More funnies

Bella told me today that she wants a little tiger, lion and a bird, and a baby chocolate tree... and of course, I thought, "Can I throw a pony in there for you too?"

She also asked me what those things are called that Nana got for her when we went to the hospital to see Grandma. I could not remember, but thought it was Skittles. She said they were Cheetos, but then went on to describe them in a red bag with sugar on them. She finally settled on "Skeetos." They are Skeetos aka Skittles and we CANNOT eat them because the dentist said so! "Can you please tell Nana that Mommy?" Works for me! No more Skittles for this family.

compare...

the girls in their birthday dress. and eating their cakes! (2010, 2013)



(so annoyed that you cannot fix the direction of that picture!)

daddy/daughter date

Now that Bella is older, we are getting intentional about some things. Actually, we have always been very intentional, but now we are getting more serious about some of our intents. Does that make sense? Anyway, this Valentine's day we wanted her to know that she was Daddy's valentine as well and we want to be the ones that set the bar for her future mates/dates by giving her the princess treatment she deserves now. We had it planned for a while, but he asked her the day of the date when he got home from work. She said YES of course and was thrilled! She got ready, picked out his shirt and they headed out for ice cream. It was so very precious and it will definitely not be the only date she gets with her Daddy. I am sure they will make a new habit out of it and when Ava is older, he will take her on dates too!

Ava's First Birthday Party

Now weeks behind us, I finally have a few minutes to post about this milestone. It was bittersweet- most things with the kids are I am finding- but it was a wonderful celebration. Because I had a break from school during the time I was planning her party, I was able to go all out with it and hand make a majority. I used Pinterest of course to give me ideas and then started working in late December on some of the details. We had a small family party and a couple neighbors/friends for several reasons: one, I did not want to overwhelm her with people and crazy, two, it was much more manageable financially to do so and three, even though I love to party plan, I am not super confident in my abilities so I like to practice with small scale deals like this one.

We had pink, black and white for the colors, lots of Minnie Mouse and some zebra details. There were Mickey shaped sandwiches, cookies, and favors plus other pink food and drinks, "hot diggity dogs" and "bow-tique" pasta, inspired by Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Ava had fun and did what Bella did with her smash cake: she took it easy. Even when I did smash her hands in it, she looked at me like, "Why? I hope you are happy. Now, get it off."

She got a lot of nice gifts and had her fair share of treats :)

circus fun!

Randy and I took Bella on a little date to the circus complete with a train ride in early February. It was so much fun! Bella watched with her mouth dropped open almost the whole time. She also enjoyed getting up several times to check out all of the bathrooms (annoying!) but thankfully because we left Ava at home, it was easy to manage with two adults. She keeps asking to go back so we hope to be able to do it again next year.

Can you believe it?

We celebrated Ava's first birthday today! This year flew by! Here is a sneak peak of the party we had. More on the circus and the party to come.

(These pictures are compliments of my sister!)