Snow 2022

This year, we got the best snow we’ve had in years! It was amazing to have so much snow and for it to stick around for a few days and be able to play in it so much. The first day, we even walked through our woods to Paris Mountain State Park. It was so beautiful to see the park and the lake all covered in snow. We enjoyed sledding down our hill, a campfire with marshmallows, made snow cream, drank hot chocolate, built pretty epic snowmen (complete with Olaf, Chilly from Doc and Kate) and a snow slide. Lucy and Winnie were living their best life romping through the snow too. Because of new rules, Ava still had to do e-learning but they were very kind and did not give her much work to complete at all so most of the days were spent enjoying the snow. We had a great time with our first snow at our new house (but were also very glad when it went away, one big snow was good, now we’re ready for normal life again).

Ava is 9 and a

Ava turned 9 and a half in January and I am going to try to sum up how Ava has changed in the past 6 months. I cannot believe she will be double digits in just a few short months! She is growing up way too fast. 

Ava is getting so tall these days. She is 4 ft 7.25 in tall! She is really going to catch up to me soon, I think. She is still wearing size 10/12 clothes but her size 10 jeans are starting to look a little short. We are ready for warmer weather so she can put away the high water jeans, ha. She needs the bigger sizes for length but not for her waist so finding clothes that fit is a little challenging sometimes. She’s also already outgrowing some of her fall/winter shoes. She is into size 4 for the next season. The crazy part of how shoes fit is that she can actually wear some womens shoes if they are small enough! How that’s already possible I have no clue!

The past 6 months brought on some new changes for Ava. Back in the fall, she graduated from Occupational Therapy! That was a big deal since she had been in it for 6 years. We were so proud of all she accomplished and how much she grew in OT. She also stopped tutoring in the fall because her tutor took a full time job at the school. She loved working with Mrs. Tessmann, who was her 2nd grade teacher (long-term sub, turned teacher) and was a long-term sub in 3rd grade when her teacher was out for surgery. Mrs. Tessmann helped so much during our e-learning days and helped Ava understand the new math concepts that are taught so differently than DJ and I learned. We are so thankful for all the time she spent with Ava!

Ava also started some new activities. She played on her very first team sport, playing basketball. She got to play for our pastor’s wife and with a few girls from our church as well as some girls from the church they played for. Ava learned so much about basketball and playing on a team. She made some sweet friends and loved playing basketball. Their team won the league championship game, finishing off an undefeated season! Ava scored during their last 2 games of the season, which was so fun to see! Ava also started dance in January (right before her half birthday). She is taking jazz at the same studio that Zoe goes to and she is loving it. We love the studio because they have beginner level classes for all the dance classes/ages so an older kid like Ava can start and not feel super behind. Ava’s class is a sweet group of girls and she really likes her teacher, Miss Iris. They just started working on their recital dance, which they will perform in June. It has been fun to watch Ava take on these new things and do really well with them!

Ava is really enjoying 4th grade! It has been nice to have a slightly more normal year this year, without the e-learning days (except for when we all had COVID and the snow). Ava has a great teacher this year and her class also has a teaching intern from Clemson, who is super sweet. Ava’s made a couple new friends this year as well. This school year has been a shift in being a little more challenging and the teachers expecting a lot more out of the students, so that has been an adjustment but she is doing so well and maintaining A’s and B’s on her report cards. She loves social studies but is not a fan of math. She also loves eating lunch at school and we love that the free lunch benefit from COVID has stuck around. Her favorite days are the nacho bar and the breakfast bar days.

Ava  is still a pretty picky eater. Her favorites though are still pizza, chicken pot pie, any breakfast for supper meal, black bean and potato tacos, chicken tacos, and lasagna soup. Chick-fil-A and Mexican are still her favorite places to eat out.

Ava’s favorite things to play with these days are her Barbie style Disney Princess dolls. She recently said she doesn't’ like playing with her American Girl doll or her baby dolls anymore. She is growing up so fast! Her favorite thing to do when she has down time is any sort of drawing/craft. She still loves that type of entertainment. And she is still an avid reader and loves books. She and DJ have gone to a bookstore a couple of times to spend Christmas/Birthday money and picking out new books is probably one of her favorite things to do. 

