Spring has sprung (in Texas at least)

While I haven't seen any daffodils yet which is usually when I know spring is really here, the weather has been so great that I feel comfortable declaring that spring is here! The girls and I have taken advantage of it by spending more time outside which has been wonderful.

Sometimes I eat food, sometimes I eat.....................

chalk.

The pink was delicious. I wonder how the green will taste.

Green gives me crazy eyes.

Yummmmmmy

Mom I need a washcloth

Luckily an episode of "Strange Addictions" taught me that chalk really won't hurt her.  So I felt okay about letting her continue to chew on it while I snapped a few photos.  She's kind of addicted to it.  Anytime Ava leaves a loose piece around Charlotte seems to find it and try to hurry and eat it before I can take it away.  Ava was the same way with dryer sheets.  Do you think there's something missing from their diet? :)

I like bread and butter, I like toast and jam......er I mean chocolate pudding.

FHE and Miracles

Tonight for FHE we talked about missionaries and how important they are and what they do and why its important for us to be missionaries and to pray for the full-time missionaries.  And I had the perfect thing to go along with my lesson..................................a letter from my nephew!!!!!  He's not the most frequent letter writer (I'm sure because he's too busy finding souls to save) so I consider this a huge treat.  And if I'm being honest here, he's only heard from me a handful of times. Shame on me! Ava was tickled pink to hear from this missionary that she hardly remembers but prays for every night.  In fact, when I read his letter and got to the part where he is baptizing I said to Ava "don't we pray that Bryson will find people to teach? Is it working?" All the sudden it dawned on her and she began running around the room yelling "It's working, it's working, my prayers are working!!!!"  We followed the lesson up with a few rounds of "Hide and seek" where Ava did a very good job of pretending not to know where I was hiding so she could draw the game out longer.  Very smart that one is.  Anyway since the letter is such an epic event, I'm gonna post it here for posterity's sake - my comments are in italics:

"To my Sweet Abbs (I laugh everytime I see that on the blog) (making fun of my blog name here)

Thanks so much for the Sonic gift cards!  How'd you know I love happy hour so much? :)  Sorry you didn't get my first card.  I'm sure it was witty and just filled with awesome missionary experiences, which would have been nice, cause I can't think of any now.

So I see your Grandma-in-law (Rob's grandma) every week, Sister Scroggins but I don't think she remembers who I am and/or doesn't like me cause she kinda looks at me funny when I say hi to her at church. (He cracks me up. This just makes me laugh. Maybe she's looking funny at his tie. See below.)

I'm doing good out here.  We're working with a Spanish branch thats been withering away for years, but we're just starting to baptize here again!  The Lord has blessed us a lot.  Because of the bad economy, there's not a lot of hispanics here but he makes it so the ones that we find are the ones who are preparing to receive the gospel.

Tell Ava and Charlotte hi for me!
Love y'all
Elder Bryson Wilding

P.S. Thats a picture of my lucky tracting tie. :)"

Our little inventor

The problem: the basketball had bounced over the neighbors fence into their yard and they were not home to retrieve it. Rob had managed to climb halway up the fence but couldn't figure out how to reach the ball.

Ava heard the discussions and was throwing out ideas as usual. Typically her suggestions would involve something like climbing up a rainbow and then having a fairy fly you over the fence and you could use your magic wand to pick up the ball. But today she had what turned out to be a brilliant idea. Below is her invention.

The solution:

A pole put through a box and taped in place that Rob lowered and used to scoop up the ball

Proof that it works.  I love Ava's model pose in this one! LOL.

Family Fun Night

A couple weekends ago we decided that instead of going out to dinner and a movie with the girls, we would stay home, order in and play a game together. We got creative and made an obstacle course. Everyone took their turn, Ava had the fastest time (with a little help from her mom "accidentally" stopping the timer a few times) and even Charlotte got in on the action with some help from her dad.

The Twirling Station: Twirl 3 times

 

Pony Ride: Ride the horse through the plates

Ball Toss: Get 3 out of 5 balls in the basket

Broom Bounce: Bounce over the broom onto the air mattress

Letter Practice: Write your name

Baby Names

Ah I'm laughing right now thinking about all of you clicking on this expecting a pregnancy announcement.  Ha ha not happening, not pregnant.  However a friend of mine recently told me she is expecting her second.  When she asked the big sister what to name the baby, the response was "Poopy."  Its apparently one of those gender neutral names because she picked it for boy or girl.  It made me curious what Ava would say these days.  Charlotte spent months as "polka-dot" thanks to a two year old Ava.  But she's now in preschool and has been exposed to lots more little kids with different names so I wondered what she'd come up with.

Girl: Twirl Around

Boy: Soap

Hmmmmmmmmmmm..................................

Speaking French

Ava: Charlotte can you say Keebernex? Come on.  Just say keeeeeber then nex. Keebernex.

Me: Ava what are you saying?

Ava: Keebernex

Me: Keebermets?

Ava: Keeber nex. Neeeeex. nex nex. Keebernex.

Me: Keebernex?

Ava: Yes

Me: What is that?

Ava: Its a word.

Me: Oh yeah? What does it mean?

Ava: (slightly irritated at my lack of understanding) Moooom it means cabuwog in French.

Me: Cabuwog? Keebernex means cabuwog in French?

Ava: (Happy that I finally get it) Yep!

Me: What's cabuwog?

Ava: Its...........ya know..........cabuwog.

(And she skips away)

My Clever Hubs and Happy Birthday to Me

Rob has given me some pretty thoughtful and clever gifts over the years.  I'm always amazed at how well thought out they are and how smart he is to think of them.  This year it was the card that had me smiling.  Here is it:

Can you read it? It says:  Did you know that the earthquake in Japan changed the distribution of the earth's mass, shifted its axis, causing it to rotate faster, thereby shortening the length of a day by 1.8 microseconds? That's funny, because when I looked at you this morning I said to myself "Thirty? No way. She doesn't look any older than 29 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59.9999982 seconds."  Hoping for many more happy microseconds together.   ~Rob

FHE by Ava

Tonight as we were getting ready for Family Home Evening, Ava informed us that she would be doing the lesson.  I told her that I could help her talk about what she learned in church this week and she let me know that she didn't need any help.  Here is the lesson she gave us totally unassisted.  Pretty good for a 3 year old. (All the regular writing is Ava speaking, the bold is someone responding to one of her questions.)

Today I’m going to tell you a lesson about flowers. Flowers are…..well each person is going to say something you do with flowers. Mommy you go first.


Mommy: I put flowers on my table to look beautiful.

Thank you mommy. Daddy your turn.

Daddy: I give them to people to make them happy.

Good daddy. Charlotte your turn.

(Ava pretending to talk for Charlotte in a baby voice) “I give them to you Ava”

Oooh that’s so nice Charlotte.

Well I give them always to Ande (her best friend) and she gives them always to me.

Now I’m going to tell you about flowers. Flowers grow. They need water to grow. And they need sunshine to grow. They grow on a green stem and they are all colors. Even a rainbow colored flower there can be. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Mommy: Ava that was a great lesson about flowers. Who gave us flowers.

God did. And God is super important so we only use his name when we are talking super importantly. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.