I recently looked back on this blog and really enjoyed remembering so many things that I had forgotten about. I realized that even though I didn't update it very regularly, it is the best and most consistent journal I've ever kept and so I want to get back into it. I'm going to turn this blog into a book and start again with another blog. I'm going to make it private so if anyone ever checks this anymore and would like an invite to the new blog, leave a comment and I'll send you one. :)

So, we had a wonderful Easter with Matt's sister and her family. They drove to our house from Virginia and it was so so fun to have them here! I posted pictures on Facebook and I didn't really want to repost them, so you can take a look there if you're interested. But here's some pictures of us enjoying all the beautiful weather. This first one is just a little park near our house. We had Ava feed the ducks and then started getting eaten alive by mosquitoes so we booked it home.
I took her to a beach in Fairfield which is about 10-15 minutes away from us and there was this perfect little area for her to play in, there was a sandbar that blocked it from the ocean so the water was really warm and shallow. I didn't think it would be warm enough for her to play in so I didn't bring any swimming clothes, so she just got wet in the clothes she had on and she loved it. She was having so much fun that she ran over the sandbar and started running into the ocean which was a bit colder and she ran until she was about up to her knees and then stopped and looked at me and started whining, like, "Mom, why am I out here?" it was pretty funny!

This is her in the car on the way home, my nudey baby! I love how happy she is, she was cracking me up!

I tried to tell her this probably wasn't the best place to listen to but she was being a "doctor" and knew more than me, so Matt thought it was hilarious and got out the camera, I'm not sure why I'm okay posting a picture of my butt at this point in my pregnancy but oh well, the dignity is gone right, I must say, I'm pleased that my shirt is riding up a little so you can get the full effect :) haha

Another one of Matt's ideas...but here I am..large and in charge!

Here's my little dancing queen. She got all these hand-me-down dress ups from her cousins and loves to dress up and dance around the house

I went in her room after nap time one day to get her up and this is what I found. She moves everything to her bed, so she's obeying the whole, "stay in your bed" idea. But if I don't remember to shut her closet, literally every shoe she owns ends up on her bed with her.
Riding her "new" princess bike that her cousin Marissa gave her. She loves it!!
We went to the Bronx Zoo this week. It was an experience...we'll just leave it at that, a lot of driving and a lot of people and not so much awareness of personal space. I think we'll stick to the smaller zoos around us from now on, but at least we can say we went right?


She loved this little turtle statue, so she's giving her turtle hugs :)

Happy Springtime

This is this year's attempt at Ava's Easter dress. I'm not the master seamstress my dear mother is yet, but I did reach a milestone, I pricked my finger while I was unpicking a stitch (ya I had to do that once or twice) and I didn't think it was that bad until I got a little bit of blood on Ava's dress. I honestly don't think there was a dress my mom made for me (wedding dress included :) that didn't have a little token of her sacrifice somewhere on it :) It just made me laugh, I felt like a real seamstress trying to get it off. Anyway, it's sleeveless but it's still a little chilly so I found a little shrug she could wear with it, but I take no credit for that :)



This is my little superwoman, I think her head grew three sizes that day, cuz suddenly her shirt wasn't coming off as easily as it went on ;)


This is Nanny and Grandpa's Easter Egg hunt in a box, it arrived on the same day that all the grandkids were doing the annual Easter Egg hunt at my mom's house, so we "joined in" with our packaged hunt.
Matt wanted to take Ava and I out on a date the other night, so we took her to a theater for the first time and saw How to Train a Dragon, she did really good for most of the movie, I think she was getting a little bored at the end, but it was really fun to take her! I even splurged and bought her real movie theater popcorn, I don't think I've bought that since I was in jr. high, but i figured it had to be the full experience for her first time.
This is at the Discovery Museum close to us, I found out that you can go to the Library and check out passes to get into all sorts of stuff for free or for discounted prices, so this was our first adventure. It was a little old for her, but there was still plenty of hands on stuff for her to do, I'm just not sure she grasped the concept of centripetal motion.

