Playing Catch-up...

Talk about picture overload... get ready!!!  I think the best way to catch up, considering we've neglected the blog since November, is to show you pictures from our adventures.  Now, we took more pictures than this, but I chose the ones that best depicted what we did.  Plus, who wants to take pictures constantly and miss out on all the fun?  So here you go!  Oh, and most of them are out of order, sorry!

Knowing we couldn't travel over Christmas, we headed to Charleston at Thanksgiving since Sarah had Thursday and Friday off... a much needed break and treat!

Swinging in her new tire swing

trying our PawPaw's lawn mower

chalk with Daddy

Ava also made a new friend in Megan, who lives next door.  She still talks about " my friend" Megan.  They had a blast drawing with the chalk and running around the yard.

 Daddy had a little fun with Momma too!

filthy girl

filthy Grey Boy

HopScotch

 finally getting a ride on the "tractor"

 my OCD girl playing with her favorite thing, rocks

sharing PawPaw's icecream

waiting in line to see Santa!

she LOVED Santa!

 

Her "crown" antlers...

 that she proudly wore backwards

I'm not ready for this!!!!

 this is what happens when you try to get a 

picture of the three of them

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Back home:

 Ginger, Ava's elf who came to visit.  She did some funny things, sweet things, and naughty things.  Ava occasionally asks about her.  I think she'll be very excited when Ginger visits next year.

Ginger climbed the tree after decorating it with Ava's undies... now that was a sight to see.

Ginger also stole one of Daddy's pop...  kinda reminds me of:

 my little Elf and her favorite drink

Ava has loved helping in the kitchen, especially when it comes to making cookies.

 There are probably Ava's all time favorite cookies.  Why?  Because they have SPRINKLES in them!!  I'm working on a solid Sprinkle cake for her, just not sure when to make it.

We also went to visit Santa up here with our friends Christan & Callie, like we did last year!

chillin' on her way to see Santa

 waiting on Santa

 

hanging out with Callie and her friend

 riding the train

 blurry, but I LOVE that face!

 this unfortunately is the best picture I could get of our tree this year... messy tree skirt and all.  Ace loved the tree skirt. Sleeping under it, rolling in it, hiding things in it... it never stayed in place.  This was the first year in a while that we've even had a tree skirt... I wonder why!?  Good thing it was from the $store.

 

We counted down the days

Christmas morning we were at home, and it was wonderful!  

Ava waited patiently for Daddy to get up... but after waiting for 2 hours, I told her to go wake him up. 

 Ace loved his presents too

 the only thing she asked for, a marble maze

 Lightening McQueen!!!  or as Ava says "Yighting FaQeen!"

 Ava and Daddy opening their movies/ video games

 silly face

 "vroom vroom"

 all the excitement wore her out

 building with Daddy

Since we didn't get to Charleston, Mimi & PawPaw came to us.

 Thus begins the never ending presents...

 the giant stocking... and it was overflowing with presents!

 I was forced into it, and was laughing at the fact it wouldn't go past my hips (not that it was funny!)

 finally a decent picture... it was a total accident

 playing around with Daddy... not the shorts.

 

We got down to Morgantown to see Nathan's side of the family right before Christmas... forgetting the camera, this is the only picture I got with my phone.

Grampa Fred (Dad), Grammy (Amy) and the kids came up to see us on New Years Day. It was nice to have them all here for a short period of time.  We got to hang out and go to dinner.  Ava loves when Grampa Fred stops by, and she talks for days afterwards about riding the horses.  She'll get to do that this spring.

 Ava got a tent from them, and she loved it... and forced Andrew to play in it with her.  He's the only one that could fit!

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Now just some random pictures:

not even sure how to describe this one.  

Lambie going for a ride; Ava in undies & boots... 

oh the life of a 3 year old.

Ava loves reading

Ava had to go to work with me one day, she wasn't feeling well.  We turned it into a Disney marathon day.  Ava spent the day in a bean bag chair behind my desk watching movie after movie.  I was planning on leaving early, until I turned around and realized Ava was asleep.

Ava has begun dressing herself... and I'm not quite sure what I think of her style...

shorts under everything.

Lately my tom-boy has been obsessed with skirts.  I guess it's kind of like the her desire to wear shorts over everything, but just a skirt.  So I made her a skirt she can play in and sure enough she wanted to wear it to school with lime green leggings and a hot pink shirt.  She looked like a LifeSaver!

 With Daddy in school, sometimes Ava has to join me in the band... she's great with the shakers.

Ava wanted to play hopscotch, so what did we do?  Made a board on the living room floor.

ladybug riding a Tonka truck?  In our house, anything goes...

playing doctor with Daddy, a nightly ritual. 

We hoped you enjoyed that craziness.  We promise we'll try* to update again soon.  Our best friends the Huffmans

Halloween, before & after...

At the end of September, Ava's preschool class took a field trip to Sorgel's Orchard.  We had never been there, so we were both excited.  Unfortunately we couldn't spend the whole day as I had to get back to work, but we had fun learning about apples and getting a glimpse of what was there.  I promised Ava we would go back and pick a pumpkin later.

Ava after her field trip

We went on a Monday and scheduled enough time for her to play in the play areas, and for us to pick a couple pumpkins.  

Ava's funny face from jail

 

 Moo!

 

After playing for a while, we grabbed a wagon and headed off to find pumpkins.  One thing about Sorgel's that we didn't like, was that the pumpkins were in crates... no pumpkin patch?  That's no fun!  But Ava chose a big pumpkin and several little ones, that cost us a fortune.  That would be a second thing we didn't like so well about Sorgel's.  (nothing against the orchard, may people love it.  Including Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes who were there two days later with their daughter Suri) But I think we'll head back to Yeck's next year. 

Ava and our pumpkins

We only carved one pumpkin this year, compared to our three last year.  We have several pumpkin books so we let Ava choose the face she liked best and she and Daddy went to town.  Ava even said the "pumpkin goop" wasn't so bad this year.

(even with Mom's urging, this is the pumpkin we ended up with:)

oh yes, we had pre-Halloween SNOW!!!

On Halloween, Ava had her first Halloween party at pre-school.  The kids were allowed to wear their costumes if they wanted, but I figured it was a safer bet to just let her wear the ears and tail to school.  

she melts my heart!

As we did last year, our friends the DeBalsios came over to trick or treat with us.  Unfortunately it was incredibly cold and rainy, but the girls didn't care.  (Ben isn't dressed up for Halloween, he is a security guard and testing for the police depart)

Within an hour of starting it was raining quite a bit and we ended up heading home early. But by then, the girls had so much candy they were barely able to carry their buckets.  We dried off while enjoying some hot chocolate, before we said "goodbye" to our friends and headed to bed. 

Oh, and a funny thing... none of us likes Butterfinger.  Ava got a full sized Butterfinger last year, it ended up in the bowl again this year (hope it was still good!), but dag-on-it if she didn't get ANOTHER full sized Butterfinger this year.  It went into the trash!

As I mentioned, Ben was going to be testing for the police department, so Miss Bella came to stay with us on Saturday.  Ava was so excited.  I had the hope of doing a craft with them, but instead they watched Cars, played with every toy Ava owns, and around nap time when they had settled down to watch one of the Toy Story movies, Ben showed up to take Bella home.  It was a fun day, the girls has a blast, and I was able to get a few things done.