Elmo

Ava has been saying Elmo (El-Mo) for a while now.  She loves her hokey pokey Elmo doll, and gets so excited when she see Elmo in her books.  The other morning when we turned on the TV for Kiara and Mckenna, Sesame Street was on.  Elmo's world came on and Ava got SO excited.  She was laughing, pointing, yelling Elmo to the TV - it was awesome.  This lasted a few minutes before she crawled over to the TV and started hitting it while laughing and yelling "ELMO!!"  The next day Kiara asked if she could search Elmo on Netflix on the IPad for Ava to watch.  Leave it to our 7 year old to think of something that Ava would enjoy and something they could do together.

Here is Ava and Kiara watching an episode of Sesame Street.  Ava understands no touch for the IPad.  Now we need to teach her no touch for the TV :).

Swimming Lessons

Kiara and Mckenna are in swimming lessons at Baldwin-Wallace College.  The lesson are taught by members of the swim team and they are both loving it!

Mckenna's favorite part is jumping in.

Kiara got to jump off the diving board.  She was the only one in her class to do it without the noodle.

The lessons are on Sunday night.  Ava went with us to the first lesson.  45 minutes is a long time to try to keep a 1 year old from trying to climb in the pool.  Since the first week, we have had babysitters come to watch Ava, so I could take Kiara and Mckenna by myself.  It is a win, win.  Ava gets great atttention and I get to sit back and enjoy watching the girls swim.  After one of the classes, the three of us went to Olive Garden for dinner.  I loved that special time I got to spend with them.

Whitney All-Star

One student a month in each class at Whitney Elementary gets selected as an All-Star.  Kiara got selected for the month of November.  When she showed me the letter, I of course started screaming and jumping up and down.  Kiara looked at me and said "Mom, I got it last year too."  I know, I know.  We called Tom and he and I explained to her that we were proud of her last year, just the same as we are proud of her this year.   

Kiara's work that is on display is the second paper, with the scare scrow colored in.  The work that Mrs. Andras choose to show is............... math.  That's my girl :)!!

All done, All done.

Ava is constantly cracking us up.  She has a few new funny things that she is doing that I wanted to share.

*If I have anything in my hands (paper, magazine, food, phone, anything), she pulls it our of my hands and says "all done, all done, all done!"  And then follows it with "bup, bup!" (up, up). I guess she feels like she is not getting enough attention :)!

*When Ava picks up a phone, my cell or the home phone, she puts it to her ear, tilts her head and says "Hi Dada! Oh, Hi Dada!"

*When Ryan was here, Mckenna and Ryan thought it was funny to hit themselves in the head and say "Ow, ow, ow....."  When Ryan left, Mckenna still did it all the time, especially in the car.  Well, it did not take Ava long to pick it up.  It is hilarious.  She hits herself in the head and says "OW, OW, OW, OW, OW!"  Over and over again. 

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 Ava eye update:
We had a doctors appointment for Ava today with her optometrist.  Her eyes look amazing and she has been doing so well since her surgery.  That being said, Ava's left eye still crosses, she overcompensates when looking out of her right eye, and she has depth perception and balance issues when she is patched.  She had her eyes dilated for the second time (the first was at 4 months old) so they could see if wearing glasses could help her.  Dr. Marcoty found that glasses would not help at all since the only cause of her eyes being crossed is structural damage.  He does not feel comfortable doing surgery at this point because he is afraid that if he tightens the muscle any further, it could turn the eye significantly out.  So, we will continue to patch 3 hours a day.   We will have another appointment in 3 months to reassess where she is at.  Both her pediatrician and her optometrist have recommended occupational therapy where they will concentrate on fine motor skills.  We have our first appointment on Monday with a new therapist.  We will either go weekly or bi-weekly depending on her assessment.  Both doctors have said that physical therapy is not necessary at this point but I would guess if she is not really walking in the next month or so, we will be doing that as well. 

