Beautician-In-Training

Ava is FASCINATED with scissors lately.  I walked out of the room for a minute when it got eerily quiet in the kitchen.  When I came back in, I touched Ava's hair.  I noticed that some of it was loose.  I pulled at it and it kept coming out.  A chunk of it.  I guess she thought her hair needed some sprucing up... Here is the bit of hair she cut.  Fortunately you can't really tell that it is cut.  And I don't think she will be opting to cut her own hair in the near future.  At least we HOPE she won't!

Peace, love and future beauty school student?

Shelly, Doug, Ava and Liam

Ava Turns Three Years Old

Ava turned THREE years old on 03/28!

Because my Mom was in town on 03/07 (and Grandmother was scheduled to be here as well, but didn’t end-up coming due to illness), we decided to have Ava’s birthday party earlier than her actual birthday. This meant that her birthday turned into birth-month! (This can be good and bad… by the end of the month I thought she might think every present which made its way in front of her belonged to her. Fortunately she didn’t seem to be too affected.)

We held Ava’s party on 03/07 at Monkey Joe’s with a few of her friends. She was in seventh heaven. Originally going to the smaller kids’ area for the first five minutes, she next made her way to the biggest slide in the place. She climbed up on her own and slid down. A little startled from the long, fast slide, she immediately wanted to climb back up the slide. The rest is history. She was a happy girl! I made a Barbie Cinderella cake and chocolate suckers / candies for the party. She seemed to especially enjoy Cinderella.

We took cupcakes, balloons and goodie bags to her day care class this past Friday. Since most of her closest friends are at school, it was cute to see them all happily burst out singing “Happy birthday” to Ava on their own (without a teacher’s prompting). Her day care teacher gave Ava a ballerina Barbie (perfect since we just watched a ballet a few weekends ago) and a princess coloring book. Liam “oohed and aahed” at the balloons in the van on the way home.

For her birthday present, Doug and I bought a little princess bike with training wheels. She’s not too fond of the pedals yet, but really seems to enjoy “riding” it. In true “adventurous Ava” form, she found her roller skates (that go over her shoes) and wanted to wear them while she was riding her bike.

On Saturday morning, her actual birthday, she opened all of the cards that family and friends sent. She was so happy just to open cards. She then opened the gifts, too. Immediately she wanted to put on the dress that Uncle Joe and Aunt Kristy sent. She is definitely into dresses and all things girly lately. If she is home, she’s wearing a princess dress or her light-up ballerina dress.

Saturday night before Doug and I went to bed, Ava woke up with a fever. So I guess you could say her birthday went out with a bang… We’ve since been nursing her fever and hoping she is able to rid herself of it soon. Today she just wasn’t herself and stayed home from school with the fever, too.

The past few days when I look at her, she looks so much more like a little girl to me. She’s growing taller and sweeter by the day. I can’t explain it, but she really seems to have come into her own lately. She is girly, confident, inquisitive, respectful (never thought I would say that about a just-turned-three year-old), caring, very smart, exuberant, has an excellent memory, is creative and quite the songstress and dancer. I am amazed to watch her socially interact with other kids. She talks with me like she’s a little adult. Within the past two weeks, she is in the “but why?” phase. She wants to know how everything works. And when I tell her, she definitely remembers the next time around. I love to see the little girl she is becoming and how she reacts to the world. Not fond of dogs or spiders, but the rest is free reign!

Ava, Daddy and I both feel so blessed to have you in our lives. We know Liam feels the same, as is evident when he smiles at you with his eyes and laughs uncontrollably with you. You breathe new life into our family on a daily basis. We are so happy to be by your side as you grow and learn about the world. We are so thankful for your love for God, your friends and family. We know God will continue to bless you immensely throughout your life. Know that you eternally hold a special place in our hearts. We hope you had the best birthday yet!

All our love,
Mommy, Daddy and Liam

The Social Ballerina

Ava amazes me lately, with her social skills. I was pleasantly surprised when I picked her up from day care yesterday. Her teachers said she had an amazing day! Poor Liam is teething, so he didn’t exactly have the same kind of day. They said she willingly took a nap, slept for two hours, woke up in a great mood and wanted to give hugs to everyone all day. Wow! She will sometimes fight going down for a nap, but eventually gives in. They normally wake her up after an hour so she won’t have an accident. This sometimes leads to her being cranky when they wake her up early. Normally other kids want to give Ava hugs at school and she sometimes doesn’t want hugs. We’re working on responding with a “no thank you, maybe tomorrow” instead of screaming “No!” (defiantly). She seems to be doing really well with this. She has a wonderful teacher, thankfully!

