Abracadabra

Here is a message from the little princess. The video is a little squashed because I filmed it with the camera rotated and then realized that there isn't an easy way to rotate the video. Oops.

Playdate

Ava had a playdate at the house on Monday. There are a few mom's in a group that Arita belongs to (called "Las Madres") and they have a playdate every week at somebody's house. Once a month it is at our house. In the picture are Ava's friends Alex and Zoe. See that Ava and Zoe put on some of Ava's princess outfits and played for a while. When Dad gets home from work the playdate has usually just ended and the house is a disaster. But the children love it! Just look at Ava's smile. She loves her friends and does a good job sharing with them and they play pretty nice together.

Ava-rella

Here is Cinderella, er I mean Ava-rella. This is the fantastic princess costume that Mimi gave Ava for her birthday. It has the biggest crown and the wand lights up. She was good enough to actually sit and pose for this picture, how cute. Thank you Mimi!

The world's biggest raspberry show ever

We probably wrote about this a long time ago, but it is such a popular activity that it deserves another mention. Ava loves to take her raspberries and put them on her fingers. She then sings "5 little raspberries in the raspberry show, one little raspberry ate up a ..." and then she makes something up like "toe" or "Mommy" or "Daddy". Usually it is only 5 raspberries, but tonight at dinner she asked for 10 raspberries and did the world's biggest raspberry show ever. It took about 3 minutes but it kept us all laughing!

Scooter and bike in the driveway

The rain finally stopped and Ava had a chance to get out in the driveway and ride her bike and her scooter. It wasn't all that sunny or warm, but the she had cabin fever and was just happy to be outside playing. The only problem is that she likes to go around and around in a circle... faster and faster... We have tried to tell her that if she turns to sharp while going to fast then she will probably... fall! And sometimes she does, but we think that she really just likes to push the limits and see how far she can go.

Bath time

Ava still loves bath time. She would take a bath twice a day every day if we let her. Usually we have to negotiate in advance which day and what time her bath will be... and she will not forget. She loves it and wants bubbles and lots and lots of water. The tub is actually bigger and deeper than most tubs and she likes it filled about 15 inches deep with water. Then she plays in it with her "guys" and will usually play alone like this for 30 minutes or more. Sometimes she wants to be left alone while she plays and other times she wants Mom or Dad to sit in there and talk to her. Occasionally the bath is interrupted midway through to go to the potty and when that happens there is usually water all over the place. The grand finale requires that Mom or Dad close the shower curtain and then Ava kicks and splashes as high as she can. Then she picks up her toys and pulls the plug.

100 days of school

Monday was the 100th day of school for Ava. Every day as part of the calendar the class counts how many days that they have been in school. Each day is a marble and they group the marbles into "ten batches" then count by tens. The helper for the day does the counting. Ava was helper on her birthday a couple of weeks ago and they were at the 92nd day of school. Today was the 100th day and to celebrate they told each child to bring in 100 of something. Ava brought in Valentine candy hearts. Here she is on Sunday afternoon counting out 100 of them. What a coincidence one of Ava's favorite books is "Emily's first 100 days of school" which is about a mouse and her first 100 days of school.

Rain rain go away

It rained all week in California. We had lots and lots of rain so Ava couldn't play outside at all. But luckily we have a big garage. Mom left her car out and Ava could ride her scooter and Dora car all over the garage! She put on a pretty colorful little outfit and was safe because she wore her helmet and elbow and knee pads. Ava like to ride around in a circle and crash in to things she thinks this is quite funny and laughs hysterically.

Angel of God

Every night before she goes to bed Ava says her prayers. Mostly it is one of the two "guardian angel" prayers that she knows. One she learned at school and the other is one that Ava's great grandmother Che-che taught to Mom when she was a little girl. Then Ava says her "God Bless" for whomever she wants on that particular night. Most nights it is for Aunt Kris. Tonight she said "God Bless" for two of her friends at school that are sick. She is a sweet little girl with a heart of gold!

Ava's bedroom

This is Ava's bedroom. Dad strung Christmas lights from one corner to the other. She also has several nightlights including a butterfly, cat lamp, moon, and a Sleeping Beauty night light from Aunt Tara. There is so much light in there it is a wonder that she can actually fall asleep at all!

Ava's house

Aunt Tara wanted to see pictures of the house so we thought we would devote a blog or two and show you Ava's house. Here is a picture of the front that shows just how big the driveway and garage are! Almost as big as the rest of the house!

The backyard has a cement basketball court and a playset. Attached to the back of the house is a pretty large deck that we grill on and when the weather gets better we can probably have some cookouts and invite Ava's friends and parents.

