Summers End

The end of summer. A time when the air begins to cool and the city fills with CSU students again. This year... a time to reflect on the summer of our lives. What a wonderful few months it has been!!! Time goes by so quickly. Ava has grown in so many wonderful ways. I look back at pictures of when she first came home and compare them to now and she has changed so much. She is blossoming into a confident, curious, sweet girl. Her weight is staying about the same but she is getting taller. we are growing up, heading into the toddler years...we are transitioning off the bottle to sippy cups, she is getting more and more teeth; her back molars are cutting (oh what a joy that is for ALL of us, poor girl), she is starting to almost run at times, she is starting to talk more and more. She identifies pictures on the walls of mama and papa :-). She calls us it all the time now. Her little voice is ssssssooooooooo cute!! She knows a "no" object. She will walk up to it and say "no,no, no" and still get into it but hey, it is at least registering that we say "no" when she nears that object i.e. dogs water bowl. Poor Lily is probably dehydrated cuz we pick up the dish off the floor so much...she got her first hair cut a couple of weeks ago. She was pretty good once we got out the bottle of "bubbles". We headed back to the "farm". She was an old pro this time. She fed the horses, tried to feed the goats...but they wouldn't eat her rocks...and the cows, well, they weren't too interested in a little 2 foot human on the ground. But we did love to pet the soft sheep and look at the roosters.
Grandpa and Grandma Collicott were here all summer. We had a lot of fun with them this year. They are semi-retired and travel around in their R.V working seasonal jobs. This summer they were at the Riverview Campground in Loveland. We would head down over the weekend and watch their fantastic Karaoke show. We already miss them as they have left now and are headed to CA to work selling pumpkins then Christmas trees. Last winter they got to meet Lisa Kudrow,Tom Selleck, Linda Hamilton and Drake Hogestyn (John Black on Days of Our Lives). Wonder who will come wondering onto the lot this year...
With summer coming to an end we are looking forward to a wonderful holiday season. Halloween is right around the corner and we are gearing up! We can't wait for the "Great Pumpkin" and all the fun treats. Then Christmas...oh boy it is going to be a special one.

It is getting late and she will be up early. So bye until next time when I have a few free minutes (which is few and far between these days). Have a great fall season.

Hugs and kisses
ALa