Ava's Birthday Weekend

Since we took Ava to see Frozen on her birthday, the next day we just had have a little party. Everyone needs an excuse to have cake and balloons!

Marnier and Grady made it cottage a Frozen wonderland for our little Princess. 

Happy 2nd Birthday Ava!

The Little Birthday Girl!

How can it be that my baby girl is 2 already! Today we began celebrating with a birthday doughnut. Complete with 2 candles and pink sprinkles. This is a new tradition I want to start… seemed like the perfect way to begin the day!

For lunch Ava, Wyatt and John came a met me for lunch at Chick-fil-a where the kiddos got to play in the Play Place.

Then tonight was the icing on the cake!!! We took Ava to see Frozen On Ice. It was wonderful! Ava and Wyatt both did very well considering the who night. I LOVED watching their faces as their favorite Disney characters skated by.

Wyatt's face pretty much says it all! 

I absolutely adore her. Happy Birthday to my little Peanut. xoxo

A few little things about our birthday girl:

• She is FIERCE! If she wants it, she's going to get it. Great thing for a grown women, but not so much for a 2 year old!
• She loves her black patten leather dress shoes. Today she insisted on wearing them everywhere she went, and with every outfit she wore.
• She loves Pizza, French Fries, Noodles, Chichen Nuggets, Fruit and Blue Berry Muffins.
• She sleeps with her gray elephant, Ellie, every night.
• She calls Wyatt, "Wy Guy".
• She loves to direct everyone around… "come on Mommy, come on!" I must hear this a hundred times a day :)
• She recently developed a thing for Hello Kitty thanks to a McDonalds toy of Hello Kitty reading a book.
• She is "MISS AVA" with her opinion being heard at all time. You know exactly where you stand with her.
• She talks non-stop, even if she is the only one that knows what she's saying.
• She loves everything Pink, Glittery and Shinny.
• Her favorite moves are Pirates, Frozen and Tinker Bell.
• Her favorite show hands down is Little Einsteins. 
• Her favorite car is Daddy's Vroom Vroom.

My most EPIC birthday adventure ever! (If you've seen 'Pirates', you know)

I've got to give it to everyone involved… This is one of the best birthdays I've had in years!

We went up to PA for the weekend. Saturday John, Jen, Jackie and I headed to Hershey, while the kiddos stayed to play with their cousins. Sunday all of went to a park, where Wyatt's mind was blown!

1st Stop: Brewery Tour at Troegs - EPIC

2nd Stop: Tailgating - EPIC

3rd Concert; Aloe Black opened for Bruno Mars! - EPIC

Sunday we made Wyatt's day:
4th stop, Pioneer Tunnel, a Train Ride and the cutest playground ever - EPIC

The B-B-Beach

My new favorite picture. These small moments I simply love.

Sand between my toes and sun on my nose :) We were all happy for a short vacation to the B-B-Beach, aka Avon, NC. On the first day we took the kids over to play at in the Sound. It was PERFECT for our little explorers. They could run, splash and play all they wanted and we just sat back and enjoyed the view. 

It is always such a special treat to see all of our "Family By Choice". The kids have all grown up so much this past year. It was a trip to see them all together toddling around. Look forward to Melissa & Jakes new little one joining the mix next year. Now that I'm looking back on the 4 days, I did a terrible job taking pictures! I sure hope Liz and Don got some good shots to remember this year by. The only complaint I have is that there just aren't enough hours in the day to really catch up. With the little ones at the ages they are it is hard to carry on much of a conversation between the "Mommy!" requests and "get back here" moments… so to this point - to all that I love you all and am so grateful that we got to see each of you this year. Thank you Mom and Dad for the cottage and thank you to the whole Ackert crew for the hospitality :) Until next year!

(side bar moment to follow this post: Ava and the Door Knob)

Ava and the Door Knob

The cottage we had this year was great for what we needed it for. But there were a few things that made it, well, interesting. If you sat on the third floor when someone was going up or down the stairs you could feel the house sway… Ummm yeah, it moved enough that I though for a second I'd had too much to drink and then I realized it was water in my cup!

I also noticed that it was really hard to open the kids bedroom door. This all came to a head one morning as we made breakfast. All of the sudden I hear Ava begin to cry. The sound was really muffled. When I set off to find her Wyatt came running hollering that Ava was stuck. That was the understatement of the day! She had closed herself in the bedroom and the knob would not unlock. I tried my hardest, yanking, turning, banging. Grady stepped in and even he couldn't get it to budge. All the while Ava'bean was screaming bloody murder from the other side of the door and Wyatt was calling back to her, "It's okay Ava, we'll get you". It was at this moment when panic turned in to a little laugher and Dad went for the screw drivers. He finally got the knob off we found that the inner mechanism had sheared right off the knob. There was no way to get it unlatched! We could see Ava through the whole. Her little fingers trying to pry her way to freedom and her mulitpule attempts to put the knob back in and turn. I can only image what might have been going through her mind at this point!  Then John aka "Daddy MacGyver" came out with a credit card, slipped it in the door frame and with a few giggles popped the latch open! Ava came darting out of the room and jumped straight in to my arms… still holding on to the knob.

This is Ava recovering from her the drama… She just looks so ticked off at the world right here! And she was!

Catch Me If You Can

Wyatt and Ava got brand new fishing poles for the cottage. Down to the dock we went. They did good watching their bobbers and waiting for a bite. It only took a moment for Ava to get one on. Her first fish! She helped reel it in and was happy to see the "fishy", but don't ask her to hold it!  

"Fishy"

Ava's First Fish!

Back to waiting and enjoying the moment, then suddenly Wyatt's pole flew from his hands. It shot straight out in to the creek and quickly disappeared. Shocking, stunned and relatively speechless… Mom and I couldn't help but burst out in laughter, however poor Wy Guy just looked confused. He was so happy he'd caught a fish and so sad that the fish caught the pole. Then the bobber popped up in the middle of the creek. Two young boys from the cottage across the way just so happened to be tooling around on their dock. Mariner hollered over to them for help and before we knew it the boys had jumped in their kayak and paddled after the bobber. By the time they finally chased it down they were almost to us. One of them grabbed the bobber and pulled up the fish. The pole thief was an 8 inch croaker and as he made his sound Wyatt decided he should be called a "tooting fish"! At the other end of the line we found the fishing pole! It was a little muddy but still in good shape. At the end of our inaugural fishing trip both kids had a catch and we got a good laugh. Later that night Wyatt recounted the tale to Daddy and Grady... Now he has his very own fish tale! Funny how that 8 inch clepto is now a giant force to be reckoned with, ask Wy Guy, he'll tell you!

Wyatt's face when the pole took off!