Got my toys back!

The big Birthday party required that Mom clean out the entire house. Which really meant that everything went into the garage, including Ava's toys. Last week Mom finally finished moving things back in. Ava was very happy to have her toys back. It didn't take long for Ava to get out all of her "guys" (little plastic figurines of the Disney characters) and "animals" (stuffed animals) and Barbies. And the play kitchen and playdoh, etc. After about 10 minutes the room was a disaster. But she was happy and playing all sorts of imagined games and adventures. We walked in to the room and said what we usually say "Ava did a tornado go through here?" She laughs hysterically and says "No, it was just Ava."

Princess Ava

Ava the Princess with her tiara and wand she also has on a matching necklace, bracelet and earrings.

Makeup

One of Ava's birthday presents was a vanity table and some play makeup. She likes to brush and put little clips in her hair. She even lets Mom put pigtails in some days for school, though they do not last until the end of the day. Ava puts on her lip gloss and eye shadow. Though she puts the eye shadow above her eyes. She thinks that she is sometimes drawing pictures on her forehead!

Birthday at School (part 2)!!!

Just a couple more pictures of Ava the Birthday Princess at school. At the beginning of the morning she rang the bell and said "Boys and girls clean up your jobs and come to the circle". You could tell by watching her that she was so proud and it is a big deal for all of the kids when they get to be the special Birthday kid! Circle time ended with Ava passing out the treats that Mom made. The treats were dog and cat cookies that Ava and Mom made. Each cookies had tiny M&M's for eyes and the cats had frosting whiskers and the dogs had frosting collars. Ava asked each child "Would you like a dog or a cat?" and then handed placed the cookie on their napkin. All the children were supposed to wait patiently until they all had their cookies before they started eating. If Ava saw anybody even try to touch their cookie she would say in an authoritative voice "no you can't eat it yet, you have to wait". She was very cute.

Birthday at School!

On Wednesday January 13th Ava celebrated her 4th Birthday at school. She was the Birthday Princess for the entire day and got to wear a special crown. During circle time she was the helper and led all of the activities. Mom and Dad were guests at school for circle time and watched Ava and were so proud!

4th Birthday!!!

The anticipation of Ava's Birthday lasted for a long time and the big day finally came. She woke up on her birthday morning and was finally 4 years old. She came downstairs and seemed shocked to find presents. Maybe she thought that her birthday party on Saturday was all of the presents. But finally she settled in and opened a few before school. She got an outfit, makeup and a vanity table from Grandma and Grandpa. Aunt Tara gave her a cute outfit and a very fun globe that talks and has games that you can play. Mom and Dad got her some other little things. Mimi and Papa got her a princess outfit and a party at the Disney Store. Everybody called Ava on her Birthday and she talked on the phone. It was a long day with lots of excitement but she was very sweet all day long. She had chicken for dinner (Ava's choice) and then an ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery. Happy Birthday Ava!!!

Sing along

The main attraction at Ava's Birthday party was Mrs. Sgro. She is the music teacher at Ava's school and also does all of the music for the kids plays. Ava comes home from school very excited any time that Mrs. Sgro comes to class and has a sing-a-long. We asked what Ava wanted to do for her birthday party and half expected her to say the bouncy gym, climbing gym, or princess party or something like that. But all that Ava wanted was to have Mrs. Sgro come over and have a sing-a-long. Many of the parents thought that it was a pretty original idea and the kids loved it. Ava got to be the leader for all of the songs while everybody did the hand motions and sang. Her face was full of smiles and pure joy the whole time!

Two Cakes!

There were so many kids coming to the party that Mom thought we needed two cakes. In fact at school Ava told the entire class during circle time that her birthday party is on Saturday and she will has two cakes. Ava decided that she wanted a Tigger cake. Mom also made a Mickey cake because she said it would be "easy". Well maybe easy for Arita, but after four hours of cake making and painstaking decorating I think that even supermom was worn out. But the cakes turned out perfectly and there was just enough for everybody.

Party on the swing set!

Lucky for all of us that the weather cooperated on Saturday. It wasn't too sunny or warm, but at least it wasn't cold or rainy. We opened the patio door and let the kids run in and out of the house. But the swing set in the backyard was quite a hit! Ava stood in the middle of the merry-go-round and the children spun here around and around. There was lots of joyful screaming, yelling, and laughing. It was wonderful to hear all of the kids play together.

Getting ready for the party!

