Go, Go, Goers!

It's never an easy task to do the "switch up" of clothes to the next size.  Luckily, we've been blessed with a ton of cute hand-me downs from Scott's cousin, and I washed and organized everything into storage tubs with the sizing labeled, etc.  But, it's still a task to get all the old stuff out, and the new stuff arranged.  However, now I can see where we have gaps in clothing (um, shoes!) and shop accordingly for the upcoming year. I've been putting off this task for a while now...I figure, it's summer...Ava can wear dresses and shorts, and no one could really tell how small her clothes might be getting.  Except for her! It got to the point where she'd ask our daycare provider to check the sizing on her clothes, and if Debi told her it was 3T, Ava wasn't happy with it.  And then Ava started giving me a hard time about putting her in clothes (even though they really did still fit ok!) that had a 3T label. So, this past Friday we didn't...

Lots of activity over the last few weeks...every night we've had something going on, so you'll have to excuse the fact that I don't have many pics of Ava.  But, we HAVE been having a lot of fun! Last weekend, Scott was out of town, so Ava and I had a great girl's weekend.  On Friday night, we picked up pizza from the new Little Caesars (yum!), watched the opening ceremonies for the Olympics, and had some popcorn with gummy sharks!  This was a pretty exciting night for both of us, and the perfect way to end the busy week.  The next day, we went to the splash pool in town, and had a blast cooling off - I was surprised that it wasn't very busy, but I'm not complaining!  That night I let Ava choose a movie, and we relaxed on the couch and enjoyed some more mommy/daughter time. When Scott got home the next day, I headed out to go to my first Twins game at Target Field, with my friend Emilie.  We had a GREAT time, even though it was REALLY hot.  And I me...

I'm having a hard time believing it's going to be August next week.  August?  When did that happen??  It seems like this summer has flown by, but I don't feel like we've done a ton of really fun things.  It feels like it's been a lot of...work.  Lots and lots of work for both Scott and me this year.  And not nearly enough fun!  I can't believe we haven't even gone swimming with Ava yet! Ok, enough of that.  Time for a change! Yesterday, Ava and I helped celebrate her friend Kelsi's 5th birthday.  Kelsi's mom (Amy) and I have been friends for 12 years, so it's been fun having girls so close together in age.  Kelsi's party was at the Edinborough Play Park in Edina, which is an indoor park with a monster piece of playground equipment, plus a swimming pool, and a huge room where kids can run and work out their endless supply of energy.  It's a pretty cool place! The kids played for about an hour, then settled down for BLUE Brave-t...

This past week we experienced some ridiculously hot temps...we probably had at least four days in a row where the heat (and humidity) pushed the temps into triple digits.  Everyone looked a bit miserable, but honestly, in the back of my mind, I remember the frigid and cold winters that we have, so I will not complain (much) about the heat! The only bummer with the heat for this week was in regards to the 4th of July,  We were going to go as a family to Eagan's Fun Fest days, since they have rides, music, food, and a great fireworks show.  Except...Ava ended up getting a fever Wed-Fri, and the last thing we wanted to do was drag her out in the heat.  So, instead, we had DQ at our house on the 4th. :)  On the plus side, she was still awake (in bed) around 9:30pm, and some neighbors were setting off fireworks, so we took her outside and she got to see a mini-display.  Ava was still pretty happy to see the little show - I love how easy it is to make...

Four just happens to be my favorite number, so I've really been looking forward to this birthday for Ava.  That, and it means that we're out of the horrible three stage.  It's not like there's a magic switch that happens on the 4th birthday to make Ava behave better, but at least when I say, "Why are you acting like this?!  You're a BIG girl now!" I can really get behind my words! Since we had so much going on in June, I didn't feel up to planning a big birthday celebration for Ava.  I figure that once she gets into school next year, we'll have plenty of chances to really do it up for her!  Plus, we had been back from Colorado less than two days when her birthday rolled around, so honestly, I didn't even have time to manage a big event for her.  And she was okay with it!  It was a hot, sunny evening...we had family there, great cake and cool ice cream, and gifts!  Overall, it was exactly the low-key birthday I was hoping for. We ended up ge...

I can't believe that this was truly our first family vacation...I mean, we've gone places together before as a family, but it's usually over the holidays, and I don't really count that as a vacation.  When Scott and I have taken vacations, we go without Ava, or we take separate ones with our friends.  So, at the ripe age of Ava being (almost) four, we finally did it! My parents, Scott, Ava and I all shared a timeshare in Vail...and it was lovely in the mountains!  With the High Park wildfire slowly being contained in Colorado, we were lucky that it didn't interfere with our plans.  However, I feel so bad for everyone that it has affected...when we landed on Sunday, there was a layer of smoke in the air, and you could even smell it...and we were easily at least an hour away.  My heart goes out to everyone that was (and still is) affected by this fire.  While there was some containment, it has now jumped into a new area, and it has burned over 80,000 a...