Its been way too long!

I can't believe it has been so long since I last blogged. A few things have happened since the last one. I decided to go back to school a couple semesters ago after years of debating it. I finally decided that I'm not getting any younger, my kids are getting older and soon I'll have two kids in school and I need something to do! I'm majoring in criminal justice which is right up my alley! My first semester I took a couple of bible classes and they kicked my butt. I love God, I enjoy learning new things in the bible, but these classes were so far above my head! If it weren't for the best husband ever, I couldn't have passed them! Speaking of that guy... he also decided to go back to school a few months ago. He wants to go to PA school after we're finished in Florida so he's finishing up the credits needed for that. In my seven plus years of being with Brent, he's always been a big dreamer and he usually has a plan A and B and C and D and E and F and G. It can be exhausting! This time he, surprisingly, just has a plan A and a good reason for it. After almost 11 years in the Army his body is pretty broken. He needs a job that isn't so physically demanding. Hopefully it works out for us! 

Ava starts kindergarten in about a week and a half. I woke up this morning with a ton of anxiety because I starting thinking, "What if she doesn't have a good teacher?" If she doesn't have a good teacher, she won't want to go to school. She's not going to be crazy about going to school in the first place because it starts at 7:20 in the morning and she rarely even sees that time of the day! I pray that she gets a wonderful teacher and that she loves kindergarten. I hate that she's going to be away from me, in a school with hundreds of other kids, for several hours a day. Is this normal? It's times like now that I wish I was a teacher so I could be close by.

Blake is.. Blake! I love that crazy kid more than words can explain and I feel like if I'm successful in raising him then there must be a special place for me in heaven! He's such a mess! Little boys are a different ballgame than I've ever experienced before!! He totally warms my heart though. He loves to sing (he gets that from Ava) and I love listening to them both sing! I always know it's going to be a good day if Blake wakes up singing! He likes to sing about his truck and trailer and most of his songs include the words, "mommy is beautiful." I loooooooove it! As much as they both drive me crazy sometimes, I am truly blessed to be their mom. Ava is turning into such a beautiful little person. She's has a huge giving heart and that makes me proud! She's been asking about what she can do in our community to help other people. What five year old even thinks that way? I found a couple of things for her to do and she's excited which makes me really excited!

My oven timer just went off so I should wrap this up! Thanks to Pinterest, we're having delicious broccoli and cheese mini omelets. I made a dozen a few days ago and they didn't last long.. they're so good! I think I'll be making these a lot during the school year since we can grab them and go. You should try them! Click here for the recipe!

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There have been so many times lately that I've thought about blogging, but thinking about it and actually sitting down to do it are two totally different things. While we were in Texas for Christmas my sweet daughter accidentally spilled water on my MacBook so I've been mainly been using my phone for everything since. Phones aren't ideal for blogging especially when you're like me and really can't even stand to send text messages. Most of what I type ends up being autocorrected into something way different than what it was supposed to be!! 

So this year my New Years Resolution was the finish every list that I make. Brent makes fun of me because I make a list for everything. Every morning when I wake up, I make a list of things that I want to accomplish that day. As of yesterday I've already failed my resolution! I think sometimes I put too much on my daily lists because I usually accomplish a lot, but never all of it. I don't know why I like to make lists, I normally don't actually stick to them. Like today, one of my tasks was to clean out Blake's closet and dresser drawers and then tomorrow I was going to do Ava's. After I finished Blake's I decided to just go ahead and do Ava's. They have really organized rooms right now, but I have an incomplete list!!

Earlier I took the kids to the beach. Yesterday afternoon after Brent woke up (he worked a 31 hour shift the day/night/part of the morning before) we told the kids that we would find something fun to do. With Brent's schedule right now we don't see a whole lot of  him. He goes to work around 5:30 in the morning one day then gets home the next morning or afternoon, sleeps a few hours, spends the rest of the day with us then starts it over the next day. So anyway, we were going to take the kids to the beach, but Ava fell asleep in the car. Instead of waking her up we decided she needed to rest so we ran a few errands and then went home. When she realized we were home, it was dark and we didn't do anything "fun" her heart was broken. So today we woke up, had breakfast, worked on my "list" then went to the beach. Ava insisted on wearing her swimsuit under her clothes. She really wanted to just wear her swimsuit, but since we had errands to run afterwards that wasn't a good idea! I was really surprised by how many people were at the beach. It's early January and there were lots of cars in the parking lot! I guess maybe I'm used to going during the week while other people are at work and school, but we're normally one of three or four cars in the parking lot. I could tell who the tourist were because they were IN the water! Ava and I walked close enough for a wave to hit our feet and it was FREEZING!  We had a lot of fun until I noticed that the kids were starting to get red and I didn't even consider taking sunscreen with us. Who thinks of taking sunscreen to the beach in January? Not me! I love living here! Pretty much every day I thank God for giving us the opportunity to live in such an awesome place.I'm sad that we only have 2.5 years left before we have to move again!

