Friday Confessions

A night early, but I had to...:) 

1. Ava had VBS this week. I love my child so much. But the 2.5 hours a night that I had to myself for 4 nights? PRICELESS. My house is clean, laundry is completely caught up, her birthday treats and favor bags are put together, I made dinners and cleaned them up and spent quite a bit of time with my Liars (more on that later). 

2. On the Fourth while we were downtown, we went to Owens Corning. After the fireworks were over  we were walking to the car. My mom was ahead of us and yell back "There is a big hole right here". I said "Ok" and then fell in the hole. Twisted my ankle (no major injury). John started laughing at me until HE FELL IN THE HOLE, too!! Haha!!!

3. My husband made this picture his profile picture this week. And I'm not gonna lie, I CRIED. My little Ava. 

4. Now on to my Liars. John and I made the decision to get Netflix streaming. We used to have it for movies, but since we haven't watched an adult movie since 2010, we decided to just do streaming. For Ava, primarily. But I don't know that anyone has watched it but me. I started watching Pretty Little Liars and I'm over the top obsessed with this show. No commercials and episode after episode. I'm loving it. I haven't read a book in two weeks. I watch it on the TV, the ipad, my phone, you name it. Yes, I know I'm 37.

I hope you have a great weekend!!! 

VBS Wrap Up

This past week Ava participated in Vacation Bible School at our church. We had some ups and downs. Mostly ups, but a big down. We had to take some candy into the teacher tonight and a big practiced apology from Ava. The kid used every excuse in the book to not go tonight because she didn't want to do it. LOL! It was quite amusing! It was a rough week, getting out of work, picking her up, feeding her, and having her to church by 6. But we did it!! Yea!! After the sessions tonight they had an ice cream social for the families. The lines were so long! I asked Ava "Do you ant to leave and go to Mel O Creme?" And that was a big "NOPE!"

Ava and her awesome teacher this week, Ms. Denise!

And our awesome youth pastor, Ryan! He makes a difference!

And of course, enjoying the ice cream at the end!

VBS

Ava started VBS last night. It was a pretty dramatic drop off. I finally convinced her to stay and she has been loving it!!!

Hoping the rest of the week goes well! I missed her tonight since she was at school all day and went to VBS at 6:00. But I got 2 loads of laundry done, made and cleaned up dinner, made all of her birthday treats for school, and updated the blog. Wow!

Happy Birthday, Nick (and Will)!!!!

On Saturday we headed to Westlake to celebrate Nick's 30th birthday. It was also Will's birthday so there was a bash planned! The rain held off for the most part but the humidity was another story. Whew! You would just sweat. Doing nothing. Ava had a blast and made a friend! She came up to me to tell me that her and Connor were best friends and they were playing good. Haha!

Even in the humidity, the guys took advantage of games. There were frisbee's flying everywhere!!

We all got to suck up on some Leilani time! She is seriously the most beautiful baby!

We managed to get some good pictures in before everyone got too rowdy!

While Nick didn't know there was a surprise literally outside waiting for him, he and Ava had a big dance session!

And then it was time for the surprise! Everyone at the party and Daddy and Uncle George boarded the party bus...

Ava was super pissed (yes, she was PISSED) that she couldn't go on the bus. The driver was nice enough to let her take a look though!

I played the responsible adult and stayed back with Ava (and even cleaned up! What a nice aunt I am!) and drove Uncle George and Daddy back to Medina. After a stop through Taco Bell, of course. We stayed at Uncle George's house and I have to share this. He has black garbage bags covering his windows in the bedrooms. It's so dark in there. It's awesome! So, Ava woke up and said "Let's get up" I was still pretty tired and I knew it was morning because I woke up at 7 for the bathroom. She finally talked me into it and guess what time it was???? 9:47!!! She slept that long...Now to get those bags on our windows....

Happy Fourth of July 2013!!

Dear Ava,
Today I feel that I need to write a letter to you. You have to know where my heart is and how you've changed my life.

You see, I have never been a big fan of the Fourth of July. I wasn't into fireworks, I hate the traffic after the 10 min show, I preferred to just lay low. And the date took and even further turn for the worse on July 4, 2007. Our family was in shambles, Nana and Grandpa were in the midst of divorce, Uncle Nate was deep into his addiction and I was trying to keep everyone on even ground. But there was a little bright light that not everyone knew. Mommy was pregnant!! After 3 long years of fertility treatments, this was amazing news and Daddy and I were so excited!

I woke up that morning feeling a little cramping but I wasn't too concerned. All the books said this was normal. Daddy was golfing and Nana came over because her and I were going shopping. When she walked in the door, she told me that Uncle Nate was just arrested. I was devastated to say the least. But I did have a little sense of relief. Knowing he was going to jail and would be off the streets was actually a blessing in disguise.

About 20 minutes later, I felt like I had a belly ache and decided to go to the bathroom. What happened next was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I won't go into details, but our sweet little baby went to heaven that day. I literally laid in bed for days crying and crying. For our family, for our loss, for Uncle Nate, for life. I wanted nothing to do with this holiday ever again.

Of course, our family shook of the bad karma and things got better. Uncle Nate got sober, Mommy and Daddy tried to have another baby. Things were definitely better. The one year anniversary I stayed home and moped all day. Ugh.

Even after you got home from China, I still bought you super cute clothes but we didn't even go to fireworks. I played it off as you would hate them because of the noise.

Fast forward to July 4, 2013. You are SO INTO America!! You love flags, calling them Miracle Flags! You love fireworks! You love everything about this. I started thinking this week that maybe I would take you downtown Toledo for fireworks. Daddy had to work nights, but I could take one for the team, right?

I mentioned it to Nana and her and Jojo wanted to go. Daddy decided to take a vacation day. This was lining up to be a little party. The office where I work allows you to come down to the grounds. We decided to go down early and packed a picnic dinner.

We played corn hole!

We ate lots of licorice!

We caught lightening bugs!

And then we snuggled up to get ready for fireworks!

And Toledo put on a great show!!!

Ava -- Thank you for showing me the joy in this holiday again! You have no idea how grateful I am for you and joy you bring to my life. You are amazing, girl!! 

I love you!!

Mama

Sneak Peek!

How is it possible my girl is going to be 5???
Here are a couple of sneak peeks from our photo shoot the other night!