One Amazing Year...

Dear Ava -

From the day we found out you were one your way, you have been a true gift from God. You have challenged me in ways that have helped me grown, as a mother and as a child of God. And for that I am grateful. I always knew that being a parent was one of the hardest, yet most rewarding things I could ever do. Knowing you were on your way challenged your Daddy and I in many ways. We were anxious for you to get here, yet we were so unsure about how we would handle two little girls. We prayed a lot. We asked your grandparents for lots of advice and prayers. And most of all, we thanked God for trusting our ability to raise another wonderful, beautiful little girl.

We have been so blessed to have such a wonderful support system. Your grandparents set forth amazing examples for us to follow and admittedly, they were big shoes to fill. We knew that the first year would probably be hard, with two babies in diapers and little sleep. How God blessed us with such a beautiful little angel, whose eyes shine with joy and whose smile brightens an entire room – who needs sleep when this is what I am blessed to see every morning?!

On May 14, 2010 – just one day shy of your Great Grandparents 62^nd wedding anniversary and your Uncle Tone’s 23^rd birthday – you made your grand entrance. You were beautiful. You weighed a mere 7 lbs 5 oz, almost a whole pound smaller than your sister. I thought you were the tiniest, most perfect baby I had ever seen. I could not believe you were mine. You were an amazing gift from God.

Your Daddy was in heaven. He had the two most beautiful little girls and he knew he was in trouble! From the first night, you loved to cuddle and your Daddy was not one to deny you. Even at one year old, there are nights when you cry out and it is your Daddy who goes to pick you up and cuddle with you until you settle down once more. You already pull his heart when he leaves for work every day and you crawl to the door saying “Da-da-da-da” over and over again. Your smile melts his heart – and he loves you for it!

My biggest worry was how Carli would react to having a baby sister. She had, after all, been the center of attention for all of her 20 months of life. I so badly wanted her to love you, protect you, and be so proud of you. I was prepared for the worst though – but once again, God answered my fears. From day one, Carli has been so amazingly in love with you. You started off as “Baby Ava” and it quickly evolved into “B-Ava.” Just so you know, on the day you graduate high school, we call you “B-Ava” because your big sister told us to! J Carli loves to give you hugs, she loves to bring you toys and even more she loves to take them away from you (in complete love, I am sure!). Anytime we are out in public, Carli is the first to tell anyone who talks to you or attempts to touch you, to leave you alone! That is her “B-Ava!” One day, I hope when we go through the inevitable WWIII on female/teenage hormones that you will look back on this and know, despite whatever is going on, your sister loves you with all of her heart and there isn’t a thing in the world that can change that fact.

I can tell you, that you have challenged me as a Momma in more ways than one. I struggled for a good two months with nursing you. I even went to a lactation consultant, I endured pain that I was pretty sure was equivalent to that of labor, all in an effort to feed you. Our perseverance paid off, and as of May 14, 2011 we have made it one year nursing and tonight will be our last time as I have to travel on business and it is good timing to wean. L I am a bit glad, but sad because I will miss my special bonding time with you. You rarely sit still. Even in your sleep you are constantly moving. I am convinced that this is why it took you almost 11 months to even sleep through the night! But when I nursed you at night, there was that 15 minutes that you were still and I could hold you and enjoy my baby.

It is amazing to look back over the last year and remember the many nights I sat rocking you sleep – or those long car rides to Alto where you screamed the whole way. And then I remember seeing how Pawpaw held you and talked you and knowing those bright blue eyes of yours, came from him. I remember Naggy coming to stay with us just so we could get a little rest, and Grammy calling to just check on “her girls” and make sure we were all okay. I remember smiling when we walked into Grandma’s house and hearing, “There’s Grandma’s Darlings!” and thinking she probably doesn’t mean me anymore! I remember stopping by Pa’s office, just so he could show off all his girls and Pappy being perfectly content to sit in the floor and let you crawl all over him. And I remember knowing even now, that you are the biggest Momma’s girl and I absolutely love it.

It is an unbelievable scary thing to be a parent. I know that your Daddy and I are not perfect. We have and probably will make our share of mistakes. But I hope that you know, we are trying our best to give you the best that we have. We love you so very much and there are so many people who love you as well. We have an amazing example to follow in your grandparents and great-grandparents. We have a wonderful support system of Aunts and Uncles and friends. And most of all, we have the unconditional love of God who has given us the daunting task of being your Momma and Daddy – and we accept it with humble hearts.

Thank you little Miss Ava Ruth, for an absolutely wonderful, challenging first year. You have made me a better mother, a better friend and a better person. Thank you for making me smile. Thank you for making my heart swell with pride. Thank you for being Ava Ruth – just you. Thank you, my baby girl, for loving us unconditionally. You are an amazing, beautiful gift from God – today, just as much as you were one year ago.

With all our love,

Momma and Daddy

An Elephant Water Jug

Last week while Ava was taking her morning nap, Carli and I decided to do a little craft project. Since Carli loves to play with water and to "water" everything, we made a little watering can from two empty milk jugs. It's suppose to be a little elephant watering jug...use your imagination!


She's had fun with it and best of all it takes her longer than 2 minutes to empty the whole jug! :)

A Day in Canton

Yes, I'm playing catch up - but that is life, huh? :)

A couple of weekends ago, the girls and I had the wonderful privilege of taking Grammy with us to Canton with our cousin Dionna and Ron. We weren't sure how long the girls would actually last but since Keith was off golfing we'd figure we'd make the most of the day!



Ava surprised us all and did amazingly well in the stroller. She is a true people watcher. Give the girl some cheerios and a good seat with a moving view and she is happy as a little lark! Carli did extremely well too. She walked a lot - picked up lots of rocks and never had a melt down! We arrived at 10ish and didn't leave until after 4. Not too shabby at all - pretty good for me too since I love to shop so much! ha!