I brought in a few pictures of Ava to show Dr. Marcoty and this is one of them.  If you notice Ava's left eye it looks like a white dot over her pupil.  This, as Dr. Marcoty told me, is the coloboma.  It appears in right eye as well in some pictures but it is not as prominent.  When her eyes were dilated today, I was able to take a light, look into her eye and "see" the coloboma.    



Ava is learning something new everyday.  She has a lot of words, is putting more than one word together, and is able to point to a lot of body parts when asked.  Yesterday I was working with her on where her eyes were.  There didn't seem to be any connection until I said "Ava where does your patch go?"  Ava got a HUGE smile on her face and pointed to her eye.  So cute and SO SMART!!!!!!! :)

ALL THE LEAVES ARE FALLING!!

We raked up all of the leaves. thar was a lot of leaves.

I loved raking up the leaves.

It was so fun!

Mckenna had fun to.

Mckenna liked jumping in the leaves.

I had fun too!I liked jumping in the leaves.

I covered my self. It was so fun! I loved it!

We filled 4 bags with leaves and flowers that we took out.

And we found worms!!!

ITS SNOWING!

When I woke up there was snow on the ground becose it snowed last nite.  It didint snow alot but anuf to make snowbols. It was rily cold owt side becus of all the snow.

I went to the bus stop and made snow bols with Brook and Casy.  Then we got on the bus and went to skoole.

Here is my house in the snow.

I love when it snows!

Snow is so fun!

This is a pickshr of Ava tringe to git owt side in the snow.

Happy 35th Birthday Daddy!

After the Lego Kids fest, we came home and celebrated Tom's 35th birthday!  We had decorated the downstairs with streamers, balloons, a sign, presents, and had bought an ice cream cake for dessert.  The girls kept the secret until we were on our way home.  They just couldn't contain themselves anymore! 

Tom - You are the greatest father and husband.  I know you didn't picture yourself 35 and surrounded by girls but I must say that I think it suits you just fine :)!!!  Here are a couple of my favorite pictures of the you the past few years........

WE LOVE YOU DADDY!  HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!



Lego Kid Fest

On Friday night, Kiara, Mckenna, Tom, and I went to the Lego Kid Fest at the exhibition center (Ava stayed with a babysitter).   Kiara and Mckenna barely spoke for the first 30 minutes because it was a little overwhelming for them.  There were tons of kids, Lego statues, stations with many different activities, and of course - Legos.

It is hard to tell, but this is made entirely of Legos.  Unreal.

Mckenna was pretty excited to see Darth Vader and thought Gabe would really like this picture.

Our favorite station.  At least the one we spent the most time on.

There were bins of Legos and wheels and you were able to create your own car.  After building a car, you could go over to these tracks and race them down. 

On your marks, get set, GO!!

If you created a flower for the flower garden you could get a Lego pack. 

Our most memorable station. 

There was a HUGE map of the United States on the floor of the middle of the exhibition center.  You could create anything you wanted on a board and place it anywhere in the United States.  It was easy for us to decide where we wanted our creation to go.  We sent a heart and a big HI to all of our family in Seattle, Washington!! (Kiara said this was her favorite part). 

This Lightning McQueen was pretty awesome. I couldn't resist adding this picture because as we are taking this picture of Mckenna, this guy came over and began inspecting every part of the car - it was funny and a little awkward.  2,000 hours to complete - that is pretty amazing.

Our little walker

Ava is 16 months old and I am excited to say that she is walking.  Well, kind of!  She has been taking steps for a while but not more than a couple at a time.  This past week she has walked from me to Kiara, from Kiara to the couch, from Mckenna to me, and back and forth between Tom and I.  She gets pretty excited and proud and at most has taken around 10 steps.  Every day we keep waiting for her to just get up and walk on her own but that has not happened yet.  She is still pretty nervous on her feet.  Here are a few pics of the first night she really began walking.  I called Tom and told him to rush home.  We kept everyone up until 8:30 so we could show daddy when he got home!!

Yeah Ava!!

Walking is fun guys but I would rather climb up and down on the couch!

Back to the doctor in a week and a half.  So come on Ava, start walking so we don't get sent back to physical therapy!!! :)