The lovey.

Ava has become attached to a certain blankie (if that's even a proper description.) She started sleeping with it at about 3 months and now, she cant be without it.

We call it her 'baby' and she knows it. At bedtime she will find it, bring it to me and grunt until I pick her up. Then, she points at her room, grunts some more until we get a binkie for her and then she points at her bed.

I love that she has a sense of comfort with it... but I HATE when we forget it at Aunties when its nap time. (Oh, I also hate that its light pink. That makes it really hard to hide how much she's loved - ha!)

The pictures.

Along with Ava's first birthday came a photo shoot and cake smash to capture the big ONE!
I planned to do a cake smash since the day she was born after seeing adorable pictures online. I kick myself now, that I don't have any of Kaylee and Layton to look back on.

Becca went with me (bless that girl.) I could have never done it without her. This kid of mine is B-U-S-Y.

I have learned a thing or two about photographing babies in the past year:
One, they are unpredictable.
Two, you CANNOT pose them.
And Three, you MUST just 'go with the flow'.
(Otherwise, you end up wanting to pull your hair out, and/or... crying at the end of it all.)

This session pretty much consisted of us sitting her somewhere, Becca chasing her all over the place to keep her close. And me, clicking away. The cake part was successful ONLY because... well, she had food to eat, and the girl loves her grub.

These are my favorites:

The party.

After months of prepping, having to cancel and then reschedule - we finally got it done.
We had about half the guests as planned, but it worked. The room we ended up renting at the last minute was super small anyway, so fitting everyone in it would have been a huge challenge.
Ava did amazing, even though her morning nap was skipped.
She was happy, social and didn't have one meltdown. I call that a win.

Back to the norm.

We caught the flu bug last week and just now are getting back into the swing of things. Yesterday was the first time in almost a month that I really cleaned my house.

Ava's party had to be cancelled because of it but we are doing it this weekend. Having to reschedule turned it all into a small disaster at first. We had to switch places and trying to pick a date that worked for everyone was impossible. Hopefully it works out in the end. I think we will have half the guests unfortunately, but it was out of my hands. She's not going to remember anyway.

Mothers day was good. Lee got me the necklace that I have been wanting since Ava was born. It was on back order but I should have it soon. I'm so excited to see it.

I have a few things on my plate right now with the older kiddos. Layton leaves for an overnight field trip next week and I'm in a total panic. I know I won't be sleeping on Thursday night.

Kaylee is training for her championship next month so she goes 5 days a week until then. Running her back and forth during dinner hours and some nights not getting home until 10, is exhausting. Worth it, yes. But also worth complaining about? Of course.

My plan is to get through this weekend. Party on Saturday and Ava's one year pictures/cake smash on Sunday.

I also still have pictures to upload from Vegas. Argg, just add that to the list...