it sleeps...

This is a rare moment. Ava sleeping and I caught it on camera.
It is nearly impossible to catch her sleeping. She is such a light sleeper that she wakes up even before I have her door opened a crack!
Well, this evening I got lucky as Miss "I-No-Need-No-Nap" Ava tuckered herself out and passed out in the living room!
So I immediately run for my camera and managed to capture a moment of quiet and peaceful Ava. (you may not be able to recognize her from her spirited awake self).

Little Sleeping Beauty

nubbins

Just some nubbins...I am all over the map today. Probably from lack of sleep.
I can not sleep while Tom is away.
I hear every noise. Every sound. Every non-noise.
Needless to say, Mama is tired.
Anyway...while doing my best to lay around and do nothing...Bryn was doing her best at nothing too.
No good story here, she is just lovely. I adore this incredibly sweet and silly little girl.



I also had an interesting conversation with Ava.
Ava exclaims- "Mom! Come see! There's something in the frig!"
Half terrified that it was a dead lizard or worse, I reluctantly follow Ava to the frig.
Upon opening the door, I find this-

With this explanation- "Mom, Lila (the penguin) likes to sleep in the cold. She needs a cold bed."
She even managed to rearrange the milk and heavier door items to make room for Lila.
I spent the rest of the day fishing various animals out of my frig. A tiger, a sea turtle and a dinosaur...

I can not wait to see what's in the freezer tomorrow.

duck, duck, duck, girls!

Another weekend has come and gone. We have been enjoying lazier weekends. A nice break from the daily hustle and bustle of our lives.
This weekend was particularily nice as Tom was home with us all weekend and even chose to hang with us...even without his Crackberry. (which is nice as that mofo is always going off).

We hung out the the playground.




And did some bike riding...
(this picture is note worthy as Ava just could not get a handle on how to pedal a bike. But she woke up Saturday and decided that "today was the day"...and now she manages pedal and actually move forward).


Can you see the utter concentration?



We noticed some ducks were looking for lunch...so we helped them out.
We shared some bread (Ava...notsomuch...as she just ate her bread).







Yeah, they run like girls...


Yep...just another chronicle in the story that is my life...its not a big page turner, but it may give you a few laughs and put you sleep.

Denial - it ain't just a river in Egypt

I have been meaning to post this for awhile to setttle an on-going debate betwix Tom and myself (the latter being right of course). It goes like this:

Ava looks like Tom.
There is no way she will ever be mistaken for anyone other than her father's daughter.
I think we could even argue whether or not I am her mother as she definately has strong Bennett traits.
Tom really truly thinks she does not look like him.
No really.
Maybe it's because she's so cute? Whatever the reason, he refuses to acknowledge that he got his good looks from Ava.

So, while looking at some older pictures, I came across this photo of Ava at 9 weeks that I affectionately refer to as- "Mini Tom".



And just to be fair, here is a recent picture of Mini Tom Ava.


And for reference- Big Tom


I think we can all agree that if we stuck a bow on Tom's head, we'd all have to start calling him "Big Ava".

Can you see the resemblence?
Yeah, I thought so.
Point for Jill.

january blah blah blah

Still here!
I have been busy with nothing in particular, but it seems to be taking up all of my time!
Mostly, I have been just trying to get through the day with Ava. Ava is almost 3 turning 16.
An eeeeevil 16.
Ava has hit a *phase*.
A phase of constant screaming, crying and kicking about everything. I know its going to be a particularily bad day when she tells me her toothpaste is too toothpastey for her. Crap. It's like a Friday the 13th, on a Monday. Yeah. Ava can be *that* difficult.
Now, I see how one could be driven to drink before 10 a.m. Maybe I should start filling my water bottles with something other than water.
For me, I seek solace in my beloved Cola or chocolate. Needless to say, I have been enjoyed quite a bit of both these days...and my butt is not thankful for that.

So, since I can not take Ava anywhere in public for too long nowadays, we enjoyed a quieter weekend close to home...you know, where we can do lots of tutu wearing activities.





