Christopher Michael and Ava Grace

And, a big happy birthday to Christopher! Christopher turned 3 on January 19th and had a very happy, low-key birthday despite being sick! He really enjoyed his Angry Bird birthday cake :) Although, it's funny because he is not a big cake-eater and just kind of picked at his cake (literally) over the days following his birthday.

My, how we've grown!!!

The kids are doing great, and so are we, although it's not about us anymore, right? ;) We had a really nice Christmas here in Georgia, and the kids really enjoyed the whole Christmas experience this year. Santa brought them lots of fun presents! Gum and Pa were here to celebrate with us and share in the festivities. It was a lot of fun to watch the kids enjoy themselves opening the presents and playing with their toys! I definitely prefer a "white Christmas", so I'm hoping we will go to NY next year for Christmas, or at least shortly there after.

Ava is really becoming her own little person, and it's fun to watch her grow and develop her own personality. She has a goofy little personality and is such a girly-girl :) She pretty much enjoys doing EVERYTHING that Christopher does, so that tends to cause issues every now and then, but for the most part they get along really well and it's really cute.

Here are some pictures from the past couple of months :)

Playing in the leaves

Dad's helper

Before his Christmas "concert" at school :)

Christmas concert - so cute!

Merry Christmas!

Who cares about the presents - give me the bows!

Christmas tutu :)

Opening some gifts

Ava loves her puppy dog

Playing in her new kitchen

Playing with his Angry Bird blocks

Making breakfast

Everyone is tuckered out!

Merry Christmas!

Look at that belly!

Hungry guy made himself a sandwich

Playing with his good friend, Carolion

Happy birthday, Christopher! We love you!

New Year's Eve funtivies!

Poke, poke

I want red bird

This is the new smile we get when we ask him to smile for a picture ;)

Silly kids

Brrr...it's cold outside!

Hey, Mom

I knew I was long overdue for a post, but I didn't realize that my last post had been 4 months ago!!! Yikes! All is well in the Hess household :)   The kids are growing by leaps and bounds, and time is just flying by...in a scary way!

We had lots of fun on Halloween! Ava was an elephant, and Christopher was a pirate. They had a little Halloween party and parade at school, which was very cute to see. We went trick-or-treating through the neighborhood, and Christopher got lots of candy :) Ava didn't really enjoy it quite as much as Christopher did. It was a chilly night, and she was a little cranky!

We had a great Thanksgiving, too! We had dinner with our friends, the Blandfords, and their 2 little girls Caroline and Mary.   The kids all love each other, and had a great time playing and eating dinner at their own little table. Actually, I'm not sure much eating happened at that table, but they had LOTS of cookies and fun! Christopher informed me on the way home that he ONLY had SIX cookies, which I'm pretty sure was correct since the cookies were gone in no time. I guess that's what being a kid is all about :)

Christopher will be 3 years old in January. It feels like just yesterday he was a screaming baby that would not sleep through the night! Looking back, I'm not really sure how we made it, but it sure has been a fun journey. He absolutely LOVES Angry Birds and pretty much has anything Angry Birds - Angry Bird underwear, Angry Bird t-shirts (which he is only allowed to wear to bed and Wal-Mart), Angry Bird stuffed animals (several ranging from 2 feet tall to 2 inches tall and they all have to be strategically lined up before bed), Angry Bird toys, Angry Bird gummy snacks, Angry Bird crackers, Angry Bird coloring books, Angry Bird stickers...I think you get the idea. And his most favorite thing is Angry Birds on the iPad! He is actually really good at it and several other games on there. He can actually use the iPad better than I can.   The approach of Christmas has been very fun this year because he kind of "gets" the whole idea of Santa and is very excited. We've made a Christmas chain to count down the days, oh, and there is an Angry Birds game that counts down the days for you and opens a new board every day of December...of course. We also bought the Elf on the Shelf this year, and Christopher has lots of fun every day finding Eli (our elf).   He can't wait to see what Santa will bring him :)

Ava Bug is also doing very well. She is 16 months old now, and is starting to become a real little person. She has started talking saying things like Mom, Dad, hi, bye, tree, dog, a butchered version of Christopher's name :) , please thank you, and of course, MORE (as in more food)! She doesn't get the idea of Christmas at all, but she loves the Christmas tree. She loves the tree so much that the first 2 nights that it was up, she would not go to bed and would just cry and cry until we would come and get her, and then she would stand at the tree and smile and say, "tree, tree." We finally figured out that if we turned the lights off on it and said good night to it before she went to bed, then that was ok. Kids can be so strange! She is such a little girly girl, too. She loves her dolls, purse and shoes. I'm not sure where she gets that from??? We got her little black dress shoes for Thanksgiving that were sparkly and had a rhinestone on the them, and she literally would not take them off for the next week. She wore them with her pajamas and everything. It is precious to watch her with her doll because she hugs and kisses it and is so loving with it. She pushes the doll around in her stroller and pretends to feed it food. So interesting to watch and intriguing because it's funny how they just know what to do.

We decided to stay here in Georgia for Christmas this year. I think we are definitely planning a trip home to NY in the summer. Christopher is already excited to fly on the airplane!