Baby Cousin Reveal Weekend

Ava and I headed to Dallas for the weekend for a baby gender reveal for her baby cousin due this summer. We'll start with the big moment, everyone was convinced it was a boy but a few of us (Ava and I included) were holding out for a girl. This video starts with grandma's thinking they had the envelope with the answer in it but Matt had the real one in his back pocket. They also streamed it live on the internet so there out of town friends and family could take part which I thought was a pretty cool. 

We are so happy its a girl!! Ava and her baby cousin will be only about 2 years apart, I can't help but envision late night talks, shared inside jokes, spending weeks in the summer at each other's houses, hand me down clothes, looking forward to playing together at the holidays...Within 24 hours of the reveal they already have their first matching outfits (Thanks again Brooke!). We are so excited for this sweet baby to get here!! 

So back to the other events of the weekend. Mom and dad picked up me and Ava and we all rode down together. Ava discovered her new favorite food on the road trip, Raisins! I had to limit her on them, she ate them like they were candy. 

Saturday we went down town to see Matt's office and eat some amazing pizza at a place called Neo's. I love thin crust pizza and this place is known for their version of it, I highly recommend it next time your in Dallas downtown area.

 Ava checking out the view from Uncle Matt's floor:

Lori had lots of cute touches for the party:

It was a fun time, Well worth playing catch up today for a weekend of play!

Cheers to the New Year!

I forgot to post our New Year weekend fun! If you remember it was unseasonably warm this New Years Eve so we went to the zoo that day. 

Ava had fun at the explore-a-keet exhibit, this time we paid for the nectar which was lots of fun that they birds would come right up to us.  

New Years Day we went to Dinner at Red Lobster with a gift card we had. Ryan and Ava cheered to the new year.

 This is one of my new favorite desserts a molten chocolate chip cookie with ice cream!

While we didn't do anything big for New Year's even night, we enjoyed some family time with just our little crew. 2012 here we come!

She's back!

Ava and I enjoyed a little ice cream date before Wednesday night church last week just the two of us. We were celebrating her return to her sweet self. She was not a happy camper most of that weekend, She was quite fussy off and on and not feeling great. She broke out in a rash Saturday night and then finally started feeling better the day after. Think it was Roseola from the course it followed, a pretty harmless virus most kids get at some point. It was not a fun weekend, so I was glad she's back to her normal self Monday. We have had a good week that followed, each day I took note of her sweet, happy self, those few days of fussy wore me out but I've sure been filled up since with the return of our sweet girl.

21 months!!

Ava turned 21 months this week, here's her highlights:

•  Her vocabularly is exploding. She says lots of two word sentences now "I hungry", "Rory Sleepy", "What doing?". Her new word this week is "sorry". If she drops something, bumps into something, she laughs a little and says "oh sorry". She loves Elephants, loves to say the word and point them out.
• At bed time often she tells me "get in bed" when we are rocking to let me know she's ready to go to bed.
• Still can't decide on the naps, yesterday and today since she slept 12 hours each night, we are trying doing just one nap time in the afternoon. So far seems to be going well.
• She likes going to bible class and will repeat "bible class" several times when I tell her we are going there.
• She's 19.5 lbs. Still a very picky eater. Favorites are still gold fish, bannas, peanut butter, blueberry waffles, blueberry pop tarts, blueberry yogurt (see a theme going...), and she did add bacon this month!
• She's started watching Sesame Street a tiny bit, I recorded a few of them. The only problem is Elmo is the only one she wants to see, so if he's not on that segment she repeats over and over "Watch Elmo"? She will only watch for 5 minutes or so at a time before she's off to play.
• She's of course becomming more social, AM took some pics of the girl's this week as you see below. It so fun that they are interacting with each other more and more.

(We are taking the girls to Chicago in April! as my work is sending me to a training there. AM will watch the girls while I'm in training during some of the days and then we will play in the evenings together, We might be crazy for taking toddlers to the big city but I think it will be a great memory and I wasn't ready to be away from Ava for that long so glad that this option worked out!)

Little Bird, Little Bird

I recently made two different crafts with a favorite theme as of late, little birds. The first I made for Ava's last empty wall in her room. It involves a canvas, scrap-booking paper and modge podge. (oh and a bit of paint, I just stole some extra to paint the background from Ava's bathroom I was painting at the same time.) I really liked how it turned out and with Hobby lobby deals and craft supplies I already had it was only about $10 total. 

AM and myself made these cute little ornaments. This involved sculpting the little birds out of clay and baking them. We followed a very helpful online tutorial for them and loved how each one was just a little bit different but oh so cute. (With little toddler hands around we hung them from our dinning room light fixture for easy out-of-reach drying).

Last year I really focused on cooking, I think this is the year to focus on crafting. I am hoping to get Ava's play room and my studio put together over the next month which should be the perfect creative space for both of us. 

Christmas Catch up

We had a great Christmas this year with both our families. Thought I'd post just few pics to remember this year's festivities. 

In front of her stack of presents:

Eating her first fudge-sickle at MeMe's (these are always kept stocked for the grandkids). Ava thought it was soo funny that it was so cold. 

I do hope I inherit my grandmother's energy and youthful spirit. Here she is at 79 years young crawling around on all fours after Ava. They had lots of fun together as my grandparents made a stop to stay with us for a few days before we all headed to Tulsa.

There you have it, Christmas 2011 is in the books! 

Thoughts for the New Year...

I am sitting here cozy at home on this new years eve, by the time I thought about planning something for ringing  in the new year it was this morning so we decided to just keep it simple this year.  I just read all my posts from the last year, what a great way to reflect where we've been and where we are going. So first its time for a year in review and then on to my goal's for 2012!

Here's my Top 11 in 2011:
11. Started Running again, ran a 5K.
10.  I was promoted to program manager at work.
9. I turned 30.
8. First Annual Bell Family Birthday Summer Bash.
7. All girls trip to Dallas.
6. Taking Ava on her first beach trip and first family get away when we visited our friends in Houston this summer.
5. Finding out I have a little niece or nephew due in June.
4. Getting our new home.
3. Ava walking! (That's rights, its all Ava on the top 3, it was a big year for her!)
2. Ava talking!
1. Ava turning one!

Now on to goals for 2012, I get really excited about making my goals for the next year. As I read my goals for 2011 I was excited to find I accomplished the majority of them. So after much contemplation here's my goals for 2012:

1. Start a small women's group for spiritual encouragement and bible study, meet once a month.
2. Run a 10K and half Marathon. I've started training and am really excited about checking off this bucket list item!
3. Go to the dentist. That's right, going to the dentist is my resolution, I haven't been since before I was pregnant, I fear going because they say pregnancy does weird things to your teeth and I've never had great teeth anyways but I'm going to bite the bullet and get this one done.
4. I started this last year about mid way, each Monday I did one organizational project as small as clean out a drawer or as big as organize my closet. It helped me keep on track with keeping our home less cluttered, so I think I will continue this one.
5. and 6. Are personal ones that I want to note here for when I look back next year, I will know what they are but not for public posting. :0)

Happy New Year!!