Utah's 24th

This year for the holiday weekend we went boating with friends then later a BBQ over at their house then ended the night watching the fireworks show down in Spanish Fork. It was a awesome day!
Little Ava loves to help daddy drive the boat. ITs pretty funny she is so insistant on wanting to hold and steer the wheel.

Look at that sweet little face. How can I NOT give in to her. She is such a sweetheart. And such a cutie patootie!

Me and my friend Tiff. She is so fun! I love this girl!!

Me and the mister.

Random photo that I quite like.

Ava and Kam.

At the fireworks later that night. They had this cute little puppy that Ava was obsessed with!

I finally have my sparkler pic. haha kinda a inside joke now.

Overall a great holiday weekend. I love that Utah has 2 big fireworks days in July! Happy Pioneer day everyone :)

We live at the pool lately..

..and I LOVE IT! It took about 5 times going before Ava stopped whinning and crying. Now she absolutely loves it. She laughs and splashes and even walks in the water by herself (in the shallow parts). I am so happy she finally does. We go to the pool a few times a week now. This is turning out to be a pretty great summer so far :)

Eclipse with Alisha

My friend Alisha had an extra ticket to the Eclipse premiere party and movie and invited me to go with her. It was SOOO much fun to have a girls night with her. I loved the movie!!

There were tonz of people dressed up like the movie characters. Here is a group of "newborn vampires'." I was trying to look all scared and innocent. haha like Bella or something.

Big Girl Seat

FINALLY.. we got her a front facing car seat. Usually people hurry and get one as soon as the kid is one. But since the infant seat we had went up to 30 pounds we decided to wait since rear facing seats are safer anyway. Now that we have the new one Ava Loves it and so do I. I use to have to sit in the back seat with her whenever we would go anywhere as a family. Russ was probably feeling like our chauffeur, and long trips were awful since she would be so bored and would get car sick. But I don't have to worry about that anymore! YAY!
The second we put her in it. She loved it and now she will talk to me while I am driving. I love being about to smile at her threw the rear view mirror. The car seat we got was rated really high for safety and comfort plus most car seats are so tacky with crazy color combos and this one was dark and plain. I like how it looks alot. And it even has little cup holders for her snacks or whatever. SO far we are loving it... all 3 of us! My little baby is growing up so fast. She is a toddler now.. where did the time go! I love you my little peek-a-boo!!

4th of July!!

We had such a great time this year and celebrated ALL weekend. Saturday we went we took out Russell's family boat to Utah Lake with our good friends Bran and Tiff and their 2 kiddos. It was such a fun day. Then that night Russ and I took Ava to Stadium of Fire. This our 2nd yr going and we hope to start a tradition and go every year now. It was SUCH a blast. Ava loved it! The fireworks were amazing as always and so was all the music. It really made me feel so patriotic and appreciate this incredible country we live in and how proud I am to be an American! They did an outline of the US with lanterns and the music was so touching. I was close to tears!

Carrie Underwood preformed which was one of my favorite parts! Last year it was the Jonas Bros which I didn't much care for but I LOVE Carrie and all her songs. Ava even danced along to it! So funny!

Me and my bebe gurrl :)

Poor Ava was so tired the whole time. She didn't take a nap since we were boating all day so on our way to the stadium she fell asleep but we had to wake her up to go in. By the end of the night in the middle of the grand finale of fireworks she was fast fast asleep... (shocking how she could even sleep through it. It was SOO loud)

Baby and her Papa bear!

Here we are boating earlier that day. It was SO nice and hot out.

All done and docking the boat! Hopefully we go out many more times this summer. I love boating!

On Sunday we had a big dinner over at my parents house. My older sister Susie and her hubby were in town for the weekend and planned this big extravagent meal. It was SOO yummy! We always love when she does the cookin! Overall the Independance Day weekend was incredible.. full of friends, family, fireworks and fun!!

