Still laughing...

Today is this sweet girl's second birthday!! A Birthday post will be soon to come, in the mean time I had to share the time we laughed the most on our Chicago trip. I was talking to Ryan on the phone one night while Ava apparently got my mascara out and put it on like lip stick. AM saw it first and let out a little gasp followed by un-suppressible laughter and upon being discovered Ava quickly threw the mascara under the sink, turned her body and folded her arms, with wide eyes and pressed lips to try to convince us she was in fact not doing anything she wasn't suppose to be doing, even if we had missed that part- the evidence of course was almost from one ear to the other on that little face. I can still see it now in my head and it still makes me laugh!

A Tale of Two Toddlers in the City...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...That was the running joke for the week. I told AM at the beginning of the Chicago trip that I could picture the start of the blog posting for the trip and that is what it would say. We agree while it was a tiring week for both of us, it was a fun adventure too and we came away with some forever memories and some great laughs during those best of times and even more during those worst of times.

Here's some back story...I was offered to go to this training last fall when it was in DC, it's only usually offered twice a year. It is the only training of its kind for middle managers in community mental health centers across the nation. I found out too close to DC to make it work but we found out it was offered again in the Chicago this spring. The dilemma was I wasn't ready to be away from Ava for almost a week. I know everyone is different and for us it just wasn't the right time yet. But I really wanted to go this training, it was an incredible opportunity that I just didn't want to pass up. The problem with this trip timing was it was also the end of Ryan's busy time at work and he couldn't go. So I was so glad it worked out that AM was up for this adventure and for helping me do this. The girls are still just under the age we didn't have to buy them plane seats, they could lap sit and with my work paying for my expenses it worked out pretty great. I love when I can find the middle ground when I feel pulled by both work and being a mom at the same time, not always possible but this was a great middle ground solution!

Okay so here's the rest of the story in pictures, mostly the best of times part, we didn't really take pictures of the worst of times but you can picture them with toddlers in tow: melt downs at times, sometimes they went down great for naps and sometimes not,  an early on plane debacle where a woman proclaimed to me and the rest of the plan she would not be sitting by a baby to Chicago- luckily someone else helped out and for she and my sake we didn't have to ride next to her. True story.

So anyway on to the good stuff...

I've been to Chicago before in April and this time it was much warmer and beautiful with all its spring time flowers!
Let me also say we meet so many nice Chicago natives, they opened doors, volunteered directions, one helped with our stroller getting off the bus, strangely we also were asked directions a lot, we laughed that we must of looked local would out of towners really bring tow toddlers to the city??

First night we got some Chicago Deep Dish which Ava loved!

We made a stop by the bean on the last night. Our hotel was on Michigan Avenue so it was easy to walk to great places like this.

AM had the girls during the day and took some pics for me, they played at the park across the street and walked to the Aquarium one day and the Field Museum another day. 

One night we went to the Children's Museum at Navy Pier, we all loved the Toddler room there, they played for a long time and we actually got to relax a bit. 

I would get to join them on lunch breaks, I loved the day we took it easy and just ate a picnic lunch on the  bed. The hotel had 3 restaurants on site so it was easy to order or grab food and snacks. 

Our room was huge and we had this great view of museum campus from our windows. 

AM had this great baby carrier that Ava loved to ride around in, when given the choice between the stroller or the pack she always chose to ride like this. 

Our only picture of the whole gang!

She called people for pretend on my phone a a lot!

We lucked out on the plane ride home Izzy and Ava got their own seats!

It feels so good to be home! The training was incredible, it was rich and intense and I am pretty excited about all I learned, the ways I grew and what I hope to bring back to better my program. 

Always good to go home again..

We headed to Broken Arrow for the weekend for Easter and other family celebrations. Its always good  to go home again and be with family (blood and church) especially those you don't get to see as often as you like. I love that familiar and warm feeling of being home again. I also like that you don't worry about doing things like you would at your now home, no laundry or chores you feel like you should be doing. It's always refreshing and restful. Here's some of what the weekend had to offer...

We celebrated Mema's 90th birthday! 

Cousin Bear's birthday was the same day we had the party so we celebrated 90 years and 3 years. 

Ava enjoyed cake and ice cream time. She also loved bubbles and an impromptu Easter egg hunt. 

Of course in true Browning family tradition there was a sing-a-long.

