Video Cilps

Here are a couple of video's. One is of Ava stomping about in her new shoes. She lost one of her old shoes at the airport. The other video is Ava licking up the frosting on her Valentines Day Cookie. I have no idea how to make these into normal posts with comments. I'll have to figure that out someday.

Making V-day Cookies

Ava and I made cookies for the first time. Well I should give Pillsbury some credit because they made the dough. We cut out hearts, cooked them, and then frosted them. As you can see in the pictures Ava was all about eating the frosting and cookies. I told her to make one for daddy and she did, and then she ate it. We had flour and frosting everywhere. Maybe next year we'll attempt sprinkles.

Giant HUGS from Ava Paske!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY! We hope everyone has a great Valentines Day, even those enjoying nice sunny weather. (:

What a cute Mom!

Ava wants to be just like her mommy. She has my hat, shoes, and one of my gloves on and of course any of you who know me would also say I have owned several sweaters in that style too. Anyway she shuffled around for a bit and then took it all off. Only mommy for a minute!

Flight home

I haven't snapped many photo's on flight and decided that I wish I would have done that on every trip. We had a 4 hour flight from San Fran to Chicago and Ava was pretty good. She got lots of compliments as people were exiting the plane. A new distraction this flight was a deck of playing cards. She would pour them out and then place them back in the box. I was glad that Ava didn't have any ear issues like she did on our way back from Mexico last month. Oh and one more note. Ava likes to eat banana's while they are still in the peel. That sticky peel drives me crazy, touching and draping itself on everything, but she insists on eating it that way.

Finishing up San Fran

After Lunch with Summer. Look at the girl's stare each other down.
Maya put a Kleenex on her head and Ava followed suit with a matching hat. Okay these girls are way too big for this doll stroller, but they had fun anyway. Look at how giant Ava looks while Maya pushes her.

Who knew I could take a week to Blog a 6 day trip (: Tuesday was a much better day. Our cousin Summer came over for awhile. We just sat and chatted and then went to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. It was so nice to catch up with her. Summer is one of my cousins who blogs, so it was nice that there is so much about her everyday life that I wouldn’t have known with out this great resource. Ava was a bit of a pill (Maya stayed back and took a good nap), she even through herself on the ground when we were leaving. Over what I cannot remember. She is constantly testing me with this irrational attitude. Anyway after we put the girls to bed on Tuesday night, Lori and I decided to treat ourselves to a pedicure. Matt was nice enough to watch the girls while we got pretty toes. He even bounced Ava to sleep after I left because she didn't goto sleep right away.

I left my heart in San Francisco........

Maya and Ava ride in Maya's little truck. They were sharing the cab at one point until Ava simply shoved Maya to the ground. My little Bully doesn't realize her own strength.

So I really like California and I am lucky that I have lot family that lives there. We had a really good time on our trip. We played games every night after the girls went to bed. Boggle, Monopoly(3 long games), and Yahtzee. I hate to report, but I never won. My Matt won everything except 1 game of Yahtzee and 1 game of Monopoly. We all ganged up on him because we were tired of him winning. Ha ha. On Saturday we had a wonderful BBQ at my aunt Julie's and uncle Dougs house. Doug made the best Filet tenderloin, Mike made the super delicious potato wedges, Marvin brought a scrumptious salad, and Lori had the best selection of deserts. We all (all 20 of us) enjoyed amazing appetizers prepared by Julie too. Ava loved Julie's fancy crackers and cheese. We had a great time catching up with family and can't thank Julie and Doug enough for hosting the big family event. Of course I didn't get any pictures of all the fun, but did happen to leave my camera there. So we picked it up from Julie on Monday and got to hang out with her for a little more. On Sunday we went to church with Lori and Matt. It was their ward conference. There were some good talks. One talk was about holding grudges and how holding them is like drinking poison and hoping your opponent drops dead. That line cracked me up. Monday Matt flew out to get back to work. Lori and I planned on shopping at Valley Fair after we picked up my camera, but we got a call that Matt's flight was cancelled. He got re-booked on a red eye that night. We decided to spare him the seven hour wait and went to go pick him up. We went to a mall close to the airport that was terrible and it put me in a cranky, I don't want to buy anything, kind of a mood. I could write a very long post about our drive home with the girls but I actually don't want to remember it. Yah that about sums it up. The picture of Ava climbing on the slide was taken at Julie and Doug’s when we were leaving from picking up my camera. She saw the playland as we were walking to the car and refused to get in her seat until I let her go down the slide. As soon as she went down she was fine to get into her seat. She can be so determined sometimes.

