Ava Brianna Prince

She is 5 months old now, but here are some pics on her birthday.

June 26, 2011
9 lbs, 5 oz
20 in long

L to R: Grandma Wendy, Granny & Papa

Here is one of her very first pictures after delivery

Here she is with big Sister Savannah. She really was so excited to see her sister. She kept telling everyone, "do you wanna see my baby sister?" "Come see my baby sister"
We must've caught her off guard in this picture!

Here's our first family picture....not the best one, in hindsight, I should've done a close up of our faces together....Oh well. We had about 5 cameras going off from different directions.

I was so excited to have her come out, I was in pain for the last 2 months of my pregnancy with her. It was so nice when they put in the epidural....man, when they moved my legs back up onto the table, it didn't hurt and I was ecstatic...that was the first time they didn't hurt since being pregnant! She has a good set of lungs, when they pulled her out, she cried good and loud! It was wonderful to hear that this time around. I missed Savannah's birth because I was put under for the emergency C-section.

We are so blessed to have her in our lives. Savannah is a wonderful big sister and we've adjusted pretty well to this new addition. She is such a happy baby, and we love her so!

My Pregnancy with Ava

6.25.11 and 6.26.11
I had wanted to do monthly pictures of my pregnancy with Ava, but alas, it didn't happen. Well, for one, I'm not skinny enough to have that tiny baby bump at the 2nd/3rd month of pregnancy, I don't start showing until about 5 months, even though I'm already wearing maternity pants and shirts!! Oh well.

Anyway, so once I started showing, I did want those monthly pics, but just didn't get to it. With Jason's crazy work schedule and me being so tired, and ending up wearing my PJ's all day on many days, I just wasn't up for pictures on most days.
Apparently, my body doesn't handle pregnancies well. My first indication that I was pregnant was the way my hip joints/ligaments hurt when I got out of bed-not a pregnancy test! From that day on, I had those aches and they only got worse, it got so bad by the 8th/9th month, I couldn't move without being in pain. Having stairs in our house didn't help me either! I started making piles at the stairs to take up, so that I would only have to take 1 trip up-when I went to bed.

I wanted to get one last family picture of the three of us before we had Ava, but alas, that didn't happen either! Jason had left for work on Saturday before I remembered, and so I was only able to get a pic with Savannah, before she left with her Aunt Lottie for the night.

Here is a picture of Jason and I, right before we left for the Hospital early Sunday morning.

Hair cuts!

6.3.11
We got our haircuts done by my sister, Mattie Jo. Savannah was not being very good about keeping her hair in ponytails/clips or such, and she was always complaining about her hair being in her way.
I asked her if she wanted to get her haircut and she would tell me no, because she wanted her hair like Tangled Rapunzel. I kept asking though every once in a while and she finally said, "yes"! So I immediately called Mattie Jo, and set up appointments for us. (I was ready for a haircut myself too)

Here's the "BEFORE" pictureShe's sitting so good and being still for the haircut, I was really surprised!! She would look down or lean her head to one side if Mattie Jo needed her to. I was very impressed! I was expecting her, a 3.5 yr old, to be squirmy during a haircut, but she wasn't.

Here's the "AFTER" picture. She loves it! And it's SSSOOOO much easier to wash her hair now! And faster too! I love it too!

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of me BEFORE and AFTER, but oh well.

The only thing with these short haircuts, is that we need our hair trimmed every couple of months or so. Today we just got our hair trimmed, which made me think of posting these pictures.

Our House

Here are some recent pics of our new house, with our furniture in it. Jason has dreamed of putting up our TV on the wall, and it has finally come to fruition, when we moved into this house. Eventually though, he wants to get a projector! Men and their "toys"!!


As you can see, we finally got rid of that old blue plaid. lopsided couch that we've had forever!! We figured, we should get a new couch to go with our new house. We love the ottoman especially because it's got storage underneath it! Yay!


We repainted the kitchen from that dark red color, to white. Any of you that know me, know that I LOVE the color red, but it just didn't work for me in the kitchen.


The front room we made into Savannah's playroom....since we don't have any additional furniture to make it a formal Living Room (a.k.a the Visiting Teaching/ Home Teaching room)
We also bought a new dining room set, since that little round drop leaf table we had was pretty small and would look dwarfed in the eat-in dining room.
We love our house and the space that we have now. It's amazing how we managed to fit all the "stuff" we have now, in the little apartment that we had before.....it was just all in the patio storage apparently!!

Dance class

3.8.11

This was suppose to be her 1st day of dance class, but about 10 min before we left, we got a call that the class was cancelled for that day. She was so excited for the class too!

3.15.11

Here she is ready for her 1st day of dance class!!
I braided her hair, to keep it out of her way. I couldn't believe she sat still long enough for me to braid it!!

Unfortunately, the videos we had of her during her last dance class, somehow got deleted from the SD card, so we don't have those....BUMMER!! They were cute videos of her sonersaulting, and doing different moves. I'm so bummed about that. Guess I should be better about uploading the pics from the camera sooner than later.

