed to get down all by herself in one piece!

Cheese and school

Ava has a new snack-time activity. Take a slice of cheese and a cookie cutter and you can make cheese shapes. She prefers the cat and dog shapes.


Friday was Ava's first day of school. Here she is in her uniform. She was pretty happy and went right off with no problem. But the details of what goes on each day at school are pretty sketchy. We think that she is learning some new songs and doing some of the jobs.

Meet the teachers

Today was "meet the teachers" day at Ava's school. This year her teachers are Mrs. Stankovic and Miss Orta. They were not her teachers last year, but she does know both of them. We think that Mrs. Stankovic especially likes Ava. Maybe she really loves a challenge!










Ava also had 30 minutes to explore the classroom. She did two jobs. One was counting activity with wooden spindles. Both teachers were amazed that she did so well. Another was a home life activity with tongs and rubber strawberries, transferring from one bowl to another. The idea was to pick up one at a time, but Ava decided it would be quicker and more fun to pick up as many as possible as quickly as possible.





Tonight Ava gave herself her own shower! Ava asked Mom to leave. Her exact quote was "Go play with the stickers so I can shower by myself. Shut the bathroom door so I don't get cold." Hmm, wonder where she learned that one!

Bedtime fun

It is always interesting to see what kind of games Ava can come up with before bedtime. Today it was Duck-duck-goose. She learned this today at a playgroup and thought it was so much fun that she had to play it at home with Mommy and Daddy. She got out little stools for all of us to sit on and then we played for a while. Ava always picked Daddy to be the goose.








Another thing that she likes to do is tickling with the balls that she got from Costco. These are rubber balls with little spikes on them. They really do tickle, especially on the feet. Ava insists on being tickled until she can hardly stand it. This gives new meaning to the term "tickle torture"!





Finally after all of the commotion has stopped and we have all caught our breath. Ava brushes her teeth and gets on her pajamas and we read books. This is probably her absolute favorite thing to do, she can sit and read ten books in a row and pays attention to all of them.

Dora draws backpack

Tuesday Ava dressed up in her Dora costume. If you have seen the books or program then you will recognize the shorts and pink shirt. There is also a wig, but she will only leave that on her head for a few seconds.


Ava then took some paper and a marker and attempted to draw Backpack. She is pretty smart and actually put the Backpack character on the paper and traced the outline. Then drew in the eyes and mouth, and even the eyebrows. She figured out how to do this all on her own. Mom and Dad were amazed at the likeness and Ava was quite proud of herself!

Sunday Fun

It was a busy morning. First, Ava helped me make muffins and then helped Daddy wash his truck. A short while later, we were off to our friend Helen's house to play with her two girls. She had a blast playing in their pool. She even had bologna for the first time, which she liked.

This is a picture of our little boy, I mean girl, going potty before bed. Her exact words were "I go potty standing up like a boy." She really went too. I am embarrassed to say that I may have been the one who taught her about that!

Our Little Picassa

Saturday morning started off with a nude paint. Although she does love to run around the house and play naked, this is the first time she has painted naked. Looks like fun, doesn't it?
After finally getting some clothes on, we went for a bike ride with one of her little friends. Ava is fast! I usually walk behind her and can keep up by walking very quickly. Now, there are times when I find myself running to catch up. Pretty soon I will need my bike to keep up with her.

Later in the day, we went to a San Jose Giants game (farm team for the SF Giants.) There were a few highlights of the game- a homerun, a hot dog and gum (which she surprisingly ended up swallowing!)

Will it float or sink????

This morning Ava decided to go outside and "pick" things. She picked small unripe green tomatoes, flowers, sticks, leaves, rocks, and even a golf ball. She took a magnifying glass with her and used it to get a close up look at what she was picking. Then she would carefully put it into a plastic bag. Finally she came back inside and gave everything a closer look one more time before putting it in a bowl of water and guessing which ones would float and sink.

Water ball!!!

When Daddy got home from work today the first thing he heard was Ava's unique "Eeeeee" squeal. She has been doing this every day when Daddy gets home from work since we have been in California. Usually it is when Daddy gets in the door, but today it was when Daddy's truck pulled up. It was so loud and sharp that it startled him as he was backing in to the driveway.


Ava was in the front yard in her bathing suit getting ready for water ball.

Ava begged Daddy to come and run through the water with her. She didn't care that he had his clothes on, so why should Daddy care either! And she is too cute to resist sometimes!