Oh and look how festive my little firecraker looks! I just LOVED that little dress. Every year I can't help but go all out for her holiday outfits. What can I say.. I am one proud mama :)

Summer So Far

We have all been so busy as of late that I have been MIA from the blogging world. So much has changed. I am now officially a stay-at-home mama and let me say I am LOVING every minute. Ava and I spend our days playing at the park, going to the Lindon pool, taking long walks by the river, playing in our little backyard pool, watching Tinkerbell and staying busy doing everything else in between. I have noticed such a change in Ava since I have been home. Even though before I only worked part-time and in the mornings, we have grown a million times closer these past couple months. She always wants to give kisses, hugs, snuggle and jibber jabber non-stop to me. I just love it!! She is such a funny silly little girl. Her little personality is just overflowing with attitude.

These past few weeks she has become obSESSED with banannas. Every morning she goes over to the kitchen counter saying.. "nana.. naan.. nana" So in the pic below she is enjoying a bowl of some on our balcony.

If you ask her where her hands are she claps them. Anytime she does anything clever she claps for herself. (she is her #1 fan I guess) and whenever anyone else claps on TV or wherever she joins in.

Here she is showing me where her belly is. She also knows where her toes, feet, ears, nose, ears and hands are.

While on our daily walk we saw this little cat laying down near the track. It started rubbing up against my leg and was so friendly. It must belong to someone who lives nearby. So after I pet it I decided it was friendly enough for Ava to. She loved it and we played with him for about 10 minutes.

Then Ava accidentally stepped on the cats foot, which he didn't like and he hissed and jumped back scratching her on the arm. She freeked out and started bawling.. the cat just ran away. She had to small scratches on her upper arm. I was freeked out so I called the dr. for advice. He said just to clean it and she would be fine. And she was and now they have healed. But I learned a valuable lesson. Cats are not very nice... and cats I don't know can't be trusted. So no more cat petting for Ava. I mean Ava steps on our dog all the time and he is so patient with her and would never hurt her, but cats just are so random and unpredictable.

Ava is CONSTANTLY making messes everywhere she goes. She is like my own personal tornado. Where ever she goes destruction follows But she is just so dang cute when she's messy haha.

Ava quite enjoys playing in Lucky's kennel. This particular day she decided it looked fun to go hide inside. Right after I took this pic she got upset since she couldn't get out as easily as she went in. I had to rescue her..

We went to 7-Peaks for my birthday. It was fun but Ava isn't really a huge fan of the water. I was surprized since she loves bathtime and our backyard pool. She might of been overwhelmed by all the people there. I'm not sure why she was scared. I am still trying to warm her up to swimming. Russ somehow convinced me to go down these freefall waterslides. We did both of them. WOW.. what a rush. It seriously too my breath away so scary but fun too. The blue slide next to it I did too and was WAY WAY more scarey then the yellow. It went straight DOWN! But I survived :) Below is a pic of me.

This is Russ.

Here is Ava with her Grampa's sheep.

This was on my Birthday. I turned 26!

Little Ava knows how to get into EVERYTHING. She manages to escape out of any fence, finds things to climb on to get things we try to keep out of reach. We call her our little monkey!

We took Ava to the Strawberry Days Rodeo!

On one of Russell's days off we took her to the Lindon pool. It's my favorite one that's close.

I just love her in her cute swimsuit and hat!

Everytime we took her in the pool she would get scared and cry. So finally we moved our towels to the grassy area here and she was totally happy again. I think she didn't like the crowds of people. She loves little kids her size and will be so social and talk to them and share her toys. But she doesn't like adults at all. She will be so shy around any adult. But kids she loves.

Riding her 4-wheeler.

She LOVES it!

Here is her attitute. She is happy most the time but if you do sometime she doesn't like or ask her to take a nap and she will frown at you. I think its so funny!

With dad!

In our backyard pool... the best part is no crowds. I guess she just likes it all to herself.

She loves giving hugs. And after she does.. she claps.

At the park. If you look behind her this is the park near our house that we go too all the time. The slide is her favorite part for sure!

Here is Ava with her blankie. Let me say she won't go anywhere without this thing. She drags it everywhere behind her. She can't sleep at night without it.