Blizzard.....and I'm not talking Dairy Queen!

I wish this blizzard was as exciting as getting Dairy Queen. It snowed all day and it was snowing sideways. And with all the wind we got today, we had huge snow drifts. They were over 3 ft tall. I think we got a total of 10-12 inches, even though it seemed like more. And Ava and I stayed in all day. I couldn't even check the mail because my front door was snowed in, which turns out they didn't deliver because of the storm. I'm not sure how much snow I can take. I have been fortunate that the last eight years have been way more mild compared to this year. Oh and to add to my rant, it is supposed to be -30F this weekend. Wah!

Feed them to the Fish

So I'm not sure I mentioned it in one of my earlier posts, but we had a lot of rain while we were in the bay area. After Go Cart racing we drove downtown to the Aquarium of the Bay. We parked as close as we could but still got soaked. The great thing about going to the Aquarium of the Bay when its pouring rain you ask????? It was totally empty. We had the place to ourselves. The girls loved looking at all the sea life and also running around. After the aquarium we were all starving. Where would you go if you are starving and in the city............. IHOP! Yes, Lori was so excited that my Matt mentioned he had seen an IHOP when he was getting the car. (We were not going back out in that rain). It was fantastic. Kid's ate free that night. Lori and I got Chocolate Pancakes with chocolate chips (sooo yummy) and we watched Matt C put away 6 pancakes. All in a days work. The girls slept on the way home and Lori and I chilled in the back of the mini van. Having a vehicle for all 6 of us was great.

Kid's in Traning

We had a little time to kill and luckily there was a few games to play on. Ava and Maya had fun pretending to race each other. I wish I could have video taped Ava as she would climb up all by herself onto all the fun machines and shimmy herself down. I was sure we were going to go home with bruises and a fat lip, but she managed to stay on her feet. The last picture is of the Go Cart winner and his family.

Go Go Speedracer

Boy's will be boys. After a very eventful flight the night, we finally landed in San Francisco. We excited to get going on Friday. We started out with lunch. Matt Colledge took us to this bar/deli for the best hot crab sandwiches. Lori of course had a veggie hoagie that came with a surprise jalapeno sauce and the girls shared a giant hot dog. We then headed over to the Go Cart racing place. The Matt's got their annual license and then we waited for them to race. Matt Colledge totally schooled Matt Paske and they had a lot of fun. They kept talking about the major adrenaline rush and how much muscle they had to use to go around the corners. The pictures are a little blurry because they were going soooooo fast.

Ava's New Hair Gel

Ava has a new hair product by the name of syrup and chocolate. I made pumpkin pancakes with chocolate chips (my sister Lori turned me on to this new addiction of mine). Ava just kept running her super sticky fingers through her hair. She must have liked the way it felt when her fingers were sticking to her hair. Luckily I had her in just her diaper for this feast. Clothes safe, hair not so much.

PS Jess this picture is from my new camera.

TP Anyone?