When Ava is home lately, she is floating around in her light-up ballerina dress or leotard and tutu. I ran across the light-up dress for $4 at a local consignment sale. After we went to a local ballet on Saturday (Beauty and the Beast at Southern Polytechnic State University), I thought I would surprise her with the dress. She LOVES it. It is battery-powered and the lights fade to different colors. She really enjoyed the ballet, and likes to dance around the house showing off her recently-acquired ballerina moves.

I am also impressed with her agility. Within the past few months, I've noticed how fast she can run, how coordinated she seems to be. Recently at her birthday party, she was climbing up the big slides with kids much bigger than she is, and sliding down. She wasn't scared, but really seemed to enjoy herself. She definitely wants to do these kinds of things on her own. We don't push her to jump in at all. She eagerly and willingly jumps in head-first to these kinds of things.

I recently asked the teacher of our class at church (who is a family counselor, etc) about “Yes” versus “No” with kids. I don’t want Ava to be spoiled, but I do want her to be able to say “No” and feel like her “no” will be validated and heard, if the situation calls for it. The teacher said that a kid’s “deck of cards” should be stacked with both “Yes” and “No”. He further confirmed that it is entirely situational. He also said that the consequence alone should do the work, coupled with some guidance, if necessary. No “I told you so’s”. He also said that the consequence might not stop a certain behavior the first time around. Hearing this information had a calming affect on me. It’s a great class we go to on Sunday mornings! I know I “allow” things quite often with Ava, which is a “Yes”, but I am now trying to be more mindful of actually saying the word “Yes”. Don’t get me wrong, Ava’s not a terror at all, but I just want to be sure that we’re always being principally-driven with our interactions in this arena, given how much we multi-task.

While my Mom was visiting in early March, we all ate dinner before taking my Mom to the airport. During dinner, Ava (out of the clear blue sky) said “Thank you to coming to visit me, Grandma Pam.” Awww! I couldn’t believe my little girl said this without being prompted at all. She sometimes will do this, and let us know how thankful she is for one thing or another. I am so glad she expresses herself this way. When I took her recently to a local ballet, she leaned over and kissed my knee or my hand four or five times to say “thank you” during the middle of the show. It warms my heart when she does things like this!

She likes to say the prayer before we eat dinner every night. If we’ve been sitting before we eat dinner, she says “We forgot to say the blessing!” Her prayer often goes something like this: “Dear God, Thank you for the beautiful day. Thank you for Mommy and Daddy and Ava and Liam and Daddy and Mommy and Liam and Ava. Thank you for ____________. Thank you for all the children of the world. In Jesus name, Amen.” In the blank area noted, she prays for different things on different nights. Tuesday night, she prayed and thanked God for Grandpa Dean. Wednesday night she thanked God for the dinosaurs.

The other day she told me “I like puppy dogs, monsters and bees!” I found it interesting that she came up with this list so quickly. She definitely doesn’t normally like any of the above. She seems to be afraid of things early in the Spring, before we spend a great deal of time outside. After being around bees and ants during warmer months, she gets used to them. When she asked where a fly went recently, we told her he flew out the door to go back to his Mommy and Daddy. So, hopefully she won’t ask questions when we’ve “squashed” one of his relatives against a wall or something!

Peace, love and light-up ballerina dresses,
Shelly, Doug, Ava and Liam

He Crawls!

He crawls!

Although officially “getting there” for months now, Liam finally crawls with both knees as of this past weekend. Occasionally the “belly-flop / worm-crawl” makes it’s way into his repertoire, but he is now crawling in the more conventional sense of the word.

Liam is interested in entirely different things than Ava was when she was his age. He immediately goes for electrical cords, tv buttons, remotes (of which we have plenty) and doors. He LOVES to open and close the doors of our china cabinet (yikes). We have two of the four doors closed with a child safety lock, but didn’t want to mar the cabinet in any way, so two doors remained open. We may need to find a way to secure the doors for Liam’s benefit.

When Liam gets into something he shouldn’t be “into”, and we tell him “no”, he cries. Poor thing gets his feelings hurt pretty bad when he hears the word! He still doesn’t say any specific words, but has taken to saying “ba, ba, ba” lately. And when he does “talk”, he does so emphatically and like he believes what he is saying.

The last three days / nights have been rough ones for him. He has woken up at least twice on each night crying. He’s not interested in food much these days (shocker!) so we think he is teething. He doesn’t want me anywhere near his top gums. I think he has a tooth or two coming into his front top gum area. And OF COURSE there are two other babies in his classroom who are also teething! Fun, fun. Hopefully the teeth will come in sooner than later, to shorten his misery.