It was getting a little cool outside in the evening and after 15 minutes of running around in the water and going down her plastic slide also in the water... she was cold and called it a night. She considered it her second bath of the day.

Paint by numbers

Ava has a new favorite craft... paint-by-numbers. A few mornings over the past two weeks this has been an after breakfast activity for Ava and Mom. Dad even tried a little on Saturday. Most of the paintings are of dogs and kitties, so she is pretty happy with the subject matter. Mommy is in charge of the water to paint mixture.


There is one brush (sometimes more) for each color. Ava is very good about matching the right color with the right number, keeping the colors and brushes separate, and staying inside the lines!

Great America with Daddy!

Usually it's just me who has the pleasure of spending the day with Ava at Great America. Well, today Todd tagged along. Ava LOVED showing him her favorite rides and taking him in the pools. We also met up with our old friends from MA and their two girls, Anya and Lindsay.
She had a caricature done today. It looks nothing like her, but it is still cute and she likes it. We also bought her a carved wooden "AvaAnne" like I had as a child.

Ava's big week part II


After her morning of camp Ava would have a short break and then she would go to swimming class. It was in the late afternoon from 4-5pm and part of the pool was in the shade. The weather was not really all that hot, so all of this made for a pool temperature that wasn't all that warm. The first day she tried her usual tricks to get out of the water, including yelling "get me out of here... get me out." When that doesn't work she resorts to the time-proven sure-fire way to get out, "I have to go pee pee."

But after she got used to the water she loved it. She did a really good job swimming this week and by the end of the week she was swimming pretty well on her own with a life jacket.

Big week at camp

This was a busy week for Ava. Camp, swimming, dance, bike riding. Will have to tackle this in multiple posts. First was camp, she went every day from 10am-1pm. The routine is to ride the bike and lock it up. Two of the days were water days so she brought a towel and bathing suit. Every day they eat lunch under a tree. You can see here how proud she is of riding her bike and carrying her lunch box.

Snacks this week: root beer floats, m&m rice krispy treats, popcorn

Activities: hand-print moose painting, music shaker filled with beans, cut-out guitar

Most unusual: came home from camp on Friday with red hair, they sprayed some sort of hair coloring in it, bathwater turned red that night!

Friday was the last day and they brought in a big bouncy house for the kids. She has played in bouncy houses before but this time she seemed to enjoy it more than usual. Thought that maybe she was getting more athletic...

Until Friday night at home when she jumped off a bench in the yard and landed on her ankle. She didn't cry much but claimed that she couldn't walk on Friday night and she had the same story on Saturday morning too. So off to the doctor to have a look. After the co-pay and who knows what special premiums apply to Saturday doctor appts. the exam was no more thorough than Mom, the R.N., had administered at home. No swelling, no redness, nothing wrong. But Ava loved going to the doctor!

Ava is back at camp this week. She goes in the morning from 10am until 1pm. She absolutely loves it! She rides her bike to camp and locks it up. Each day they have a theme and do some special activities and craft/art projects to take home. They also have a snack. Tuesday was Root Beer floats and today was M&M rice krispy treats. Maybe that is her favorite part! Then in the afternoon at 4pm she goes to swimming class. She is a really good swimmer and is doing better every day.


Tonight she wanted to do here puzzles again. She has been doing these Mickey Mouse puzzles for a while now and she knows all of the pieces and can figure out where they go. She especially loves the clock puzzle because it has moving hands and she loves to tell time.

Crabby Sunday

The morning started out pretty good. Ava slept in until 7-something, we had a good morning, breakfast, etc. Actually got around and out of the house by 10:30am. Stopped at Ava's favorite donut shop (chocolate donut with white frosting and purple sprinkles).



Then headed up to Coyote Point Museum--has some animals and also some interactive hands-on exhibits for kids. Ava had a meltdown at the fish tank outside the museum, then a throw-down tantrum inside, and finally lost it one more time, all in a matter of 20 minutes.


Enough for Mom and Dad so we packed up and went home. Fortunately the museum is free on Sundays, so we just paid $5 parking so no big loss. Plan on giving it another try when Mimi and Papa are here. Ava was an angel the rest of the day and went right to sleep.

Stanford Saturday

Today we headed to Stanford to check out the local scene. After touring the museum, Ava rode her kitty bike around the museum grounds. They had numerous fountains and even a clock tower. She keeps talking about going to see the clock tower again so that we can watch it go "dong, dong, dong."
By the way, Michigan's campus is MUCH nicer!