Her future's so bright!

We embarked upon potty training this week and it has been loads of fun! I was waiting until we got back from vacation to "test the waters" and so we gave it a go on Tuesday.

I just left her bottomless for all of Tuesday, most of Wednesday, and Thursday morning. She had quite a few accidents on day one, and found her preferred spot to urinate...in her closet! That was day one.

Then on day two she did better, had fewer accidents and even pooped in her potty twice! We were super excited. But I also gave her popcorn and let her color and play with stickers while sitting in her potty chair and watching Toy Story. So that helped a lot. Duh!

By day three I made up a treat jar to give her prizes after she went in her potty. She loved this and was highly motivated. But she also wanted a treat every 10 seconds.
Um no.
That's not how it works.
She would run to me and say "I potty!!! Yay! Good girl Awuh. Yay!" And I would run over to see. Nope. Nothing. She would then tell me "Cayndy momma. Cayndy".
Um no.
She did eventually go, and I let her pick out a treat. She had stickers, fruit snacks, candy, and some little party favor toys to choose from. She went again as soon as we got home from the grocery store. I let her pick a treat of course.
She chose this.

Do you remember these from back in the day? They are different plastic fruits and have candy sugar inside. Like pixy sticks!
She didn't get it so I poured some on my hand and showed her how to lick it off with her tongue. So then she was all digging it and took it back to try for herself. I let her be and continued to unload groceries and put them away.
5 minutes go by and this is what I see all over my rug in lines...

And here is what Ava is doing...

So glad she catches on quickly.
No, Ava. We don't pour powder in lines on the living room floor and then lick it up. That's not what mommy showed you.
Um, yeah. Should I be worried about her future????

Maine

I am going to try and recap 6 days worth in one post. Otherwise, I know me. I will never get the other posts up here. So bare with me and all of the pictures.
I already filled you in on day one, so here are pictures that tell the story of the rest of our trip to Old Orchard Beach, Maine. And in no particular order or sequence!
Ava and Mommy trying out the ocean. She was so excited about going to the ocean.

It was a little chilly for my likings, but we still got in and had fun jumping the waves!


And Ava loved playing in the sand!


Here's Ava with her buddy, Kiley, who lives in Maine.

Kiley and her momma, Faye, came to visit us in Texas back in April.
BACKING UP TO WHY WE EVEN WENT TO MAINE...........
Not sure if I ever shared, but Faye and I met on babycenter.com back when we were pregnant with Ava and Kiley. We were due within a few days of eachother, and we spent lots of time chatting online at babycenter message boards about the joys (and the fears/embarrassments/yuckiness) of pregnancy. Faye and I, along with 11 other gals due within a week of eachother, got super close and left the public forum of babycenter and ventured to a private forum on yahoo. We all still chat daily on yahoo, and I have met all but 1 of the ladies in real life. We live all over the United States, call eachother besties, and these ladies (and their children)mean the WORLD to me! So far, we have reunited in San Diego, Vegas, Minnesota, Texas, and Maine.
Here we are with Kiley and Faye (on the end), along with some of our other gals and babes, the first time we met when they were 14 months.

Ava and Kiley talk about eachother CONSTANTLY! It is so cute to have little bff's all over the country! :)
We took this picture, dedicating it to our other yahoo groupies who were unable to meet up this go-round!

So, back to Maine!
They had this boardwalk on the beach and one area was for adults and bigger kids, while another was for little kids, under 46 inches. It was little peoples convention to the extreme! Ava and Kiley were in heaven!!!
Monkey see, Monkey Do!

Teacups!

Waiting in line with her "auntay".

And her favorite..."hose-ees" (horseys...aka Carousel).

Portland Maine has the most amazing Children's museum I've ever seen!
There were play rooms of a farm,

a vet office,

a large fishing boat,

and treehouses everywhere!

Later that night we went out to eat and met up with another momma from our Yahoo group (who happens to also live in Maine) Emily, and her family!
Here is all three of us and our littles who are about 2 weeks apart!
Emily and Jude, Me and Ava, Faye and Kiley.

Stealing Ava sugars on the Pier.

And you can't go to Maine without eating a lobster. But holy cow! I wasn't expecting the whole derned thing to come on my plate, shell and all!!

They don't mess around! I'm so glad those pinchers were banded. You never know, people. You never know!
Ava and Jude hugging. My girl's got good taste!
Just look at her eyeing him!!!

