Let it Snow!

Yesterday here in Bryan / College Station it snowed! Yes....real white beautiful flakes of snow fell here! AND, it did not melt as soon as it hit the ground. It was BEAUTIFUL!!!! There is just something about snow falling that makes a person feel all warm and cozy. I arrived home to a warm cup of hot cocca topped with marshmellows, chili cooking on the stove, and a fire going! ( Yes, I am married to superman!)

We took the moment in as a family and snapped some pictures. You know you are in Texas, when everyone is outside with their cameras when it is snowing. I am sure the people up north are laughing at us Texans. :)
It was so funny on my drive to work to see all the kids at the bus stops having snowball fights.

Ava was not sure what to think of the snow. Her new word lately has been "cold." She got to use that word a lot yesterday. Needless to say, we did not build any snowmen or have any snowball fights, but we had a great time enjoying the beautiful snow.

What we've been up to!

Sorry for the lack of updating! Life has had it's way of keeping us very busy. Ava has been so much fun the last few weeks. Her little personality is blossoming. It is so fun to watch her, because you never know what she is going to do next.
She is saying so many words now, like:
momma
daddy .... ( it is cute because sometimes she tries to call him David, because she hears me call him that!)
dog
book
bites
hi
bye
whoa!
Birdie ( our dog)
Hush ( to the dog)
No! ( this is my least favorite word)
trash ( she likes to help by throwing her trash away)
ball
bath
uh oh
And she tries to say many more!

Well this post is loaded with lots of pictures ....so I will not bore you anymore, and get to the good stuff! Enjoy!

HALLOWEEN !!!!!!

Enjoying her first sucker!
CANDY!!!!!

Momma and Ava trick or treating at Grandma and Pops house

Grandma and Ava

The cutest Little Bo Peep!

Ava and her Scarecrow overalls! These were a garage sale find.

Ava got to see her Uncle T Bob and Megan! We love you T Bob!

Ava sporting her sponge curlers

Ava is learning to color!

Pumpkins and Pigtails

This is by far my FAVORITE time of year! It must be the colors that make me like this time of year. I love the months of October, November and December. This is the time of year when my wonderful husband is climbing in and out of the attic for me pulling out my decorations.

Fall makes me want to live somewhere where you can actually see the leaves change colors, somewhere where the highs are in the 70's and somewhere where there are beautiful apple orchards. But I can still manage to get into the spirit of fall here in Texas where fall is just a milder form of summer!

Last weekend I decorated my porch!!! This was the highlight of my weekend. ( I know that is pretty sad.) ..... what can I say I am a sucker for decorating. ( on a budget that is!)

And now for the pigtails....... Ava's hair is finally long enough for pony tails. Isn't she cute. Now I just have to teach her how to sit still long enough to get them in.



She reminds me of the cute little girl from the movie Monsters Inc.!!!!!!!

We have BIG news!!!

We finally got Ava's ears pierced!!! I have been putting this off for..... well about a year now, and I finally got up the nerve to do this on Friday. I wish I had done this earlier because she is just so precious with her little earrings. The process went something like this......

We were out driving around Friday afternoon, running errands and I turned to David and said "hey lets go get her ears pierced."

David turned to me and said " that would make my day!!"

Side note: David has been wanting to do this for a very long time, and I have been the reluctant one. He is so precious about his little girl being a girly girl!

Anyway....... We went to the mall, and I knew that we better go in the entrance closest to the piercing place, because any extra travel time could give me time to make a run for it with my sweet little girl in tow.

We show up at the place, and I told the sweet girl behind the counter that we wanted to get our daughters ears pierced. ( AKA we are here to let you poke some holes in this precious girls ears and make her scream bloody murder.... I mean shots are bad enough but they are not optional. )

The girl looked at Ava and said " okay, well the second gunner just went to lunch, but she will be back in an hour." *** For those of you not familiar with ear piercing lingo, this means that there are two people doing the piercings at the same time to make this "less traumatic."

I said "oh.... okay well, maybe we will be back in a hour."

Okay when you decide to do something like this on the spur of the moment, the last thing you want to do is wait an hour to do it.

So we leave the store and proceed to walk around the mall for an HOUR!!! All the while I am making up all these scenarios in my head on what might happen to her if we pierce her ears... they might get infected, she might pull them out and swallow them, other kids might beat up on my already tiny child and pull them out of her ears...you get the point. But I continue to keep my composure and go with the plan that we are going back to the place in an hour.

I decided that it might be a good idea to have a tasty Sonic drink ( cranberry limeade ) ready for Ava, so we can offer it to her while she is screaming. ( I mean who wouldn't like a sonic drink after having 2 needles shoved through your ears ???)

Well, after all of this drama WE DID IT!!!! ( myself included!)

They pierced her ears, she screamed for maybe 30 seconds, and then was happy with her sonic drink. By the time we paid and got cleaning instructions she was smiling and waving bye to the sweet girls who just caused her pain!!!!

As we were leaving the mall I looked over to my sweet husband and he was pushing the stroller grinning from ear to ear. ( how sweet!)

Here are some more pictures of our big girl with her earrings.

Daddy's little princess!

Ava's 1 year pictures

Ava with her Sunshine

These are some of the pictures that my sister took last month. My sister is sooooo talented!!! She is pretty stinkin' amazing! Thanks Sunshine! We love you!

We are back!!!

Okay okay you can all stop with the hate comments!!! I have finally decided to update our blog. We have been without computer access at home. We are at my parents house today and I thought it would be a great time to update the blog!!

Alot has happend in the Aldape household within the last few months. Last month we celebrated Ava's first birthday. Because there are sooooo many people that love this sweet little girl, she got to have two birthday parties. She had a party at her Nana and Papi's house in Grand Prairie, and a party here in College Station. They were both swim parties, since the girl LOVES to swim.

Ava is and has been for over two months, officially a walker!! She started walking in July. July the 4th to be exact. How appropriate that she started walking on Independence Day! ( she really tries to be an independent big girl! ) I find myself busier since Ava is walking, and trying to run. She is in to EVERYTHING!!! But it keeps life interesting. I have to say I much prefer walking over crawling though....... mainly because it is my excuse for getting to buy here cute shoes, and let me tell you the girl loves shoes. The other morning I was putting her shoes on her and she got so excited and was laughing so hard she tooted on my leg!!! How cute!

On top of her shoe fetish she also loves purses!! She is a 100% girly girl . Before we leave the house she goes over to her toy basket and gets her purse and wears it on her arm. What can I say I am already a great mentor to this little girl ..... she has already learned so much by just watching mommy! I cannot be more thrilled to be the mother of such a precious little girl.

Daddy's little cowgirl!!

Big girl on her bike!!!

Playing with mommies shoes

Easter Pics!

This past weekend we enjoyed spending time with friends and family in Grand Prairie. We spent time with our special friends the Ahlstedt family. We had some fun times of love and laughter! We miss this family sooooo much. This used to be our choice of friday night entertainment when we lived in Grand Prairie. We always cherish the time we spend with this family.

We also got to spend Ava's first easter with Davids mom and dad ( Nana and Papi ) , Grandma Celia and Aunt Karen. We enjoyed easter service with them at our old church. We got to see so many people that we have not seen in a while, and they got to meet our sweet Ava.

Here are some pics ENJOY!!!

Nana and Papi

Aunt Karen

My first piano lesson with my Abueltia (great-grandmother)

Auntie Jalah ( we love this girl!)