How can we help little Aidan?

One of Ava’s school mates, Aidan McSpadden was just diagnosed with Leukemia last week and started Chemo the very next day. He’s only 17 months old and I can only imagine what he and his family are going through. The family is trying to organize a bone marrow drive to find possible matches, as he’ll need a bone marrow transplant after his chemo treatment is complete. The drives will be at MD Anderson and Centerpoint Energy. More details will be sent to the Esparanza school families once dates and times are confirmed. They are also asking for those that would like to donate to see the attached wish list from the Ronald McDonald house, who they say has been a Godsend now that they are living at Texas Children’s to be by Aidan’s side. They say they don’t even have to leave his bedside to go get food, because the Ronald McDonald house brings it right to them.

Please pray for Aidan and his family during this very difficult and emotional time. We pray for his full recovery and to give his family the strength and courage to get through this and keep his little spirits up. Nothing hurts my heart more than hearing of an innocent child suffering in any way. My God bless this family.

Elmo in Ava's World

Elmo is a very big part of our lives here in the Hendrickson household. I have to wonder sometimes if he really enjoys being Ava's best friend. We often find him in weird places like the potty, drowned in the tub, in the dogs kennel or dog bowl etc. Here are a few pics of Elmo in Ava's world.

Best Buds watching Sesame Street

Elmo's corpse

Elmo must have been very bad on this day!

Well at least he looks happy to be in the potty

Ava's new favorite slippers from Aunt Courtney

A day in the life of a doodlebug

This weekend was very busy for Ava. She had a play date with Cousin Trent. They played in the sand, swam in the baby pool, played on the play set, Ava almost drown him a couple of times and he almost ended up in the neighbors yard after he decided to jump head first down the slide and become a human torpedo. It was good times! They had so much fun and Court & I got some really good laughs and had a few mini strokes!

She picked out her own clothes here

Mama is teaching her well. She begged to help clean the toilets.

More Cousin playtime

Just before Ava almost drowned Trent with the hose.

As for us, we have made some friends across the street. The couple is the same age as us and has a 2 year old little girl. She and Ava played outside together in the front yard this afternoon. Her mommy is also in HR and works a reduced schedule. We are both off on Friday's so we are going to have a play date this Friday. Yay!

Ava discovered a show called yo gabba gabba on Friday and is now obsessed. She's never watched much TV, but loves this show on PBS called Super Why "B-why" as I've said before. But now that she's discovered "gabba" she asks for it first thing in the morning. I let her watch a little bit of it this morning before we headed to school. She jumps around and dances and sings to the music, it's the cutest. I feel like I'm watching some psychedelic acid trip but she seems to enjoy it.

On another note, Ava now understands what she is supposed to do in the potty and several times she has told me when she has to go potty and actually goes in the potty! Her new favorite book is "Big girls use the potty" and she goes around telling us "Eeya Big Gurl"

Father's Day

Ava was being a little ham for our Father's day pictures. She was the the happiest, sweetest girl all day and made Steve's Father's day very special :)

No Barking Mister!

Okay so I accidentally deleted the ABC video, but Steve and I just love this one. She loves to order the dogs around.

Goodbye Heights, Hello Burbs...

Sorry for the lack of pictures..our camera battery died and we just replaced it yesterday! I have included some that Steve took with his phone of the Dogs new play area that we had fenced off.

The movers arrived bright and early on Friday morning of moving day. We got all of our stuff over to the new house and spent the entire weekend trying to get somewhat settled. The first thing I had finished was the kitchen. I can’t stand when my kitchen is in chaos! I am super excited about all of the cabinet space I have now!! Before we moved in we had contractors come out and paint the living areas and Ava’s room. We are pretty disappointed in the way Ava’s room turned out but decided to work with it instead of re-painting. She is downstairs with us for now, but will eventually move upstairs. We are still living in chaos as we wait on our new furniture to arrive. So slowly but surely we are getting settled!

We weren’t sure how we would adapt to living in the burbs but so far we absolutely love it! I got to watch a lightning storm one evening, we can hear nothing but crickets at night, we have ducks nesting in one of the trees behind our property, bunny rabbits that eat our flowers in the front, The dogs love their play area outside, Ava loves her play set outside and her play room inside, and we have absolutely EVERYTHING within 5 miles of us. 2 of our neighbors have already come by to introduce themselves. I was also invited to attend the neighborhood ladies group Bunco tonight! I’m going to meet people, but super nervous about being the new kid on the block. We LOVE the walking trail behind our house and take the dogs out there every evening. It leads right to the golf course. The houses in the neighborhood are all so nice and everyone keeps their yards so nice, it’s so refreshing. Anyway..total change from the Heights, but we are loving it! Now the fun of decorating it begins… The best part is we don’t have drunk day laborers puking in the street or peeing on the neighbors trees. That’s always a plus.