Gracie is SO whiny today! She seems very anxious about something. She whines to go outside, but when I open the door for her she changes her mind. I think she's getting ready to have puppies, I just hope it happens while Brent's home. I can't see myself handling that situation very well! I'm kind of concerned about what kind of puppies she might have. I was thinking full blooded lab, but her belly isn't as big as I imagined it would be. She's definitely MUCH bigger though... so big that she gets stuck underneath our bed!! She used to go under there to take a nap away from the kids, but last time she attempted it I had to pull her out! She's having a hard time jumping onto the bed too! I don't know what I'm going to do with puppies. What if I'm picky about who takes them and we end up with ten dogs? Ava thinks we should keep one to be "her" dog since Gracie is her daddy's dog. I really don't want to go through the house training/chewing stage again so she's probably going to end up disappointed!

I have a lot more I could blog about, but this dog is demanding my undivided attention!! Goodnight!

A little bit of this and a little bit of that...

I haven't blogged in nearly two weeks which is just about as long as Brent has been off work due to a surgery. I knew that he had a deviated septum and he was having surgery to repair it, but I thought he'd be back to work the next day (Friday) or Monday at the latest. Why did I think this? BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HE TOLD ME! (And what he really believed..) After his surgery I was called back to the recovery area because they said he kept trying to pull the stuff out of his nose and he wouldn't keep the oxygen on. They said they thought maybe I could convince him to stop. I couldn't convince him because he was high as a kite, but I did keep him from doing it with my stern "mom voice" and by spanking his hand.. hahaha. I felt a little ridiculous doing it, but it worked! I asked the nurse if he could go back to work the next day and she laughed hysterically and said, "You're kidding, right?" I said, "Actually, no.. Brent told me on the way here that he would be going to work tomorrow." She left the room, got the doctor and I could hear her telling him the "joke" in the hallway. He came in laughing and said, "Tomorrow? Try two weeks!" I thought HE was joking so I said, "Funny funny! But really, can he go back MONDAY? I need to call his work and let them know because he thought he would be going back tomorrow." The doctor said, "I'm serious, two weeks." Alrighty then! Two weeks! I was pretty excited because it was a totally unexpected two weeks together! Another thing I didn't expect was how difficult the recovery was going to be on him. Brent has been through several surgeries during our time together and I've never seen him in as much pain as he was in after this one. I couldn't kiss him without him yelling "OOOOOWWWW!" The kids were a bit of an issue because it seemed like when he felt well enough to play with them, his nose was a magnet for their heads. After a few days, he was fine and we actually got a lot accomplished around the house! Our landlords (who are absolutely wonderful by the way) have arranged for a sprinkler system and sod to be put down. I am so excited about this! We had some trees in the back yard that took up big chunk of space and really served no purpose. We had an orange tree, but the oranges were never very good. We later found out that in order to have a really good orange tree you need to have two orange trees side by side. So anyway, Brent chopped down the trees in the back yard. I knew they were decent sized trees, but once they were cut down and just laying in the yard.. holy cow there was a ton of it! We borrowed a trailer and hauled off the branches that couldn't be used for fire wood and then rented a stump grinder to get rid of the stumps. I wish the process would've been as easy as it sounds typing about it. Oh who am I kidding, it was really easy for me.. I just watched and offered my (unwanted) advice regularly. It took a few days to get everything done, but now we have a treeless stumpless back yard ready for some new sod! Woot woot! I'm always impressed when Brent does things like that!

