Already 2

My dear Ava:

It's hard to believe you are already two years old. The last two years have been a crazy, fun, exciting whirlwind. You are such a huge blessing to your dad and I and we love you to pieces. It's amazing to see how much you change every day and all the new things you learn. You are becoming very independent these days. It's not rare for you to respond to a request from me with "I don't wanna _________." or "No way!" The word your dad and I constantly use to describe you is intense. Everything you do you put your passion into, whether it is playing with your dolls or saying hello to a friend. You are so smart and talk so well for your age. You keep me laughing everyday with the silly things you say. You love to read books and would do that all day if I would sit and read to you. You also adore puzzles and lately you really like playing "mommy" to your dolls. Your dad and I are often told "Shhh, be quiet, my baby is sleeping." You are quite the musical child and you astonish me with all the songs that you know. You sing almost 24 hours a day and are capable of turning anything into a song. In the car when we sit at a red light you will often shout "green! turn green!" and when the light changes you will burst into song "Green, green, I love green. Green, green, I love green." You have spent much of the morning today singing Happy Birthday to yourself while you went about your playtime. Another thing you love, which you don't get from your mom, is bugs. When you see one crawling outside you get so excited and always try to get it to crawl in your hand. You will crouch down and follow it around while saying "Hello bug. Hi bug. Whatcha doin bug?"

The last two years have been wonderful and here's to hoping the next many are the same. Your dad and I love you more than you know and are so grateful you are part of our life. Happy Birthday my little one.
Love-
Mom

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.....or works like medicine

So I was standing at the counter today and I hear Ava taking a drink of water out of a sports bottle. Then I hear her whine and this is the conversation:

Ava: Ow! My mouth is hurting.

Me: I'm sorry. You gotta be careful with that bottle so it doesn't pinch your lip.

Ava: My mouth is hurting.

Ava: (moving over to the drawer where I keep the Skittles) I need some candy to feel better.

Me: What did you say?

Ava: (holding on to the drawer where I keep the Skittles) I need some candy to make it feel better.

Me: (busting out laughing and reaching into the Skittle drawer!) You are hilarious! And dang smart! And that deserves candy.

Apparently Mary Poppins was onto something with the whole "sugar" and "medicine" thing! Either that or Ava has watched her mom make herself feel better with candy!!!

Bath N Body Works

Any of the rest of you use Bath n body works wallflowers? I'm addicted to them but I'm also a cheapskate which turns out to be a problem. But, right now they are trying to get rid of all the wallflowers and wallflower refills in the old packaging so they are selling them for $4 a piece! That's practically giving them away when you consider they are normally $12.50. Anyway, just thought I'd pass on the good find to all 3 of you who read my blog. :) I just bought a billion of them tonight and man does my house smell good? You can get away with not cleaning quite as often if you have a good air freshener! People take a big whiff and figure it must be clean if it smells like that. Yum! K off to do laundry. Why does it feel like I'm always "off to do laundry?" Maybe its because I'm always off but I never actually get there so there's always laundry to be done. Anyway.............

Ava likes to read

Ava has been obsessed with books since birth I swear. Her perfect day would be to sit on my lap with a giant pile of books and have me read to her all day long. We recently checked out a book about trains from the library. She's a big fan.

Everything is BIGGER in Texas

Including the lightning and thunderstorms. We had a doozy last night. Ava and I went to the zoo with some friends yesterday and when we were pulling in the garage when we got home I could hear the city tornado sirens going off. I swear, I didn't even know bad weather was coming but apparently we were in the hot spot for tornadoes, bone-crushing thunder, and 70 mph winds. At 8 pm, after a bolt of lightning that lit the sky and thunder that felt like it was shaking our house, our power went out. It is now 11:30 the next morning and still out. Apparently it's dangerous to repair power lines while there is still massive lightning in the sky! It's amazing how much we depend on electricity. Like this morning when I realized my cell phone was about to die and I had no way to charge it and since I have a cordless phone at home I was soon to be cut off from communication to the outside world. I'll be honest, the thought freaked me out. And of course, there was no internet. So Ava and I loaded in the car (after I raised the garage door manually - ugh the torture!) and headed to a friends house to soak up the comfort, convenience and bliss that is electricity. My cell phone is charging on the counter, Ava is dancing to the music coming from the television and here I sit updating my blog for all to read. I would have made a terrible cavewoman.