Dress Up with Grandma

Today was Alli's birthday party. I thought I should let Martha post pictures of that. However, I couldn't pass up posting the pictures of Ava playing with the dress up clothes that Alli got for her birthday. She really liked all the outfits. She had Grandma put all of them on her. She was quite cute.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope everyone had a good Valentine's Day. We went to Terre Haute in the afternoon out to eat and to do a little shopping. We took Ava with us. I can't imagine what the restaurants were like in the evening because at 3:00 IN time they had over 1 hour waits. We ended up getting into Olive Garden in about 30 minutes. We had a nice day.

Our Little Valentine!

Dancing with her lion.

Daddy's Valentine's. I should have got a vertical picture to show my enormous belly.

State Cheer Competition

This past Friday and Saturday was the State Cheerleading Competition at Bloomington. We left after school on Thursday and spent the night. We competed Friday morning against the other small varsity teams. The girls did a good job but did not make it into the top 10; therefore, they didn't advance to the finals on Saturday. We stayed until Saturday though to watch the finals. It was a good weekend. I was very proud of the girls for how hard they worked to get this far.

Jeff & Ava watched our competition Friday morning. I think Ava enjoyed it a little bit more than daddy.

Is it the Superbowl, A Circus, or A Parade?

We had a couple families over for the Super Bowl on Sunday. The guys watched the game upstairs and the moms and kids watched - well not the game downstairs. It was pretty wild down there. With all the riding toys the kids had a great time making a million laps around the basement. It was quite a parade watching them all go around in circles. Somehow, Martha got stuck helping them get the Gator around all the corners for over an hour. The rest of us sure appreciated it.

I think the back is for cargo not passengers. The kids only fell out a few times though.

She can't quite reach the pedals but she likes her new pedal tractor that Grandpa Buerster found at a tractor show.

Grant Ochs was an amazing driver. He was hauling all the girls around.

Ava went from 1 toy to the next.

These 2 are going to be quite the pair someday. Ava and Lanee Cooper are only 3 months apart so they will go to school together. Look out!

The kitchen was a nice break from riding around.

Way To Go Girls!

It has been an exciting day to say the least. Today was our other cheerleading competition. We left for Bradley-Bourbonnais at 8:30 this morning. I was not feeling well shortly after I woke up but attributed it to nerves. I get really nervous when the girls compete. By the time it was time for the bus to go I was having a lot of stomach pain. I toughed it out for a while then after talking to Martha I got nervous that it was contractions. Since I am just 7 months along, that made me anxious. We were very close to Sara Bush Hospital at this point so the bus wheeled in there and dropped me off. My assistant, Laurin, went on with the bus to take the girls the rest of the way. I had already decided that after the hospital told me everything was fine Martha could pick me up and take me to my competition. After hooking me up to monitors and doing some tests they told me I was not having contractions but I had a urinary tract infection and that often feels like contractions this far along in pregnancy. I was relieved to get that diagnosis; however, still being in pain I could not travel 2 more hours to competition. Jeff came and brought me home. I was not happy about not being able to see the girls perform but I knew I could not tough out the pain. They called me immediately after they were done and told me that they did the routine perfect. I was so excited. Turned out they got 5th place. That advances them to the state competition! I was so happy for them. They have worked so hard and deserved to advance. I was bummed that I couldn't be there but I will get to see them do an awesome job next Friday and Saturday at the state competition. Way to go girls!

Curly Locks

Memal Patchett took these pictures last Sunday and emailed them to me. I had to post them because I thought she looked too cute. I realized that you don't notice how big her hair is sometimes until you see it in a picture. I know nothing about curly hair because mine is board straight. She obviously inherited this trait (along with all her others) from her dad.

What an expression.

Big Helper

On our 3rd snow day, we were a little more productive. Ava loves to help me with the laundry. I hope this continues. She always tries to carry the baskets. It got a little heavy so she was just pushing it by the time I got the camera.
Nana & Poppy came to our house this evening. As always, Poppy is Mr. Fix-It so he was working on the toilet. Ava thought she needed to help. I'm sure her input was very useful.