So, we finally put Ava in her big girl bed. It might seem like she's been old enough for a while, and she has, but she never tried to crawl out of her crib and she slept so good in it, I figured why ruin a good thing. But with another one coming along I thought it was time to make the change so I bought her a Princess bedspread and sheets and stuff to make her excited and she LOVED it. I usually give her a book or two to go to bed but now that she can get what she wants, this is what she actually fell asleep with. Those aren't book-printed sheets, that's just a bed of books she made for herself.
This is her carebear that has to be tucked in with her cuz "it's her friend"
This is just the view of the Housatonic River by our house. We drive over a drawbridge to get to Walmart and this is the view we see as we go, it's kinda fun.

NY GNO & Other Stuff

So, apparently Connecticut hasn't magically made me better at updating my blog, so here's my marathon update :) This first picture is Ava tearing off a paper chain that we made to count down the days until my mom and sisters came to visit us.
I was quietly enjoying the afternoon thinking Ava was in the living room playing in her kitchen, and I was actually getting some stuff done in the office, but lo and behold, when I went to check on her, she was in the bathroom, beautifying herself with my makeup. She was actually putting the makeup in the right places...for the most part,

After getting out every toy she owned, this is her relaxing with daddy. I've loved that the weather has been great lately, my house stays a lot cleaner when we can play outside for most the day.
Here she is reading books at the library.
I put her to bed and then heard her crying a little while later, but she'd been doing that a lot lately and if I go in, she says something like, um, um, um, i need, um, um, etc etc, so I just ignored her and thought she'd go to sleep. After putting it together, I realized that she had taken off her pajamas and couldn't zip them back up, and that's what she wanted help with. oops :)

This is the beach by our house, you can see behind Matt where the water looks funny, I guess there's a little land bridge when the tide is low that you can walk on, out to the island. It's a bird sanctuary or something out there. We're gonna check it out in the summer when we won't freeze if our feet get a little wet, but I thought it was pretty cool!

Just a little path we found by our house, it feels like you're in the middle of a forest, but you're just hidden by the trees, and only a couple hundred feet from houses and streets. It's pretty cool though.
Matt brought Ava and I flowers and movies for Valentines day. He takes care of his girls.
This is Ava attending to her care bear, she puts the stethoscope up to the carebear and says, "boom boom...boom boom"
Sledding at Fairfield University
Ava's princess Bling
Ava's princess hair and dress before church.
And this, was on the ultimate GNO! My mom and sisters came for 5 days and we spent the first two in New York. Matt was able to watch Ava cuz he was off school for spring break, so we went to the Statue of Liberty and got tickets to climb to the top of the crown, which was way cool, and we went to Chinatown, which is a little like Tijuana and bought knock-off purses, and after barely escaping the subways with our lives (and our orientation) we finished off the night by seeing Wicked on Broadway, it was awesome!

Then, my dad hooked us up with an awesome hotel that was pretty much right in Times Square so we got to see Times Square at like midnight, which wasn't a whole lot different than at noon, just a little darker, that whole, city-that -never-sleeps thing is true! The next morning we went for a run in Central Park and looked at a few more things and headed back to my house. Like I said, Ultimate GNO, it was so great!
The stairs back down from the crown.

Pictures from the crown
Top of the crown, those little windows behind us are the little windows you see below the crown, it was really neat!
Stairs going up to the crown, did I mention I'm pregnant?? And we didn't exactly get lunch before attempting this climb...so we were all grateful I just made it to the top without passing out :)


My "special" sisters and my mom on the ferry out to the Statue of Liberty.

Update on us....we found out we are having a little baby boy, or as I told my sisters, for any Juno fans out there, my doodle that can't be undid has a weenie. I'm due August 11. We are really excited!

Matt is doing great in school. I don't envy him at all, it's a pretty intense program but he is just amazing! We had our 5 year anniversary last week and we still love each other :)

Ava is getting bigger by the minute, if you heard some of the things she says sometimes, you'd think she was almost 12, but she makes me laugh and keeps me on my toes. I had to take her out in the hall today at church and I was holding her as a little girl walked by in a cute dress and Ava said, all excited, Look a princess girl, and then a little boy walked by and she said, a little disgusted, Look mama, a boy! I'm teaching her well :) That's us in a nutshell.