Ava's birthday

Our little stinker pot turned one on the 1st of December! We sang her happy birthday, gave her a cupcake, and she just cried and cried. When I took her in for her checkup a few days later, it was discovered that she had an ear infection. What a crummy birthday present.

This year has been the fastest of my life. Ava has seemed to grow up faster than any of the other kids. She's funny, cranky and chunky. She loves to be carried around, loves playing in cupboards, in the fridge, and on the dishwasher when I'm loading or unloading. She is very happy sitting in the bathroom sink while I blow dry my hair and put makeup on. Her siblings all love and adore her, and still think that everything she does is cute.

I call her my little stalker, because she manages to find her way back to me no matter who or what is trying to distract her. She started walking right around her birthday, and it's funny now to see her toddling around the house yelling, "MAM! MAM!" while she's looking for me. We sure love this little one.

Merry Christmas! Let's talk about Halloween.

I know this is sad, but we lost the card with our Halloween pictures. But don't cry for me, Argentina, we found it. So here's the dealio: Anders had been talking about being Aang from "Avatar The Last Airbender" since Halloween 2009. In Spring 2010, he was still talking about it. "Sure, Anders, you can be Aang. No prob. Suuuuuurrrrrre." All of a sudden, it was October, and Anders still wanted to be Aang. I was looking at some pictures online to see what I was up against costume-wise. Addie saw some of the pictures, which had Aang's friend (girlfriend- but don't tell Anders and Addie that) Katara in them. Suddenly she wanted to be Katara and nothing else.

Yippee. Mommy gets to sew. I made Addie's costume during the day before our ward Halloween party. It went fairly well. I didn't swear at all, but it wiped me out. I asked Nils if he could try to pull a little something together for Anders' costume. I was really just thinking of the orange cape and we'd find a yellow shirt and some pants- then we'd shave his head and draw an arrow on it, and we'd be good. (Yes, we did shave his head just for this.)

Never underestimate the power of Nils. He stayed up all night and sewed a costume for his boy. That is love. And there I was, feeling all good about myself for sewing Addie's, and along comes Nils and totally shows me up. The man didn't even have a pattern. Sheesh. The good news: I know who's sewing Halloween costumes from now on.