Words for Wednesday...Avi-Cakes Bear Cub Edition.

My mom calls Avi-Kate by the nickname Babycakes. AG then combined it to make the nickname Avi-Cakes. Then at some point she started making little growling noises and we started calling her Avi-Cakes Bear Cub. Ha. This spring I stumbled upon this adorable suit at the Gap in Macon complete with Bear Cub ears! I had to have it mainly because it was a long sleeve one piece suit. (Which are an all out necessity when you have fair skinned gingers! And almost impossible to find!) Anyways, the little ears were a nice added bonus. As you can see she loves wearing the hood. 

This weekend was her first real trip in to the pool and I was curious to see how she would do. Oh my goodness! She LOVED it. Loved being in the water but can I just say that in the last week or so we have seen her little personality begin to really come out. She's going to be a force to be reckoned with and she is FEARLESS. Pool, heights, new things, it doesn't matter or phase her. Notice in these pictures that she's standing in the pool. We tried the babyfloat and she tolerated it for a bit. We then held her for a bit and then she wanted nothing to do with us but wanted to do the pool all by herself! Really? Andy and I looked at each other thinking you're nuts...12months old and wants to swim by herself. I'm now trying to find something that she can wear that won't hinder her mobility. I need to figure it out before next month when we head to the beach. She also saw AG jumping to Andy in the pool...so she had to do it also. She 'jumped' off the top step in to Andy's arms. She's going to be a swimmer just like her Momma. :) Like I said she's fearless in the water...which is great but we are going to have to really watch her as she's growing!

Oh, sweet Avi-Cakes, our little Bear Cub, how we love you so! You are a sweet and sassy mess. Daddy and I can already see you being a monkey with the way you climb things. You'll be the kid that jumps out of her crib, I'm sure of it. You love to do things all by yourself and we can't wait to see how you grow and change over the next year. 

And the week is...

...off and running! Whew. It's Monday and things are ramping up to be busy, busy. Lots to post this week. I'm hoping that I can sit down some in the next day or two to upload pics and get my posts together. We spent the weekend at the farm and got back last night. It was wonderful as always. As we were leaving Andy commented that one day we'll have a farm house down there and how nice that will be to visit and then pull in to our own driveway down there instead of driving 3.5 hours home. Yes, a farm house sounds just about perfect. One day we'd love to build a second family home down there. It's nice to dream, right? :) We swam, saw the cows, and ate lots of fresh food. AG and Avi-Kate played hard and slept even harder. It was a fun weekend with family.

I'm off to throw on some clothes and get things together to get out the door to pick up groceries with the kids. Plus, a stop at Home De-Hepo if your AG aka Home Depot to the rest of us to pick up some flowers. Like I said, busy day and week ahead. I'll be back with more soon. Happy Monday.

Details sneak peek of Avi-Kate's room...

A few details...full pictures once I get everything on the walls the way I want it. I must say that it's coming along and I really love how it's turning out. Stay tuned.

Leaving on a jet plane....

...we've got lots in the works for the next year or so. Some things are tentative and others are firmly in the books. Here's what we'll be up to:

-My family takes a week to the FL panhandle every year so we'll be at the gulf the last week of July.

-November we'll head to Disney for the kids surprise Christmas trip. We return on a Thursday and the plan is for us to get back in time to cut down our Christmas tree that evening. Why cram that all in one day you might be asking? There is a method to my madness I promise.

-December holds a quick girls trip for me, Andy's sisters and mom. We are heading to my beloved Williamsburg for The Grand Illumination Weekend. It's Williamsburg's big kick off to the Christmas season. I'm really excited about it because while I have been during the Christmas season before I have not been during Grand Illumination Weekend for all the festivities. We'll be staying at Marriott's Manor Club and just minutes from the historic district. This happens to be Andy's mom's home base for her timeshare. We love staying here. This trip is the day after we return from Disney. Since we use a local tree farm to cut down our tree every year we like to cut it as soon as possible for best selection. Hence, the reason for wanting to do it before my Williamsburg trip. We'll see if that comes to pass but it's the plan for the moment. I'm sad that this year we will be cutting our tree down alone for the first time. The Hornsbys will be settled in Macon and I'm betting they won't be traveling to Rome to cut down their tree.

