Anticipation

At the bottom of my last post, I mentioned Ava's "can't wait" list. Here are some updates...

1) Preschool - Sep 13
We attended Ava's preschool Open House/Orientation last Wednesday. She will be attending the same preschool as last year, but this year it will be 3 mornings/week instead of 2. It's such a nice perk of our daycare that Vicki's husband Don can take her back and forth on those days. She would be so bored with the little kids that are left if she wasn't able to do that. So, we got ourselves reaquainted with the room and met a new teacher - Ms. Terri. The other teacher - Ms. Joni - Ava had last year as she also teaches the 3-4 year old class on T/Th. It looks like a lot of her good friends from last year will be there again too. Her first day is tomorrow!

2) "Ballerina School" - Sep 13
Ava has been expressing an interest in ballet for the past several months so I looked into some dance options in the area for her. I thought I had settled on one in Woodbury - a place where some friends of ours take their daughter Ella. But, the class times were just a little too early for us and I was also a little turned off by the fact that parents weren't able to watch the lessons. Scot and I agreed that being able to watch is what really makes so much of it fun and worthwhile at this age, to see them participate and enjoy themselves. So, I ended up taking Ava to a trial class at a place called "Little Gym" which is more focused on gymnastics. She seems really strong for her age, so I thought maybe gymnastics would be a better fit for her anyway. She loved the trial, so I have her signed up for the next 4 months. And the room is set up so that there is a glass partition so the parents can watch (and little siblings can run around in). After that I think I might switch her over to the gymnastics program at the high school, as she will be 5 then and will be able to participate with the bigger kids. We'll see how it goes...but that starts tomorrow as well. Big day!

3) Julie's Wedding - Oct 16
The invitations went out last week and the big day is just over a month away! Both Ava and Reese will be flower girls and their dresses came in the mail last week - I had them made by 2 different vendors on etsy.com and both Julie and I are really happy with how they turned out! Here is a preview...(you can see that Ava is absolutely 100% ready for her flower girl debut). Reese...well, we'll just hope that she follows her big sister's lead and enthusiasm level on the big day. It's not quite there yet :-)






4) Birthday - Nov 10
Ava hasn't made any special requests for a party yet, but she's always thinking about presents. When we're at Target and she begs for a toy, my canned response is always "we'll put it on your list". There is no list, BUT it works wonders. Most anything that is geared towards girls in the toy section of Target is on this imaginary list. TBD about the party - is 5 the magic age to ditch the family party and invite friends out to play somewhere? I'll have to do some research...