Happy Birthday Princess Ava!!!!

Today last year I was in the hospital with our newest addition to our little family.
We named our newest addition Ava Kai Wozniak. It was the best day! We finally got to hold the newest addition in our arms and tell her how much we loved her.
I really can't say much more than the birth of a child is more amazing than words, its an amazing feeling that I never thought I could experience. You care so much for this little person, you would do anything for them.


Ava had her first birthday party on Saturday, before she actually turned one. She invited a lot of her friends and we had her party at the park. It was really fun. My friend Beck and my sister in law Billie and I made the cakes (yes, cakes, there were three of them) and the fruit salad and Beck was great and made the pasta salad and Ava's special cake. It was fun putting it together. It was a lot of work but well worth it!

On the day of her party, we sort of had a late start. We didn't even show up to the park until 9:50. Luckily I have the best parents and husband in the world! They helped me decorate and set up all the food in less than 15 minutes!!!

Everyone started showing up around 10:20am. It was fun. Ava had a blast. She enjoyed playing with all of her friends and she loved playing with the bubble machine, watching all of the bubbles fly out. She had so much fun playing with her friends, I hope we don't have to wait for another birthday party to get together!

After eating some food, and playing games it was finally time to sing happy birthday. Either the candles scared Ava or she was terrified of turning a whole year old but she screamed as soon as the candles were lit. Which is exactly what I did at my first birthday too. Weird how those things happen.

Ava needed help blowing out all three candles, (one candle for each cake).
Soon after Ava sat on Uncle Steve's lap while Phil held the plate of cake and Ava dug right in. She had cake EVERYWHERE! Up her nose, on her cheeks, on her chin, all over her arms. But she enjoyed it!

Soon after eating the cake people started to leave. We decided against opening presents, she got a ton of them and she likes paper a lot so I don't know if we would even make it to the actual present without spending 10 minutes playing with the packaging of each present. Ava was able to open her presents after a much needed nap. Ava loved and enjoyed all of her presents. I'm glad I was able to put away the bags quickly so that we can reuse them and we saved the wrapping paper to use for part of Ava's Thank You cards.
Ava has enjoyed inspecting and playing with her new toys and she has even worn her new clothes! She loved her birthday.

At one year she has accomplished alot! She says a few words "mama", "dada", "dod" (for dog), "duh" (for fan), "mo" (for more) in addition to the sign for more, she says "tha uuuuu" (for thank you), "buh bye" in addition to waving, she learned to say "uh oh". Today we taught her how to hold one finger up to tell everyone how old she is. She has been doing pretty good with that. If we hold one finger up, she will copy us and hold her finger up too and if we say "yay" she will clap like she is proud of herself.

Today we had a nice family lunch outing. My parents, along with Phil and Ava went to Hometown Cafe in Lemon Valley. It was great! Such a special treat to eat lunch, while at work, with my family.

Happy Birthday little princess. Your daddy and I love you so much. Words can't express how happy and thankful we are that you are in our lives. You mean the world and more to us. We could never let anything happen to you. We want only the best for you and your well being and whatever the future may hold for you. We love you.

My little Princess isn't so little anymore

I can't believe Ava's first year approaching so quickly! Less than two weeks away marks the day of her arrival out in the world of breathing, the world of light, and sound, strange noises and confusion with night and day. It marks the beginning of a new life that we never knew existed before her arrival. A love that can never be forgotten or ever completely understood. A love so deep that only a parent could understand.
Ava is a world of refuge, she is a safe house, my little princess, my big girl, my smiling baby that loves unconditionally.
Looking at her melts my heart.
These past two weeks have been so fabulous. The students went on vacation July 2nd. So for the past two weeks our schedule was completely changed and rearranged. I've only had to work 5 hours a day instead of the normal 9 (minus an hour for lunch of course). I have loved these extra hours in the day with Ava. We have taken up walking again. We get up at 5:30am and walk (what I thought was 4 miles is probably only 2). Its fun to walk with Ava. We look for bunnies, and birds and lizards. We count each animal we find on our walk and then later on we tell Dad about all the fun animals we see on our walk in the morning. Its one of my favorite things to do with Ava. We spend awesome time together. She gets to explore the world outside. She loves looking at everything in the still so new world around her. And I get exercise! I've also been trying a new eating regimen, but it hasn't been going so well. I am going to stick to it tomorrow!!!

On Sunday we purchased a ball pit (well a blow up pool and some balls), Thanks Aunt Margaret for Ava's early birthday present!!! Ava loves it! She plays in it everynight. We also made a playroom for Ava so she has a place to play with all of her toys.

