Five

The day after Thanksgiving, Matt and I celebrated our fifth anniversary. We had a wonderful day. We saw a movie (New Moon!), went to a casual, low-key dinner, and then went to see an amazing show (Ka!). We didn't manage to get a picture of the two of us that evening, but just picture us happy as can be, loving our time together. That's how we'd look. :-)

I don't have a picture of the two of us, but I grabbed this shot of Matt the day after our anniversary. We were having a very quiet day and snacking, watching movies, and chilling out after a long couple of weeks. Even with all the amazing fun we have, days like the one pictured here are still my favorite.

Thanks for a wonderful five years, Matt. Looking forward to all the decades to come!

Thankful

After Ava's birthday, it was time to coast into Thanksgiving celebrations. We love to cook Thanksgiving dinner and really enjoy having a houseful of people on this very fun day.

On Wednesday, known around here as Pie Day, we cooked nonstop to get all the side dishes ready for Thursday as well as the pies, of course. Per White family tradition, Pie Day usually ends with an enchilada meal, but this year, since Matt wouldn't be home to make them, we opted to make a Renfro family traditional meal - pizza!

Thursday was a beautiful day and, thanks to all the help, dinner was a breeze to put on the table. In fact, we had enough time to do some playing around before all the eating began.

We're a very blessed family and one of our biggest blessings is the people with whom we get to share our time. Love these people...we're so very thankful.

Our Family Rules

One of the walls in our family room has undergone some updates and I wanted to share the fun!

The wall behind our couch (now behind the La-Z-Boys) used to have three big floral prints from Michael's hanging on it. You might remember it from this awesome photo of my Bond girls. Nothing fancy, and certainly nothing personal and awesome about it.

I found inspiration for the change from this blog post. The theme of the rules posted there weren't for us, but the project concept was great. So, after some crafting, lots of consultation with Matt, a bunch of Modge Podge, and some cheapo frames and photo printing, we've got a wall full of family that we're happy to look at every day.

Maybe the best part of this project was that Matt and I sat down one night and really discussed these rules. (Believe you me, the thesaurus and dictionary got a lot of use that night!) We both realize that words have power and wanted to choose just the right ones to guide our family. These rules really are what we hope our family will value and the way we want to be reminded to live each day. It was nice to have that time with him, to reconnect about our purpose, and to have a tangible result of that work to help us remember.

They're a little hard to read, so here are our rules (sorry about the flashy glare in the picture...photographer, I am not!).

Family Rules

Point Out the Good

Listen

Share Love Generously

Celebrate Peace

Make Time to Play

Have Faith and Seek Hope

Honor and Treasure Friendship

Strive for Patience

Accept Yourself

Be Kind

Happy Day

Our baby girl isn't such a baby anymore. She turned two at 8:45 this morning. (We toasted, of course, as is tradition, but we didn't manage to get a photo of that. Our hands were otherwise occupied.)

Just after Ava woke up this morning, we gathered for early morning birthday present opening. She was pretty excited to see the gift Daddy had made for her.

Grammie and Grandad Renfro were here to help us celebrate and they showed up with two big sets of fun. I have a feeling we'll be playing dress-up for days and days and days in our house.

A couple hours later, we kicked off a celebration of this exciting event at a nearby park. We hosted a ladybug picnic for some family friends and some of Ava's school friends. We were so glad so many sweet people were able to join us for some playground time and lunch. After the kiddos got all played out, we ate lunch and then cupcakes and ice cream.

Ava was a pro at blowing out her candle and loved having everyone sing happy birthday to her.

Judging by her frosting-smeared face, she also loved her cupcake.

Happy birthday, dear sweet girl. Your mommy and daddy love you so.

TPS Friends (with new babies!)

On their way through town to the airport, our TPS friends, stopped by to share some dinner and playtime before their big airplane adventure.

This was the first time two of these new babies had been met and enjoyed by the whole group. Hard to believe how big all these kiddos are getting.

Every time we have a get-together like this, I find myself yearning for a big 07B reunion. All my Bond girls, the MOTOs and kiddos in one place...just like they belong. Florida girls, want to come visit us yet? We'll save space for you at the table. :-)

The ABC's

Here's Ava singing (most of) her ABCs. :-)

Where We've Been

Two years ago today, our little Peanut was due to arrive. Of course, Ava had other plans and took her time arriving in this world. My, how time flies.

Speaking of time flying, someday, we're going to have to post a doozy of a post all about the last three weeks and all that we've had going on. We've taken lots of pictures to share and we always say "Oh, quick! Take a picture! We need to blog that!" But, between doing the things worth blogging and all the other not-so-bloggable things, we've just run out of time.

So, until we get around to posting all the fun pictures and videos of the last couple of weeks, here's a little run-down of what we're looking forward to in the next couple of weeks.

~Ava's turning two! That's right, we blinked and two years went by. Our baby girl is now a walking, talking, big girl sleeping, changing daycare rooms, ready-to-potty-train big girl. She's grown up so much and we're just as proud of her as we could be. We'll be celebrating with friends and family at a park for a ladybug picnic. Very excited!

~Thanksgiving! We're cooking up some yummy deliciousness to share with friends and family at our house. We love this holiday and are so glad to be hosting!

~Matt and I have been married for five (5!!) years. Holy buckets! We're grateful my parents and brother will be here to babysit Ava while we hit the town. This will be our first anniversary date in three years...2 out of 5 isn't bad, I guess. :-)

~Fall 2009 semester ends December 11. And not a moment too soon. One more semester and I'll get to walk that graduation stage in May. Really looking forward to just working full-time rather than doing the work/school thing. Ah, sanity.

More soon, friends. (With pictures!) Have a great week!

Air Power!

We braved the wind and cold to take Ava to the Nellis airshow. She loved seeing all the airplanes and, when we let her "pet" the jets, she would say "Nice jet. Nice jet." :-)

We didn't make it all the way through to the Thunderbirds, but we had a fun time. Hopefully, it will be a little less windy when we go next year!

Karaoke - Little Einstein Style

Ava's singing debut...the theme from Little Einsteins.

While Ava's heard this song plenty at home and in the car, evidently they play it over and over for her at school because she puts on such a show.

Fair warning: Ava's almost two. Just ignore the nasty bossiness of the first 20 seconds. I don't know how to edit the movies so that they come out all sunshine & roses. :-)