Ava updates:

I posted this on facebook but absolutely have to document this on the blog. During bath time the other night Ava and I were playing the animal game where I ask her what each animal says or does. We did fish, monkey, elephant etc. and then just to see what she would say I said “What does a mommy say?” and she literally said “yuv you” with a big grin on her face. I almost cried I was so happy.

She has also been trying to sing her ABC’s but it goes more like this “ABCB BC CB” It’s so cute! I will post the video later tonight. She also loves to count but for some reason only remembers the numbers 2 and 4. So when she wants more than one of something she says “ two four, two four” then I’ll give her two of whatever it is and then she does this little dance while moving each hand up and down saying “two, four, two four” It’s so funny.

She is definitely asserting her free will as much as she can. She tells us “NO” a lot and says “no juice mommy, milk” or “no shoes mommy, boots” We got her a new Elmo video for the car and the other day when Steve went to get her out of her car seat, she said “no daddy, more car, eeya watch Elmo”

Yesterday Steve scolded Magnum for barking, so Ava ran up to him and pointed her little finger at him and said “NnnOOO Magna! No Bawkin!”

In other news, we still have not found Casper L We did get a call on Saturday from a lady in the Heights who had suddenly starting seeing a white cat. We drove over there but didn’t see him anywhere. She said she would call me if she sees him again. Every time Ava and I read one of her animal books I get sad when we get to the kitty section L

Last days at the apartment

Some funny things I thought I should document before moving out of the apartment since our daily routine will change and I’ll forget.

Every morning Ava wakes up around 6:30 or 7 and calls for me “mommy, mommy…mommy night night”

I go in and get her milk out of the fridge and then go in and get her. If one of the dogs happens to run in her room she yells “Git out magna, git out” I take her to my room and lay down with her in my bed for a few minutes of cuddle time before getting ready for work. As soon as she finishes her milk she rolls over and hugs me really tight and will often fall back asleep. Some mornings if she doesn’t fall asleep I put Special Agent OSO on TV and she goes “oso, oso!” Some mornings she specifically requests Super Why or “B why” so I’ll put that in and she gets super excited! She’ll lay in our bed and watch that while I shower.

As soon as I’ve showered and dressed I dress her for the day, fix her hair and then we go into the kitchen for her breakfast. Lately she hasn’t been wanting to sit down and eat but has wanted to eat on the go (probably because we don’t really have a table to sit down and eat and she hates being isolated in her high chair), so I’ll give her a little waffle or French toast stick and off she goes. This morning I giggled because I brought her bananas and waffles to the bed and let her eat while watching super why. It was the funniest thing watching her lay there on her back and reach over to her plate while keeping her eyes glued to TV and grabbing her waffle.

When it’s time to go she tells beeka and magna bye bye and starts telling me all about Lucy the dog upstairs. She wants to carry her own lunch box now so she grabs that and out the door we go. As we walk to the car she says bye bye to everything she sees. Bye bye water, bye bye stairs, bye bye bird, bye bye sushi (lucy). On the way to school we pass this big dirt pile every morning and EVERY day Ava says “Bye bye dirt” as we drive by it. Liz at work said I should take a picture of her friend the dirt pile, since she seems to feel the need to speak to it every morning.

Once we get to school she tells me who everyone’s mommy or daddy is that is bringing them to school. “Cee Cee mommy” “Gil daddy” etc. When we pick her up she runs and hugs us and then runs to her cubby and gets her lunchbox and we get to follow her out. She likes to go down the chair ramp instead of the stairs because she can run. She insists on getting her own lunch box and walking to the car all by herself. She does not need help from us. As we leave she points out the mommies and daddies who are coming to pick up her classmates.

In the evenings we do dinner which she usually picks at and then feeds the dogs, then it’s bath time, a snack and then on to teeth brushing. After a little bath time fun we go in her room and rock and cuddle for a bit before she goes down for the night. She lays in her crib and tells me “Blanket Mommy” so that I’ll remember to cover her up before I leave.