Two blinks ago...

I found these videos on my camera the other day, and I was so surprised!! I mean, I knew Timmy and Ava have grown up a lot, but after watching these videos I saw just how much they had changed!! 

I also saw a whole lot that was still the same, too! They're both still as cute as anything; Timmy's face hasn't changed drastically and Ava still has that beautiful dark brown hair!!

So this is Ava... playing peek-a-boo with Kaitlyn on my bed.

And this is Timmy playing silly putty with Kaleb in the living room.

Brings back so many cute, happy, funny memories!! 

Congratulations Timmy!!!

Last Wednesday, Timmy graduated from Preschool!!! And we got to go to his graduation!! 

Khara is the secretary at Grace Chapel Community Church which is also where Timmy went through preschool. The pastor told us right when we walked in the door, "We love Khara!! She runs the place!"

They were actually having the Discovering Preschool program along with the Kindergarten Preparation program that evening. 

This was just a cute little schoolhouse that was sitting up front. Each of the little preschoolers walked through the door to receive their diploma. 

There was a slideshow with a bunch of pictures of all the kids, and we spotted a couple with Timmy in them :) He's the one on the right in the picture below. 

Where's Timmy? 

There he is!! In that camo, he just blends into his surroundings!!! Just kidding :)

Saying their pledges. They said both the "Pledge of Allegiance" and the "Pledge to Myself".

 Timmy is in the blue shirt on the left.

This is the words to their "Pledge to Myself". You can enlarge the picture by clicking on it. 

Timmy's class also sang a song. Can anyone spot Timmy?

He's that cute little dude in the center in the blue shirt. ;-)

Standing up there with all the other kids... He looks so big! How did he grow up so fast!?!

Oh, and these are the words to the song they sang. 

And here is the video of their song, "When I Grow Up". 
It's a little bit hard to see Timmy, but he is the first kid to the right of that lady sitting up there.... He's like right beside her head and he's in a blue shirt. 

 Isn't that little cap and gown too cute?!! 

The lady who presented the diplomas shook each little boy and girl's hand.....

.....Timmy and another little boy just gave her "a five"!! 

Congratulations buddy! 

Here, there is a diploma and no tassel...

... and here, there is a tassel and no diploma!!!!!! 

This is a portion of his classmates. See the 3 boys in the center back? Timmy is in the middle of them.

Can you find Timmy here?! He's the one with his diploma in his mouth! 

Awww! 

What a ham!! 

Timmy is the tallest in the picture... that's slightly rare!! He was one of the few kids who didn't knock his cap off when he walked through the little door of the schoolhouse! 

This is Timmy's whole preschool class.

This is part of the church... "the cafe". They had some refreshments set up back there for after the program... but we didn't stay. We all went out to Dairy Queen for ice cream :)

There's the little graduate! I see a word written all over his face that says "ornery"!!! 

Poor Tim was having a hard time. He had eye surgery several days prior and was still having difficulty with seeing and focusing and everything. He said that seeing at night was harder and that bright lights were sorta painful, too.  

All the little kids came out with these shirts after the ceremony. Building Blocks is Grace Chapel's Learning Center. 

A family picture! You can't really tell, but Khara already has a little bitty baby bump!!!
I felt so bad for Tim. He said he was trying to keep his eyes open... but you can tell that the lights shining right at them were making that pretty hard...

Khara, Timmy, Abbey, and Tim!!!

Does someone look a little tired to you?! He did really good through the whole program though!

What a cutie :)

Afterwards, we went to Dairy Queen, got some ice cream and visited for a while.
Mom and Dad got Timmy a set of police Legos, and a few days later, Timmy called to say that he'd followed the instructions and gotten all of his Legos together!
He's so smart... I'm sure he'll do fabulous in Kindergarten!!!

N-i-e-c-e spells "fun"!!!

Last month (which isn't too long ago!) Ava came to spend a week with us while Ashley went to a friend's wedding in Missouri. As you can see in the first picture below, Kent drove to meet her there. 

We had such a fun time with our "baby".... of course, she tells us all the time that she's a big girl now!!!!

Ava and Paizley played well together. Paizley called Ava "Au-va" and Ava called Paizley "Plaizley"!! One day  we realized that Ava and Paizley were matching, so we tried to get some pictures of them; Ava is pretty photogenic, Plaizey... not so much :)

One would smile and then the other, but hardly ever both at the same time!

These are Paizley and Ava's happy faces!!!

Have I already said that Ava's photogenic?? Well, she's just plain cute on top of that!!