I've hung out with Beck and her super awesome kids. On Monday we had girls day and we went to New Spa and had a pedicure. BEST THING EVER!!!! Not only are our toes super sparkly but our feet were sanitized, scrubbed, cut, and OMG it was the most relaxing thing ever! We will go there again.
Yesterday Ava and I went to Lazy 5 park and listened to the band play. Ava really enjoyed herself!



Today Ava, Phil and I took a nap for about a half hour. The phone rang and Ava woke up but Phil was still tired so I took Ava out front and we played in the sprinklers and we played with hose. Ava found all the leaves that I hadn't picked out of the rocks and she helped me clean in the front yard. She also tested all the rocks to make sure they were yummy enough to be in our garden. Then we walked around and put our hands in each of the sprinklers. She had fun and liked playing with the water. She even got dirty!!! I know, amazing, right?!


It has been a fun week!

Loving my little princess

Now 11 months old we are counting down the days until Ms. Ava Kai's birthday! I know I say this all the time but what a blessing she is! She is a wonderful little girl. It has been a couple of weeks since I last wrote an update. Last week Ava turned 11 months. My friend Beck, watches Ava a few days a week and started doing the two year old lessons with Ava, they started with "Bu Bu Bee" to get the B sound down. Ava can now point at things, we can ask her "where is the dog" and she will look around for the dog in addition to saying "dod dod" or "Daa Daa". On Thursday July 1st when I went to pick up Ava, I learned how to make Heavenly Balls (crushed up Oreo with cream cheese drizzled with melted chocolate chips) for the pot luck at work on Friday July 2nd. Beck also made a practice run of Ava's cake. She made two chocolate cakes with chocolate moose filling and some stuff that went over the top of the cake along with three colors of fondant. Beck made a ladybug cake!! It was totally awesome! We are going to change up the colors a little but the cake was truly amazing! I took it with me to work on Friday to see if people like it, it was a huge hit!!! Along with the Heavenly Balls. On Friday July 2nd, it was a very chaotic day! I had to be to work at 5:30 in the morning. I set 4 alarms, I slept through ALL 4 alarms!!! I was 45 minutes late! Good thing we didn't really have to do anything until 6:30am. I had to be to work to get the kids off on the buses for summer break. It was one of the most orderly send offs we've ever done!!! We had the students leave from the dorm. The pay at 6am went really smooth, at 6:30 the cafe opened. It ran flawlessly. In the gym, where the students left, the luggage was put in the right lines, the students didn't try to sneak liquor or drugs, they didn't cause problems. The buses left promptly and the students were out before 8:45!! It was amazing! Phil was wonderful. He took Ava to Beck's house. He got lucky, Ms Ava decided to sleep until 8:30am! They got to Beck's house around 9:30 or so and I picked Ava up around Noon. Phil did good! She is funny and her little personality is popping out more and more each day. On July 3rd we were able to participate in Kids 4 9's! We also had a garage sale! I sold some stuff, but was mostly there to take pictures for Kids 4 9's. What a wonderful opportunity that was! Ava did really great! We were outside for a very very long time and she was such a trooper! Phil also left for his camping trip in the afternoon, so unfortunately I didn't get to see him much at all. On July 4th Ava and I went to church in the morning. The music was awesome. We go to Summit Christian Church in Sparks. We sang American songs! It was super fun! Very patriotic! After church we went on a short shopping trip to Target. I got bar stools, which I've been wanting since we moved into our home! While Ava took a nap, I assembled the stools and also made Cheesecake Balls aka "Heavenly Balls". They are very yummy! Around 5pm I went to pick up my dad, he was going to the BBQ at Beck's with me. We ended up taking two cars because my dad didn't want to see the fireworks afterwards but we went over to Beck's house and we had a wonderful super awesome BBQ. Billie, Steve, Luka, Juno, Vinny's parents, my dad, Vinny, Beck, Tasha, Thea, Zaya and myself and Ava were there. It was a blast. We all sat around. Then I sat down with Ava on the ground and Beck was sitting there too and Ava took her first three steps by herself!!! I'm so happy that I got to be a part of that. I've been really lucky and I've gotten to see a lot of her firsts. I'm really glad that I was there for the walking one. She hasn't done it since but we got it on video. After the BBQ we went to see the fireworks. Ava loves fireworks. She sat in my lap and looked up at the fireworks the whole time. It was great! I hope she will sit still again like that next year!! I also took a zillion pictures of her this weekend! I have to get all my baby pictures in before she turns one!!!