Michael's Turn to Dance

This is a small excerpt from a movie that Michael made about a year ago. Some of you have seen this film in it's entirety, so this clip is no surprise for you. And yes, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of seeing it, he DID make a video about Napoleon Dynamite.... I am convinced that Michael wishes that he was Napoleon :)
For those of you who might want to see the rest, just ask Michael, he LOVES to show it to people! Also, i should mention that he only did one "take" of this...he didn't even practice beforehand! :)
Now you can see where our little Ava gets her dancing "skills" from.

Playing in the Snow

I've been meaning to post these pictures of Michael and Ava playing out it the snow for a couple of weeks. Don't worry, we didn't take her out in zero degree weather to play, these were taken when it was mild out. (I know my mom would worry if I didn't give that disclaimer.)
We took her out in the snow hoping that she would love it. It was one of those times when we realized that we were having way more fun than she was. We were snapping pictures and saying "isn't this sooo fun," and she kept saying, "all done." So we took her back inside after about 5 minutes of trying to convince her that she loved it :) But, we got a few cute pictures!
The other picture is of Ava with her cousin Hannah. They are only 3 months apart, so they are so cute together. I'm so glad that they can play together so often (since we only live 5 minutes apart.)
We are hoping that it warms up soon so we can get out of the house more. Ava and I are getting cabin fever for sure. Let's hope Spring comes soon.

Ava's Boogie

Ava is quite the dancer, as some of you know. This kid LOVES to dance! The older she gets, I can't help but see a lot of her daddy coming out in her. She is silly just like him. And anyone who knows Michael well knows he never turns down an opportunity to dance (We will be showing evidence of his dancing skills soon on here, too :)

Enjoy the video! We think she has some pretty sweet dance moves, especially for a baby :)

Update

Its been a while since our last post. Unfortunately I (Mary) had a knee injury a couple of weeks ago, so it seems like we are falling behind a lot of ways. Thankfully its nothing too serious, but I haven't been able to do much. The plus side is that I haven't had to do much cleaning. Michael has been really great about picking up the slack :) We are all doing well and we have actually been spending quite a bit of time relaxing at home, which is always nice.

I took these pictures of Ava today. She's doing really well! She has quite the imagination already (at 16 months.) She loves to play with all of her baby dolls, give them their bottles, and kiss them. It's been fun watching her begin to play on her own.
Make sure that you scroll down for new posts/pictures below!

We hope everyone had a great holiday!

Christmas morning @ home

I know it's been awhile since Christmas, but we wanted to post pictures from Christmas morning. Ava really got into the whole "opening presents" thing. It was really fun. I think that she like her Wiggles "Big Red Car" the best.

We had a really fun time relaxing at home all day. We are very thankful for our little family!

Iles Christmas

We had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas with Michael's side of the family a little over a week ago. We celebrated a little late this year, but it was really nice to stretch Christmas out longer.
Here are some pictures of the family, and a picture of Ava with all of the gifts that she received.

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More Christmas pictures... We went to visit Michael and Ally and got an adorable picture of their son, Nikos, with Ava. I think that they are going to be pals! And a few other holiday pictures.