Week in Review

We had a very fun week and pretty full of activity, which is great for Ava and maybe not so good for Lily. But we do the best we can, right? Tuesday we needed to get out of the house (not wanted, NEEDED) and break up the afternoon a bit. So I thought let's just go to the grocery store, pick up a couple of items, and wander in the A/C. I had picked up a Little Tikes grocery cart for Ava at a garage sale a couple of weeks ago so I threw that in the car, so she could shop just like Mommy. She did a great job, didn't try to take anything off the shelves, and pushed her own cart almost the whole time.

Wednesday we went to join our playgroup at Jump Zone, which is a warehouse building full of inflatable bounce houses. I thought Ava would really enjoy it, as she loves "Hopping Time" (part of the show Signing Time) and bouncing on our bed. She was a little nervous at first, then warmed up to it, then got scared when a pack of four-year-old boys invaded her bounce house, then warmed up again at the end. She especially loved being hooked up to the harness on the trampoline, where she didn't quite get the concept of jumping but loved to be hauled up in the air and swung. After naps that day I got out the plastic swimming pool we got for Ava (and apparently Jack) and let her play in it. She loves the pool! And Jack loves the pool too. They spend most of their time outside like this: Jack steals a toy out of the pool and carries it off. 5 seconds later Ava notices and gets out of the pool to go retrieve it, allowing Jack to steal another toy. And so on and so forth. Until mommy gets tired of saying "Jack!" or "Ava don't put that in your mouth", and then we all go back inside.

Thursday night during bedtime prayers with Ava, I said "Ava, prayers" and she immediately holds her hands together like she has been taught. Then she stops and proceeds to gather each and every one of her stuffed animals (and believe me, there are alot!) and say "doll, prayers", "bunny, prayers", etc. while holding their hands together. It was just too cute! I waited until everyone knew it was prayer time before proceeding.

And on a final Ava note, this morning she came running into me from coloring saying "Kleenex". I thought she wanted a Kleenex for herself (not that she knows how to blow her nose, but she likes to think she does) since she had just watched me blow Lily's nose. She ran back into the family room, sat down and said "milk Kleenex". I went over to investigate and she was saying "milk clean-up" and sure enough, there were a couple spots of milk on the floor from her sippy cup and she was trying to clean them up. Isn't she just too smart?

Which takes us to Lily - our sweet, smiley (and now laughing!), wiggly little girl. She continues to be her cheerful, talkative self which is normally utterly adorable except the other morning; 5:45am is NOT a great time to be adorable because I am less than appreciative. Mommy would rather sleep. Anyway, she is getting closer every day to crawling, which may seem like a long shot, but she really likes being on her tummy (she will roll over and just hang out there for a long time) and every once in awhile she gets her knees under her and then doesn't know what to do with them there. We'll keep you posted. She loves to move her legs though and her Excersaucer is one of her favorite spots, where she just hangs out, jumping around a bit, watching her sister run by, and squealing in delight at things. She also continues to grow at a pretty rapid rate. At 3 1/2 months she grew out of her first 6 month-sized outfit. We are going through the clothes pretty quickly around here. We are going to the doctor's on July 7th, so it will be fun to be able to report to you how big she really is then. Stay tuned.