Ava's Big Girl Room

After several months of discussion and trips to furniture stores, we redecorated Ava's room and purchased big girl furniture that hopefully will last until she leaves for college. As you might expect, Ava's favorite color is pink, so we painted her room pink.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Ava's first nap in her big girl bed.

Flower Power

With spring comes flowers, lots of flowers. Ava and her friends made the journey down to Carlsbad to visit The FlowerFields where they filled up their stamp passports by finding all the different flowers, traipsing through the sweet pea maze, and discovering gems in the sluice mining attraction.

Going inZane!

At 3 1/2 years old, we decided that it was time for Ava to take in her very first concert at one of Southern California's finest venues, UCLA's Royce Hall. Along with Mommy, Daddy, Grammy, and Poppy, Ava enjoyed running around the UCLA campus and then listening to the sweet sounds of Dan Zanes & Friends.

After the concert, we all went to the world famous Diddy Riese where we waited in the requisite line to get delicious cookies.

Ducks on the Pond

Given that we live in a warm climate hockey is not really second nature for us and Ava has never been ice skating, but today we took her to her very first hockey game to see the Anaheim Ducks take on the Phoenix Coyotes at the Honda Center (formerly known as The Pond). Unfortunately, the Ducks lost but Ava had a great time watching the game and eating popcorn and a hot dog.

Snow Much Fun

The winter weather in Southern California is always fickle. One day it's raining and pouring and the next it's 70 degrees and sunny. After a recent storm, and with Grandma and Grandpa in town, we drove to Oak Glen to play in the snow. Ava had a great time running and stumbling around in the snow, making snow angels, and helping to make snowmen.

The Christmas Spirit

Ava immediately got into the Christmas spirit right after Thanksgiving. No, not with shopping on Black Friday. Rather, Ava helped Grandma and Grandpa pick out a tree at the Boy Scout lot in Oakland.

In Irvine, mommy, daddy, and Ava all went to Irvine Regional Park to ride on the Christmas Train, meet Santa, and eat cookies.

In Torrance, Grammy and Poppy took Ava to visit Santa again and to see some of the neighborhood Christmas light displays.

This past Sunday we headed to our local Christmas tree lot in Irvine and found a wonderful tree.

Back at home, Ava helped decorate the tree and has enjoyed playing with our train.

On Tuesday night, Ava gave her first ever public singing performance at Good Shepherd Preschool's annual Christmas Concert. Ava got to stand right up front in the first row.

After some initial trepidation walking up to the stage, she did a great job singing a number of Christmas classics as well as some new songs.

Ava's First Pet

Poppy recently rescued a Mojave Desert Tortoise that was lost on the streets of Torrance. On her visits to Grammy and Poppy's house, Ava has helped care for the tortoise which they named Divot. While we hope Divot will eventually be returned home or back to the desert, in the meantime Ava is enjoying spending time with her new pet.