She loved her dance class and wished we could've done another class, oh well. Another time maybe.

Phx Zoo

2.25.11
So one day we got to tag along on a field trip to the Zoo with a Pre-school group. Savannah really enjoyed it and had fun with her cousins.

Jackson and Savannah

Brooklynn & Savannah

Feeling for Stingrays

Pics of Savannah's 3rd Birthday

1/10/11 (though her birthday is actually 1/12/08)
So, here are some pics of Savannah's birthday party we had for her. She was so excited for her friends (she calls her cousins her "friends" too) to come over and celebrate with her.
We were excited to have an event/excuse to invite people over to our new house too!!

Been too long...

So it's been FOREVER since I posted.....

I'll try to just post the interesting things that has happened to us these last few months.

FIRST being, buying our new HUGE house! (well, anything would be HUGE compared to the little 800 sq ft 2 BD apartment we lived in for 3 years, right?)
-The home buying process was a headache in itself!
-Home Buying Assistance program: Ran out of funds by the time we were ready to purchase.
-Student Loans: too high, so to defer them, I went back to school.
-Close of Escrow: extended twice! (needed Student loans in "In School Deferment" status)
We were REALLY hoping to get the keys before Christmas, since we signed papers on Thurs the 23rd......but it didn't happen. Apparently the Title agency wanted 72 business hours to review file before accepting payment and then recording all the paperwork-and Friday the 24th was Christmas Eve, so they were closed that day!
Wednesday, Dec 29th we FINALLY got the keys!!
So needless to say, we did nothing to celebrate the New Years!! Oh, except we let Savannah go to her first sleep over at her Aunt's house with all the other cousins! SHE LOVED IT!! So we had a quiet house New Years eve, and we all went to bed at around 8 or 9 or so!!!! How sad is that??

NEXT moving in. We underestimated how much stuff we had.....we thought we could do it without the use of renting a truck....well, it ended up taking all day Friday, and 3 trips (this is not including 2 other trips on Wed and Thurs). Oh well. We had family that helped us out, which was really nice.

Painting, carpet cleaning, appliance buying, couch buying, and about a month later, we are adjusting to life in our much bigger house. I'll have to get some recent pics with our furniture and new paint job posted soon.

We got to celebrate Savannah's 3rd birthday early, on Monday, the 10th. Jason works evenings Tues-Sat, and Jason's mom, who has been down helping us with the move, would be leaving early on the next day, Tuesday, so we wanted to celebrate it with them. She got a Princess bike, and can ride it in the house, cuz it's big enough!

Other News:
If you haven't heard the news from Facebook, or family.....we are having baby # 2 in early July-the 2nd to be exact. So as of today, I am 18 wks along. I have not had an appointment yet since moving, but am in the process of getting one. So to answer the next question I'm sure is on your mind....I don't know yet if we are having a boy or a girl.
When we finally told Savannah, around late-December, I would ask her if she wanted a baby brother or a baby sister...she would say one then the next she would say the other. Lately though when I ask her she wants a baby sister.....hmmm...(tho I just asked her again, and of course she proves me wrong and says, "mmmm....baby brother"

Savannah's latest antics:
She LOVES to dance! I missed the enrollment for a local dance class here in Buckeye, but hope to get her in on the next one. Anytime there is music on she goes into the kitchen and will dance. Then she does a bow! It's so cute...I really need to video it because it's too hard to describe.
When I ask her to do something she's not totally thrilled about, for example, picking up her toys, she goes, "oohhh-kaaay" in her most bored tone. Again, I would have to video it because it's hard to type the description of it!
When she gets something she really likes (example: HUGE princess spiral bound coloring book-she can't carry it herself it's so big) she declares excitedly, " I LOVE IT SO MUCH!"
It's so cute when she is loving to me or Jason, and it just melts my heart! She has recently started telling us, without us saying it first, "I love you mommy/daddy" or "I love you so much". I love those moments! One night, she was sitting next to me, watching a show with me, and she took my face in both her hands, turned my face to her and said, " I love you mommy". Out of the blue!
When she gets needy/tired, she says, (in her whiney voice and waving both arms to be held), "I want you, I want you". I don't know how she's going to handle a newborn baby being in the house and taking all the attention away...
When we ask her a question, she'll "think" about it, and go, "mmm....(while tapping her index finger to her mouth a few times and looking to the side!)......" then give us her answer! It's so cute to watch her!
She LOVES, LOVES, LOVES, being around other kids, and is very gentle with those younger than her, I noticed. I don't know if that's natural for all young girls. But she kicks and cries, whenever we have to leave playgroup, or the park when there's other kids still there. If she could she would stay at the park ALL DAY LONG, as long as there were other kids there.

So those are the MAJOR things that have happened in the last couple of months....I should be posting some pics of random things from October to recent just to be up-to-date (for the analytical side of me)