It's Good To Be Home

Ava showing off her dance moves on the fire truck.

The last month or so has been so busy and we have a couple more weeks of craziness before life settles down again (a wedding Tony and I are both helping with this weekend, photography and cupcakes respectively, and then a weekend trip to Yuma). And then just about 8 weeks left until the baby comes . . . Yikes!

Three weekends ago I helped to throw a double baby shower for two ladies at GFA. The theme we used was Bedtime Stories and it really turned out cute and was a lot of fun to plan. I forgot to bring my camera and so I'll have to dig up some pictures later.

Then a couple days later Ava and I flew to Washington to visit my family for a little over two weeks. Tony wasn't planning on coming up at all, but it a blessed turn of events he ended up being able to come for the last 4 days of our trip to do some video work for GFA at CC Olympia. I missed him a lot while we were gone and I was so very excited to see him, have him there with us for a few days and to have him help me with Ava on the flight home. Speaking of Ava, she was ecstatic when she saw him and never wanted to leave his side!

Ava and I have spent the last couple of days recovering. Neither of us slept to well during our trip. Ava was sick with a nasty cold pretty much the entire time which was a bummer since not feeling well and being tired made her pretty clingy to me and not able to have the fun I had hoped for with her cousins. She had a couple of pretty amazing and uncharacteristic meltdowns while we were there and has remained pretty "irrationally emotional" since we've come back.

For example, yesterday after her nap I took her out of her crib and she brought with her the usual trio of Lambie, Baby, and Frog. She has a toddler bed in her room now too and she proceeded to lay all three of them out in it and "tuck them in" with a blanket. Then she headed out the door and down the hallway. About half way down the hall though she suddenly collapsed on the floor wailing. At first I thought she'd hurt herself but she was more mad than sad and I couldn't figure out what was wrong until I asked is she wanted Lambie. She then slowly pulled herself up off the floor, still crying, and ran back to her room. She grabbed Lambie out of the bed and started to head back out, then changed her mind (again) took Lambie back to the bed and tucked him back in with Baby and Frog and headed out happily back down the hall. I called Tony and asked if he was really prepared for life with three girls . . .

In between his work on the video project Tony was able to do some fun things with us, like take Ava up to see Papa Jim at his fire station in Renton. The last time we went up Ava was to little to really participate in the fire station tour. But this time she climbed into the truck like an old pro and had a blast "driving" it and playing with all the knobs and buttons.

Here's some pictures of the fire station fun. More to come soon!

The Natural

Grandma Margie couldn't quite convince her to put my dad's helmet on though. Ava didn't want to mess up her hair . . .

"Look at me! I'm way up high!"

"Copy dispatch."

"Let's see. . .where shall I drive us next?"

"Hi Mama!"

Wearing Papa Jim's bunker gear. She actually put on a little dance show for us in these boots. Something about boots just makes a girl wanna dance I guess . . .

Gettin her groove on

A study in facial expressions

"Dada, this is serious business!"

"Stop freaking out Dad! I know what I'm doing!"

My dad and sisters.

The Dog House. A great little hot dog place owned by my Aunt Tami where we stopped for a post fire station hot dog. If you're ever near Des Moines, WA you gotta try it!