And moove over lobsters, because did you know that Maine also should be known for it's icecream?!?!?!
If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen my tweets about this place. It was called "Big Licks" and they served homemade icecream from Heaven people!! It was incredible.

We're talking blueberry cobbler, banana cream pie, almond joy, key lime pie, coffee oreo, reeses peanut butter cup in chocolate... It was the BEST!

The smallest size they offered was a double scoop. Unless you were a tot like Ava. Then you got that little baby cone. Isn't it too cute?
We did some sightseeing one day and drove up the coast of Maine just a little ways to see the lighthouses and take in the fresh, cool air. Although, Maine was having a very warm summer. Like in the 80's. HA! HA! HA!





Ava and I (more like I) decided to dress "Nautie" on the last day.

We hit up a local park just to take in the view one last time.

Oh! And let Ava and her elephant swing. Of course!


Maine really is a gorgeous state and I highly recommend it this time of year if you want to get away from the blazing heat!
I mean, you really can't beat mild temps, the ocean, breathtaking scenery, lobsters & ice cream, and carnie rides.
It just doesn't get much better!

Let's go to the movies!

I'm randomly posting about the movies in between the vacation posts because I left this out and don't want to forget about it.
Firsts are important milestones, ya know!
Daddy left for his business conference on Sunday July 18th. After church and nap, I decided to take Ava to see Toy Story 3. I figured it would go one of two ways. She'd love it so much she'd sit still, or she would be all squirmy or loud, meaning she wasn't into it obviously, and we'd just leave. I'd never know if I didn't try it out, so I was up for the challenge if that's what you call it!

We got in the car to go and she was so excited! I told her we were going to a theater and she would get to watch a "noomie" as she calls them. I also informed her that she would get to eat popcorn, eat candy, and drink coke (we call soda coke. So if I need to get technical, I'm referring to sprite). She was so ready to watch "Toy Store" in the "feater".
Too cool for school, walking without a hand in the parking lot (so I could get snap picture).

When we first walked into the theater, it was empty. I thought to myself "Sweet! No worries of her being too loud or squirmy." No such luck. It packed up within ten minutes of that thought!
Huge drink? Check!

Huge popcorn and 3D glasses? Check!

We were ready for the noomie to begin!

She sat through the entire movie and was so entralled with it all. She was a little loud at times but so were other kids so it wasn't bad. She would say "Wook momma. Toy Store" and the movie had been playing for at least 15 minutes already. No kidding Ava. We established that 15 minutes ago. It was sweet. And then it was "Buzz! Woody!" Every time they appeared on screen!
But her favorite character of all is Slinky. She calls him Slink, and in her cutest Texas toddler accent she says "Swayyynk". I just giggle every time she talks about Slink!
When the movie was over was when things got a little hairy. She started bawling when we were leaving because she didn't want it to be over. We got in the parking lot and it was meltdown city. She kept saying "No over. No over. More Toy Store." And just how do you explain to a 2 yr old that it's over? Ha! So I told her to dry it up and we'd go look for a Toy Story doll at Target. She didn't have any memorabilia and I thought it was appropriate for her first movie experience.
Right? Not spoiling her at all.
It was a necessity.

She is still telling everyone about going to the movies a little over a week later, and I'm so glad she had such a great time! She loves to talk about it on the phone to her grandparents. She makes me laugh! :)

We had so much fun on our little movie date and I look forward to doing it again!

Flights and Fear, Day 1 of Vacation

We were up at 5:30am. Ava woke up at 6:00 asking to go to the ocean right away. Here I am looking less than attractive, in the bright early morning sun...smiling because we were no longer in heavy traffic!


My sister in law, Shauna, came along since Aaron was unable to join us on our vacation. Ironically, he was in Portland Oregon on business conference while we were going to Portland, Maine! The first plane ride went smooth. Many thanks to modern technology and Yo Gabba Gabba.