We rented the stump grinder for half a day, but our back yard only took about half an hour so Brent took care of a stump in one neighbor's yard and then moved on to the next neighbor's yard. I walked outside and heard him yell, "HEY, DO YOU HAVE ANY STUMPS THAT YOU WANT TO GET RID OF?" She said yes so off he went. She had a stump, but she also wanted some new holes dug so she could move some bushes she dug up. Brent started digging the holes when another neighbor came over and said, "Those need to be deeper!" Brent made them deeper aaannnnddd busted a pipe in her sprinkler system. Whoops! So until bedtime last night, he was repairing a sprinkler system. That was impressive too because I didn't know he knew anything about them! 

Anyway.. when Brent's home, we're always doing something so I don't take the time to blog. He'll be going back to work tomorrow though so I'm sure you'll hear from me more often! 

Blake has some blood work coming up this week and I am SO GLAD! One thing we're testing for is Celiac Disease and in order to accurately test for it, I've had to take him off of Paleo and feed him crappy food for nearly a month. For the first week or so, I still cooked Paleo foods, but just added some bread or something with gluten to his plate, but then I realized that just doing that isn't a "gluten RICH" diet. So I started feeding him and Ava different foods than Brent and I were eating. It's not fair to Ava for Blake to get junk foods that kids love and her not get any. This lasted one shopping trip then I realized we couldn't afford it anymore so we've ALL been eating like crap and we all FEEL like crap most of the time! Blake is sick for the first time in months and he has a terrible rash that won't go away! Normally I use this amazing cream called Healing Butter on his rashes and by the next diaper change they're gone, but for the past two or so weeks, he's had diarrhea several times a day. Each time I change him, I make sure his bottom is really dry then I put a thick coat of healing butter on him then his diaper, but he's pooping so much that the healing butter doesn't have time to do its job. I'm so ready to get the testing out of the way so we can start eating better and feeling better! 

I've hated grocery shopping lately. It's hard when you've trained your brain to think one way then force it to do something different. I've bought a lot of processed foods, lots of junk food, etc. No matter what we are eating, I REFUSE to buy anything other than organic meats. I had a conversation with my sister the other day about chicken. She used to work in a chemical plant and they made a chemical that had one purpose and one purpose only and that was to be put in chicken feed to speed up a chicken's growth. She said that they had to wear protective gear anytime they were around this chemical, but one time she didn't have on a mask when she was exposed to a teeny tiny bit of it and she just about passed out. She said she got light headed and started seeing stars. I would never knowingly eat something that I knew had chemicals in it.. especially something so strong! It turns out that I've been unknowingly eating things with chemicals my entire life. Today I read something with a list of ingredients found in a McDonald's hamburger. I couldn't pronounce more of the words than I could BY FAR! You know what they say? If you can't pronounce it, it was probably made in a lab. It's no wonder they can sell those things for $1!! In the same video it had pictures of McDonald's hamburgers that this guy has been saving for 18 YEARS! The burgers looked very close to the same as when you buy them, but some were 18 years old!! So the point of the story is.. The Schneider family will not be eating McDonald's unless we're travelling, starving and there's no other option! 

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about and planning for the kids' birthday parties. I always put a lot of thought into these things, but this year is a special year because Brent gets to attend! He was at Ava's 1st birthday party, but that was the only one and he missed Blake's last year. I'm so excited that he's finally going to be home! It should have worked out so that he would be working 24 hours on 24 hours off, but because of his surgery he's behind schedule and he'll start that a few days AFTER their parties! This makes me so happy!! I was going to have to plan the birthdays on a Sunday and a Tuesday, but now we can do them both during the weekend! 