Bryn has also mastered the art of the two wheeler bike sans training wheels! Weee! (of course she's a speed demon- which just adds to my anxiety as I watch her wobble by on her bike at even faster speeds than she normally moves. Speeds that would require a trip to the emergency room of she decides to fall off her bike).
I am still proud of her bike riding abilities. Just another milestone closer to leaving the nest.




I really shouldn't be allowed to blog when I have nothing of interest to say, so my apologies.
It's January. Blah.

muffin top

Yeah, after the holidays, I am in great need of hitting the gym to shed some of the cookie weight I have been carrying around (which oddly is a workout in itself).
Ironically, it seems the Gods are against me as I have buggered up "that" knee once more and can not run or workout like a normal person (well, normal for me anyway).

Grrrr to my freakin' knee.
Thank heaven for ice and anti-inflammatories!




The pictures are from one of my all-time favorite sites-
I Can Has Cheezburger
Be careful! I have spent many countless hours touring the pictures!

ava mava bo bava

Meet my daughter, Magnet Girl

Bryn recently introduced me to her new alter-ego...Magnet Girl.

She literally came running at me, threw herself around me and hung on as tight as possible, so she was "stuck" to me...all the while giggling her infamous Bryn-giggle (which I think would solve world peace if everyone had the joy of listening to her big belly laugh- she still has the belly laugh of a 6 month old baby).
I think I spent 2 hours this weekend, trying to free myself from Magnet Girl and her wonderous sticky abaility.
(although secretly, I enjoy any hugs I can get from them lately)




Of course, there is also my other daughter- Cow Girl...but I will save that story for another day!

Last day of Christmas vacation

Today marked the last day of winter vacation.
Tomorrow we get up early and take Bryn back to school.

I am surprised that I am bittersweet about all this. I thought for sure I'd be bouncing off the walls with excitement at the thought of having one less kid a few hours each day...but ironically, I am not.
I am a little sad that we won't be hanging around in our pjs each morning. That we will no longer be able to wake up play Wii or watch some cartoons until we feel like going somewhere.
(oh sure, we could if we woke early enough, but that's not happening on my clock).

So, the past few days we have done nothing with particular importance.
We played, we danced, we climbed, we wii-ed.





Please note that the Minnie ears have not come off since our trip to Disney...even at naptime (I am just trying to figure out how to sneak in and take a picture of my Sleeping Minnie without waking her up)!









Now we head back into our old groove.
Bring It on.

Happy Happy New Year!

Happiest New Year All!! So far, 2009 has been a good one!

We had a pretty quiet New Years' Eve. We went over to our neighbours' to enjoy some fireworks (which is definately a Southern thing on NYE).
Bryn loved the sparklers and the fireworks! She joyfully danced around and did all things Bryn.
You will notice Ava is missing from the pictures...she hates fireworks or anything that makes a "boom" sound, so she stayed inside their house and watched from the door asking if each "boom" was the last one. Poor girl.
First we scar Bryn with the roller coasters and now Ava suffers from fireworks phobia. I believe I am working on Mother of the Year award and 2009 has just begun!

The girls fell asleep in our arms as we chatted around the fire with some friends. By 10 pm, I was ready for bed...but I managed to wake up during the midnight countdown, give T a kiss and fall asleep on the couch.





"This year for my resolution, I decided not to make any resolutions.
Why?
Every year I make sweeping resolutions- eat better, get in better shape, blah,blah, blah and inevidably they are blown by January 2nd...which would prove true again this year a I just scarfed down a chocolate cookie for breakfast!
So to save myself from my own disappointment, I decided to take baby steps. This year I will organize my zillion photos, get my recipes in order and try not to have chocolate cookies for breakfast. Or at least wait until morning snack!"

The above resolutions are in quotations as they were my resolutions from last year (if you look long and hard in TheBowtique blog archives). I thought it was pretty funny that I could use the exact same paragraph for this year's resolutions (which goes to show the extent of laziness that I truly can go to).

Sadly, I didn't really do much to aid my 2008 resolutions.
I managed to print more photos to organize, collect more recipes to sort and continue to enjoy cookies for breakfast...although truth be told, we could probably substitite chocolate cookies for cinnamon buns.

So this year, I resolve not to have any resolutions...and so far, none have been broken (which is a good thing considering what I ate for breakfast...no, not cookies)


Cake.