Hola! Our little señorita is now 106 weeks old. Ole!
Our week started off with a trip up north to celebrate Chinese New Year. This year it is the year of the ox. And in case you are wondering, Ava is a dog. Woof woof. And Dan and I are rabbits. Hop hop. Here she is saying ‘weee’ are we go under a tunnel (aka overpass).
Whenever we are driving north, we always stop by Santa Barbara to eat at one of the restaurants we used to love when we lived there. This time, we decided to stop at Rudy’s Mexican Restaurant. Ava has a thing for tacos this week so it worked out perfectly.
On Saturday, we took Ava to the Children’s Museum where she got to see herself in funny mirrors…
…get her sleeve soaking wet while throwing balls enter into this water vortex…
…play with sand, funnels and test tubes…
…and, her very favorite, watch horses get illuminated on the wall by this mini merry-go-round.
Ava also got to eat a belated ice cream cake from Dan’s mom and brother who couldn’t make it to actual party.
Driving up north was rough. Ava only slept about 20 minutes during the 5 hour drive. And on the way home, she slept zero minutes. It was torture. For some reason, our drive home took over 6 hours. Ahhh. So we decided to stop at on our favorite spots off the freeway, just past Refugio, to watch the sunset. And did our overly tired toddler enjoy the moment? Nope. She wanted to run on the beach. Sorry Ava. Not this time.
On Monday, it was back to the daily grind. Here is Dan with the kids at daycare. He is still a big hit there with all of Ava’s friends. And see that artwork in the background?
One of those is Ava’s macaroni art masterpieces… for all to admire. Good job Ava.
But getting ready for school this week has been a little different than usual. Ava is actually saying ‘ no škola’ (no school) in the mornings. Not sure if she doesn’t want to go to school or just doesn’t want us to be apart. Either way, looking at her say that and then holding my legs makes it tough on me. I wish I could play all day with her too. But that is not in the cards right now. So, we say good-bye outside as she goes with Dada to daycare and I drive away to work. She usually says ‘byebye Mama’ as we wave good bye but this week she said ‘bye Marlene’ and ‘bye Mama Marlene’ a few times too.
But after a few minutes of complaining in the mornings, she forgets about the whole no škola bit a returns to playing pas party (dog party) and rocking her teddy bear to sleep.
She also likes to brush her teeth with Dada in the mornings after he finally gets out of bed. Poor Ava has to scream ‘wake up Dada’ ten times before he actually listens. What a sleepy head!
She also has been intrigued by this Yoda toy in the mornings too… much to Yoda’s delight.
Ava thinks it’s so funny that Yoda tries to catch the feather tip… but Yoda doesn’t think it’s too funny when Ava accidentally smacks her with the stick instead of the soft feathers. Sorry Yoda. That’s no joking matter.
As you saw in yesterday’s video, Ava started to pedal her bicycle this week. Yippee. My back says thank you. No more pushing!
We still need to work with Ava on using utensils… the right way. Here is the aftermath of me asking Ava to use her fork. Yup. That’s Ava picking up a piece of pasta with her hands and sticking it on her fork. Geez. 
It hasn’t been all fun and games this week. Ava had a couple crying fits this week. To the point where she couldn’t breathe. Most of her hysterics started at the end of our day and with her not wanting to get off of the toilet. ‘Ava kaka Ava kaka’. Over and over again. I think she may have a little stomach bug or something.
The biggest hit of the week is books. Especially Little Hoot, Gossie, We are Going on a Bear Hunt and Wocket in my Pocket. She can’t get enough of those. Before we read each book, Ava tells me if I should read it in Croatian or English. Hehe. And she is starting to call books by their names. When she grabs the Wocket in my Pocket book, she says it’s name and then pretends to pull it out of her back pocket. And the funniest one yet is when she sat down with her Gossie book and kept called it ‘guzi’ which means butt in Croatian. She laughed when I pointed out her mistake.
All right. It’s officially playtime. Have a wonderful weekend. Bye!