It's so hard to believe that Ava is going to be FIVE! If it weren't for that little girl, I don't think I could've possibly survived a lot of things that we've had to go through. Since she was a baby, she's always been my little best friend. Though I can barely remember what life was like before she was here, it still doesn't seem real that she's going to be FIVE! That seems like such a big number! Blake will be two 8 days after Ava turns five! The other day I was talking to my sister and she asked, "Is Blake going to be two or three this year?" I told her two and she said, "It seems like he's been here forever! We thought he was going to be three!" It probably sounds horrible, but I feel like he's been here WAY longer than two years too! That first year felt like way more than a single year! He's my pride and joy, he makes me laugh all day long, he makes me proud, he melts my heart and I'm so glad that he's healthier than he was. I'm thankful that I didn't give up, I'm thankful that I didn't settle for what the doctors (all of 'em) were telling me. I'm thankful that I had the mindset and drive to get to the bottom of whatever was going on in my absolutely miserable baby because now I have this little boy who is incredibly funny, active, WILD and smart! People used to say that God healed Blake and it would kind of upset me. Do NOT get me wrong, I completely believe in the healing power of God, I've seen it with my own two eyes, but I didn't believe that God healed Blake. To me it felt like people saw that he was starting to get healthy and gave God all credit for it, totally disregarding everything I had endlessly worked so hard for for close to a year. I definitely didn't do it for any sort of recognition, but at the time, it really irritated me when people said it. Now, and looking back, I give God all the glory for putting the right people in my and my parents' paths to help us get to where we are now. I never in a million years thought that I'd EVER say this, but I'm thankful for the experience I had with Blake because it changed my way of thinking and made me way more proactive. I think the way I think based off of the research I do on my own, not based off of the way people tell me I should think. Take vaccines for example. It's no secret how I feel about vaccines. I've always been cautious of them, I delayed some of Ava's by a year, but having Blake made me dig deeper and find out what inside of them could possibly be hurting him. Even if I had known what was in vaccines before I had Blake, I probably could have easily been pressured into giving them to Ava because I didn't have a back bone. I was timid when it came to standing up for myself, my daughter and my beliefs. Now.... try me! I know my facts, I've educated myself and I am completely confident in the decisions I make. Thank you God for putting me through a year of pure hell because now I am confident and educated. I know a whole heck of a lot more than I did two years ago! I've learned to think for myself and not the way the government, drug companies and some doctors tell me to and that makes me proud of me. 

While I've been writing this blog, I've been looking at a big pile of laundry out of the corner of my eye. Apparently it's not going to put itself away so I guess I better get after it! If you survived this expire blog, I'm impressed!! Have a great week!

The BEST Sausage Soup!

Last winter I made a really awesome sausage soup, but the pasta made it far from Paleo so I decided it was time to recreate it to make it Paleo-friendly. I got the idea from Paleo Mama. I used most of her ingredients, just different amounts and I added a few things of my own/changed the cooking process up some. Before I share the recipe, let me just say that I normally don't eat more than one serving of anything, but I went back for seconds tonight! It's even better than my original sausage soup! It's extremely easy to make and SO tasty! Even if you don't follow Paleo, this is a perfect winter soup! It's so creamy and delicious!

two pounds of sweet italian sausage
one sweet onion finely diced
one large can of crushed tomatoes
lots of basil, parsley and oregano (and I mean LOTS!)
one can of coconut milk
chicken broth
several cloves of garlic chopped into small pieces (I put the cloves in my food processor to chop)
coconut oil (olive oil would work just fine)
salt and pepper to taste


Brown the italian sausage in coconut (or olive) oil in a medium sized soup pot.
While meat is browning, put crushed tomatoes, coconut milk and spices into your blender (or food processor) and blend until well combined.
Add onions and garlic to the sausage and cook until onions are tender.

Add tomato/coconut milk/spice mixture to your pot and stir, then add chicken broth. I really don't know how much I added, I just added until it was the soupy consistency that I wanted it to be. You don't want it to be TOO runny, the creaminess is what makes this soup!

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cook on low for 20-25 minutes, stirring often.

This soup is SO good! I know it's going to be a regular in our house this winter!

I have lots of other recipes to share, but I just haven't had time. I'll catch up one of these days! For now, I need to go make another key lime pie... YUM!!

First Doctor's Appointment In Florida!

