Grandparents Visit

So the grandparents are visiting from Indiana this week. Ava stayed home from daycare four days last week to be spoiled round the clock, watch too much TV, and read her favorite books over, and over, and over. She caught a cold/cough mid week, but other than that has been happy.

On Thursday night we took the entire family to a Charlotte Knights baseball game. It was a lot of fun! Almost better than the major leagues, as where else can you get seats right behind home plate for $10 and beer for $2? They are a farm team for the White Sox, so we had a little Chicago connection going on. Everyone had fun, but we kept Ava up until 10pm, which is two hours past her bedtime. Oops!

Friday Ava had her two year appointment at the pediatrician. She weighs 23.5 pounds (10th %) and is 33.5 inches tall (75th %). Can you guess whose genes she got? She is perfectly healthy and is progressing well with her development. She only had to get one vaccination, so that was nice.

Friday we also took a day trip to the Billy Graham Library here in Charlotte. It opened last year under great fanfare, with four living Presidents attending the opening ceremonies. Very much like a Presidential Library, the venue walks you through Billy Graham's life room by room. It's really amazing how much of an impact this one man has had on the entire world. It's a free exhibit, so I highly recommend it to anyone passing through Charlotte.

Our weekend has been a little bumpy, as Grandma had a really bad pain in her side that ended up requiring outpatient surgery yesterday. She's doing fine and is here at the house recovering before she and Grandpa head back to Indiana.

Today is Grandpa's 65th birthday, so we celebrated with yummy ice cream cake. Ava helped blow out the candles.

Father's Day

So I'm a little late getting around to this post... Father's Day was good. The weekend leading up to it was rough thanks to a new tooth Ava is acquiring, but what can you do. She had a high fever all Friday night and Saturday day. She was just miserable! By Sunday most of the pain wore off, so we took the whole family on a hike at Crowder's Mountain after going out to breakfast at Big Dog Cafe.

Jim took a few pictures of me and Ava hiking, but that was the only time the camera came out all weekend, so sorry to disappoint. We hiked for 90 minutes, of which the first 60 she enjoyed.

Afterwards we stopped by Smoothie King for Jim's favorite treat, which has turned out to be Ava's favorite too! We finished off the day with a homemade dinner of ribs, sweet potatoes, green beans, and cornbread. How Southern!

One of Ava's favorite new things to do after dinner is enjoy a popsicle. She dives right in and bites the top off, then gets this look on her face like "OMG it's so cold!" It's really cute. She thinks it's funny when the last chunk falls off the stick and onto the ground at the end.

Our girl is busy growing up these days. She's putting more words together and saying things like "milk please", "bye bye Dada", etc. She is still way into reading books, especially any that have flaps that she can lift up. She is starting to talk a lot about going to the bathroom. We got her a few potty training books and she loves to read them and point out what the characters are "doing". We're hoping it all rubs off sooner than later so we can stop supporting P&G so regularly with $30 boxes of diapers.

Ava's 2nd Birthday!

SATURDAY: It was HOT. We played in the driveway at 9am, and look how hot we already were.

We started off our relaxing family weekend by attending the Culver Club of Charlotte's summer event which was a get-together at an alumnus' home on Lake Norman. It was 102 Saturday, but luckily there was a really nice breeze the entire day on the lake. Ava LOVED the water and wanted to be in it at all times.

At first we started off just wading on the shore. Then we moved to the lifejackets and went in the deep parts. Ava and I swam all around past the docks, and she couldn't have had a better time. We also took her on a short boat ride where she was smiles the entire time. We got a really nice family picture at the cookout later in the day, so I was happy for that. We can't wait until next year's party.



SUNDAY: This is our family tradition started last year. On Ava's birthday at exactly 8:39am, we take her picture with the same clock. Big change from last year!

Sunday was Ava's 2nd birthday. We spent the afternoon at a neighbor's pool, then came in for some celebration. I made pizza for dinner, and Michelle made an ice cream cake for dessert. Ava had a "2" candle that she kept digging into the ice cream then licking off. Too funny!


We are simply awestruck that our little baby is already two years old. The time has gone by soooo quickly!

We opened gifts afterwards. This girl got some great loot! She got her very first baby doll (from Grammy and PopPop) and a baby Maclaren stroller from us.