Ava was memorized for a little while with the music then she realized it was 4:00 and she hadn't had a nap yet, things went a little down hill from here for most of the rest of the day. I didn't take pictures of that part but just wanted to tell the whole story of our weekend to try to keep it real on the blog. In this season of our family life its not always sweet smiles and laughter but we try take the bad with the good and usually with toddlerhood just wait a little bit and the mood will change again. 

Next day was Easter Sunday, it worked out great, I got to sleep in and grandma and her dad had already fed her breakfast so when I gave her basket she could have a little candy then and enjoy the other goodies before we had to get ready.

What Ava wore:

Dress and Shell: Baby Gap

Shoes: Target

Hair Bloom: Gifted by Aunt Jen

The dress was a little big but I'm in love with it and am hoping she can wear it for a long time to come. (I may or may not of kind of cheated and used some of my Christmas left over gift card money to buy it. It had me at yellow and ruffles!) 

She figured out quick they had treats in them, I should of known saying "lets find all the eggs then you can have 1 treat" didn't make much sense to her at this stage. Next year I think I will do one M&M in each then she could enjoy as she goes (Ryan's idea). 

Hope you had a great Easter!

The good stuff.

We are kicking off April with some down time at home tonight. When I think about all that is going on this month I can get a little overwhelmed but tonight I tried to consciously soak up these moments of a quiet family dinner on the porch enjoying the end of the day together. I hope to carry that practice through the rest of the month as well, so many great things going on this month, I don't want to get lost in pre-planning or worrying for what's next on the list and not appreciate and live in each moment as it comes. That will be easier said then done but worth re-directing myself each time, as something struck me as I looked through these pictures that this is the good stuff, this is our life, this is living the dream and I don't want to miss the precious moment that is now. You can let the good stuff pass you by or you can grab onto it with a firm grip and give it your full attention. We often do that with the not so good stuff in our life, I want to do better with doing that with the good stuff...

Her "please mommy?" face...

So here's the run down for this month:

• First Tuesday Book Club gathering of my beloved reading group, I pick the book this month, this is tomorrow and I'm still reading reviews tonight, I just can't decide!
• Easter Weekend, also my mother-in-law and my Mema's birthdays to celebrate!
• Chicago trip - going for a training for work, AM and I are braving the big city with toddlers in tow, wish us luck!! Ava's first flight. The unseasonable warm temp trend I hope will stay in place and be much warmer than the last time I was in Chicago in April.
• Ava's 2nd birthday, planning a family day of fun, just our little family.
• Ava's birthday party a week later, decided I wanted to make her cake this year and lots of other handmade touches. Decided to still keep it small this year just our family and a few family friends.
• Also this month finish training and run my first half marathon. I can't tell you how excited I'm getting about this actually seeming possible, don't get me wrong I have some real fear too but I've been working for months towards this goal. I will have to do a whole post on this journey of doing this, but think I will wait till after the half.

So there it is, a packed month, it will be great, Lord willing, one day at a time, each day I'm sure will have the good stuff and the not so good stuff but reflecting on a favorite quote from a favorite books is "two women looked out from the behind the same bars, one saw mud, the other saw stars". Here's to grabbing hold of the good and giving my full attention to the stars.

April 2012, lets do this!

Weekend Wrap up

This weekend has had a little bit of everything, the relaxing, the productive, the indoors, the outdoors, the sick and the well, time for preparing and time for spontaneous...

Saturday morning started off with Ryan mowing the yard. These two found it quite entertaining, staying glued to the windows most of the time. After Ryan got done mowing I went on a 5 mile run, it was beautiful and lovely day to run. Unfortunately I forgot the sun screen and got a slight burn but otherwise was so glad to wake up not be sore at all today! 

Ryan caught a second raccoon for the week. Something had been getting in our trash bins, apparently these cute guys were the culprit. Don't worry no harm came to them, they just crawl in the cage to get the ham and then the door closes behind them, Ryan takes them down the road a ways more in the country and releases them again.

The neighborhood kids were quite excited about the catch.

Saturday evening Ava and I enjoyed a dinner just the two of us, I had a craving for Mazzio's we went about 5:00 before our grocery shopping trip. We were the only ones there for most of the time, Ryan is still in crunch time for work till the end of the month so he was at the office, so we tried to make the most of the time just the two of us.