It's such a gloomy rainy day today. I wish we could've stayed in our jammies all day long, but the kids had a doctor's appointment at 9 this morning followed by school for Ava at noon. I absolutely adore our new doctor. She's GREAT! She stayed in the room with us for nearly an hour just so she could make sure we were on the same page about everything. I always get really nervous when we see a new doctor because Blake isn't vaccinated and a lot of doctors refuse to see patients if they're not vaccinated. I explained the situation to the doctor, I told her that I felt strongly that vaccines had something to do with Blake's illness(es) in the past and I explained why I felt the way I do. Much to my surprise she told me that she thought I was "a very alert, educated and responsible parent" because of my thinking and my way of doing (or not doing) things. I was throughly impressed by that! I told her about Blake's stomach issues and she thought we definitely needed to test him for celiac disease. I've always suspected that he might have it, but since he gains weight fine now, I had almost ruled it out. She said that not every person with celiac disease has trouble gaining weight. I read that there are two different types, one type involves the body not being able to absorb fat properly. I've known for over a year that Blake's body doesn't absorb fat properly!! We did blood work when he was 6 or 7 months old and determined that so it upsets me a little bit that this is the first time we're testing for celiac disease. For the next month I have to feed him gluten rich foods so we have a better chance of accurate results. With all of the Paleo foods he's been eating for the past month or so, his body could very easily give a false negative to the test if we did it now. 

Both kids are growing and developing well. Ava is smaller than average for her age.. I think we all know who she gets that from! As a grown adult, my 10 year old nephew is taller than I am! Blake, on the other hand, is BIG! He's in the 75th percentile for height, weight and (big ole) noggin! The doctor said that she thought they were both really bright children and she said she's never had an almost two year old do so perfect with an exam. Blake is (USUALLY) fantastic at following directions so I wasn't surprised by how well he did, but it was nice to get that compliment! Ava had to get a shot and she was so excited about it. I'm totally serious! She asked me or the doctor every minute or so, "Am I going to get my shot soon?" When she got it, she took it like a champ and had a big smile on her face when she got her super sweet bandaid! I declined the flu vaccine for all of us just because I don't like it. It doesn't protect against all types of the flu and I specifically didn't like that at the beginning of last year they included H1N1 in the vaccine without telling people. I know this because a nurse in my family shared this lovely info with me. I know a lot of people couldn't care less, but I like to know what I'm putting in my body and more importantly in my kids' bodies! 

It's been raining since early this morning and Gracie (our dog) has major anxiety. I swear she's a lap dog in a lab's body! She's huge, but she always wants to sit in my lap! She's scared of the rain, she's scared of water (which will make the bath I'm about to give her a grrrreat experience, I'm sure), she's such a big baby! I totally love her though!

I don't have time to blog recipes because the smell of wet/dirty dog is really starting to disgust me, but I'll attach a link for one of my most recent favorites! Enjoy!

Easy Skillet Rosemary Chicken, Pecan Basil Parsley Pesto! - This chicken and pesto was so good! We had a lot of leftover pesto so we used it as a veggie dip until it was gone.

Wild toddler, family time, dance and meatballs!

I haven't blogged in a few days because Brent has actually been home! For the past three or so weeks he's been working a ton. He's had to be there at 6:00 in the morning and usually works until the middle of the night (3 a.m. or later) or the next afternoon. Of course he comes home completely exhausted, but only sleeps for a few hours so he can spend time with us on his "day" off. Since he started this schedule at the beginning of the month, the kids are in bed by their regular bed time and Brent's asleep half an hour (at most) later. The class he's been following is finished for the most part so we've seen him TWO DAYS IN A ROW and at a decent time both days! I think we should get to see him regularly until early next week then we'll start all over on this less than ideal schedule. 

The kids have been keeping me busy. I think that Blake is starting to enter the "terrible two's" which scares me because, with Ava, the three's were much harder than the two's and she wasn't nearly as rambunctious as Blake is! Yesterday morning after breakfast I started the shower, left the bathroom while the water was warming up and came back to find Blake sitting down with his clothes on and two blankets completely soaked. 

As always, he took half of my shower with me then got out, soaking wet, and started doing what he could to destroy my bathroom. Usually this includes pulling all of the dirty clothes and dirty towels out of their hampers and redecorating the bathroom with them, getting back in the shower just when he is about dry so he can get back out and make sure the floor is really slippery when I get out. Lately he's been climbing up on the counter and experimenting with my tooth paste, deodorant, lotion and the other day, MY TOOTHBRUSH! Don't worry, I got a new one... a two pack actually!

Blake has decided that he no longer likes milk. (Side note: He's allergic to cow's milk so he drinks almond milk, always has.) We'll put him down for a nap or down for the night with milk and before we even get out the door, he starts yelling, "WANT JUUUUUICE. DADDDY! MOMMMY! WANT JUUUUUICE!" I don't know what caused the change in preference, but I cannot get him to drink milk! We've been giving him a tad bit of juice and a lot of water and he seems happy with it. It's so funny to me that he's already starting to have preferences and can tell us about them. He's getting too big too fast!

