Tuesday, September 8, 2015

*Ava Rees* 2 Years


May 2nd
My baby is TWO
She is hands down the best, funniest, silliest, smartest kiddo I know. I promise. 
She loves cracking jokes. Makes up her own jokes and laughs at them. She tells me she is funny about five times a day. I agree with her whole heartedly.
Her favorite joke when she turned two was to put her shoes on her hands and make them do a dance. 


Favorite foods: CHEESE. Cheese. and more cheese.
Ave also loves strawberries, grapes, carrots, apples, waffles and bread.
Her favorite meal is pot pies. Seriously. She asks every night to have a pot pie. We don't have them THAT often, but when we do she does a dance and shouts, "pot pies! pot pies! hooray!"
She also loves cheeseburgers. She's not a fan of chicken nuggets but will down a plain cheeseburger in a hot minute. 
She's a big water drinker. It's the best. Makes my life easier- I appreciate this about her :)


Favorite things to do: swimming! Ava loves to swim and loves to be thrown up really high. We'll throw her up and she can crash down, swim up to the surface and swim back over to us. Ava also loves, legos, trucks, dinosaurs, play necklaces, and blocks. She loves to color. Ava is obsessed with toy eggs. She LOVES plastic easter eggs and is constantly carrying one with her.


Favorites ::
Color- PINK
Toy- Plastic eggs "eggies"
Food: Cheese
Show: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse//Chuggington
Book: I Love You Stinky Face//Goodnight Moon
Outfit: Anything as long as it's pink
 Person: ME :) She's a total mama's girl and I love it.


Every morning she wakes up at 5:30am and she'll come in and lay next to me in bed and just cuddle. Sometimes she'll sing me songs or talk about her night. 
Other times I give her my phone and turn on youtube videos of toy eggs. 
Mom can't get out of bed before 6:00. She just can't.


An Ava funny fact? She asks for her naps. She doesn't take one every day - she's never been big on naps or sleeps- but when she wants one now she'll ask for it. However- a nap with Ava is not as simple as laying her down- she expects back tickles and singing lullabies the entire time. I sort of created a monster and now don't have the heart to change things up. 
Ava does go to sleep at night like a champ. We brush teeth, read two books, sing Twinkle Twinkle and then she climbs right in to her bed and says goodnight. This is such a big change from how she went to bed (or just didn't) a year ago!


Ava is constantly singing. She sings songs she knows- Bumblebee and Twinkle Twinkle are her favorites- but she makes up a lot of songs too. 
Ava has started praying a lot now too. At dinner she'll jump right in and pray over anyone who starts praying without her. Sometimes when someone else is praying and she's "done" and wants to eat, Ava will just say amen really loud and start chowing down. 


Ava has a love//hate relationship with nursery. Ava talks about church and nursery all week and seems excited about it, and then when I drop her off she throws a giant fit- every.single.week.
Whenever we pass a church or temple Ava is insistent that it's a castle. She won't be convinced it's anything else.


The only way I can get Ava to hold still so I can do her hair is to tell her I'm giving her princess hair. When I'm done, Ava looks at herself in the mirror and says, "oh! so pretty, I so pretty. Thanks mama!" 
It's so cute it kind of kills me.


Ava Rees we LOVE you so much! You are by far the best thing that has ever happened to me. I still watch you sleep at night and you still dominate my phone, laptop, instagram- and I wouldn't have it any other way. I love you my two-year-old!

Chris and Merry got MARRIED!!!

The end of April had us flying to D.C. to see my brother, Chris get married! We are so excited for him. Ava was a gem the whole weekend. 



Keeping busy on the airplane...


^^^Included this as a sneak peak of our family picture for our Christmas card this year...


This is Chris's friend, Dillan. He was so kind to basically hold her the entire time we were in the temple.


Jordan and Julie came down from New Jersey- it was so good to see them!


Family selfie 



My grandparents











Little brother Matty


We are so happy for Chris and Merry! This was such a good, fun, busy weekend!


The groom













The Cheese Life

Ava loves herself some cheese. She prefers it off the block, no hands. 
Don't ask me how this she got to think this was ok. I'm a string cheese type of person- I offer her the string cheese and I'm met with a, "NO! ORANGE cheese. NO, NO TOUCH. I DO IT." Sometimes she bullies me. 
Thankfully people around here aren't too uptight with their cheese and don't mind the occasional teeth marks. 




Above: Before I told her I was cutting her off
Below: Notice her possessive cheese grab, how she doesn't take her eyes off me? You don't want to get between this baby and her cheese. 




Ava and cheese. It's a love story. 

Also- this happened the same day. She climbed, emptied a shelf, and climbed some more. All in about 22 seconds. Ok.


My Life


My life with a toddler- exhausting and happy.
<3 p="">

Easter...Kind of.

Easter really was good this year...but for some reason these are the only pictures I have from it??
But I guess Ava was not the happiest little bunny.




I do remember she got into the easter egg action and her and Will did a good job of cleaning up in the candy department. 
Bunny ears for the win.