R is for Reading; R is for Reliving My Youth

R is for Reading:

Ava loves books, she always has and I hope always will. We go to the library every few weeks and usually take out about 7 or 8 books, which we then read at least 3 of those until Mommy and Daddy are tired of them, but Ava can't get enough. The ones we'll be taking back that have been read over and over this time are "How to Catch a Giraffe" "Bear in Underwear" and "Hippo Has a Hat". During our trips to the library Ava will usually sit at the kids computer and watch the Cat in the Hat or the Sesame Street games while I pick out some bright and colourful books for us to read. Ava will occasionally pick out a book or two but usually that task is left up to Mommy, it's also quicker ;)

Ava is also becoming really good at reading numbers out loud, if she knows the number she can say it out loud, we've even heard her count past 10! The other day she said "11, 12, 13" and I'm not sure if 2.5 year olds can usually count that high, but we are pretty pleased :)


R is for Reliving My Youth:

One of the best things about being a parent is getting to relive some of the best parts of your childhood, even watching Disney movies! This evening we sat down with a bowl of popcorn and my favourite Disney movie, "Beauty and the Beast." Ava really liked it and thought the Beast was funny more than scary, at the end when Belle and the Prince are dancing, Ava was saying "Not Beast" so cute and so perceptive :)

It really is so fun to get to see things through fresh new eyes, and to get to do some of the things that I used to enjoy all over again.

Another thing I'm getting to relive again is my love of writing, I have something coming up next month that I'm pretty excited about that I will share with you later, but it has something to do with with the word Mom and the word Posse!

Q is for Quickly Growing Up; Q is for Quick trip to the mainland

Q is for Quickly Growing:

Ava will be 2.5 this month. Hard to believe how fast the time has gone since she was born. In the just the past 2 months alone, she has quickly gone from barely saying a word, to pretty much saying everything she can. I'll say something to her and she'll repeat it or point things out to me. We figure she was biding her time and just absorbing all the information she could take until one day she was ready to speak on her own. She is great in places full of people, but when there are only a few people in the room, especially ones she doesn't know very well she gets very shy. When we are out in public and she can people watch without worrying about people watching her she really comes out of her shell.

I am really looking forward to the next couple of months with her. Thanksgiving this weekend, trips to the Pumpkin Patch and Halloween this month, then a trip to Victoria and Seattle next month and of course Christmas in December we will get to see a whole new world through her eyes and her voice. It's really very exciting.

Q is for Quick Trip to the Mainland:

This past weekend we took a quick trip to Horseshoe Bay to finally celebrate my parent's 40th Anniversary all together. The whole family was there, and it was a wonderful day. Ava was a bit surprised to see Grandma when they arrived, but then was super happy to finally have her "Gamma and Ganddad" back :)

It was nice to get off the Island and the weather was a beautiful day for a ferry ride. We had a nice short visit with my brother and his little family. I brought my camera along and was sad that we suddenly ran out of time and I didn't even get any photos at lunch. Ava had a great time on the ferry on the way over and especially on the way back dragging us all over the ship.

P is for Please and Pictures; P is for Peaceful Mornings

P is for Please and Pictures:

Ava is getting very good about saying please when she wants things :) "Two more chocolates, pleeese"; "Up, Pleeese"; "Hep Me, Pleeese" Its really adorable, especially when its things she really doesn't need, but she just sounds so sweet and polite that it's sometimes hard to turn down her requests.

Yesterday we were finally able to get the outdoor family photos done that I've been wanting to do for the past year! After many failed attempts the stars aligned and we went out to the Filberg with Shawna from A Thousand Words Photography and spent a wonderful hour climbing statues, jumping near the shore and throwing leaves about. It was a wonderful hour for our little family in a weekend filled with working. We've had photos taken of Ava before by Shawna for the Cutest Kids of the Comox Valley photo contest, and they were great, even though our little bug was rather shy, so I'm really excited to see what these ones will look like!

