Ava's 6th birthday!

What a great day to turn 6! I can't believe 6 years has passed since we met our sweet little baby Ava. It has been 6 years of fun, laughter, sweetness, and happiness. This has been an especially exciting year since Ava started Kindergarten. She has done so well in school, and is making lots of new friends. She was excited to wear her new "six" shirt that she got for her birthday. She's had one of these shirts from my friend who has the Etsy store for all of her birthdays except for her first. I love the one she got this year. I suggested this design to Jenifer and she made it happen!

Ready for school! She and Tyler both brought 30 doughnuts to class to share for their birthdays. Since Tyler has a summer birthday, he never gets to celebrate with his class. Since this year was his last year in Ms. Shelly's class, I asked if he could celebrate a little early. He was glad to be able to have a school birthday party for the first time. Ava was able to share her doughnuts at school, but then she got sent home with a fever. She had been fighting a bit of a cold, and the night before her birthday I had wondered if she'd be ok the next day, but she seemed fine so I sent her.

At about 11 am, I got a phone call that she had a fever of 100 degrees, which is right at the point when they send them home. She got home and seemed to be feeling fine. The first thing she said to me was "do I still get to get my ears pierced?" I told her she had to take a little nap, and when she woke up we'd go do some fun birthday stuff. She took a good nap in her favorite nap spot (in the window behind the couch), and woke up feeling pretty good.

We went to get Tyler from school, and then Grandma Jean joined us to go to the mall for Ava's birthday present--getting her ears pierced. She'd been asking about it for awhile, and we decided that she could get it done for her birthday. She brought a few stuffed animals for moral support, but she was ready!

She was so excited! She didn't seem even slightly nervous.

There was another little girl about the same age who was getting her ears pierced just before Ava. I was hoping she wasn't going to freak out and make Ava nervous, but the other little girl did great. Ava picked out her earrings (after much debate), and finally decided on little pink pearls. I thought it was a perfect choice. She did so great! You can tell she's a little nervous, and maybe on the verge of getting upset, but she hardly even flinched! I think she was so excited to have this done that she wasn't going to let herself cry. I'm so proud of her! 

Aren't they pretty? She's doing a great job taking care of them too--washing them and turning them twice a day without even being reminded.

After that, we went down to Frost for her free birthday gelato. She chose bubble gum, as usual.

Ava's dinner spot of choice was Applebee's, and Grandma and Grandpa joined us for dinner. Afterwards--even though none of us needed dessert (she got a free ice cream and they sang to her at dinner), we went home for a piece of leftover birthday cake from her party.

I think she had a pretty great day! 6 is going to be a fun year!

We're so in love with our sweet little Ava. She is a funny, kind, friendly, and happy girl. She has done so well in Kindergarten and is going to rock 1st grade next year. We are excited to watch her learning how to read and seeing how much she's grown during this year of school. She's got so many friends and loves to play with the other kids at school, and has even been one of the little helpers for some of the 3 year old girls in her class. We can't wait to see what this year holds for our sweet girl. Happy happy sixth birthday, Ava Claire! We all love you so much.

Videos from 6 years ago

While walking down memory lane while thinking of our baby girl turning 6, I looked back for some videos of when she was first born. There are a few favorites that I've shared before, like this all time fave, but I don't think these have been seen.

Tyler is getting a "kick" out of listening for his sister, just two days before she was born. Sorry about the sideways camera--it changes half way through .

Here is a video of Ava coming home from the hospital. Tyler showed his "baby sister" her new room, and then his room and his trains. I love his sweet little voice in this video! As hard as it is to believe that Ava is 6, how is it that Tyler is almost 9? I love that we have all of these precious videos of our kids. It's so fun to look back on them and try to remember what it was like during those various stages of their lives. I've loved every one of them!

Last sleep as a 5 year old

This pretty lady is going to bed as a 5 year old for the last time. She's looking forward to waking up tomorrow as a 6 year old! It seems like it wasn't long ago that I was taking a new picture of her each month to show how much she grew in one year. The years are flying too quickly! Happy sleep, sweet girl. We can't wait to celebrate your day tomorrow.

Birthday dinner with cousins

Claire invited the whole family over for dinner tonight, and we celebrated Ava's birthday. I love this picture of her with her big birthday smile! Pretty, pretty girl. 

 All the cousins were there for the picture, except for Braden. He was home sick.

Snapped this cute picture of Ava and Lacy with Zach just before we left. It is always loud and crazy when all of the kids are together, but we sure are lucky that these kids have so many cousins to make crazy noise with!

Family day at the D-Backs game

My dad has never been to a professional baseball game--until now. We headed downtown for a Diamondbacks game today, on my mom's last weekend in town for awhile. I can't believe she's leaving! I've gotten so used to having her just down the street, it's going to be tough for all of us when she's not here. Dad is staying for a few more weeks. 

