birthday fun:)

Well it's over, Ava is officially one year old!!! We celebrated her birthday twice, once on the actual day and then again on Saturday with extended family.
For her actual birthday she wanted to go to Cheesecake factory which we thought was a really good plan...it shows what good taste she has:) Ok so maybe it was Jason's idea...maybe:) Our dear friend Rachel (Ava's favorite babysitter!) baked a little cake for Ava which we brought with us to the restaurant...the funny thing was Ava wasn't very interested in the sugar...Yay! Only a mom would be happy about that! She had a few delicate tastes of frosting and then decided she was done. So girly so cute!

Diane and Andre, my mom and Jason and I were there


Blowing out the candle!

the cutest little cake ever!


On Saturday we had a full house. Jasons grandparents, parents, cousin Brian & his wife Rachel, my mom, my Aunties, and my cousin Abbie were all there to celebrate Ava's special day...So much love in one house! We opened presents, watched the baby, opened more presents, watched the baby, ate cupcakes....watched the baby....We were a pretty focused group:) Grandma made the most adorable cupcakes which I don't have any pictures of:( And Ava did the same thing, a little taste or two and she was done. Seriously, who's baby is this?:)

gettin' silly with her sippy cup

Ok so the dress. Isn't it adorable? Diane bought it for Ava when she was in Disney World this past month....I can't get over it. It's the cutest little princess dress ever*
And I guess she's the cutest little princess too:) I love you so much I can hardly stand it my little one year old!

one

My baby doll is one today.... I am feeling a lot of emotion right now and since I don't feel capable of putting it in to words, here are a few recent pictures of my little lady. Gosh I love her.
More birthday posts to come:)

Well I celebrated my 28th birthday last month...yikes! The good news is that Jas got home the night before, which was of course the best present I could have asked for:)

We went to "la mie" for breakfast....the best little french bakery ever! Then Jas bought me a new cell phone! This was quite a selfless act on his part because I had gotten a phone last spring and lost it, so this phone was actually supposed to be his upgrade....Well I loved it, but unfortunately I've since ruined that one too....sent it through the wash. Ahhh!!! I think my days of owning a cell phone have come to an end. Anyway that's a whole different story that I do not want to get in to! So back to birthday talk. We went to dinner and walked around downtown Des Moines.....It was a lovely day. It was even lovelier just being together as a family:)

Ava practicing being silly....

The forced family picture....I'm always making Jas do this...poor guy:)

Just us

We went to Spaghetti Works for dinner....A place I do NOT recommend! haha we randomly picked it, and really regretted it! It was tasted like really pricey microwaved food. I thought it was really funny but Jas felt terrible about it and made sure we ate at a nice place the next night...I didn't care though. I was just so happy to be together:) Have I mentioned that I am happy to have Jas home???

Here is Ava waiting to be tickled...isn't she so cute!

And here she is post tickle...

Just a few pics of the first weekend after Jason got home. We went up to MN to visit my family and had a beautiful time out on the lake...

Here are my two darling cousins: Giorgia and Isabel. Some people say that Ava looks like Giorgia....what do you think?

Here is my Grandpa! I love him because he is sweet and really super funny. I mean really funny. He is one of those pun- happy people. I love it!

Ava with Grampy and Grammy

Loving being at the lake and having my man home:)

She likes to wear sunglasses. I love to let her!

She is quite serious about it as you can see from this pic.

Out on the front of the boat with daddy

And I just think she looks adorable in this pic...totally adorable.