P is for Peaceful Mornings:

I have a feeling I will have a few of those this week. With Derek working mornings again, he is up and off to work around 4, which makes for a broken sleep for me. If I was smart I would just roll over and go back to sleep, but since I'm not the world's best sleeper, I find it easier to just get up if I can't go back to sleep after an hour and a half of trying. So this morning I experienced something I haven't in quite some time....peace :)

I got up around 5:45 and got to watch the Desperate Housewives that Derek PVR'd for me last night, and I got to watch the whole show, uninterrupted! It was amazing ;) Then when I noticed Ava starting to stir in her crib, I experienced a whole other level of peace, the peace you feel when you hold your little one in your arms while they fall back to sleep on you and the world feels like all is well.

Even though I wouldn't mind going back to bed now, I have got to admit I started my Monday off on a great note!

O is for Olympian; O is for Over emotional

O is for Olympian:

Our little Olympian has started Teeter Tots, and has a great time playing with all the fun equipment at the gym. She goes through tunnels, swings on ropes, jumps in foam pits and climbs across metal bars. At times she gets a little over whelmed by all the other kids there (its a program for kids aged 2-4) and being on the younger end of the spectrum its not a surprise, but she happily plays by herself. She loves going up and down the slides, and she also loves looking at herself in the mirror, according to my husband, a trait she gets from her Mama. The best thing was she, had so much fun and wore herself out so much that she fell asleep in her stroller on the way home :)


O is for Over-Emotional:
I'm feeling a little over emotional this morning, could be lack of good quality sleep, a daughter that hasn't been getting as much sleep as she used to, just reading my friend's emotional blog about the birth of her daughter a couple of years ago, and maybe just maybe I might be missing my Mom and Dad a little more than an almost 31 year old should while they are off enjoying their selves on a 40th Anniversary cruise! It could also be that feeling of needing a break from your boring life when its been over 17 days since you and your husband have had a day off together.

Yes work has a way of getting in the way when you want to make plans, there always seems to be something happening at his work or mine, keeping us from having fun, but I guess if you want the bills to be paid and to be able to afford to live in such a nice place you have to make sacrifices along the way. I'm just looking forward to some much deserved time off for us in November. Time for some new adventures and some new memories with our little girl.

N is for Naps; N is for Nights Off

N is for Naps:

Ava has changed nap times on me again...

For awhile she was really good and would fall asleep almost like clock work at 1:30pm and sleep until 3:30 which was great on the nights that I work and it was great for developing a schedule of sorts. Then we went away and she didn't nap at her normal times or for the full length of her usual nap times either. The last two weeks Derek was working mornings so she was usually pretty excited when Daddy would get home right around nap time, then again so was I, so for those weeks we were lucky if we got any nap time in. Now that Daddy is back to working his regular schedule, at least for the next couple of weeks I thought I'd try to get her back on schedule, did it happen? Uh, uh! At least I'm not working tonight so its not a big deal, but today my little one fell asleep around 3pm with a full ice cream cone tummy :) Hopefully tomorrow nap time will be around 1:30 especially after I try to tire her out at Teeter Tots :)

N is for Nights Off:

It wasn't until I had to start working evening shifts again that I realized how much I had taken for granted having evenings to myself/ourselves. Nights off are great, you get to eat a real dinner, watch tv, do bath times and try to get everyone to bed at a reasonable time. Working evenings is great because I don't have to worry about someone else watching Ava and I get to spend all my free time with her, but its really taken a toll on my TV viewing! With the new fall season about to start I find that I'm just not that excited about it since I won't really get to watch my favourite shows on a regular basis. I can hope for a night here or there to watch and I can catch up via the DVR and on line, but its not the same as watching it when every one else is.

Nights off are also nice because it means time to spend as a family, maybe a walk here or there and a dinner prepared especially for Derek or Ava. Mostly they are nice because we're not in a hurry to get anywhere we can just do as we please. Those are a couple of things I enjoy most about having a night off, what about you?

