April Snow Showers

Well, we stepped out against heart disease yesterday and it was fricking cold! At 10am, it was about 40 degrees, the winds were howling around 25mph, and sleet was falling. It was miserable. But, we walked. Only about a mile, but, hey, I think that was good enough considering. Thanks again to everyone who supported us and donated to the American Heart Association!

Ava was a trooper. She didn't make a sound the entire time. I think her lips might have been frozen shut, but whatever...


Here was our measly team. Our team actually consisted of 12 or 14 people, but we were the brave few who actually showed up. It's Scot, me, Ava, and Jen in the front, Jess and her sister Amanda in the back.



Can we go home now?


We stopped and got some hot coffee on the way home and then we all took a nap. Upon waking, we decided we needed to get out of the house so Ava could burn off some energy, so we tried something new. We ventured out to The Giggle Factory in Hudson. It is GENIUS. It's an enclosed indoor playground, with a cafe, and leather chairs for the moms and dads to sit in. Need I say more? I mean, really, you just can't put a price on an hour and a half of sitting down on your lazy ass while your kid has the time of her life. Well, I guess you can. It's $5.95. TOTALLY worth it.

Ava's the one in the yellow (ahem, Vikings) sweatshirt




And then after about an hour and fifteen minutes of nonstop cardio, she started slowing down. She ended up laying down in the toddler area, covered herself up with the mat, and sucked her thumb...


More thumb sucking...


And....she's done.


We'll definitely be going back.

Stepping out against heart disease

Everyone knows someone affected by heart disease or stroke. For those we love, Ava and I will be walking in this year’s Start! Heart Walk, of which Medtronic is one of the corporate sponsors. I'm happy to report that Ava and I have already raised $625! -- critical dollars which will be used for heart disease and stroke research and education. Thank you again to those of you who have already made a donation!

If you would like to donate, click on the link below and you will be taken to my personal donation page where you can make a secure online credit card donation. The American Heart Association's online fundraising website has a minimum donation amount of $25.00. If you prefer to donate less, you can do so by sending a check directly to me.

https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=246011&lis=1&kntae246011=EA9C6ADB007348C093A2F184D4CB6ACE&supId=113667175

Your donation will help fight our nation’s No. 1 and No. 3 killers—heart disease and stroke. We will be making the 3 mile trek on Saturday, April 26th at Harriet Island in St. Paul. Hopefully the weather will be nice!

Here's a little background on Medtronic's impact on the treatment of heart disease and other diseases:
For more than 50 years, Medtronic has focused on developing solutions for people with heart disease, starting with the invention of the first external battery-powered pacemaker in 1957.

Today, Medtronic is the global leader in medical technology - alleviating pain, restoring health and extending life for millions of people around the world. This continues to include people with heart disease and a variety of cardiovascular conditions. Medtronic develops and manufactures a wide range of products and therapies with emphasis on providing a complete continuum of care to diagnose, prevent and monitor chronic conditions. Every five seconds, somewhere in the world, a person's life is saved or improved by a Medtronic product or therapy.

Just stuff

Ava and I both stayed home sick today. She's had a cold for a few days and I guess I finally caught it too. When my alarm went off at 5:30 this morning, I didn't really have to think all that hard about what was going to happen next. I slept for another hour or so until I was beckoned by "MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY!" Despite our runny noses and coughs, we had a really fun day together. The 3 hour nap she took this afternoon didn't hurt any either.

We're into Week 3 of music class and Ava is really digging it this session. Her favorite song of the collection is a version of the nursery rhyme "Jack Be Nimble". However, Ava can't say "nimble" and instead says "nipple" and loudly screams "Jack Nipple! Jack Nipple!" everytime we play the song. She's also very much into hearing herself sing, so when I try to chime in when we're in the car or something, she scolds, "NO, I DO IT!"

Well, let's face it. She says, "I DO IT" about 87 times a day, singing or not. I thought about keeping track today (I didn't), but I don't think 87 is really all that exaggerated. Getting dressed. "I DO IT!" Brushing teeth. "I DO IT!" Putting the cap on the sippy cup. "I DO IT!" Cleaning the litter box. "I DO IT!" (Heck, I'd glady let her give that a whirl by herself if I could trust her not to lick the scooper when she was finished) Washing her face. "I DO IT!" I think you're probably getting the picture. On the one hand, it's great to see her becoming more independent, but boy is it exhausting. When Scot was deployed last year, Ava was 16-18 months old. It wasn't a bad age for me to be a single mom. She more or less still let me do everything for her and we were able to move quickly between daily events. Now it's another story. Scot has only been gone a little over a week (he's in Puerto Rico for 2 weeks) and I am exhausted. Everything just takes a lot longer. It's not that she puts up a fuss, but she wants to "help". I've stopped eating breakfast at home because I'm spending a lot more time corraling Ava in the mornings. Thank God Scot gets back on Saturday!

We went to the library this weekend and picked out some books. The clear favorite is Butterfly Butterfly by Petr Horacek. I think we better order it so it's here by the time it's due back at the library. That's another thing she wants to do more and more of - read to me, instead of me read to her. I'm amazed by the things she remembers after only hearing me read something a few times! Which reminds me of another story...last weekend, I heard her babbling after she woke up from her nap. I had left the door open a little bit, so I peeked in to see what she was doing. I watched her get a book from the bin I have on her crib and sit back down with her bear and start "reading" to him. Awww...it just made my heart melt.

And on a really random note, we won $1000 yesterday!!! My sister-in-law Lisa has been volunteering at an animal shelter in Mosinee, and they sold raffle tickets for their annual fundraiser. Scot and I each bought one for $100 each and we (well, technically HE but he is smart enough to know we'll share) won the 4th place prize. They only were selling 400 tickets, so we knew we had decent odds, but we NEVER would have thought we'd win! We were just glad to help out with one of our top causes we support. No big plans for the money...though I suspect it will come in handy on our trip to Hawaii this summer.

Mini Me

So...a lot of people say Ava looks like Scot, which I guess I agree with. Or I might say that she's a pretty good mix of both of us. But, my mom has been scanning in old slides into the computer and just sent me these pictures of me when I was almost 2 1/2. I've seen a few other pictures of me at this age, but not these particular ones.

Twice the 2 year old fun

My friend Tricia came over with her kids Samuel and Sydney to play on Sunday. As always, we had a lot of fun...

Tricia with Syndey and Ava:


Samuel (who also became obsessed with Sam the cat during his visit):


Mommy in training - Ava wanted to help with EVERYTHING:


Everything was going great until we decided to try to take a picture of all 3 kids on the couch. This is what happened:


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Of course, everyone was fine moments after I stopped taping. But we didn't try to take another group picture.