Fun Fall Things

Fall 2014 seemed to fly by. We stayed hot for so long, had what seemed just a few weeks of good autumn weather, then winter came quick. Here are a few things we were able to squeeze into those short fall weeks.

Pizza Night at Millsap Farms - this is a farm nearby that sells to the public, and has these fun pizza nights on Thursday evenings, with live music, lots of friendly pets running around and what seemed like an endless supply of delicious wood fired pizzas being made by the family that owns the farm.

We also attended the annual Fair Grove Fall Festival. We never miss this, and it was extra fun this year with Ava. We always visit the family booth, eat too much festival food, make some rounds to all the booths, let Ava ride a pony, then visit with friends and family. This year Ava also got her face painted, and spent a good amount of time moving some dirt around using her cowboy boots while we all visited. No harm no foul!

A Daniel Tiger balloon animal!!!

Getting a pretty princess headband.

We also visited a new fall festival for us this year - the Rutledge Wilson Fall Fest. Ava and I went to this one, while Wynston was heading out of town for work. We met our friends there with their little girl Adalyn, who is one of Ava's friends. They're only 5 days apart in age. We had a really good time that afternoon.

Ava and Adalyn

Mommy and Ava having FUN riding a cow train.

Petting a pig.

Friends and Family

In my effort to catch up, here are Fall 2014 pictures of Ava with various friends and family:

Ava and her cousin Emily being silly.

Ava and her buddy Bennett being adorable at a fall festival.

Ava and her friend Henry on a play date!

Toddler high-fives are the cutest!

Ava and her cousins at the lake on Labor Day Weekend.

More Labor Day fun...with all hat lake nearby, Ava still chose a bucket for a dip. She and her dad and their love of buckets. :)

Labor Day Weekend 2014

More cousins!

Mommy and Me and our Daddy's Girl

I'll keep finding ways to make Ava and I wear matching outfits, until she makes me stop!

Helping Daddy shoot skeet.

A Friday afternoon at Andy's.

Life With a Two and a Half Year Old

Well...it's been quite some time since I've updated the ol' blog. Sorry about that. Work has been crazy and quite time consuming lately, and once you get out of the blog habit, it's not always a smooth transition back in. Hopefully I'll be more regular in postings going forward.

So we have a lot of catching up to do! I can't promise that the posts I need to make will all be chronological, but I've got a lot of cute pics and updates. Plus it's almost Christmas. Crazy, right? I've NEVER been more excited for a holiday season. Ava totally GETS it this year. We've done Santa, we've decorated, we've put gifts under the tree, we've decorated Christmas trees, and Wynston and I are lucky enough to get sweet mistletoe kisses from Ava every day. It's so hard not to give a gift to our Little Miss every day, but purchasing an Advent Calendar and opening up another slot with candy is a nice compromise. :)

Anyway, back to our Fall 2014. As of 11/12/14 Ava is now two and a half. And she'll tell ya. She swore that one of our annual family Thanksgiving family dinners was her 2.5 year birthday party.
She sits right under 3 feet tall, and holds steady at around 27-28 lbs.
Her hair continues to grow long and has the most beautiful amount of curl.
She talks a LOT, about a LOT of things. She still has cute toddler pronounciations (take instead of snake, tookies instead of cookies, etc) but there isnt a subject she can't or won't discuss. She has a lovely singing voice, and can make up songs or put her own spin on classics like Jingle Bells.
She's still a pretty good eater, and lately has really taken to fish sticks, apples and french toast sticks...while never easing up on her choc-y milk.
She is a child of routine at bedtime: she brushes her teeth after jammies, then gets either a little tv or some book reading before bed. She requires her closet light on, door cracked and a princess nightlight on. She still uses her heartbeat sound machine. Can't break the ol binky habit quite yet; sleeps with Big Bear, her little deer, two baby dolls and Dora usually. She sleeps in pullups (but wears undies all day with no accidents), and we MUST sing her night night song and say her prayer each night. She is quickly working on mastering her skills of procrastination at bedtime, but once past that she usually drifts off to sleep and stays asleep all night till 7ish the next morning.
Ava loves reading, watching Paw Patrol and other shows, coloring, helping mommy cook, is learning to play with Lily, adores her daddy, and is pretty much pure joy and amusement each and every day. :)

Below, you'll find a few random pictures from the fall.



Ava's fruit loop necklace and trademark smirk.

 

Cute boots and a homegrown pumpkin.

Blueberry pancakes, at her request!

So serious in the morning with Lola.

For several days, Ava work this strawberry raincoat. She was totally infatuated.

Being busy on a weekend.

Beautiful hair.

Sitting pretty next to those homegrown pumpkins. They turned out beautiful!

Curled up on the ottoman watching tv.



I often call her my little bug in a rug...and here she is all wrapped up post bath in a rug!

Little Miss Chit Chat

While trying to get some overalls on Ava - "I don't want to wear oberalls...they hurt my nickels." - weird.

"I don't want to count backwards anymore, it hurts my arms. Let's dp the alphabet; that doesn't hurt my arms."

"Let's go home and get chocolate milk and twizzlers. That is two good ideas!" - we have lots of "good ideas" right now.

"If I have deer corn, I bet the deer will come up and eat it out of my hand!"

"SHHHH. Be quiet my baby is sleeping!" - Ava is loving her new baby doll.


These days, we have a constant stream of Ava chatter.  When watching tv, the closed captioning is a must. You just never know what she'll say! Such a big girl.

Food in the Family!!

It's been a while since I've done a post about food. Admittedly, I spend less time in the kitchen during the summer since we spend much of our evenings outside playing. But I did make some fun meals recently that incorporated some cooking items we recently acquired from our grandma's. I love having family items in and around our kitchen. :)

We got hungry and creative one weekend morning...

Breakfast pizza! I added a salsa flavored greek yogurt dip as pizza sauce. Yum!

Some cinnamon toast, using my grandma's cinnamon sugar blend and shaker. Lola approved! This is also on my grandma's kitchen island which now makes it's home in my kitchen! We LOVE it.

French Onion Soup (from Trader Joe's), in those old soup crocks that not one, but two of our grandma's had! I love having these to use when a warm cup of soup is calling your name!

A Day on the Town with Girls

Several weeks ago my mom and dad kept Ava and my nieces on a Friday night. The next day I met the girls in town. We had lunch, we painted pottery, then we topped it off with delicious ice cream. If you haven't been to Elle's Patisserie in Springfield, yet, go there and get some lavendar ice cream. Thank me later. :)

Pretty girls, all getting so big!