We stopped in Atlanta to connect to Portland Maine. That Airport is just crazy busy and hot! I now know why some say "Hotlanta". ;)


Ava was excited to eat some lunch and stretch her legs. We boarded our next flight and she slept all but 30 minutes. I can only hope for the same luck on our flights home!!
When we got to our destination, we met up with our friends Faye and Matt, and their little girl, who is a few weeks younger than Ava. Matt is 7 ft tall and the first thing Ava said was "daddy's voluptuous" as in Kiley's daddy is big. I about died laughing. You see, we had just told her two days prior that voluptuous means big.
The things these little ones remember and repeat are downright hilarious!!
We got to our "motel on the beach" and it was not your luxury beach condo by any means. It was more like "beach camp" as I called it. But that's just how it is in Maine. Easy going. Nothing fancy. Just a place to sleep and enjoy the mild temps and easy accessibilty to the beach.
We dropped off our luggage, and decided to grab a bite to eat across the street. Suddenly the sky turned black and the bottom fell out. As we walked into the deli, the manager yells "Everyone needs to get back to their hotels. We are closing because a tornado is heading this way."
I start to panic and run for my life back to our hotel. Meanwhile, Faye has Ava in her arms, running behind me. We get to our hotel room and the door won't open; we were still outside! And it's getting very very windy. I just knew we were in big trouble! Finally our door opens with a little elbow grease, we get inside, and we hear a very loud train coming right for us!
If you know anything about tornados, you know that if you hear what sounds like a train, to take cover immediately!
This is when I panic, and my sister in law belly flops to the floor. And she dives under the entire bed! Two seconds later....we hear a train horn. Ummm yeah. There was a train track 10 yards behind our hotel!
This incident took the edge off of our near death experience...or was it a near death experience at all? We'll never really know. As time passed, the storm rolled out and although a few neighboring towns did see a tornado, we were blessed to only have had the bejesus scared out of us and nothing more!
We finally settled on a slice of pizza from a nearby pizza stand and decided to call it a night!


*picture taken on flight #2

Model{s} MONDAY!

Happy stinkin hot Monday to you!!
It's the dog days of summer, y'all!
And I don't think I could be more thrilled about heading to the coast of Maine where it's a tad bit cooler.
My car read thermostat read 107 today. HOTT!
Everything is bigger in Texas, and that does include the temperature and the humidity. And my swollen fingers. And the sweat band on my undergarment. Wowzers!

I am going to do a double Model Monday since I will be on vacation next week. And then we will catch right back up the week after next.
In fact, this week we have models wearing the same dress!
It's the perfect dress for these hot summer days, as well.
Here is Miss Brooke. She is wearing the spaghetti strap ruffle dress with the yellow applique letter. Her mom told me this was her most favorite dress to wear...her "pink summer dress".

Isn't Brooke SUCH a cutie?!
She mentioned that she has worn it over and over again and with each wash it still looks brand new!

I'm not sure if Brooke or her mom realize it, but those two statements are pretty much the best compliments someone in this business can recieve!!! And I was more than thrilled to get them both!!! Thanks again to Brooke and her sweet mom!

Our next model might look familiar. This is Emersyn and she was featured as a model back in May, wearing her cupcake outfit we made for her birthday!

She is wearing the ruffle dress with a zebra applique. And aren't her zebra pigtail bows precious accessories? I'm loving it!! Emersyn is a repeat customer, and her mom is a lonnnng distant friend of mine. It's too bad she doesn't live closer because I would love to have this adorable girl as a regular model! Too precious!!

We still have a couple of these spaghetti strap dresses left in a size 2 or 4. So go check em out over at sheshemade.com

Saturday

Our Saturday was slow and busy all at the same time.
Is that possible? Oh yes it is!
We slept in until 9:30, lounged around, and then went to the Farmers' Market. Our town has one every Saturday and We'd never been. We wanted to do something a little out of the ordinary, that didn't require being outdoors for too long in this scorching heat.
We bought just a few items to eat up in the next few days.

Ava picked out which basket of Cherries looked most delightful

And she carried them home!


We grabbed some lunch at one of our favorite Mexican food restaurants.

It's one that Casey James used to play at last summer too! Just had to mention that. :) I knew you were all dying to know!!
After nap time we decided to hit up the pool.

And let me just tell you that with the temp at 103, even the pool wasn't that refreshing today.
But we still had fun! A pool is better than no pool so I'm not complaining.

What is it about little wedgies in a swimsuit that's so adorable?!?! Love it!

We were playing "dive for mom's hair rubberband" and she LOVED that game.



She was good and worn out so we called it a wrap and she (of course) tried to walk off from us.

Just look at that face. I tell you! That child wears us out. In a good way...

I hope you're having a good weekend & staying cool!