ahhhhhhh

It's been awhile since I posted, so I thought I would catch up. I have finally finished taking classes, and only have my student teaching left to finish so I can graduate in December. I am student teaching at the school I attended for kindergarten and first grade. I have two teachers, one is kindergarten readiness, and the other is first grade. Both teachers are great, and I am excited to be there.
In other news, Ava has finally made friends with her potty chair. It took 8 straight days of staying home and doing ALOT of laundary, but it finally paid off. With minimal accidents, Ava can now be called a "big girl." She will tell you so.
Thats all for now, hope all is well :)

It's amazing how much fun can be had with four tubs of paint, a sponge paint brush, and some paper...and eventually entire fists in the tubs. Ava made a few master pieces today, and enjoyed every minute. Everything in the surrounding area needed to be wiped down or thrown in the washing machine, but we had a blast. She has always loved drawing with crayons, markers, or anything that makes a mark. Maybe she will be an artist :)

Dear Potty Training

We are taking you on! We decided the route we were going just wasn't clicking with Ava. We decided to wipe the slate clean, and start over with a slightly different approach. The potty chair is in the bathroom where, and we have gotten a different reward. Princess stickers. And she is not rewarded when she goes to the bathroom, we are starting off rewarding her when she sits on the potty and gives it a try. We sit on it every hour, and she gets a sticker each time she sits. We have bigger, cooler stickers for when she pees. We got a big poster board, and Randy thought of an idea to organize it. Four different colors, one for each of sitting on the potty, number 1, 2, and washing her hands. Washing her hands is a given, she loves washing her hands. She sat on the potty nine times today, which is far better than yesterday. Yay for Ava!!! We know she can do it, we just have to keep her interested!

New year

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year celebration! My parents had a gathering at their new house, and Ava had a blast playing with Grandma and her Great Uncle Dave. I asked her if I could play with her and she said "no, Grandma play." Understandable. Randy and I have had time off work, and she must be full of mommy and daddy time. Grandmas are way cooler. But don't try and lock mommy in a room with the dogs. I was in my parents computer room, and Grandma went to lock the dogs in there with a baby gate. Ava got a little worried that Grandma was locking mommy up with the dogs, it was cute. The dogs had to be locked up in a different room.
Ava's new response to questions in general is "no..no...no." And if you say something is hot, she might get mad at you because it is "just warm." And IF you ask her if she is chilly..."no. i'm cold." and she WILL argue with you about temperatures.
We are currently working on potty training. We have to bribe her with MnMs. Yesterday she went twice. Today she said "I no peepee in my potty." We tried the underwear, so she can feel how uncomfortable it is when she has an accident. The new carpet wasn't appreciating that so much, so we switched to pullups. Those have vanishing pictures on them, which she is interested in. She is so proud of herself when she does use the potty, we have a ritual of applauding, "yaying," flushing it down the potty, and eating a few mini mnms. I hoped to have her potty trained before I went back to school, but I don't think that is going to happen. Ah well, it will happen. Like my mom said, she won't graduate highschool in diapers.

Christmas

Santa came...and Ava REAAAALLLY enjoyed the whole Christmas thing. She wore a santa hat for nearly the entire month of December, and actually had trouble falling asleep on Christmas Eve...at the age of two......I wonder how next year will be. She became very efficient at opening presents. She wanted to unwrap them all, then see what she had gotten. Except for when she opened a pack of colored socks, now THAT was a big deal. We had a great Christmas. Randy's family came on Christmas Eve, and we had a nice dinner together, visited, and laughed as Ava tried on her princess gear which includes princess shoes. She is a princess in the making for sure. Christmas Day was fun as well, but without a nap, Ava was crashing at her Great Grandma and Grandpa's. She did well though, she shared her tea with everyone, and wore her pretty pretty princess dress all day long. Amazingly, she has not asked for her Santa hat since Christmas Day, I thought that was going to be a struggle. Good bye Christmas, see you in a year!

A 3.5 foot tall Santa? Naaaaaaa

Ava would like to set the record straight, and is informing everyone that she is NOT Santa, I repeat, Ava is NOT Santa Clause. Sorry for any confusion that was caused. :)