Liam pulls up on anything and everything these days. In fact, he can now stand-up if he is somewhere near any wall / cabinet. He makes his way from the couch to the chair to a toy of some sort, all while holding on. He is pretty courageous and lets go often. Once he stood for about four seconds without holding onto anything, before plopping down to the floor.

Liam really likes being outside. He doesn’t like sitting still in a stroller right now (probably because he’s teething), but prefers to be moving (and really prefers to be moving on his own).

A funny story… I gave blood last Friday. As usual, before leaving, they instruct you to “not do any heavy-duty exercising or lifting”. Umm… have you SEEN my son? :-) It took a little longer for my arm to heal, probably because I was stressing it by carrying Liam! :-)

Peace, love and Orajel,
Shelly, Doug, Ava and Liam

Liam is Eight Months Old

While my Mom was visiting with us recently, Liam turned 8 months old. We had a great visit with Grandma Pam.


























Before turning eight months, he was pulling up on everything in sight. At exactly 8 months, he has let go a few times, but just plops to the floor. He seems to be better with balancing the last week or so. He doesn't seem to have any fear. When he falls and his head hits the ground, he seems unfazed.

He also learned how to wave. He puts his hand up in the air and moves his fingers back and forth. Within the past few days, he seems to have forgotten how to wave, though. I recall this type of thing happening with Ava, too, where they learn how to do something and then forget the skill for a few days. Kind of funny how that works.

Liam is a BIG boy. I'm not sure how much he weighs right now, but he is entirely solid! And heavy to carry! It's quite a feat just walking up the stairs from day care toting Liam, his bag, anything Ava might not be interested in carrying, possibly my laptop bag (if I went into the office), etc.

He continues to eat well. One of his day care teachers comments on how well he eats, saying it's a good thing because he won't be "sickly" when he is teenage. Not sure about that correlation, but if it's true, he definitely won't be sick! He eats three times a day with some small snacks in between. He really enjoys diced vegetables or fruit. Our monthly grocery bill has been a bit more now that he's on regular food! I would say his favorite thing to eat is blueberries, which I smash slightly so they won't lodge in his throat. He seems to do well eating most food by hand. And this buys me time to get other things done! :-)

His smile continues to melt my heart. He likes to give me a huge open-mouth slobbery kiss on my cheek or nose often. He is trying to communicate lately and lets out these loud "aaaaah!'"s quite often. He really seems interested in other kids / babies and tries to communicate with them. Lately he has been extremely fidgety. If he is awake, he's moving! This makes him that much more difficult to hold!

It's interesting to see what toys he chooses. He seems to pick any hammer or ball when playing. The minute I set him down on the floor, he goes for electrical cords or a remote. I find this pretty interesting as Ava wasn't interested in either of them at all! I do recall babysitting Ava's buddy Mekhi and noticing he was also more interested in cords. Must be a little boy thing!

He is completely content and is so low-maintenance! He likes to play in Ava's kitchen and pull-up to the counter. When he is standing up, you can tell he thinks he is "big stuff" and flashes the cutest grin. He can almost walk behind a little walking toy, but the toy ends up rolling too fast and gets away from him. So he walks across the living room on his knees, hands on the handle, constantly trying to stand-up behind this toy. It's pretty funny.

He still doesn't technically crawl. He gets there, though! He does this belly-flop motion / breakdancing worm crawl to get where he wants to go. I don't think he will ever crawl in the standard sense. He has recently started crawling with one knee and keeps using his other leg's foot, as if he's going to stand up. I'm not sure he'll ever figure-out that he can use both knees at once!

One of his latest endeavors.... He likes to pull ALL the books off of the bookshelf we have of children's books. The contents of the lowest two shelves end-up in a pile under him, on the floor. When he is doing this, it almost looks as if he is looking for a specific book, but not finding it. I guess he's probably wishing we had more books about trucks and bugs (or maybe electrical cords and remotes?). :-)

When I put him to bed, I try to rock him and sing two songs to him before putting him in his crib. He gets pretty fidgety after 30 seconds of rocking / singing, so I end-up putting him into his crib. He sleeps through the night well, going to bed at 8 p.m. (or before) and waking up around 7 a.m. He continues to take three naps a day (or two lengthy naps).

I'm looking forward to the Spring! Liam LOVES being outside. He likes for me to run after Ava while holding him in the back yard. I can tell that he is anxious to be able to move himself and run after Ava. Little does she know what's in store for her! :-)

We love you Liam, and feel blessed by your sweet smiles and kisses!
Peace, love and the one-kneed crawl,
Shelly, Doug, Ava and Liam