Clint and Gina

1. Ava has fairly extensive conversations with us now.
The other day I was going to clean her up from dinner and said, let me get a wipe. Ava said, "No mommy, you use a wet paper towel to wipe my face. You use a wipe when I go potty."
2. Ava has a very long prayer list at night. She starts with "Dear Jesus. Thank you for daddy, mommy, Ava, baby sister, Elmo, Big Bird, Dorothy, Abbie, Cookie Monster, names the toys she played with that day, my house, mommy's car, my ears, daddy's nose, my feet, chicken, raisins, milk, Avery, Hudson, Bryce, Audrey, Remi, Ronan (these are her classmates)....but also anyone else we've played with that week. Then she names a couple of her friends parents. Grandma, Papaw, Grandma, Papa.......sometimes all of her aunts & uncles & cousins. Mommy adds to help her be a sweet friend and listen to mommy and daddy and grow up to have a heart for Jesus. AMEN."
3. Ava LOVES to watch TV. I usually only let her watch one Sesame Street DVR'd show or Elmo video per day or every other day is even better. She will sit through the whole video and respond to the questions in the show. She prefers for me to sit next to her on the couch and pay attention as well.
4. She wakes up around 8:30 most mornings, now that she gets up early 2 days a week for school Every once in a while she will sleep in until 9 or 9:30 when we have stayed up late the night before.
5. She recently started having a harder time falling asleep at naptime. About half the days it takes her 20 minutes - 1 hour to fall asleep and she lays in her bed and talks or sings or plays with animals during that time.
6. She likes to sit on my bathroom counter while I get ready. She puts on chap stick and all of my jewelry.
7. I was trying to dress her the other day and she said, "Mommy, do NOT pull on my leg." I don't even know where she learned that.
8. She loves taking a bath in the "big bath" which is mine & Clint's bathroom downstairs.
9. She eats more raisins than anything else. Every meal she asks for colored cereal, raisins, waffle and milk. I try to limit these foods to breakfast only, but she would eat them all day if I let her.
10. She has really enjoyed helping me get her baby sister's clothes and room all ready. She loves playing with the newborn shoes and clothes and toys. She thinks having a baby sister is going to be very fun.
11. When I put her down at night, she says, "Mommy is so sleepy. She is going night night too. Daddy is so tired. He is going night night too."
12. She loves to sing songs. She sings along with me at nap and bedtime now.
13. When I get dressed up she will say, "Oh mommy, that shirt is so cute." or "Mommy, you look so pretty."
14. When we go shopping, she points at clothes for her and says, "that is cute!"
15. She talks on her cell phone while she plays and the other day I heard her say, "Oh hi! How was your weekend?" and "Yes, my name is Gina Christopher. Gina Christopher" ha!

1. Ava's big news this month is that she started preschool. She goes Monday & Friday for 4 hours. She loves playing with the baby dolls, the kitchen and seeing her friends. She also enjoyed going school shopping for new clothes & shoes.
2. Ava has noticed my growing belly and started lifting my shirt and asking to see her baby sister.
3. Ava still wants to name her sister "Coco" and says she is very excited for her to arrive.
4. Ava asks questions all day,
-"Mommy, who is that?"
-"What ya doing, mommy or daddy?"
-"Where is daddy?"
-"What ya doing in there?"...if I'm in the pantry or laundry room
-"Can I see that?"
-"Where did you go?"
-"Let's go somewhere today!"
-"I want to go to church"
5. Ava says "Hey!" now. "Hey Mom!" or "Hey, my milk" or "Hey, I need a snack"
6. She likes for us to sing to her and requests twinkle twinkle cd in the car.
7. She is good at helping me pick up her toys when we are finished playing.
8. She prefers for me to sit with her and play rather than read a book while she is playing, so she will try to pick me up off the couch and say, "Mommy needs to sit right here" and once I sit on the floor she begins to hand me toys.
9. If a toy won't work, she says "new batteries, please"
10. Ava is very polite with "please, thank you, thanks, bless you." Here teacher even commented last month that she told her "Thank you!" for changing her diaper.
11. Ava is POTTY TRAINED. She decided at 25 months that she wanted to start using the potty. We bought big girl panties and did a 3 day boot camp.....which turned into a 7 day boot camp. It required a great deal of patience and she had many accidents....(at end of day 1, all 12 pair of panties were in the washing machine!) It took us about 10 days to really get it down, but now she's a champ. She still has an accident every couple of days, but does a really good job overall. She gets two pieces of candy for pee and a very small piece of gum for #2. She gets very excited about her potty successes!!
12. UPDATE: AVA IS NO LONGER POTTY TRAINED. About 10 days ago, Ava started going #2 in her panties every single morning and having #1 accidents throughout the day. So, I decided she wasn't ready and have put her in pull ups. She now goes in potty about 50% of time and in pull up 50% of time. I bought her an Elmo Potty DVD and Elmo Potty book and am hoping she will be interested in trying again soon.

1. Ava loves to play with play-do
2. She also enjoys stickers and putting them all over her body and the house.
3. At night, Ava requests the following songs: "Twinkle, Twinkle", "Jesus", "Happy Daddy" (aka. Happy Birthday to Daddy.), "Happy Mommy", "Happy Ava", "Happy Jeremy" (one of her uncles), "Sunshine, my sunshine", "Row, Row, Boat"........she will sometimes try to start over again, but we usually say, it's time to close our eyes and go night night.
4. She also says her prayers on most nights. If I forget to pray for someone important to her, she will say...."Daddy!" or "Hudson" or "Grandma" at the end of the prayer to make sure everyone gets prayed for. Then she says, "Amen!"
5. Her favorite book is still Fancy Nancy which she requests with "Ancy! Ancy!". She also likes her bible, nursery rhymes and many other books.
6. Ava talks to us all day long....joining in on most conversations we have. She speaks in sentences and we can understand most of what she says.
7. Ava loves sit on my bathroom counter while I get ready and put on 3 bracelets, earrings, necklaces and then looks at herself and says, "beautiful!"
8. Ava does an imitation of Mr. Noodle on Sesame Street. It involves her walking around with her legs bent and putting her hands under her chin.

Ava is so excited to be getting a baby sister. We asked her many times if she wanted a brother or a sister and she ALWAYS said, "I want a baby SISTER!!" Ava loves babies. When we are with friends that have babies, she likes to hug the baby, tickle the baby and just take care of the baby in any way she can help. She wants to name her baby sister "Coco"

Ava celebrated her 2nd birthday with family at our house this year. She really enjoyed having our families here to celebrate with, opening all of her gifts and her Elmo cake. She requests "Happy Birthday" before bed every night now and has to blow out candles when we finish singing it!