Auntie got her a Jo-Jo's Circus doll and matching pajamas (Ava's #1 favorite TV show is Jo-Jo's Circus.) She got tons of cute clothes from Grandma & Grandpa Putsey, her godparents Jenny & Steve, and our good friends the Dennisons and Hopes. She got some matching hair bows with her outfit from the Dennison's and HAD to have them put in her hair immediately (she is 100% girl!) She also got a ton of books from the Hopes (she LOVES books), a Purdue Pete book from the Dennisons, a really nice kiddie tea set and picnic basket from our cousins the Grafs, and some arts+crafts projects as well.

Memorial Day Weekend

New pics added on 5/28! (scroll down). The entire album is on our family website, so please visit it! Email me or leave a comment if you need the address :)

We spent Memorial Day weekend in the mountains of PA at Seven Springs. Jim's parents and sister's family all came as well. The weather was nice and cool (high 60's) so we enjoyed that. All three of us were still getting over our colds most of the weekend, but other than that we had a really fun time!



Ava loved playing with her cousins Ian and Logan, who are three and one. Their favorite activity was playing in a cardboard box as if it were a car to be pushed in. Talk about Driving Miss Daisy! Ava loved going hiking, playing at the playground, and eating all the food at the buffet.



We big kids got to play golf and go to a comedy show one night which featured Colin Quinn (SNL) and Kathleen Madigan (Last Comic Standing.) They were rip roaring funny and we had a great time hanging out with everyone.

On Saturday Jim and I took Ava on a hike up at "Lake Tahoe". This is the top of the mountain that all the slopes are on. It was a gorgeous day! Jim carried Ava in the kelty backpack, and she loved being outside. I didn't alter any of these photos - this is really what the camera took! It almost looks fake it's so pretty!

This is a pond where we used to picnic when we came to Seven Springs in college over fall break. It's really peaceful up here, as you can imagine.

Jim got a good workout with our little girl!

When we got back to the Jeep we hung out at the top of one of the lifts for a while. Ava enjoyed kicking all the rocks.

Mama and Ava on top of the mountain.

Happy Mother's Day!

Wow - we had a whirlwind weekend. It was wonderful though. Friday night was relatively quiet, which was a good thing because Saturday was crazy. We were a part of three parties: baby shower, baby shower, going-away party. There is one picture here of Ava and little Sienna Rose playing together on the bed. They're certain to be good buddies down the road. It was really fun, and we enjoyed watching Ava play all day. (Again, see pictures of her on the slide, in the car... and just running around enjoying herself.)

Sunday, of course, was Mother's Day, which is always wonderful. I woke up to a beautiful bouquet of flowers, cards from my wonderful husband and daughter, and a beautiful Tiffany ring I've been eyeing for a few years now. We went to church then went out to breakfast at the "Big Dog Cafe" in Waxhaw (see picture). It was a great hole in the wall place that served up an awesome breakfast. We'll definitely go back! The afternoon was spent at home playing with Ava, then we made a quick trip to SouthPark before returning and ordering pizza for dinner (Mom's not cooking.) All in all, it was the perfect day!

Pigtails

Ava wore pigtails for the first time today. She was so patient letting me put them in. I couldn't believe it! She's obsessed with barretts and ponytail holders right now, so maybe that's why. She loves feeling her hair when it's "done up". So cute!

Strawberry Picking

Is it Monday morning already? We had a really nice weekend, but it went by way too fast! Jim's parents came into town to help celebrate his 30th birthday which was nice. We spent Friday at the Wachovia tournament which was really enjoyable. We sat on the 7th green and let the players come to us :) Saturday Ava spent the day with her grandparents and Daddy while I was off shooting my first 2008 wedding.

Yesterday was a lazy Sunday. We went to the local strawberry patch to pick fresh strawberries. Unfortunately they were too busy last week and weren't allowing us to pick for a few days, but we were welcome to take pictures. Ava couldn't resist the temptation, however, and ate about 7 strawberries in a row! She loves them.

Ava had her first tastes of both chocolate ice cream and popsicles this weekend. She really likes both and stayed surprisingly clean during the popsicle episode! It was strawberry flavored, so of course she loved it!