Christmas 2011

The Leptuch's had a great Christmas this year.

My favorite part was Ava saying "This is the best thing I have ever seen" when she was opening her gifts.

Christmas came and went so fast.

On Christmas Eve, we all dressed up and went to my step brother Brian's house. He does a pasta and seafood dinner. Mike went to church with my mom and grandparents and met up with us there later. Because of a "freak" snow storm, Santa has to drop presents and dash! We used to have my brother-in-law dress up as Santa, but the kids were getting older and would probably figure it out.
Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures. I just got one of Ava after I got her all dressed up as she was eating jelly beans from her papa Ron.

A DeMario family tradition that I wanted to pass down was opening one present on Christmas Eve. Since Ava would be tired when we got home, we gave her one Christmas Eve morning for her to play with all day, and that is exactly what she did. She got a remote control puppy that you can make walk and bark. She named it Meesha.

Here she is opening it.

Taking a nap with it and Daddy.

And of course putting stickers all over it!

I set low expectations for Christmas morning.I get so excited and want everything to be perfect, but with kids you can never tell what kind of mood they will be in. So I told myself ahead of time if Ava is cranky or wakes up early, that it is ok. I was pleasantly surprised. Ava slept through the night and woke up in a good mood. I mean, what kid wouldn't be excited when you go in their room and tell them that Santa came.

Noah on the other hand, decided that he was going to wake up at 5am and start crying at 5:30 am. He NEVER does that. I mean, he wakes early, but he usually talks until we get him at 6. So we brought him in our bed and let him crawling happily around until Ava woke up at 6am.

Santa was good to the kids this year as was the family. I wish that I would have gotten a picture of all the mess, but I didn't.

Ava got a Dollhouse and LOVED it. Here are some pictures from our day. Get ready for picture overload.

Ava walking out into the living room with her bed head.

Ava seeing her dollhouse for the first time.

Noah opening his first present of the morning.

Ava playing with her dollhouse and Noah eyeing it all!

I love this picture, Ava is playing with Noah's toy and Noah is playing with Ava's toy!

Ava playing with Noah's toys again. A construction helmet and truck.

Ava opening her doctor kit.

Checking Bobo's vitals

Her new laptop

Noah's truck

A family picture

 We had a great morning and we were able to extend it all morning long. We let Ava open a couple of gifts first thing. She mostly opened some of the rooms for her dollhouse. Then she played with her stickers while we waited for Grammy and Papa Dee to come over. I got the ham in the oven and then we opened some more presents. At that point Ava did get a taste for the fun of opening gifts and kept wanting to open them. I let her help me open mine and Noah's.

The family came over to our house for brunch.

The dessert table. Yummy carrot cake and lots of chocolates.

 The day wouldn't be complete without stickers EVERYWHERE. 

 Ava put heart stickers on everyone. You either got it on your face or your hand.

After naps, we headed back over to Brian's house for a prime rib dinner. The kids were pooped by the end of the day. I think soon, that Christmas is going to have to be a one meal kind of day. It is a lot to have people over for a meal and then go to someones house for a meal. It does make it hard to be able to enjoy the day. I don't think I sat down until 2pm that day. I can't wait until next year. Noah will be more into it and Ava will be all over it!!!

A Healthy Habit

As I have mentioned in previous posts, the kids and I have a dance party every morning while I work out. I can only hope that they will grow up knowing that exercise is a healthy part of their life.

Ava will sometimes sit next to me and try to do the exercise that I am doing (with a 2.5lb weight though). The past couple of days, Mike and I dusted off the ol' treadmill and started running. Ava has been very interested in it. She likes to come out and watch and today, she really wanted to get on. So we let her!

She walked at the slowest pace that it will go .6 miles per hour! She loved it. I stretched next to her while she got her exercise.

A Snapshot of Ava Grace at 34 Months Old

She is one of a kind! I guess they all are. She has such an imagination, says the funniest things and does even funnier things.

Someone once asked us if Ava is into condiments. At the time, I thought, weird and nope, she doesn't like ANY. Well, that is not the case any more. She has recently discovered the liking for ranch dressing. We eat it with our pizza and naturally with her curious mind, she asked if she could try it one time. And she liked it. She liked it so much that there really isn't a need for pizza, right? Right off the finger or sipping it from the cup is perfectly fine for her.

She also discovered she likes mayo. We eat it with our sweet potato fries. (It's really good, so don't knock it until you try it). The other night we made BLAT's (Bacon, lettuce, avocado and tomato sandwiches). We had the mayo on the counter and she kept pointing to it saying she wanted ranch. After I realized she wanted the mayo, I gave her some. And, what do you ask did she want it for? Well, she wanted to dip her bacon in it. Yup! And here are the pictures to prove it.

This morning she was taking Bobo for a walk on some string that she found in my craft room. Her imagination and the things that she does with Bobo, crack.me.up!