 

The one thing about having 2 little girls is that there is only one Karissa! Ava's 'Issa only has 1 lap, too, which didn't work well during story time!!! Both girls love reading and books!! The book that Karissa is reading in this picture is Paizley's. Ava called it the "Cat-in-the-Hat" book... actually at first she called it the Dog-in-the-Hat book. Karissa said, "No, it's Cat-in-the-Hat". Ava said, "But I can't say that"!!!! But she could by the end of the week. There's about 6 stories in that 1 book. But the funny thing is that none of the stories were about The Cat-in-the-Hat! It didn't even have a picture of The Cat-in-the-Hat on it! 

One thing that both girls loved to do was play in the pool..... the "water pool" to Ava. It was freezing cold to fill it up with the hose, so we carried buckets of semi-warm water from inside! Ava is a really good little helper!!

Paizley's quite a fish :)

Both Ava and Paizley liked the little slide in the pool. 

Can you see what Paizley's doing here?!? She pulled her foot up and dumped that little bottle of water on her toes!! It was so cute :)

Karissa had the smart idea to let them play with the bathtub toys in the pool!!

"It's a shower!!" Ava said!!

How do you like that hairdo?! It's actually just a big ponytail, but it was a tad high! I think Karissa had fun dressing and fixing the little girls' hair every morning!!!!

It was so nice having the little pool on the deck where there wasn't grass or dirt getting all over them. See 'Issa sitting back there in the shade!! It was so warm that week, it was amazing! 

I took a few pictures from Karissa's bedroom window over the deck. 

Ava waving...

...Paizley pointing :-)

  

Oh, and Ava waving again!!

Paizley on the slide. 

Kaitlyn watching...

"Comfy" "chairs"?! Ava in a bucket and Paizley in the basket!!

Karissa, Paizley and Ava on the trampoline. These pictures are from my bedroom window :)

I think Paizley has a thing for feet. I know this isn't very close, but if you click on the picture you can see that Paizley's holding onto Karissa's foot!!

Sunday morning!!! Ava had talked and talked and talked about going to church! So this was her beautiful Sunday outfit....Her Princess dress is what she called it! (I love it when she wears those headbands with the flowers on the side!!) And she needed a necklace to complete the look :) 

She said "look at it on my nose"!!!

Somebody asked her if she could see it on her nose, so this is Ava trying to see her necklace on her nose!!!
Doesn't she have the most gorgeous hair?!?!

 Ava and her Aunt 'Issa :)

Ava and Aunt 'Trina. 

  

Paizley and Ava playing Play Doh with Kaitlyn and Karissa. Actually, it looks like Kaitlyn was probably making cookies... :-)

 Ava was good little helper all week. She especially liked helping to cook. Here she's making chicken nuggets with Karissa. At first, she was dipping the chicken in the egg, but that was too messy so she switched to dipping them in the bread crumbs!! She also helped put the pepperoni on the pizza on Saturday. 

Ava's pretty good with a ball and bat. She would just hold them out like this... and she actually hit it about every 1 out of 2 or 3 times. 

 This was one of the "miss" times :)

Sticking her tongue out helps I'm sure!!!

  

Ava face #1

Ava face #2

Ava face #3!!!!

Talking to her mommy and daddy!!! Does she look a little tired to you? 

Looking at pictures with Nana. Ava talked all week about her trip to Disney a couple weeks before. So Mom pulled out the pictures of when her and Dad took Khara and Kent to Disney. The funny thing is, Ava went when she was 3 and Kent went when he was 3!! 

"That's my daddy!!!!!!"

... And that's Minni Mouse!

She still loves pup-pup!

Sleeping beauty. 

I painted Ava's nails Saturday night... strawberry nails, she called them!! (since they were pink)

Just to say: I don't wear my hair that way for looks! But if I twist is up while it's wet, it's curly when it's dry. 

She's a little girl so I didn't figure she would sit still long enough for them to dry, so I told her to blow on them.  

Then, Ava said, "you painted my nails, so I'll paint yours"!!! 

Ava painting my nails.

She did pretty good for a 3-year-old. 

And the bubbles!!! Ava loves bubbles. 

Nana got her a "bubble-gun" from Cracker Barrel. 

It worked really well...

...and Ava loved it!!!

I like this picture! I thought it was cute :)

Mom and I took Ava to meet Ashley at "Hamburger" (translation: Burger King). "To the blue slide and the red slide!"
Can you tell she loves her pup-pup. I showed her this picture and she said "that's me squeezing my pup-pup"!! 

She was here the whole time we were doing our yard sale... which wasn't really successful - at all. So we'd be  putting the stuff out and Ava would be like, "I want to help!". Karissa sat with the yard sale most of the time, so the rest of the kids played with Ava and Paizley. Ava liked jumping with Kaleb on the trampoline. He was really good with her. 

We had such a good time with her! She is so cute and so much fun!!!!