Our beloved little monkey was back for this Halloween. Ava a.k.a. George trick-o-treated with a “little”man in the the yellow hat. Specifically she was George from the original Curious George book where in the end of the story he takes off flying with balloons over the city.
Tried so hard to get a picture of them together
Austin wasn’t feeling the hat so much tonight, much more fun to play with than to wear.
Off to our friend Deegan’s third birthday party and it is a costume party! I was thrilled to bring back the Winnie the Pooh costume, so cuddly! Ava painted and carved a pumpkin but spent most of her time decorating cookies, fun fun!
Yesterday Austin started clapping along when we sing. He usually bounces around and waves his right arm in the air when Ava and I are are singing. Love his sweet clapping though. Bear with the silly baby singing voice!
Last night Austin was cracking up playing with Sissy. When he is really excited about something he has such a squeaky laugh. Here is is giggling each time Ava pushes the little car his way.
So I just had to post pictures of Ava’s latest Karo dress. It is SUPER fun, love it! Ava cracks me up because the first time she wore it she started dancing (jumping and stomping) through the house. Thanks so much Karo!
Aren’t these pictures of the cousins so precious? This was the first cousin dress from Karo, so cute!
Ava, Hayden and Emmy. Love you cousins!
Check out those two little teeth on bottom. Love his baby hands with those sweet dimples!
No more tears at drop off, in fact here she is running to the car to head off to mother’s day out!
Here are some of Mrs. Stewart’s pictures. She was so sweet and made Ava a birthday crown.
I baked cupcake shaped cookies for Ava’s class. Ava came home wild as ever totally hyped up on sugar. My cookie cutter was huge and as fun as all the icing looked, not the best decision for little ones. Oops!! I felt sorry for the other parents with crazed kiddos!
Here is Ava playing on ooey gooey day. I just love that her teacher posts pictures for the parents.
On Ava’s birthday, Sunday, the day after her party we had a trip to the ER…. BOO! We were able to keep the jump house for a few days and were having the best time Sunday bouncing away. Poor sweetie dislocated her elbow on the bounce house slide Sunday night. The ER was packed and it took two and a half hours to get the joint back in place. Funny how we were in the same hospital where Ava was born three years later to date.
It just broke our hearts to see baby girl so worried and hurting. Here we are waiting for the doctor, ER was so busy that night that we got moved from our room to the hallway. Ava loves hearing about when she was born at Scott and White. The story goes something like this and she asks me to tell it to her every night before she goes to bed. She lays so very still with her lovie snuggled to her face, eyes twinkling, and listens so sweetly. “God decided that it was time for you to come out of mommy’s tummy so we went to the hospital. When mommy first saw you she kissed you on your forehead like this (I kiss her) and said ‘I love her!’ The first time you cried that night mommy picked you up and kissed you again and told you that I will always take care of you. You are my most beautiful baby girl.” So even though she was hurting with her elbow, she was fascinated that we were back at the hospital where she was born. We pass the hospital almost daily because it is less than a mile from our house at the back entrance of our neighborhood and she points and yells “MOM that’s were I’m born!”
Here are some happier pictures from earlier that day.
This Curious George cake was oh so fun to make. George and the balloons are made from modeling chocolate. The bottom tier was layered vanilla and chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream and middle tier vanilla cake and vanilla buttercream. I couldn’t bring myself to buy fondant because would have been pretty expensive for cake this big so I made marshmallow fondant again. It tastes much better than traditional fondant but doesn’t look as smooth and doesn’t roll out as thin. All in all, I had a good time “caking.” I did learn some lessons (had to redo bottom tier, 4 more additional hours of baking ..boo, won’t say how it ended up in four pieces!) The best part of this cake was that Ava was thrilled. She couldn’t have curious george fly over her birthday party. Okay sad, she totally has mentioned to me a few times “Mom, Curious George did NOT fly over my party!” But at least he was on her cake!
And I have a new hobby that I like equally as much as caking, cookie decorating! And yes, that sentence merits an exclamation mark from my cheesy self 
I set up a cookie decorating table for the party because I figured if I had such a great time decorating, the kids would like it too.
Can’t believe it, baby girl is THREE! Here she is with her little grin during her happy birthday song. She was so thrilled on party day. She walked in that morning from spending the night at Ditty’s, saw all the decorations and squealed “Is THIS my BIRTHDAY PARTY?” I loved the sweet moment too while we all sang to her, she looked so pleased with this reserved little smile. We loved celebrating with our wonderful friends and family!
I am so going to get it when Austin looks back at these pictures… but every Curious George party needs a man in the yellow hat!
Opening presents!!
yum cake!
