"I Wanna Lay By Baby Kel"

Avril always demands to lay by her baby sister. I will often set McKel down on her back and let her do her kicking exercises. Next thing you know, there is a cute 2 year old girl next to her...

Avril Slideshow

Here are the slideshows I was trying to transfer to DVD for Avril's birthday party. They are kinda long, but I'm putting them on our blog anyway. I know Avril really enjoys looking at pictures of herself :) She's so vain. We love her all the same.


Happy two years Avril! We love you sweetheart girl!!

Avril's Birthday Party

Avril was soooooo excited for her birthday party. She kept talking about seeing Uncle Clubbs and Jordan and LoLo and Porter. She also was super excited about her "special" cake, the cookie monster cake.
We decided to have the birthday party at Nana and Papa's house since its much bigger.  Nana was an enormous help.  She made all the food and did the decorations.
Mommy stayed up all night the night before making a slideshow for Avril, and some video clips showing her first two years of life.  Unfortunately, for the life of me, I could NOT get the videos to burn on to a DVD.  I spent countless frustrating hours trying to get the videos to burn so that I could play them at Avril's party.  So... mommy was a little tired and upset but nana came to the rescue and made the cookie monster cake look amazing.  Everything turned out wonderfully, even without my DVD working.  Avril will always have happy memories of her special day.  Here are some pics from the celebration:

 Avril was in heaven, with all her favorite people surrounding her, all the attention on her, and lots of new presents to play with!

 Avril will not stop talking about how cookie monster's head fell off :)  After the party it rolled off backwards.  Maybe it was her kiss that made him head over heals.

A close up of the cookie monster cake

And this little cutie had plenty of people volunteering to hold her during the party

Avril opening some of her presents :)

Avril Turns 2!!

My baby is not a baby anymore.  I cannot believe its been 2 years already.  Time is seriously in light years now.  Avril has developed in to such a bright, spirited, energetic, independent, adorable little sweetheart of a human being.  I still can't believe I made her (well, Jesse helped I guess) :)

Jesse was so sweet to think of Avril's birthday months in advance.  He noticed that the local Toys R Us was going out of business so he got a steal of a deal on a couple big items for Avril.  They'd been in the trunk of our car for months.  Avril was sooooo excited for her birthday.  She was talking about her birthday party and presents and special cake for days.

On Avril's actual birthday (24th) we celebrated with just our family and opened the presents from dada.  Here are just some sweet pictures of Avril in her dress that Grammy Carme sent for her:

And here she is with her new birthday presents:

Daddy's little girl

Avril with her new drum set.  It took a team effort from both parents to put this thing together.  We're so proud of ourselves.  Now only if they made a silent drum set...

... and her bouncy bounce.  Jesse blew up this entire thing all by himself.  I doubted that he could do it so he had to prove me wrong.

McKel was not amused.  Time for beddy bye.

A couple video clips:

Sisters...

So cute, whether they're...

...Comparing elbows

Laughing...

Snuggling...

Sticking things out of their mouths...

Or holding hands...

They love each other so much already!  I just had to take some fun pics while they were all dressed up.  Look at these adorable shoes that our friend Leisa Firth hand made... McKel is wearing them and I think they're just so stinkin' cute!

And here is a little video clip I took after our photo shoot:  I love how McKel keeps tipping over in to Avril... and Avril shows off her counting at the end, as well as the many faces she can make. 

Turn My Heart to Mush

...that's what my family does to me.

I mean, come on... she's just so stinkin cute!

And this little Daddy's Girl loves to shower us with kisses.

I just can't express how much I love these guys.  Throughout each and every day there are countless moments that I think, "oh, that was the sweetest thing ever... save this memory and treasure it."  However, my memory is not exactly photographic... which is why this blog is great.  I can look at cute pics like these and let these moments come back to me and turn my heart to mush all over again.

Its All My Fault...

Avril had her first dentist appointment today.  No cavities.  Everything looks splendiferous... EXCEPT... the dentist says she has a MAJOR overbite and the gap between her teeth has some kind of skin tag between the teeth which means it will be permanent unless they surgically remove the skin tag and proceed with a 2-phase braces/headgear treatment, beginning around age 8.  She will probably need about 4 years of braces altogether, a surgery, and a headgear!  Yikes.
The Dentist asked if Avril sucked her thumb a lot or a binky as a baby.  Nope.  Oh... it must just be bad genes then.  Yup, that's it.
It's all mommy's fault.  I had years and years of braces, a headgear, and a couple of oral surgeries.  The works.  Sorry kids... there's a pretty good chance that braces are in your future.  But if your eyesight is bad... that's all daddy's fault.  Mommy has perfect vision :)

All in all, Avril loved the dentist.  She hated the teeth-cleaning but it was worth it since she got to color with giant crayons and the nice lady there gave her a new toothbrush with monkeys on it, as well as a purple helium-filled balloon!