523 pages down, 236 more to go!

So Bradley went out after midnight on Friday to get me a new copy of the Harry Potter book. I was worn out from the Ava saga of the day so he volunteered to go. When I posted Friday Ava was just a little moody from teething and fever, but as the day wore on she came down with a horrible runny nose and a cold in her eye. So we were also dealing with that on top of the teething and with the runny nose she was not sleeping good and woke up a couple of times just wanting to be held. She is much better now, still a little clingy, but no fever and one of the teeth has come through. By the way, thanks for the tip Mandy, we will try it.

Anyway, we have been super busy here at our house (and not just with Potter reading!), but with working and cleaning. As you know, we are busy preparing for Ava's first birthday. We have a list of things to get done and at the top of our list was to fix our downstairs toilet. It had developed a leak and then part of the floor had rotted. Bradley wanted to hire someone to fix it, but with money being as it is, I convinced him to let Joe and him try to tackle it and go from there. The repairing of the floor was not a big problem, but replacing the toilet was. Our original toilet had a crack so Joe and Anne had an extra one that they hauled down here. One they got it in, it had a crack too. So Joe headed off to Lowe's to buy one. Once they got it here they discovered it was the wrong size. Took it back and bought another one. Got it out to the car and broken pieces started falling out of the box. So they took it back in and got another one. So after 4 toilets, the 5th one has successfully been installed. Thank God! No more walking upstairs to use the restroom.

In the middle of the toilet debacle and blowing up our living room light, we got a phone call. The people who originally built our house in the 1920's have some grandchildren that are visiting who want to come and tour our house. Crazy, huh? Anyway they will be coming this week so we have been furiously getting ready to have strangers come into our home and take a look around! Exciting, but nerve wracking. So we are extremely busy.

By the way, I go back to work tomorrow, so pray for me. I need it!

Anyway, here are some fun photos of me with my new Harry. I am also debuting my return to my original (or pretty close) hair color. I am also posting some pics of Ava with Pop and our new toilet. Enjoy and I will be back later with some pics of mashed potato face. Just a teaser of what's to come!

5 years later...

Thanks to you all who remembered our wedding anniversary. I didn't get a chance to post anything on Friday because we were so busy getting ready to leave for the wedding. How funny is it that we spent out anniversary celebrating the beginning of someone else's marriage? It wasn't exactly how I imagined spending my 5th anniversary, but it was fun.

So thanks to those who remembered us.

• Bethany - thanks for posting on the blog


• Steve, Mandy, and the kids - thanks for remembering us here on the blog


• Uncle Earl and Aunt Rosemary - thanks for the card


• Mom and Dad - thanks for the card


• Anne and Joe - thanks for the card, movie gift certificates, and offer to babysit for free (though for some reason, I don't see that babysitting as much of a hardship ;)

We stayed so busy this weekend that we didn't get to put our shoes on the tree at MSU, so I guess we will just have to wait until another time...

Anyway, here is a picture from now and a picture from then. The new photo was taken Friday night, after our actual hour of wedded bliss, so it is exactly 5 years to the day of our wedding. I will post more pics from the weekend later.

We may be muggles...

(that's Potter speak for a human), but we made it on opening night to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I am an avid Potter fan. I love the books and the movies, but Bradley just likes the movies. I finally convinced him to go see the newest movie in the Harry series, (gasp) on a work night! But at least it was a Wednesday night so the theatre wasn't to overcrowded, but there were lots of people.

So out of all the books, this particular one was my 2nd least fave. However, they did a great job with the movie and I found myself really enjoying it! For those of you new to the series, you definitely need to see the 4 previous movies before jumping into this one or you will be so lost!

Thanks to our friends Kellie and David, and Stacy and Jonathan for the triple date and thanks to Joe and Anne for watching Ava. It was great to have a night out with adults even if we did go see a kids movie. Thanks also to Anne and Bethany for the beautiful comments you have left. They were so sweet!

Well, we are headed up to KY this weekend for a wedding. One of our friends from college is getting married and Bradley is a groomsman. Looking forward to some fun!

By the way tomorrow is our 5 year wedding anniversary. If all goes well we will be attaching our shoes to the shoe tree ay MSU this weekend. How fun and man does 5 years fly by!

And how stinking' cute is this kid! I love this costume!

Our weekend visitor

On Friday night, Ava and I headed outside to see what Bradley was doing. We found him watering his vegetable garden with a little friend. This poor little puppy had wandered up. We weren't sure who it belonged to, but we could tell it was someones because she was wearing a pink, rhinestone studded collar and toenail polish. So Friday night Bradley took a sign to the grocery store in town with a picture on it and we waited.

In the meantime, we just had a ball playing with this little dog. Ava thought it was funny and liked when it licked her feet (but not when it chewed on them!). She would just laugh at her.

But on Sunday, we finally found out that this pup did indeed have an owner. Plus they live right across the street from us. Turns out the puppy's name is Lacey and she was adopted from the local shelter. We were happy to reunite Lacey with her Mommy and glad that we didn't have to adopt our new little friend, whom we called Sadie!