Ava still loves music and sings all the time. Her favorite music (and movies) is from Descendents. She sings those songs all the time. Encanto is also a big favorite in our house these days. Ava’s favorite song from Encanto is Surface Pressure, and we hear it all the time and it stays stuck in everyone’s heads. Finding movies/tv shows to watch is a little challenging these days because the things Ava likes are too much for Zoe. But they can usually agree on things like Elena of Avalor, Disney kids bake-off, Trolls, and Pup Academy. If Ava has time to watch something on her own, she likes Descendents, Carmen Sandiego, Hannah Montana and Izzy’s Koala World. 

Like I said, it does not seem possible to me that Ava is almost 10. She is growing up to be such a special young lady. She is definitely hitting those pre-teen times but we can also see her sweet, caring heart through the hormones. She cares so much about her friends and never wants to do anything to hurt them. She is a big feeler and is very empathetic. She loves big and we are so blessed to watch her grow into the young lady God has planned for her to be. We have the front row seat to watch that, a privilege we never take lightly.

A Couple Random Pictures

Because I can’t resist when Zoe actually asks me to take her picture, here are a couple of really cute random photos from my phone.

First Day of Dance 2022

The new year means a new semester of dance. Zoe is continuing with her Tot Hop and Tumble class this semester. She loves this class and will be sad when she ages out of it at the end of the semester. She has made some sweet friends in this class and looks forward to dance day every week.

This semester, Ava has decided to give dance a try. The nice thing about the studio is they have beginner classes for all ages so you can still start dance at age 9. Ava did some trial classes in the fall and decided to go with jazz. We are happy to watch her try something new and see how she likes it.

Christmas 2021 - Part 3

Our final Christmas celebration was spent with DJ’s side of the family. The girls had so much fun playing with their cousins (lots of dress up), crafts with Nana and playing with their kitten, Ashley (who kept us all entertained). And the Christmas miracle was that I managed to get some pictures of the kids and the kids with Nana and Papa where all 5 kids are looking and smiling! Of course, after the normal pictures, they had to take silly face pictures too.

We are so thankful for all of our family, who helped make Christmas such a special time for us all. We loved celebrating Jesus’ birth with each of you!

Christmas Lights 2021

We had the day after Christmas to spend as a family of 4 as well, so we planned our Christmas light adventure that evening. We decided not to go to Hollywild again this year because they were not having the petting zoo again. Instead, our zoo had their first ever Christmas light display. It was so much fun! We got to enjoy the lights and see most of the animals (the lions were awake and very active, something we rarely see in the dayime). Afterwards, we drove around to a few spots we knew had a lot of lights. The girls had a blast and we loved watching their joy at the lights.

Christmas 2021 - Part 2

We celebrated our Christmas at our house on Christmas Day. It was a nice, low-key day at home that included opening gifts, a big breakfast (with cinnamon rolls, the highlight of the meal) and watching Charlie Brown’s Christmas. I did start the day out with an attempt at some portraits in front of the tree in their Christmas pj’s…as you can see, Zoe was not a fan of this plan.

I love that the girls are both old enough now to pick out what they want to give each other for Christmas. Ava was so excited to get Zoe the JJ doll, from Cocomelon. Zoe picked out a book for Ava through the Scholastic book club at her school but we knew it wouldn’t arrive in time. So, I took her to Target to pick out a small gift for Ava to be able to open. After much searching, she picked a BFF necklace and some hair ties for Ava.

As usual, we did our 3 categories of gifts plus something for them to give. This year, they actually ended up giving multiple gifts. We made our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes as usual. Zoe’s dance studio also collected gift cards for the Greenville Foster Parent Association and we let the girls each pick out a gift card to give. Then I got an email from a friend who is a missionary in India. She said that she and some friends there were working to create shoeboxes for the slum kids. Because India is a closed country, OCC can’t deliver shoeboxes as a Christian organization. So, these ladies wanted to do something for the slum kids for Christmas. We had each of our girls donate the suggested amount to create a box. The report from my friend was that they over-budgeted what it would cost to create a box for the kids and were able to actually give them blankets and a meal on top of the fun backpack/box! We love teaching our girls that Christmas is not just about getting presents and that there are many people around the world that are much less fortunate than they are. We hope that these little gestures will help them as they grow up to care for the less fortunate.

