Dance Recital 2012

This was Ava's second full year of dance, and the theme for this year's recital was "Wild About Dance." Her class did a tap dance and a jazz dance in the recital - they did a great job! 

Here is Ava posing on the "red carpet" before the show

Ava with her teacher, Mary

With pal, Allie

After the recital with Mom and Dad

Grandpa

Opa and Oma

The recital is definitely the highlight of the year for Ava. She has already signed up for a class for next year and is thinking about doing the competition pom line, too - fun!

Babies!

We got to meet a couple of sweet babies this spring, too. One of my best friends had her second little boy in April, and I got to hold him the very day he was born. I'm never sure if holding someone else's baby is going to satisfy my baby fix or cause me to want one of my own...oh well, it's worth the risk!

Angie holding Baby Joshua. Sorry to say I have no pictures of him with his beautiful Mama - we were hogging him!

Perfection!

And Ava and I had our first girls' weekend at the end of April. We drove down to Madison to visit my friend and her three little ones. Ava had a blast playing with the 4-year-old and 2-year-old and holding the little guy whenever I would relinquish him. It was nice to have a weekend with just Ava, and the boys did great at home and visiting grandparents in Eau Claire while we were gone.

Children's Museums

We had a couple of visits to both the Children's Museum in St. Paul and the one in Eau Claire this spring. We've had a membership the past couple of years to the one here in Minnesota - it pays for itself quickly. Ava is starting to outgrow some parts of it, but it's still fun for Charlie and I to spend the morning there while Ava is in school, and if the visits there for her are few and far between, she still enjoys it, too.

From our trip to Eau Claire:

Checking out at the grocery store

Mail carrier Ava (did you know this is what she says she wants to be when she grows up?!)

Cooking in the restaurant

At the construction site

Charlie spent lots of time in the water area...

...while Ava kept busy in the craft room

And in St. Paul:

Do-it-yourself face painting...enough said...

Crazy driver

Funny little factory worker

Jamming to Wheels on the Bus

Children's Theatre

I've been very neglectful again with the blog, but I'm going to try to get a few new posts up (though they may not be in chronological order).
We bought a pack of tickets to the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis this season. Ava and I saw Mercy Watson with Angie and Samuel, The Wizard of Oz with Tricia and Lily, and just last weekend Pippi Longstocking with Emily and Sarah. My favorite was Pippi Longstocking - it was captivating for the girls, and I found it hilarious!!

Here are a few pics from The Wizard of Oz on New Year's Eve:

Before we left

         

Lily and Ava at intermission

Meeting "Dorothy"

 And from Pippi Longstocking:

Sarah, Emily and Ava

Waiting for the show to start

Meeting "Pippi"

We had a great time going to the shows. I think we'll buy tickets for the next season, too, and this time Charlie should be old enough to come along. Actually, there are a few shows that I think are geared more for his age: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and The Cat in the Hat; I know Ava would love to see The Grinch Who Stole Christmas - she loves that story!

Ava's First Piano Recital

Ava has been taking weekly piano lessons since January. Here she is playing "Squinchy Pinchy Shoes" at her first recital.

Gingerbread!

We rounded out the holiday season making gingerbread men (or a gingerbread girl, in Ava's case) with some of our favorite peeps!

I swear he was having fun - we just could not get the picture to prove it!

And, in keeping with the theme, here's a picture of Ava with the gingerbread house she made at school. Each student got to bring one special adult (yay, it was me!) to decorate a little gingerbread house together - here's the finished product.

Christmas 2011

We had a fun, busy, (but not too busy), holiday season. We started it off on Thanksgiving weekend with a trip to downtown Minneapolis for the 8th floor Macy's Christmas display and the Holidazzle Parade.

This sure beats last year when we did this outing and Charlie had a big green cast (well, as big as an 18-month old's cast can be) on his broken leg.

We needed to fuel up with some hot chocolate before the parade...

I wish I could have truly captured the wonder in the kids' eyes during the parade - it was one of my top moments of the whole holiday season.

We tried to do one fun Christmas-y activity each weekend, leading up to our trip to Eau Claire for the big day(s). As always, we spent Christmas Eve with the Reiters and Christmas Day with the Walkers. We got some great video footage of the kids opening their presents Christmas Eve, but I'm afraid it would take me hours to get it uploaded here! Here are a few of my favorite photos, though:

Charlie and Great Grandma Lois

Ava and Great Grandma Twila - wish I had remembered to take a picture of the kids with Great Grandma Reiter - they are some lucky kids to have three wonderful great grandmas! (They love their Great Grandpa Bud, too!)

Santa made a surprise visit Christmas Day to see how the kids were enjoying their new toys!

It was a wonderful weekend - we saw just about everyone in our immediate families (except for Katie and Ben, although we did get to Skype with them) and the kids made out like bandits. :) The kids stayed healthy right up until the night we came home; it was good to have the week between Christmas and New Year's to hang out at home - Joe took most of the week off, and with nothing on our schedules, it was a great end to the year!