Workout with Bonnie and Ava

I started Jillian Michael's 30 day shred yesterday and the girls have been working out right along beside me as I do it! They push me to keep going! Bonnie decided that I should follow the beginner instructor and she would follow the advanced one! HA! I didn't have hand weights the other day so I used canned tomatoes. Bonnie and Ava went into the pantry to get their own cans (the 6 ounce tomato paste cans work very well for little ones! ) I stopped to take this video of them for a few minutes to capture some memories. Don't worry...I went back on the DVD and redid the part I missed while videoing them, so I was NOT cheating! :)

Bye, Bye, Pacis!!!

I decided to take Ava's pacis away last week while John was out of town. We took Bonnie's away about the same time so I thought we'd just go ahead and do it before Ava turns 2 in a couple of more months. She did pretty well--better than I had expected. You see, Bonnie and Ava both loved their pacis, but Ava has been TOTALLY addicted to hers! She was constantly going into her bedroom and getting it and her 'blankie' and wanting to have them all day long. I'm not concerned about her carrying the 'blankie' around, but I did want to nip the paci in the bud. She cried pretty hard for about 30 minutes that first night and for a minute, I thought...WHAT HAVE I DONE??!!!??? But, I hung in there and talked to John on the phone until the crying stopped. Naptime the next day, she cried for about 10 minutes and went straight to sleep. Then, the next night, she didn't cry at all and sang "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "Old MacDonald" until she fell asleep. I have NO regrets about taking the paci away and am SO glad I went ahead and did it! I actually found another one in my purse the other day that I need to get rid of PRONTO so I still need to do that, but I'm proud to say that we are DONE with pacis! YAY! I took some video footage of me guiding her to throw the pacis in the garbage. It's about 7+ minutes long! Bonnie helped me put a new bag in the trash can after we took the trash out (about 5-7 pacis were in there!)

Zoo Day!!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

John was out of town the entire week last week so I took the girls to the Birmingham Zoo for the day.  Some friends from church joined us and it was such a fun day!  Here are just some of the special creatures we saw at the zoo:

                                                                           
                                                                          A gorgeous macaw                                                

                                        a cute little bird of some kind that kept poking his head out

                                                               and trying to bite Bonnie

The Lorikeets........beware of them pooping on your head...happened to a little girl with us....feeding nectar to the lorikeets all day long can be a messy situation! Look how BEAUTIFUL they are!

I thought it was HILARIOUS how these monkeys slept sitting up like this!

This gorilla posed for me to take the photo. How so very kind of him!

No swimming.....NO KIDDING!!!

Cute pics of the kids at the Zoo

Barklee, Joshua, Hugh, Bonnie, and Marah

Bonnie and Ava looking for alligators and turtles in the water.  Bonnie was giving Ava a lesson on what to look for

Ava LOVED looking at all  of the animals!  In this second shot, she LOVED looking at her reflection!

Petting Zoo photos (Ava LOVED the goats!)

And at last, we made a stop at the splash pad.  This was perhaps the most fun part of the day for them.  Bonnie was exhausted and bumped into another kid and started crying and it was downhill after that.  She kept saying she was NOT TIRED but I knew otherwise.  After about 30 minutes at the splash pad, both girls were ready to head back home.  Needless to say, Ava was asleep before we left the parking lot!  It was SUCH a wonderful day spent together with my sweet girls!

Flower Planting and Digging for Worms!

John helped Bonnie and her friend Marah plant flowers in our herb garden one afternoon together and they had so much fun! They found a few earthworms that they named all sorts of silly names and I think they had more fun with the worms than they did planting the daisies!

The girls' daisies- Bonnie's is the coral one and Marah's is the pale pink one

We planted a few random purple flowers too!

Gotta water them!

Bonnie at Soccer Practice

Easter Sunday Dresses--a TRUE Photo Taking Experience

We only took about 100 shots to get a few good ones....here are a few of my favs!

And....let's not forget my VERY favorite one......

Turtlepoint Easter Egg Hunt and Magic Show

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Bonnie and  Marah with the Easter Bunny

Prissy little Bonnie :)

Enjoying a snack

Bonnie was chosen to be the volunteer at the magic show and she was SOO super excited about it!

This photo depicts how truly excited she was!

Allow me to demonstrate....

I love her little stance right here!

She was AMAZED at how he bent that fork!

I forgot to add that Bonnie got some cute little purplish pink stamps in her Easter Eggs she found on this day.  Well, she was quiet the whole way home from the hunt and I just thought the girls were just tired and resting. John and I were enjoying some nice conversation and when we pulled into the garage, I looked back at Bonnie and gasped horridly! She had stamped ALL OVER HER ENTIRE BODY! I mean, she had stamped all down both arms, both legs, her hands, cheeks, and even tongue and teeth!  Her teeth were purple!  All I was thinking was OH MY GOODNESS! We CANNOT go to church tomorrow looking like this! I was so upset and mad at her that I did not take a picture--I really wish I had now but oh well, what's done is done.  We tried EVERYTHING we could think of to get it off of her and nothing was working.  We tried Goo-Gone, fingernail polish remover, shampoo, baby wipes, and vegetable oil (which she FREAKED OUT about as I was trying to put on her.  She started screaming, "OH NO!! PLEASE DON'T MOMMY! PLEASE DON'T!! PLEASE DON'T COOK ME!" She was crying hysterically and actually thought that if I put vegetable oil on her, that I would be cooking her! That moment was so pityful, funny, not so funny, and precious all at the same time and it broke my anger a lot so I could calm down.  I explained to her that I was not going to cook her but that something I read said that oil would get permaneant markers off of a person's skin so I wanted to try it!  Well, we tried everything and FINALLY I just got a bar of soap out and it started coming off!  DUH MOM! I should've just tried that in the first place! Ahhh......such a memorable moment!

Easter Egg Hunt at Church-Ava's First Real Easter Hunt

Friday evening April 2, 2010

Ava is geared up and READY to go hunt Easter Eggs!!

Some sweet friends and their sweet babies!

                                          Ava on the run to find eggs!

YAY! I found one!

   
Once Ava realized the eggs were not empty and candy was inside....the hunt was OVER!

I didn't find many....you think you could let me have some of yours....please???  :)

Bonnie was SO proud of what she'd found!

"Here, little sister, I'll give some of mine to you!" :)

What a great night of family fun!