Then Poor Ava bear started throwing up Saturday evening. Hopefully she's in the clear now, I made her first couch pallet for today. I remember growing up mom and dad would always set up with the best couch pallet when were sick with all the comfort items you could want.

Rest of today involves a six mile run later this evening and laundry this afternoon, I hope Ava is well enough to enjoy the sunshine later today. We also worked on the play room, cleaned and organized for the garage sale later this spring and I did some reading on finishing up training for the half marathon, only 5 weeks to go, while I'm a little behind the schedule, I am confident as long as I can stay on track from here I think I can do it!

These are my favorite kind of weekends (minus Ava being sick of course) I love when its a little bit of everything. Pretty soon our weekends are booked solid for a while. so it was good to enjoy one spent mostly at home. Hope your enjoying your weekend!

23 Months

This week we hit the 23 month mark! Here's the monthly highlight list. 

• Singing! It so sweet when she breaks out in songs like her abc's, or twinkle twinkle little star, she can now sing all of those songs and today for the first time she sang a along in church when they sang Jesus loves me. I've tried to get video of her singing solos but she always stops when the camera comes out. Her other favorite song lately is if you're happy and you know it, she loves to do the stomping your feet part and frequently asks me to sing "happy feet".
• We have frequented the play ground in our neighborhood several times now and almost daily she will ask "go to park?" She just started being brave enough to go down slides on her own and she loves it!
• She knows several shapes, is counting to 5ish in order, and can sing her ABCs.
• Baby dolls are still her favorite, especially putting them down for naps. I can already see that one of her spiritual gifts is being a nurturer. It is natural to her like breathing. When babies or other kids are crying,  she says to me "they sad" and often tries to think of someway she can offer comfort. In the church nursery the attendants tell me she is making sure other babies have their toys and goes around giving pats on the back. 
• She loves to ask me "what doing mama?" Here's a frequent conversation we have these days: "What doing mama?" "I'm driving" "What doing mama?" I'm driving" to break this cycle I say "What are you doing" "I readin' book". pause for a moment. "Mama are you drivin'?".
• She loves the zoo and as soon as you enter often she starts saying "elephant" - by far her favorite animal (which is what I came up for her birthday theme this year). Our elephants are at the very back of the zoo so its a trek back there but hard to say no to that enthusiasm. 
• She loves to brush her teeth, sometimes asks in the middle of the day. I'm not sure how long she would keep going. I always have to stop the brushing after a while, often to her disappointment. 
• She's started testing limits more, When I have to put her in time out she immediately starts saying "listen and mind", this is the language I use when I put her in time out and get her out to try link that not listening and minding means time out. I think it's interesting when I give the 1 timeout warning she usually always still has to go to timeout but when I get her out of timeout and have her repeat whatever I told her to do, she always does it right way? So I feel like she's making some connections with it but its still a work in progress. Luckily she usually does listen and mind and this makes both our lives easier. 

This girl will be 2 next month! Seems like her birth wasn't that long ago. I am loving this stage too, she's so fun, funny, curious, affectionate and active!

Happy Friday...

Sometimes you just need to put the chores on hold and do something fun, especially on a Friday! I decided this Friday to keep Ava with me as sometimes I now take her now to Mothers day out for part of the day on Friday at our church to get errands ran and have a little me time. But I just wasn't feeling it this Friday, this Friday I wanted to just take it easy, spend the day with Ava and spend the day with some best friends. It was funny that on Thursday AM and I both tried calling each other and kept missing each other, both with the same thing on our Friday radar, we needed to spend some quality time together.  It was so good today to not have to be anywhere at any special time and to just enjoy watching our girls play, getting to talk and laugh as long as we wanted. Friendship is one of God's richest blessings, I love the friends he has placed in my life and don't thank Him enough for the ways he uses them to nurture, encourage and challenge me, each in their own way. Speaking of friendship check out this first shot I got today:

Ava and Iz holding hands, they love to do this out and about or just hanging out next to one another in their car seats.
 It melts our hearts every time!

This gives me hope for a successful beach trip this year, Ava wasn't a big fan of sand last year, her and Izzy played for a long time very happily in the sand today.

Someone has gained some independence recently when it comes to going down the slide.

Hope you have a great weekend! Put the chores on hold and go do something fun, call up that friend that you just need to be with because you know it will be good for your soul. Happy Friday!