4th of July Fun

On the 4th we decided to go to the Prairie Village 4th of July Festival.  Oh my goodness, it was HOT!!

Walking to the festival....

They had a great petting zoo with a huge variety of different animals, she had a great time feeding all of them.

We watched Mr. Stinky Feet perform some kids music...

And played some games before the heat took over the day....

And she had to have a "boon" of course...

We debated whether we should try to take Ava to the fireworks that night, which were starting at 9:30.  Ava had been having difficulty with sleeping lately (shocking, right?), so we decided to put Ava to bed at 7:30 like usual....but Ava, of course, had other plans.  She just plain refused to go to sleep, so 2 hours later, we loaded her in the car and drove to the fireworks.  I was so excited for her to see them for the first time!

We set up chairs on a sidewalk and got ready for the show.  Ava was so excited about the moon, it was huge in the sky.  Even after the fireworks had started (which she completely ignored and was completely not interested in!), she kept pointing at the "moon."  About 10 minutes into the show, she finally started to become tired and we headed home for the evening.

Awesome Ava

Just a few moments with Ava that I never want to forget, and some fun new things that she is doing......

A few weeks ago while we were praying before dinner, Ava clasped her hands and bowed her head.  While Josh was praying a blessing over our meal, I had to sneak a peek to see my precious child praying.....and noticed that with her right hand she slowly snuck a piece a food off her plate and into her mouth.  The part that cracked me up was that her left hand stayed in position and her head remained bowed.  She thought she was being sneaky!

Ava was sitting in a chair at my doctor's appointment a few weeks ago, going through her Sesame Street cards.  They have pictures of different shapes and colors.  She picked out a few cards with the color purple and proudly exclaimed "Purple mama!"  She can now pick out and name purple, blue, and pink.

Last night, just after we had started eating dinner, Ava put her precious little hand on my arm and said, "Pay, mama, pay."  She folded her little hands and bowed her head, and reminded me to thank God for our meal.

She is counting to 6, although sometimes she will skip 5.  She will also "sing" her ABCs, although only about half of the letters are actually recognizable.  She actually has quite a few songs that she likes to sing, including a few songs from Sesame Street and "I'm in the Lord's Army."

We have been going to the pool a lot.  She is definitely a water baby.  She runs right into the deep(er) end of the wave pool and sits right down - I am not sure that she realizes that she is almost drowning herself, but when I pick her up she just sputters and laughs.  We finally got her some puddle jumpers (floatation device), which she loves, because now she can lie on her stomach and "swim."  She also enjoys trying to drown her dad and jumping off the side of the pool.  Crazy little daredevil!

A couple of weeks ago we went from being "mama" and "dada" to "mommy" and "daddy."  Wasn't ready for that!  Her vocabulary is taking off and now we're hearing 4-5 word sentences, and saying funny words like "awesome" and "sticky", and "where my daddy go?" whenever he leaves the room for a second.  I love the random things that are coming from her mouth right now.  I think my favorite is her tiny little voice squeaking out "A-va Eyoise!"  She loves to walk around the house and read her books to us....

We are having lots of "fun" at dinner time, which I am sure every parent of a toddler can completely relate too.  We have mostly moved past the "I throw every bite of food on the floor" phase, but are currently in the "I like to explore my food with my hands" phase.  Which typically ends every meal with digging her hands in and squishing whatever foods are left.