My Precious Ava

Ava is loving everything about life right now – school, friends, family.  Their is a neighbor family who live across the street from Grandma and Grandpa who have a little girl Ava’s age.  The pair of them are inseparable.   Where Hailey is, there will Ava be.  They take turns playing at each others’ houses or cruising the cul de sac on their scooters.  The neighborly aspect of our Utah life is so incredibly refreshing.  I don’t worry about the girls going back and forth between houses (even at their young age) because there always seems to be other people around, whether our next door neighbor Miss Ruth or one of Hailey’s siblings.

On the downside, due to all of that fresh air and the extra face-to-face playtime, Ava tends to get a bit more cranky these days.  She has taken more afternoon naps in one month than probably the past year.  She is navigating the choppy waters of outside influences and we have been correcting a few behavioral issues at home.  When she is downright nasty or has an extreme meltdown, she gets punished by not being allowed to play with Hailey for a spell (usually the morning or afternoon).  I think it is still ultimately important to develop their sisterly bond, and many times insist she play inside with her sisters during the morning and that she will be allowed outside to run wild with Hailey when they go down to take naps.  All three of them playing together is so sweet and I cherish that time for them.

One of her big accomplishments this month – learning to pump her legs on the swing and swing all by herself.  Can you hear the angels singing?  I love it!  This has alleviated an enormous amount of stress for mommy, because now I don’t have the continuous whining “swing me mom, swing meeeeeeeee”

She loves to feed Piper now.  The other night I couldn't get Piper to eat her dinner. Ava wanted to try and Piper ate everything her sister gave her! Do I feel jealous? Heck no, one less thing for me to do.  I wonder when Ava learned about bicycle safety.

Ava continues to stun me with her wit and cause me to wonder “where did she learn that?”.  Here are a few of her Ava-isms:

Causing Lily to cry one day and Miss Ruth to tell her “I think you broke your sister’s heart.”  Ava replied, It’s OK my mom will fix it.

I am all done swinging.  I am going to focus on Piper now.  (And off she goes to help Piper climb the stairs.)

When we presented her with a scooter she refused to ride without a helmet.

Grandma asked Ava if the missionaries helped her move. She said Yes, they came and took the couch and left. Ha ha ha! Truth is they helped us load it into the POD, but since we made Ava get off of the couch first she thought they took it with them.