*Ava Rees* 12 Months

Alright. Finally- the last monthly update! Of course I'll keep posting when I can about this little bug, but I won't be doing the monthly update thing. 

My goal was to do it for the first 12 months. 

Done and done.

This last month she seems much less my little baby and more and more a sassy toddler. 

She tries to repeat a lot of words that I say, but the only three words she says unprompted are mama, no, and whoa! She says mama while running towards me with her arms out and a big grin on her face. I love it. She yells NO whenever she just doesn't like a situation. I do not love this. And she says whoa! Every time she falls on her bum. It's pretty cute.

While she is pretty independent, she's also a momma's girl. She'll play with her toys forever, but if I catch her eye she'll squeal and run towards me, giving me a giant bear hug. She also follows me from room to room- she'll be playing in the corner, but if she sees me walk into the bedroom she gets herself up and hustles after me.

I took her to her 12 month check-up last week

Weight: 22 lbs 4 oz     69%

                                                             Height: 30.5 inches     89%

                                                             Head Circ: 47 cm        93%

Now that she's running around, she's leaning out and thankfully the check-up went great.

She likes to read books, stack blocks, dance to music and run around exploring.

She does not like diaper changes, putting on clothes, sitting in her car seat or high chair.

This is what she looks like when she runs toward me :) She throws out her arms like Frankenstein and gets this big goofy grin. It's the best.

She still loves to hide random things in her clothes hamper- the tv remote, my phone, her sippy cup- if something's missing, look in her hamper.

Ava also loves to point. She'll point at something and then look at me, waiting for me to tell her what it is. Last Sunday during church she wouldn't stop pointing at the kids behind us. Add on to the pointing, she was yelling No! No! Nooooooooooo! at them lol I think she didn't like them playing with toys? We had to take her out- the whole time she's wailing Noooooooooooooooooo! And she does thins thing now when she doesn't like something she makes her whole body go limp and she'll just wilt to the floor. It's charming.

Overall though, she really is the best little girl. The changes that occur in the first year are remarkable. I'm so grateful that I get be the one to be her mama and see her make all of these changes and developments. She's such a special, fun little girl and I can't wait for the new fun stuff we get to experience together.

Love you Ava Rees!

Ava is One!!!

So if it feels like we celebrated Ava's birthday for a week and a half.....that's only because we did. 

People kept coming over and seeing all of the decorations I put up like, a week in advance-and I think it kind of weirded them out-- But I was just really excited to celebrate! And every day we did something special with Ava to celebrate her birthday. I also felt like I was celebrating me getting through a whole year with both of us alive and in good spirits :) 

I kind of let Ava open a couple of presents a day for the week leading up to her birthday- mostly because I wanted to see what was in them and she wanted to play with the wrapping paper. 

Thank you to the grandparents and great-grandparents, friends, and family for all of the packages, presents and cards! It's so fun seeing other people celebrate the little girl that you just love more than anything.

This was on the Sunday after her birthday with some of her new toys. 

She really does love that little car- always on it

I also hung streamers everywhere- and they did look cool, but I forgot to take a picture :/ 

One of her special breakfasts this week was pancakes and eggs- she was pretty happy it wasn't her usual oatmeal.

So many puzzles and books. So much more to do now- She was pretty good about knowing what to do with opening presents.

Birthday flowers

Such a happy little birthday girl

After presents on her real birthday, we took her over to the park and let her run around, go down the slide as many times as she wanted, and played with bubbles.

We love you Ava Rees!

Happy Birthday!

Birthday Party

A week before her real birthday, Ava had her party! She has so many baby friends that I thought it would be so fun to put something together. Thankfully, my friend Leandra was down for a double bday party- so we combined Ava's with Ellie's- they're a week apart- and we all had a fun, hot, and exhausting time at the park.

The food. yum. 

Doing a combined party was awesome - we divided up all the work and did setup/take down together- which was a big help for me! Jeff would've loved to be there, but unfortunately he's been having to coach volleyball tournaments every weekend- so it was great to have Leandra and Jesse to do this with.

First cupcake......

......and I think she liked it! haha.

Ava, me, Leandra and Ellie

She was/still is obsessed with this present. 

I could not get both of the birthday girls to look at me at the same time sooo.... just merge these two images in your head ok?

The party mainly consisted of food, cupcakes, park play date, and bubbles. 

Here are just all of the one year olds- all of these babies were born with a couple months of each other-

the older kids (the two and three year olds ) were harder to pin down for a picture :) 

After the party we were all hot, sweaty and ready for naps :)

And we'll close with a cheesy picture of us. 

Happy Birthday Ava! 

Easter

I am so behind in blogging. blah. oh well. Time to play catch up- starting with Easter!

Easter was a lot of fun this year. I didn't get great pictures, but that's ok. We have 11:00 church- which is great but..... it's also right during her nap time so it's a miracle we got any pictures of her in her dress at all. 

These ears are the best $1 purchase from Target ever. Ava loved them, would keep them on- and it was just so dang cute. I let her wear them for the two weeks leading up to Easter.

Another thing that makes this girl go wild with joy- going without clothes! 

taking a break

back at it-  she's the best. I have like twenty pictures of her running around our apartment like this.

Late Friday night I realized we had zero Easter decor. Fail. So I decided to make a quick little sign- that then took me forever- I think I'll stick with mooching off of my talented creative friends for decorations from now on though! woof. It took forever and only half of them are the same size because I became very impatient toward the end and just wanted to go to sleep. 

Unfortunately Jeff had to work all weekend, so we crammed in a whole bunch of Easter in one hour before he had to leave.

Ava's Easter basket: church books, a swim suit, bubbles, plastic eggs, and a stuffed animal- however- the fake grass was the biggest hit.

Because Jeff couldn't come to the other hunt I was taking her too- we just ran over to the park next door and spread some of our own eggs around the grass and let Jeff chase her around. I didn't bother putting anything in the eggs- she liked them enough empty :)

Here she is at the Coppell Easter hunt. It was really a really cool event that our little city puts on every year. They even have a specific egg hunt for the little ones aged 3 and down. Ava actually came away with about ten eggs- but because I'm a mean mom, I made her give all her candy away to the other kids :)

They also had this scary bunny to take pictures with

Some of her finds

and a close-up in case you wanted to see how terrifying giant Easter bunnies really are

and that's it! It was a bummer that Jeff was gone for everything, so I didn't bother making anything special to eat- I think I had cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner and just got really jealous of all the orange rolls I saw on instagram- but not jealous enough to make them :) 

We'll make up for it next year though :)