M is for Mom-mee; M is for My favourite time of year

M is for Mom-mee:

Mom-mee seems to be Ava's favourite word these days, sometimes she'll go on for over 5 minutes just saying Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! It's so funny! She also loves to say Dad-dee as well as A-boom!, All Done, Hey Dude, Oh Man, Hi, Hey, letters of the alphabet, she can count to ten! I'm so happy with how she's finally begun to blossom with her vocabulary. It's really true that they learn at their own pace and if they aren't ready they will be with time. I think that once she started to learn a bit of sign language and was able to communicate with us, she realized that things were much more fun when you could talk and let people know what you wanted. I love the way she counts to ten, its the cutest thing ever "Un, Tooo, Twee, Urr, Bop (lol), syx, svn, eet, nyne, tenn" its so cute!



M is for My Favourite time of the year:

I love fall! I love the cozy sweaters, the rainy days after a summer of too much heat, the good nights of TV (though working 3-4 nights a week sort of kills regular TV watching for me), new clothes and the feeling of starting over that comes with years of back to school. Though my school years are behind me, I've always loved that feeling that going back to school would give me, a sense of new beginnings and excitement for things to come. This fall I've signed Ava up for Teeter Tots (lots of fun gym time) and I'm planning on taking her to Strong Start (a program for pre-kindergarten's) at the elementary school that she one day may attend.

Other things that make this My favourite time of the year are Thanksgiving, Halloween and of course my birthday! I celebrate my birthday in November, and since I was born have shared it with my sister (I was born two days before her 7th birthday) and now my brother in law, who was born two days after my sister! That week is a very busy but fun week for the 3 of us.

We are planning on taking a vacation to Seattle this fall as well, but are still just in the early stages of planning. We'd love to take Ava to the Zoo, Aquarium, Experience Music Project, Space Needle, and maybe a bit of shopping in there for us as well. So there you have it, a few reasons why this is my favourite time of the year! Happy Labour Day, hope your fall is as good as mine!

L is for Lion; L is for Loving Life

L is for Lion:

Last year our sweet little Ava was a Lion for Halloween, she was adorable and excited to be trick or treating. Ava's first Halloween she was a Bumblebee, very fitting since her nickname before she was born was Baby B. This year we decided to go back to the insect route and she will be a beautiful pink butterfly :) We bought her costume this weekend on our wonderful weekend getaway to the big city, I tried it on her and it fits pretty well, lets hope two months of growth won't change that :)






L is for Loving Life:

Life has been very good to us this summer, with lots of weekend getaways with family, and a few lazy relaxing weekends in there as well. Here's a few things I loved about life this summer:

-Big family gatherings: My sister' wedding at the the end of July and my nephew Kieran's 1st birthday party this past weekend in Maple Ridge provided loads of family time for Ava to visit with her cousins and for my parents to have all their kids together at one time :)

-Mini vacations: This weekend we went away to the "Big City" which although fun made me realize that I love our sleepy little town. I feel at home and much more relaxed in a small town than I do in the big city. Although I did love riding the sky train and I think Ava had fun too :) We are hoping to take another mini holiday in a couple of months, whenever we can get some much needed vacation time off for Derek.

-Quality Family Time: We had a few wonderful days here and there through out the summer where we spent the days just the three of us. One day we went to Campbell River and just got out of the Valley and explored. I love going for walks with my daughter and my husband. Seeing the joy on her face as she carefully runs outside, exploring the parks or throwing rocks in the water, I can tell she longs to be outside more often.

-On line shopping: Taking a bit of a departure here and one of the things I love is the ability to shop my favourite stores on line, especially if there isn't a store nearby, that's why I was so excited when I found out that Old Navy, now ships within in Canada! Love the clothes, and if its a clearance item even better, means I can buy that much more for Ava!

Finally, something a little sinful and decadent for my love list-Island Farms Butter Ripple Ice Cream with Chocolate sauce on top. Delicious!