Saturday was Ava's Birthday party! Mom had been planning for it for about 1 month. We were expecting 53 guests and Mom worked very hard on all of the food and decorations. Dad helped a little when he could, especially on Saturday morning. Lucky to have a good friend like Bridgette Kelly! She came over early and played with Ava while her Mom and Dad (Lisa and David) helped with the final preparations. Ava and Bridgette enjoyed riding in the wagon and tracing each other with chalk. Once all of the children arrived there was much fun on the play set but that is tomorrow's story...

Duck, duck, goose!

Ava loves to play games. One of the games that she talks about all of the time is "duck, duck, goose". We aren't really sure where she learned it, maybe they played it at school once? Sometimes they play it at birthday parties. Every once in a while she tries to make Mom and Dad play it with her. On Saturday she wanted to play it with Daddy. It is kind of hard to play with only two people, but it didn't matter one bit to Ava. We pretended that there were other children there being the "ducks" and then Dad or Ava always got to be the "goose". Ava loves getting chosen to be the "goose".

Christmas presents (part 2)

Ava and Mom returned from Connecticut on New Year's Day. Dad picked them up from the San Francisco airport late at night. The next day Ava had a few more presents to open. Seems that the mailman had a hard time delivering the presents from Aunt Tara and Sydney and they didn't make it in time for Christmas. Ava was still excited to have even more presents so perhaps it was better that she got to open these later. She got a nice outfit from Sydney. Aunt Tara gave Ava a Princess Barbie, Sleeping Beauty night light, and some princess tattoos. Ava wasted no time in covering her ams and legs with tattoos!

Grandma and Grandpa

Ava had on one of her nice outfits and was pretty cooperative in taking some pictures. We got this nice picture of her with Grandma and Grandpa. Ava really liked Grandma and Grandpa's wreath so we took a picture of her with it.

Digging out!

Who needs a snowblower when you have Ava shoveling! A little storm in Connecticut left a few inches of snow and Ava got out the shovel and started digging out. Sophia came by to say hello too. Ava does love the snow!

Don't eat the yellow snow!!!

Ava loves to eat snow! She calls it "ice ice" and she eats it by the handful. On the way back home from our trip to Tahoe she kept having Mom get "ice ice" from outside her window and pass it back to Ava in the backseat. She ate a bunch. While in Connecticut is snowed a couple of times and whenever Ava went out in the snow she ate a bunch of it. Seems like it would make you cold from the inside out! We try to make sure that she stays away from the yellow snow!

My first sleepover

Ava had talked a good deal about having a sleepover. She is a little too young to have a sleepover with her friends from school. While in Connecticut Mom had the idea for Ava to have a sleepover with her cousins Abby and Sophia at their house. The girls had a lot of fun putting on makeup, running around, and watching a movie. The girls stayed up really late... until after midnight! Yet they still managed to get up at 8am the next morning. Mom and Dad are scared of what it is going to be like when Ava starts having sleepovers with her school friends at her own house!

My first snowman

A couple weeks ago when we were in Tahoe the snow was dry powder that wouldn't pack. Ava was a little disappointed that she couldn't make a snowman. This was all that Ava wanted to do on the trip to Connecticut, she kept talking and talking about it. When we got to Connecticut there was still some snow left on the ground. It was icy wet snow that was ideal for packing. Grandma and Ava made a little snow man. Ava was delighted that she could finally make a snowman. The eyes and buttons were dried flower heads from the yard, the nose was a carrot and the arms were evergreen branches.

My Cousins

We took a "Red-Eye" on Christmas night from San Francisco to Boston. Ava did really well and slept most of the flight. Mom, on the other hand, didn't sleep a wink. Grandma and Grandpa picked us up nice and early Saturday morning. Ava was happy to see them and also happy to see snow on the ground.


The next day, we drove to New Jersey to visit Ava's cousins, Julia and Henry. Ava knows they are Yankee fans, but likes them anyway. Abby and Sophia also drove down from CT. It was a wonderful family reunion.

Look mom... chopsticks! and waffles?!?!??

More of Ava's mealtime antics. She occasionally likes to eat with chop sticks. Ava has a special kind of chop sticks that are plastic and are fastened together at one end, kind of like a long clothespin. She is fairly proficient with the them, and when the novelty wears off she resorts back to a fork and spoon, or (gasp) her hands!

Ava's favorite breakfast food is waffles. She dips them in syrup. Inevitably the syrup "runs out" two or three times during breakfast and has to be replenished (this is Mom's efforts to curtail the sugar intake). On some rare occasions there is whipped cream in the house and Ava knows that this is the perfect topping for waffles. It also goes well all by itself and sometimes when Mom isn't watching Dad will give Ava a little squirt right in her mouth. Ava finds this hilarious.