For the girls’ first gift from us, we did something they needed. Ava needed larger ice skates and was so excited to get new ones. Unfortunately, her foot is growing so fast the new ones were too small so we had to order a different pair. Zoe was super excited about her new lunch box, thermos and bento box. She loves staying late on Fridays at school and eating her lunch there. She’s been using an old lunch bag of mine so now she has her own like a big girl.

As always, both girls got a few books featuring brown skinned characters as their something to read gift.

Their final gift was something they wanted. Ava had been asking for Disney Princess barbie style dolls and was so happy to get them. Zoe is our little architect/engineer so we got her a Princess lego set. We never ventured into legos with Ava but Zoe is in love with them!

Both girls loved searching their stockings for the little surprises in them. One of the favorites was a craft box that DJ and I found at the Indie Craft Parade Pop Up Shop. They are from Re-Craft Greenville that uses all recycled items to create crafts. They were old cigar boxes that included stamps, maps, random magazine pages and mod podge that you could use to decorate the box any way you want. The girls loved putting them together and it was a fun Christmas weekend craft.

We had a really nice Christmas day as a family. These 2 girls didn’t get a gift this year (sorry pups) but they loved being with us and both looked so cute in front of the tree that I had to get their pictures too (Kate was hiding somewhere as usual).

Christmas Eve 2021 - Portraits

I convinced the girls to wear their matching outfits for the Christmas Eve service and to take some portraits before we left. Well, I didn’t have to convince Zoe to match Ava but Ava is not a fan of matching her little sister anymore. I told her, at least for this year, Christmas is one time that I do really want you to match. We’ll see how much longer I can pull that off…probably not even next year. I hadn’t planned on making the girls any clothes for Christmas but Zoe convinced me to go to Joann with her and pick out some Christmas fabric after she was looking through my fabric scraps. I found this fabric that matched the shirts I had already bought them so it ended up being a super cute and super easy project. And I really do not know what these crazy girls were doing during these pictures. After pictures, we headed to the Christmas Eve service at our church with my mom and DJ’s parents, where Ava was so excited to hold her own candle for the first time. It was so nice to be able to attend the service in person this year!

Christmas 2021 - Part 1

This year we enjoyed celebrating Christmas with our families! We spent a couple days before Christmas with my side of the family and then a couple days after Christmas with DJ’s family. Unfortunately, due to a new job (which is exciting), my brother wasn’t able to come up for Christmas this year. We hated not being able to see him this year but were very happy to get to spend some time with Jenn, Piper and Ana, their exchange student from Spain. We spent some time with them at my mom’s house and the girls loved playing with the big girls. We loved meeting Ana and getting to know her and hear all about her time in the States. And thanks to Ana, we actually got a full group picture!

After having our Christmas with my mom, we were able to celebrate our Christmas with my dad’s side of the family. Due to my mom and grandmother’s recent surgeries, they couldn’t travel to my aunt and uncle’s house so we offered to host. It was so fun being able to have my whole family at our house for the first time. We are thankful we have the space to host family gatherings now. Sadly, little Lucy ended up with a cold so she and Will weren’t able to come over. The girls were bummed they couldn’t play with Lucy but they loved meeting their newest cousin, Olivia and playing with Ana, Piper and Blake. The “girl gang” had a blast together and we all loved watching them play. It was such a special day together as a family but we were all missing 3 men who would have loved being there with everyone, my Grampie, my dad and my cousin Ryan. Family gatherings are just not the same without those guys.

Christmas Cookies 2021

As usual, the girls and I made gingerbread men for Christmas this year. We typically make them early in December to have for Christmas gifts for teachers but decided not to do that again this year with COVID. And as you can see in the pictures, we made the cookies in typical 2021 fashion….Zoe had a little cough so to be safe, she wore her mask while helping. We didn’t want to add any germs to the cookies, just LOTS of sprinkles. Maybe next year we can go back to more normal life and give cookies out to our teachers/friends. But, even if not, we will still enjoy making them!