Jesse Michael is here!

For those of you who haven't heard yet, Jesse Michael was born via c-section on Dec. 27 at 1:28 in the afternoon. He is 20 inches long, 7 lbs, 6 oz. Thanks to all of you who prayed for us. Mary and Jesse are doing great. Hopefully we will be coming home from the hospital tomorrow if all continues to go well. Ava has come to the hospital 3 times and has seemed pretty interested in her little brother...We are excited to all be under one roof soon.
We are so thankful for our little family!

Ava's Christmas Cheer

Say "CHEESE"

Date to Eisley

Michael and I went on a date to go see my favorite band, Eisley!! It was almost a disaster as we got lost, were late, didn't have any cash and it was "cash only." Thankfully Michael worked it all out and we ended up seeing the whole set. I think we were the only one's there that weren't OSU students and I was definitely the only pregnant lady there. I was so proud of myself for standing for almost 3 hours, since there were no seats (Standing room only.)

We love going out on dates. I love hanging with Ava, but sometimes it's so nice to get a break and hang out with my hubby... He's pretty great!

Thanks Amber for babysitting- you're awesome!

Grandma's visit and Debra's cheerleading

Recently Michael went to see his sister cheer at Cumberland. She is a sophomore there this year. Michael and his cousin Anthony spent the day with Debra (Ava and I stayed home.)
Since I am getting pretty pregnant, we thought it was for the best that we stay back, but we missed you, Debra.

Last week Michael's mom came to visit for a couple of days. Ava was loving it and taking full advantage of the extra attention. We all had a really good time.

Minnie Mouse

This year Ava dressed as Minnie Mouse. She had a lot of fun trick or treating at the zoo before Halloween and going to a Harvest Party.

She still doesn't seem to notice when we eat some of her candy... I have a feeling that we won't be able to get away with that next year. :)

2 year old pictures

Ava's 2nd Birthday Party

We had a really fun day last weekend celebrating Ava's Birthday with family. Michael's family- Amy&Jake, Mom&Dad, Philip, and Grandma Iles all came out. And my family- My Mom& Dad, Julie, Jason, Noah, Abbey, and Hannah were there, too! ( Sorry dad, we forgot to take a picture of you! :)

We went to the pumpkin patch for a hayride, then back to our house for the "Wiggles Party."
Ava enjoyed hanging with family, eating cake, opening presents,and getting spoiled with all of the attention. :)

Ava's 2nd Birthday!!!

Ava turned 2 years old on Saturday! Since we were in the wedding all day, we decided to tell her that Sunday was her B-day (I know we won't be able to trick her into things like that for much longer!) :)
We spent the morning at Chuckie Cheese's where Ava enjoyed playing games, and getting tickets. She was so excited when she redeemed her tickets for a "junk toy." It's amazing -even though she has a ton of really nice toys at home, she was super excited about a tiny rubber lizard prize!! Oh, well, we were just thankful that she was having fun.

After that, we "treated" her to a kid's meal at Wendy's. Then, we took her to Build-a-Bear where she picked out a doggie and an outfit for it, and named it "ruff ruff" and went through the whole experience there. I think she really enjoyed it.






We finished out the day with Brownies and ice-cream with her cousins and Aunt and Uncle.
I think she had a blast...which is what we were hoping for!
Happy Birthday Baby!! We love you sooo much! We are so thankful for you!



*** on a side note- we finally moved into our new house last week and we are trying to get settled. It will take a while, there are lots of projects to finish, especially before the baby comes... I am 26 weeks along now :)

Kerri's Wedding

This past weekend, Ava and I had the privilege of being in Kerri and Seth's wedding. Kerri is one of my best friends ever and we were so, so, so happy for her and her new husband on their big day. Ava was a flower girl and I was honored to be the matron of honor. It was a beautiful wedding! Ava even walked down the aisle with me and did it successfully- Yay Ava!


Kerri was beautiful, as always, and I couldn't be any happier for her!!!

I wish we would have gotten more pictures, but Michael was a busy man trying to take care of Ava during the wedding.

I should mention that Kerri requested Michael's Napoleon Dynamite dancing skills at the reception, and he actually did a dance solo..... Michael has never been one to be shy.

Also, it seems as though Ava is taking after her dad as she danced the night away, as well...

Congrats Kerri and Seth!!! We love you!!

We found out....

We're having a boy!

Wiggles Concert

This week was the big "Wiggles Concert"! We had been looking forward to this all summer. Anyone who knows Ava knows that she is a HUGE Wiggles fan.
It started a bit shakey when Ava decided that she wanted nothing to do with her "Dorthy the Dinosaur" hat. She really hated that hat, and the first couple of pictures affirm that!
Once we took off the hat she was fine. She loved the concert and enjoyed dancing and clapping to the songs.
Her grandma and grandpa Johnson bought her the ticket and Grandma Johnson even came too, along with Michael and I, and Julie and Hannah.
I think Ava and Hannah should win the cutest dinosaur awards. :)
I've got to admit, as a parent, there are shows that I prefer and ones that I don't so much prefer. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I like the Wiggles, and I actually thought to myself, "wow, I wish we could meet them." Unfortunately, we didn't meet them, but it was good fun for everyone.

Pool Time

BFF's- Hannah and Ava! They are sooo cute together!

READY

SET

GO!!!!!

SHE'S OKAY AND BACK FOR MORE!

Amish Country with G&G Johnson

We had a fun day in Berlin, Ohio with my (mary's) mom and dad. It is beautiful Amish country, so we took a buggy ride, went to cute shops, ate great food, and took in all of the scenery. Thanks mom and dad...it was so fun!

Long Time, No Blog

We haven't posted in a while because Michael completely filled the computer's hard drive up so much so that we couldn't load anymore pictures on until he got rid of some stuff to open up some room. Thankfully everything is fine now.

It's been a pretty busy summer, but a fun one. We've enjoyed the weather, going to the pool as often as possible. Ava's been loving to play outside in the nice weather. We bought her a little plastic pool and a sandbox and she loves them!

Update on what we've been doing:
We went to Doylestown to visit my grandma while she was in-town, which was great. Ava got to spend time with cousins and enjoyed her great-grandma.

We also took a long weekend to Chicago which was lots and lots of fun. We went shopping on Michigan Ave, hit up IKEA, relaxed at the Lake Michigan beaches, and introduced Ava to her first slice of Chicago deep dish pizza. (She didn't like it as much as we did :) She was such a good girl the entire time and even seemed to enjoy the hustle and bustle of the city!

We went camping for the day with Michael's family in southern Indiana. Everyone had a lot of fun playing in the creek and hanging out. Going to the creek is one of Michael's all time favorite things to do.
In addition, both sets of our parents have been in town to visit, which has been really fun.

At this point I'm 16 weeks pregnant and I'm starting to remember all the weird feelings and tiredness that I felt with Ava. (Normal pregnancy stuff that you somehow forget in a short amount of time.) I'm not a huge fan of the pregnancy part.... I just like the part where you get the baby at the end... If only baby's were really delivered by stork...that would be great!

Our house is in "in contract" now to be sold, so we are hoping everything will go through fine and we will be closing at the end of August. If so, we will be closing on the home that we are hoping to buy on the same day...





I hope everyone else is having a fun summer, too! :)

Scroll down for lots more pictures of our summer :)

Ava discovers lipstick