-Half Marathons at Disney for both Andy and I this winter. Once we get closer I'll post info on where we'll be staying. At this point we haven't gotten that far. I've got my hands full planning other things and these types of trips don't require much planning since we have been so many times we are quite good planning a short trip in a little time. (Our Everest 5k trip this year was planned in about two hours 8 weeks before.)

-May is shaping up to be busy. We would like to run the Expedition Everest 5K again this year since it was so much fun this past year. At the moment this is tentative and loosely on the books. At the end of the month we'll be taking a week long Edwards family vacation with the family timeshare. This year we'll be off to St. Thomas for a week. Should be an adventure traveling with four kids under the age of five. Most likely this will be Avi-Kate and Delia's first plane rides. I've already started keeping an eye on the airfare and am just waiting for the right deal to come along for us to buy our tickets. Since we are doing this trip we aren't exactly sure yet about the Everest 5K. I'm sure we'll decide later this year what our plans are.  

-As far as Disney in 2013 we will for sure be there this winter for both of our half marathons. Our current annual passes expire the first of March. At this point we are planning to let them expire then and then get a new set in May if we do Everest again. Now the biggest decision concerning our annuals for 2013 is that Andy and I are seriously looking at doing the Premier Annual Passport for ourselves this time instead of the regular annual pass we've bought the last few years. This pass allows you to do admission on both coasts. Why would we need access to both parks? Well, we have given serious thought and consideration to doing what Disney calls the Coast to Coast Challenge. (Basically, if you complete a half in both parks in the same calendar year you receive a special medal.) We figure if we are planning to already do one half in one of the parks we might as well do one in California. We are both turning 30 in 2013 and we'd like to do this as a way to commemorate the end of our 20s and start of our 30s.  If we do run in CA we'll most likely do the Disneyland race which is usually around Labor Day weekend. (It works best with Andy's work schedule.) The plan would be that we would make it a long weekend and have a belated anniversary celebration since we'll be doing lots around our anniversary in the spring. Tentative but looking like a real strong possibility. I'm in the process of mapping out what it would cost. I've also been working on what Disney trips we'll be doing in 2013 with the kids. Avi-Kate will still be free but we'll have to buy AG's admission this next year and so I'm trying to map out our plans to figure out if he'll need a ten day no expiration ticket or an annual pass. 

So, that's what we are looking forward to this next year. Lots of family fun in the works. Andy and I are also starting to look at where we want to go in 2016 for our ten year anniversary. We want to take a big trip somewhere and we've been discussing what that looks like. My hope is to have that nailed down for sure soon so that we can begin to figure out a budget so that we can start saving accordingly. If you can't tell I love planning trips. :)

Wordless Wednesday...BFFs just like their mamas...

Avi-Kate's 1st Birthday Party

I can't believe this first year has come and gone. Whew! It has been a whirl wind. We had a low key party at our church's new building downtown on Broad Street. We had lunch with all of Avi-Kate's favorite things and then a sweet treat table. It was fun to put out pictures of Avi-Kate everywhere along with some Olivia the Pig items I have had for years. (The perks of being an elementary school teacher in my former life!) I also bought a new copy of OLIVIA and we had people sign the book as a keepsake for her. I wish I had thought to do it with AG's first birthday with one of his Mo Willems books. (Oh, well...live and learn!) Here are a few pictures from our afternoon of fun. And poor Avi-Kate refused to nap that day so by the end of the party she was dragging. :) I promise she had fun and enjoyed herself. She also took a long nap afterwards. Happy, happy birthday sweet girl! We can't wait to see how much you grow and change over this next year. You are such a joy and ray of sunshine. We love you dearly!