25 Days of Christmas - Day 1

Those of you who know me, know I love to take pictures and scrapbook. I typically only scrapbook on paper, but trends are really turning to Digital Scrapbooking. I read lots of photography blogs and scrapbooking related blogs to see what's hot and one of my faves to read is Jessica Sprague. http://spraguelab.squarespace.com/ She is a great paper and digital scrapbooker and always has great ideas and helpful computer information. With the holidays approaching she has designed several neat albums and this is just one of them. It is a daily album where you document your daily holiday activities. I know Ava is still too little to grasp what is going on, but I am so excited about the holidays and hope I can make a page a day for the 25 days of Christmas. I will try to post everyday, but sometimes I am sure I will fall behind. With that said, here is December 1st.

Recent Happenings

Whew, have we been busy at the Rogers House! Over the past week we have had tons of stuff going on and have kept very busy. Here's what's been up:

• Ava has been cutting some more molars so we have had lots of drool, high fever, and runny nose. She has been super clingy to me and has just worn me out when I have been home.
  
• I got my Christmas gift from Bradley early so I can start playing with it, so over the next bit, you will be seeing tons of pictures of all kinds of stuff because I am learning to work my new camera. I am overwhelmed, but loving it!


• Thursday night was the Newbern Christmas parade. Of course Ava had been sick, but we bundled her up so she wouldn't miss it. She was happy while the bands were warming up and then she cried for the rest of the parade and 20 minutes after we got home. Talk about miserable. On a high note, as we were standing on the porch watching Santa go by, he yelled to Ava and said, "Merry Christmas! I'll be coming back!" I just love having Santa talk to Ava every year while we watch from the porch. (Yes, this is the 2nd year.)


• 2 weeks and 3 days left of school!


• We have been getting the rest of our decorations finished up. The only thing we lack now is to finish straightening the house, and getting the outside decorations up.


• Repairing broken ornaments and trying to keep Ava out of the tree.

New words from Ava:

• She loves singing, "I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map!" from Dora and she does it very loud. Only it sounds like, "I da map!"
  
• Shoe


• Box


• Meow


• Bite (been saying this for a while, but I don't think I posted it.)


• Coke
  

Anyway, it's been busy. Tomorrow is our church's Hanging of the Green and next week we are planning a shopping trip, a trip to see Santa, and a girls' weekend with my mom. Busy, but fun and I am sure to have tons to post.

She loved the band warming up and it all went downhill from here!
I know this picture looks crazy because I had my camera set for the lights of the Christmas tree, but Bradley saw Ava with two pacis in her mouth and I had to snap! Silly girl!Zoe
Our Family Tree

My favorite Santa
My Tree
Ava in awe of the tree and I'm sure about to attack it.
Putting the tree skirt on.

Deviled Egg Hog

These pictures are from last week, but I am finally getting a chance to post them. On the night before Thanksgiving in KY, I made deviled eggs to take to Nanny and Poppy's. I always have Bradley mix the deviled part because he does much better at getting it smooth and not so lumpy. So he was sitting on the couch 'deviling' the eggs when Ava came up. First of all, she begs like a little dog when you have food and I wouldn't have it any other way. She tries everything and usually likes it. He decided to give her a bite of the eggs and she was hooked. She loved the deviled egg filling and looked so super cute that I had to take photos. I also loved the super cute "Alfalfa" curl!

Hope everyone has a great weekend. Look for some new videos up this week of Ava doing what else, but dancing!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

As promised, here are pictures from our recent decorating for the holidays. Of course, Ava is as curious as a cat and just loves the trees and pulling ornaments off of them. She especially loves the Pooh ornaments on the family tree. The other night I was showing her colors on the tree lights and she started going around the tree pointing at every light saying, "Wed, Wed, Wed, Wed." In case you didn't know, that stands for red. So she thinks every light is "wed." If you could die from her cuteness, I would definitely be dead many times over! So here's a little bit of our Christmas spirit from our house to yours!

Daddy couldn't get the tree set up because Ava kept lying on the towel he sets it on.



She doesn't really look amused by these antics.

Hanging the first ornament.

Snowman Hat Shenanigans

While we celebrated Thanksgiving at my Grandparents' house this weekend, my Aunt Bo brought down some hats for the little ones to wear. Most were too small, but this one fit just right. Only Ava didn't see it that why. We fought with her for a while on wearing the hat and as you can see from the pictures. She finally just gave up fighting and kept in on for a couple of minutes. It was hilarious how anti-hat she was. She just flat out refused to humor us and wear the hat. It was funny how hard she fought and then relented at the last minute. Too cute!

Thanksgiving in KY

On Saturday we made the trip up to KY to spend Thanksgiving with my family. {Thanks Joe and Anne for letting us borrow your car. We appreciate it!} We visited for a few minutes with Ava's great-grandmother, Mammaw, and Uncle Earl and Aunt Rosemary, Ava got to spend time with her Grammy and Gramps (my parents), her cousin, Trayton, and then we had dinner at my Nanny and Poppy's and got to visit with Bo and Mike. Ava was in a good mood and was giving out the kisses and they are so sweet! We had a great time visiting with everyone, especially since it has been so long since we have visited. Good times and now we are looking ahead to Christmas. Our trees are almost decorated and then we just have to finish the outside decorations. I'll post some decorating pictures this week. I also have pictures of Ava's Snowman Hat Shenanigans. So Check back later to see more!

Hope everyone had a great weekend and now it's time to head back to work!