Yesterday, Ava got dressed for school all by herself. This isn't anything new, but on most days I'll add some input and make a suggestion or two. Yesterday I wanted to, but she was SO proud of her outfit, I didn't have the heart to say anything. She wore a red dress with white polka dots, red boots (not exactly the same color red as the dress) and her sparkly "belt." She has a purse that HAD a sparkly belt on it until she cut it off so she could wear it!  We were walking out the door and she freaked out because she forgot it. "MOM! MY BELT! I FORGOT MY BELT! WE CAN'T GO YET!" We were almost late for school because of this belt! I tired to attach a picture, but it's in my yahoo account and for some reason, it's not loading. I'll add it later!

Since Brent was home yesterday, he took Ava to dance so Blake could finish up his nap and I could start dinner. It was so nice to have him around to help. Normally on Mondays I take Ava to school, immediately go to the grocery store where I get Blake a free cookie (not Paleo, I know, but it allows me to shop for a few minutes) then I stop and get him something to eat for lunch from the deli.. usually chicken. He'll eat his lunch while I grocery shop. It's PERFECT because I can do what I need to do and he just sits still and eats. Then we'll come home, I'll bring him in and put him down for a nap then unload the groceries. I'll make myself lunch then pick up the house a little bit and by that time it's usually 2:20 and I have to pick Ava up for dance. So I wake Blake up way before he's ready, go get Ava and head to dance. She slowly (the only way she operates lol) changes from her school clothes to her leotard and we go in. Usually Blake wants to be ON the dance floor so for an hour, I try to be creative and keep him entertained. It's amazing how much easier he is when he gets a FULL nap. On Thursday's, dance is an hour and a half later and Blake is GREAT! 

While Brent and Ava were at dance, I made some DELICIOUS cinnamon apple cookies.

 I was worried about how they'd turn out because there's no flour in them to form a dough, but everything worked together perfectly. Brent requested that I make a bunch for him when he starts working overnight again and Ava asked if she could take them as her snack for school today! That screams successful recipe to me!  I got the recipe here and followed it almost exactly, but I added about three times as much vanilla as it calls for and doubled the cinnamon. I know cookies aren't normally a breakfast food, but Ava and I had one for breakfast today. With these cookies, there's no reason why they can't be a breakfast food!

For dinner I made  Everyday Paleo's Curried Meatballs and "No Potato Salad." 

The "No Potato Salad" was time consuming and I made several adjustments, but it turned out so good! Even Ava, my biggest critic, said she loved them "besides the salt." Hahaha, I almost guarantee that she couldn't pick out the salt taste in this dish, I know I couldn't because there was very little. I can't remember all of the changes that I made, but I do remember that I added more onion and pickles after I had already mixed everything and I added curry powder to coordinate them with the meatballs. This is one of those things that you taste and make adjustments as you go. I think we all have our idea of what potato salad is supposed to taste like so change it up until you get it to the taste you want. The cauliflower was very tasty in it! I was pleasantly surprised!

Ava also loved the curried meatballs. When I was making them, I worried what she would think about them and in my mind I was trying to think of adjustments I could make next time to make them more sweet instead of spicy, but she absolutely loved them. She said they were her favorite part of the meal!  I asked if she wanted a cookie after dinner, but because she napped right through dinner and woke up to eat after the sun was already sleeping, she said that she would have to wait until tomorrow. I taught her when she was much younger that it's not okay to eat anything sweet or drink anything besides water after it gets dark and she refuses to break that rule. Makes me proud!

For the meatballs, I followed the recipe for the actual meatballs exactly, but I made a lot more sauce than it calls for. We ended up with 30-something meatballs and nowhere near enough sauce. If you use three pounds of ground beef like suggested, I recommend making triple the amount of sauce called for. 

For dinner tonight, I'm making something with chicken and pesto. I'll blog about it tomorrow!

All About Avie J.