The kids got free tickets today, and we had really good seats straight up from home plate on the 3rd level. It was the craziest weather today--cool, windy, and cloudy. They had the roof open and it was pretty chilly up there in the shade at times. It was great though, much different that the heat we're used to at D-backs games. How great is this view?!

It was a really boring game. The D-backs were losing 5-0 when we left in the 8th inning. We walked over to the Sandlot to kill some time, and walked around the stadium so my dad could check the place out. It was a fun day to be at the ball park.

Second to the last day as a 5 year old!

I wonder what the temperature difference was between the seats we were sitting in up on the 3rd level in the shade compared to these people who were sitting in the sun the whole game? I think I'd pick our seats over the seats in the sun.

It was a fun day!

Ava's 6th birthday party

We celebrated Ava's 6th birthday yesterday. For the first time in all of the birthdays our kids have celebrated, Ava got to invite friends from school to her party. Tyler is unlucky enough to have a summer birthday (and we don't know his school friends' parents), and we tend to be in ND for his birthday, so he usually only gets to celebrate with cousins. When you have as many cousins as our kids do though, it still makes for a fun party. Ava's birthday falls during the school year, so she'll have an easier time inviting friends from school to her parties. This year, we let her invite 6 friends from school, along with Lacy and a couple kids who belong to friends of mine. Unfortunately, only 1 of those 6 school friends was able to come, but combined with the 4 kids belonging to my friends, it was the perfect size for a birthday party.

My parents offered up their condo pool for the occasion, and being a cooler day, we mostly had the place to ourselves. I wasn't going to do that thing that lots of moms do where they throw parties worthy of their own Pinterest page. Simple was my plan. The kids just wanted to play/swim together, so I wasn't going stress myself out over decorating or finding games they could play. We had some kid friendly food (hot dogs, carrots, chips, fruit, and animal crackers), and Aunt Tina made Ava an awesome Frozen birthday cake. 

Ava got to help Aunt Tina decide on the design for her cake, and it turned out so well! Tina is a very talented cake maker, and she's very generous to do this for the kids.

It was a cooler than average day, with clouds coming and going, and some wind. The girls went back and forth between the pool and the hot tub most of the day. Here are all 6 of them enjoying the warm water. 

There is a Canadian resident at the condo that my parents have gotten to know, Marg, and she's always nice enough to let Ava use her green inner tube when she's there. For her birthday, Marg gave Ava her very own pink tube. It was very nice of her!

Harper, on the left, belongs to my friend Ashley. Harper is only 2 months younger than Ava, but is at least a head shorter. For this picture, Ava was holding her up---otherwise, she could barely get her head out of the water in the hot tub. I think that's how deep the water was on Ava when my parents first bought this condo. Ava is a giant now!

This is one of the few things I did as far as activities at the party. I froze a little toy inside of water balloons, and then the kids had to thaw them out to get to the toy. It was a hit!

Cake time! From left to right we have Lila, Rowan (Ava's friend from school), Ava, Lacy, Olivia, and Harper.

How cool is this cake?! It was delicious too.

I love this picture! Ava and Rowan are being photo bombed by Olaf!

Harper had fun with all the girls!

It took little Lila a little time to get used to the water, but by the end of the party, she didn't want to leave. Both of the Kruse girls loved the hot tub too.

Ava got flippers, goggles and a snorkel from Grandpa Jon, and also a set of goggles and snorkel from Olivia and Lila. The goggles that came with the flippers was a little big, but the other set fit great, so Ava mixed and matched. Trying to swim with flippers and a snorkel was tough for her at first, but then she figured it out. She was cruising across the pool by the end of the party.

Thanks for the party, Grandma and Grandpa! 

Ava had a great time at her birthday party. She is such a social little girl, and she loves to be with her friends. We had a nice day for a party, all the kids had fun, and most importantly--our little birthday girl had a super time celebrating turning 6! Happy almost birthday, Ava!

You can see the rest of the pictures by clicking this link.

Spring school pictures

6 years ago today

Facebook does this thing now where you can get notifications showing what you posted on this day in years past. Today, I had a sweet reminder of where we were six years ago--just two days before Ava was born. Our little boy had only a couple days left of being an only child. We were all so excited to meet our daughter! I love these sweet pictures. It seems like it was so long ago, yet the time has flown by so quickly. That doesn't even make sense, but it's how it feels! It's hard to remember what it was even like before we had Ava. I do remember how excited I was on those days before she was born. I couldn't wait to meet our baby girl. 

Silhouetted flying

I love the lighting on this video of a plange out of lines from Tuesday night. The sun was setting and Ashley got this great video from the east side of the rig. 

I love that moment just before letting go of the bar. 

Random phone pictures

When learning that my 88 year old grandma got a smart phone, we had to take a picture to send her.

Enjoying grapefruit off our tree.

"I have two shirts on!"

"Send this picture to Ashley, Ricardo {one of my student workers}, and Beth Ann." Go Thunderbirds!

Tuckered out!