So I know all kids do it but I thought Ava had passed up this milestone. She has had access to the bathroom and has never shown any real interest in the toilet paper. She will tear off a couple sheets and pretend to wash the floor and that is about it. Well we were in her room and I said "Come here, I think I spot a little boogie in your nose". She ran out and a few minutes later she appeared with a little strand of toilet paper pretending to blow her nose. When I passed the bathroom I noticed a big pile of TP on the floor. She was excited about her creation and even decided to play with it a little more. She was sad when I rolled it back up. She kept saying "noooo, noooo". I suppose it isn't as bad as the time she used my toothbrush to stir the toilet water. True story. I was about to brush my teeth and Ava wanted to brush her teeth too. So I gave her my tooth brush and used Matt's instead. Next thing I know I hear her playing in the toilet behind me. I was mortified. My scream scared Ava so much that she dropped my toothbrush into the toilet and cried hard. Hey who doesn't like a new tooth brush? (:

Pointy Hair Princess

We love to put Ava's hair into a pointy do when she's in the bath. She dances around and splashes like crazy when she has this hair do. Can you believe how long her hair is?

New Years Day

We started a tradition for New Years last year. We have cheese and chocolate fondue. Last year we were all sick with a cold, so we stayed in for sure. This year we were traveling until New Years Eve, so we did our fondue dinner on New Years Day. As you can see Ava is just a wee bit rounder this year. Last year she was 10% on the growth chart and this year she is above 97%........the introduction to solids did wonders in the growth chart area for us. This year we kept the cheese warm in a crock pot knowing our daughter would find open flame a little curious. We had apples, bread, mushrooms, and cauliflower and yes Ava is eating the cauliflower, but not with cheese. She didn't really dig this kind of cheese. For the chocolate, which Matt and I devoured, we had strawberries, bananas, angel food cake, and cherries. We got Ava down and let her have a couple of bites, otherwise she/we would have been dealing with a major sugar high. It is no surprise that she loves chocolate, as it is in her genes on both sides of the family. The word chocolate is part of her small vocabulary too!

Walk a Mile in My Shoes

These are my old (14 yrs old!) Ugg boots. Anyone who knew me in college will remember these trusty ol' boots. So I still have them and love them! They truly are the best snow boots, and where I live we happen to get a lot of snow. Ava really likes shoes , especially mine. She tromped around in these for a while and managed to not even fall down.

Packing up and no more Nukie

As we tried to pack to go home, Ava thought she would climb in and play, and unpack what I have already packed. This is also one of the last times she used a Nuk/Binkie. Ava still sucks on her pointer finger and has asked for her nukie one night so far. My pile of nuks started at about 5 and is up to 10. Ava had hidden nuks all over. She would run up and show me a nuk she had found with a big smile, and then run away. Such a funny girl!

Beach Bums

Tasting a little sand........yeah nasty.

We spent a couple of hours on the East side one day. It was windy but warm. Ava enjoyed putting her feet in the water and the feeling of the wet sand. Later in the week we went back, just the girls, while the boys tried out deep sea fishing. That time Ava and I sat in sand and waited for the waves to get us. I thought this would scare Ava, but she loved it. The water would come up all the way to her chest and she would say and sign more, more, more. Silly little fish. Of course I forgot my camera, so you'll just have to try and picture it. We left in a hurry and when we got back I realized my swim suit bottoms had a ton of sand in them, like enough to pot a plant.

Beach Hut-This Year vs Last Year

As I was going though pictures I thought this picture looked similar to one I took in March. Ava was 8 months old vs now 18 months old. When she was 8 mo, Ava just sat inside her hut and played with toys. This time she only stayed in there while I put on the rest of her sunscreen. She wanted to hit the waves and check out the sand right away.

The Life Saver Floatie

So this floatie didn't necessarily save any lives, but Ava loved it. Santa filled our stockings in Mexico and this was one of the things he brought for Ava. She even liked playing with it in the condo.

Fearless

Can you believe the smile on that little girls face. She loves it when her Dad balances her whole body in the palms of his hands. Those two could have their own little stunt show! I love that Ava enjoys the pool. Her hands and feet looked like raisins, because she never wants to get out of the pool.