My plan for this afternoon was to go get Ava's friend so they could occupy each other while I cleaned house. Five hours later, right before bedtime, we finally pulled back into the driveway. I just meant to stay long enough to visit for a few minutes, but a few minutes turned into an hour, then two hours and so on. Part of my original plan was to stop by the grocery store on our way home so I could get what I needed for dinner, but that didn't happen either. What did happen left me bloated and having galbladder pains! We ordered pizza and....... I ate it. Cheat day is normally Sunday, but this week I guess it turned into Friday! The good news is, I have no desire to eat pizza again anytime soon. I feel like junk!!! 

Moving on..

Today at school Ava made an "All About Me" book. I struggled not to laugh when I got to the page of her family. First of all, Blake wasn't included. When I asked why she said, "because I really don't like drawing and that was one extra person to draw. It doesn't MEAN he's not part of my family. I was just too tired to draw him." Alrighty then! The part that made me laugh most was how umm... alien-ish we all looked. Poor girl definitely got my artistic abilities... which are nonexistent!

She was soo proud of her book though. She absolutely loves school! The first week she wasn't sure about it and we had a bit of a struggle trying to get her there each day, but now she asks all morning long, "Is it time for school yet?" She loves her teachers, she talks about them a lot. One of her teachers has a deaf niece who will be visiting their school soon so all of the kids have been learning sign language. That totally warms my heart! 

I love Ava's heart. She has such a sweet and caring heart. She talks about God and Jesus multiple times throughout each and every day. She talks about how much she loves them and how great they are. Today she said, "I'm going to invite God and Jesus and all of the good angels to my birthday party. Even if we can't see them, they'll still be there!" She has two favorite angels that she talks about almost daily. One of them is her cousin Jared. She never met Jared because he went to heaven long before she was even born, but she talks about him like she knew him and he was one of her best friends. Sometimes she even cries and says she misses Jared. On Jared's birthday this year, she woke up and the first words out of her mouth were about him. I didn't realize it was his birthday until later in the day when my sister said something about it. Pretty cool that she was thinking about him on his birthday without even knowing it was his birthday. I wonder if God laid that on her heart.

The second angel that she talks a lot about is Brent's friend Bryan who was killed in Afghanistan this past March. I really don't think Ava ever meets someone new without telling them about Bryan and how he saved her daddy's life. It's incredible that a four (almost five) year old is so aware and thankful. The story usually goes something like this, starting out in an excited tone and ending in a sad one. "My daddy has a friend, Bryan, who is an ANGEL! He lives with Jesus and God and I love him! When the monsters were trying to kill my daddy in Afghanistan BRYAN SAVED HIS LIFE! Then after my daddy came home, the monsters killed Bryan. I think they killed him because my daddy already came home and he wasn't there to save him, but it's okay because Bryan is an angel now and he's happy!" 

She's such a good little person and she's not even five yet! She's so aware of things. She calls people out on their bad choices pretty often, but she also praises people when they do good things. If she thinks something is bad, like a song for example, she insists on us turning it off because "why would you want to listen to something that's so bad for kids?" By "so bad for kids" she refers to lyrics like, "I hate that stupid old pick up truck you never let me drive." Hate and stupid are both bad words so that songs a big no no around this kid! She's so funny! 

Blake absolutely adores her. You couldn't convince him that she didn't hang the moon even if you tried. First thing in the morning he always goes into Ava's room and starts loudly saying "SIIIIIISTER! SIIIIIISTER!" No matter how hard we try to get him to say Ava, he'll only call her sister. He watches her constantly and she knows it. She told me the other day that she wants Blake to grow up to be a really good person so she tries to only teach him really good people things. Sometimes I'll hear them in the play room and she'll be teaching him how to say a new word or how to put two new words together. The other day he got a beach towel, took it to her and said, "beach towel." Ava start SCREAMING her excited scream (she has a different scream for every emotion) so I went to see what was going on and she said, "Mommy, Blake said beach towel and I didn't even teach him! He just knew on his own! He's so smart!" I love watching them grow up together!

Now don't get me wrong, of course Ava can have the biggest attitude in the entire universe and there are most definitely days when I wish her grandparents lived closer so I could have a break from her for a day or two, but more times than not, she's such a fascinating kid. Since she was really little she's always been my little best friend. I don't think I would've made it through a lot of things if it wasn't for that cute little brown eyed girl!