Fall picture scouting

On Wednesday afternoon I decided to take Ava out scouting for places to take fall pictures. We have a very nice rest area right outside of town so we headed their to check it out. The leaves here haven't all turned so some are still bright green while others are completely turning. In our backyard, it is either yellow or green and nothing else. So we went to the rest stop and of course Ava just had a ball running around and exploring. However, that is not the best time to try to get pictures. She just wanted to run and not pose for anything. I got a couple of good shots, so here you go.

Sickness in our House

Well, we are finally getting over the blues that we have had at our house. Like I mentioned last week, Ava has had a runny nose, but on Sunday, Bradley and I both got sick. I had a stomach virus that lasted about 10 awful hours and Bradley has had stomach problems and fever. We both ended up home from work on Monday and thank God for Nana (Anne) because without her I don't know what we would have done. {Thank you so much for taking care of Ava! You do a fantastic job and we don't let you know enough how much we appreciate you!} We are both back at work and a little puny, but better than we had been. Ava's runny nose is slowly drying up and she is feeling better. In fact, today we headed out to scout some fall areas for pictures and headed to a rest stop outside of town. The leaves here haven't all turned and I was hoping to find some pretty scenery, but Ava is just at a horrible age to try to take pictures of so I just snap away and hope something turns out. I will try to get those posted maybe tomorrow. So that's basically it from the home front right now. Just getting ready to start getting into the Christmas spirit and start decorating!

Halloweenie Roast Pictures

Here is the rest of the pictures from the Hall-O-Weenie Roast. After carving pumpkins and playing badminton, we got the fire going and roasted hot dogs and had s'mores. Ava was very intrigued by the fire, but never got too close. I was just scared she would trip and fall near it so we kept a very close eye on her. She ate most of my hot dog and most of her Nana's veggie burger.

Then I changed her into her Pumpkin Princess costume so everyone could see what a cutie she was. She ran around in her little outfit for quite a while. She had only taken a short nap and was so tired that we tried to get her in bed at 8. No such luck, but thanks to her Daddy who bathed her and put her in bed because her Mommy was so tired she was in bed before Ava! It was a great day, but we were exhausted. Thanks to everyone who came.

Ava with Pop (I love how the smoke from the fire is making a screen)

Nana and Ava

I think her little tights and tutu are so cute!
Grammy's Rose
All 5 of our pumpkins
Bethany and Peyton's Castle
Gramps's skeleton - Grand Prize Winner

My Dumbo

Above - Nana's Donald Duck

Below - Ava with Grammy and Gramps

A Not so Happy Halloween

The omen that signaled it all was Ava in bed around 5:00 this morning coughing a little. I should have known that bad times were a coming. The nose started running, the appetite went away, the moodiness began, and I can feel two molars hanging out below the surface of the gum.

Of course there is always tons of stuff to do on Halloween and yesterday was no exception. I rushed home, hurried Ava into her costume for pictures, and we took off into the backyard, runny nose and all. Thank God it was a beautiful day of it. Since I wasn't able to get any good pictures of Ava in her costume on Saturday night (I will post the rest of those Hall-O-Weenie Roast pictures later), I was determined to get a good shot. My camera has been acting up and not focusing right - {hint, hint to that wonderful husband of mine} so I decided to go outside where Ava loves it. She has been enthralled by pumpkins and loved touching, patting, and kissing them. I thought, what better than to have my pumpkin princess play with a pumpkin. Why in the world would I assume that this would be the 20 minutes that Ava decided pumpkins are just not that cool and it is much more fun to eat rocks? Needless to say, the pictures I did get were kind of blurry and I was kind of sweaty and in a foul mood. Guess Ava's mood wears off on people.

Next on the agenda was to carve one last pumpkin. This one was especially for Ava and had a picture of Uniqua on it. My hands were cramping and I had been working on it for quite a while when Ava came up and decided to poke one of her eyes out. Thank God for Bradley and toothpicks!

Our first trick-or-treater arrived at 5 and Ava ran to the door. I had to move her aside to get the door open and that's when the fit began. From then on out, the fits came quite frequently. Ava wanted to dump out the basket, Ava wanted to run around the yard and head for the road, Ava wanted to go with the other kids. On and On until I thought I was going to go crazy. After a disappointing 75 trick-or-treaters we took Ava to one house, Nana and Pop's. She was fine while there and then we headed home for bath and bedtime. I quickly followed into the bed and passed out, so exhausted after what is usually my favorite holiday. I hope next year is much better! But on a side note, as you can see from the above pictures, we handed out Play-Doh this year and the kids loved it! I was so happy to see the kids excited about it. It was so cute to see how happy it made the little ones to get Play-Doh.

Thank you to Aunt Bethany, Nana, Pop, Grammy, and Gramps for the cards and gifts that Ava got on Halloween.

Ava definitely should not be getting so close to Squiggles, especially when Squiggles is in costume.
Ava heading for the candy.


Ava loved Pirate Mickey and even said "Ickey" several times.

Ava's Uniqua pumpkin
Ava Trick-or-Treating at Nana and Pop's

One of the only good pictures I got of her.