Grammy found some really neat chairs and plants for the lake house. We turned the stroller into a buggy on the way out - it worked pretty stinkin' good!

We had lots of fun and had good visit with Dionna too. The girls slept all the way home and were very happy to see their Daddy!

Mother's Day 2011

Mother's Day started early for our family this year. Since we had Ava's birthday party a week early, our efforts and attention was focused elsewhere. But on Thursday night, Keith gave me my mother's day gift. It was a pretty awesome small Kodak camcorder - water proof at that! It is as small as my phone! I actually was a little confused as to why he got me a new phone! But the thinking behind it is that we hardly ever get Carli doing anything cute any more b/c as soon as she sees the camera come out, she bee lines it to look too! So this thing is pretty cool - we actually recorded her doing her fairy dance the other night and she had no clue! ha!

I did get my cards on Mother's day and they were really sweet. Ava even gave me one that was addressed to Ma-Ma-Ma-Mom...ha!

After church we met Grammy, Pa and Uncle Tone out at the lake. It was really nice out. We didn't stay long, but had lunch and got to visit. On the way home, Keith started feeling bad and Carli already felt hot. So the rest of the afternoon, both he and Carli were in bed. Ava and I played outside and generally kept ourselves busy. A Momma's work is never done, huh, even on Mother's day. Thank goodness they all woke up on Monday morning with no fevers and back to their feisty selves!

Mother's day for Grammy came early too! Our car was in the shop to get the A/C fixed so we conspired with Pa to get Grammy's excursion all fixed up. We first had to borrow it a couple of weeks ago when our car was being diagnosed. So, in the two days we had it, we had an iPod integration put in it. It took her a day or two to notice it. My favorite was that she didn't notice the big black cord coming out of her dash - but the little bitty red button under the steering wheel! ha!

Then last week while our car was actually getting fixed we had it timed to get Grammy's car in the shop up here in Tyler to have her front seats re-upholstered. After almost 200,000 miles and 9 years, the leather seats had seen better days! Grammy loves her car, so Pa decided to get it fixed up for her! After the new seats were in, we had it detailed too!

It was pretty awesome to surprise her!

She was super excited about the new seats!

The day we brought the car back just happened to be the day I needed to stop and order Grammy's corsage for Mother's day. Carli didn't understand that we were ordering flowers for later and got really upset that we started to leave without getting Grammy the flower we had come into the store for! So, we had to add a rose to the ticket so we could bring Grammy a rose. There weren't many petals left on the rose by the time Grammy actually got it - but it was the thought that counted!

We didn't get to see Naggy ON Mother's day, but we did get to spend the Friday and Saturday before with her. The girls ate up all the attention Naggy gave them and in turn they gave Naggy an awesome Mother's day card...

This year for Mother's day, I found the recordable cards and got three. One for Grammy, Naggy and Grandma. We even succeeded in getting Carli to say "I Love You" in each card. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when Grandma opened hers though. Grandma was in Conroe with Aunt Betty so we mailed hers. Carli had said, "I Love You Grandma! Let's go give this to Grandma now!" When we talked to Grandma later, she went on and on about her card...I think she got my old fashioned card too! ha!

Keith's Birthday Present

For Keith's birthday, I tried really hard to make it special. Birthday's have never been celebrated "big" in our house. We are pretty laid back when it comes to gifts, celebrations, etc. But this year, I really wanted Keith's birthday to be special. He is really easy to buy for but it is so predictable...so I put in a good effort to do the unpredictable. I'm not sure I succeeded, but perhaps the effort was worth it! Our friend David helped me out by getting some of their friends together and arranging a day of golf for Keith. Keith hasn't really gotten to spend a Saturday playing golf in a long long time. He feels really guilty working all week away from his girls to take a whole Saturday away as well. Yeah, I know, I got a good one! So, David helped me out and did the organizing and the girls and I worked on how we would tell him.


Let me first say, I had grand ideas of doing a birthday week celebration but given my "help" it just wasn't happening. So we settled for the day celebration. Friday morning I got up and made Keith pancakes for breakfast before work. Ava really enjoyed them! And as soon as he left for work, Carli and I worked really hard juicing 6 large lemons to make some lemon bars for Daddy to take back to work after lunch. It was an interesting task juicing lemons when we had no juicer, but we are never short of creativity in our house - the garlic mincer worked pretty well! I had never made lemon bars from scratch and was relieved that the turned out pretty good. Carli spent the entire day telling her Daddy, "Happy Birthday!" All afternoon, I worked hard with my little helpers to make Daddy a birthday card. In my head, it was a lot grander and all, but it turned out okay.


When the girls went down for their naps, I started dinner. I'm weird, I know. But I had planned all week to try to do chicken fried chicken. Since I don't like chicken and the thought of cooking it, much less eating it honestly makes me gag - I had been planning and mentally preparing for this dinner for a while! :) At 2 pm I started the chicken preparation...something about hammering out a chicken breast - yuck! But by 5:30, I had successfully made chicken fried chicken, squash, green beans (for the girls), mashed potatoes, and homemade biscuits with gravy. And I am relieved to say it was all edible and good! ha!

I knew it must have been good because when we got home from a quick trip from Lowes later that night, my house smelled just like my Grandma's house use to smell after a big dinner...fried food! Ha!

Keith really enjoyed his day of golf and he ended up getting most of the day to do whatever he wanted. The guys all went to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings which was a treat as well since I refuse to eat there after having eaten there while I was pregnant with Carli and the smell really got to me. So the birthday gift went over pretty well, I think. :)