She is currently really into stickers. They are everywhere. She likes to put them on paper first. Then she likes to take them off one piece of paper and put on another and then she likes to put them all over me. We have been giving her stickers when she sleeps through the night. It is sorta working. She is sleeping better, but she doesn't sleep through the night consistently. We are lucky to get one day a week.

Speaking of sleep. She hasn't been sleeping through the night, so I have been doing a couple of things to work on it. First, we took away things, like a favorite whimzy toy, her nap time paci and TV. Then I started staying in her room for 5 minutes after we read books at night. That really helped with the 30-45 minute night time battle that we used to go through. She would call for us and come up with every excuse in the book so she didn't have to go to bed. I am hungry, my knee hurts, I have to go poo-poo and the list goes on. It would be a battle. We seem to have that under wraps now, but she was still waking 1-4 times a night. She is doing better though.

She loves to dance. We do dance party every morning while I work out. She runs in circles and does the occasional booty dance.

She has also started making baby noises to get things because that is what Noah does. I hope she doesn't start biting, because Noah has been doing that a little lately.

She's a dandy and we love her. She will be 3 soon:( I tell her every day to stop growing and she looks at me like I am a crazy lady!

Noah is 11 Months Old

 This cutie turns 11 months old today! I can't believe it. Next month he will be 1! 

He is growing up right before my very eyes.

This month he learned how to :

Pull himself up to standing using the help of other objects (i.e the couch)

Standing on his own for about 3 seconds

Give high fives

Give kisses

Drink from a sippy cup on his own

He is still sleeping through the night, for the most part. We have had quite a few nights lately where he has woken up once.

He takes 2 naps a day, each about an hour 1/2 each.

He is still taking 4 bottles a day. I need to start weening that down.

He is eating lots of new foods including things with dairy.

He is wearing size 18 month clothes, but is ready for 24 month and size 5 diaper.

Noah's stubbornness is starting to come out. If I take something away from him, he gets really mad and will scream and cry and put up a fight. He will be my tantrum boy. 

He loves to take baths. Every night when we go into the bathroom and start the water, he screams in delight. He thinks it's funny to fill a cup with water and pour it on him, like we do to him. It startles him when some goes into his mouth though. 

He loves to copy everything we do.

He gets fussy when he wants something. Either a bottle or to be held. 

He loves Ava and wants to do what she is doing, but she doesn't like that. He loves, loves, loves to give her kisses. 

He is turning into a daddy's boy. If Mike is home, he wants him to hold him. Every night when Mike comes home, we all gather on the couch facing the garage door and he and Ava scream with delight when Mike walks through the door. He even says "dada".

I swear he says "what's that?" I say it to him all the time, so I think that is what he is saying. He also says "mama" and roars like a lion.

He always wakes up happy and that is what makes me smile.

How can you not love a face like this.....

An Artist In The Making

Today, I let Ava draw with washable markers. She had a blast. She drew and drew. Here are some of her pictures.

 Our current picture wall.

I think we have an artist in the making! If you can't tell, blue is her favorite color. Thanks to Pinterest (My new favorite love), I will be taking pictures of all her artwork and making a book of the pictures of her artwork versus saving EVERY.SINGLE.WORK OF ART!

Gotta love washable markers because they are everywhere, but she had fun with it and that is all that matters. She even decided to color her nails.

Decorating For Christmas

Ok, so we bit the bullet and bought a Christmas tree earlier than I had planned. We bought one on Saturday morning and decorated it Saturday night.

I was worried that Noah was going to be all over the Christmas Tree this year, but it isn't him that cares about the tree, it is Ava. She wants to play with all the ornaments. We have to limit her to 1 at a time and she can't play with any of the fragile ones.  I didn't pull out many "extra" Christmas decorations besides the tree stuff because I knew she would want everything.

 Ava going through all the ornaments. She preferred to look at them all then hang them on the tree. It was actually better that way.

 She was handing me the ornaments to put up.

 Looking at the tree after it was all done.

 Out of all the ornaments, these were her two favorites.

 We put the coffee table and a toy chest in front of the tree so that Noah couldn't get to it.

 Ava climbs on top of the table to get to the ornament she wants. 

 She also loves playing with the stocking. She puts all her small toys in there and makes me look inside it to see what Santa brought us.

 Daddy and Ava enjoying the tree.

I had to get the tree because I felt like it wasn't Christmas and I love it. Freddie our Elf has even landed on top after visiting Santa at the North Pole.

The Kids and Their Fun

Lately Ava has been pretending that Bobo is her "baby". She wraps him up in a certain frog towel that she always asks for and comes up to me and says "mama, look at my baby." She even puts him to bed and tells me that he is a fuss-da-gus. (That is what we sometimes call Noah).

Here is Bobo all wrapped up.

I think she needs a real doll. hmmm. maybe she already has one for her birthday!

Noah's favorite thing right now is to play in the cup cupboard. He will spend a good 30 minutes putting them together and trying to drink the air out of them.

The cups and bowls are everywhere, but it is for some good ol' fashion fun. Who needs toys, right?