The Santa Parade

On Main Street in St. Charles each year the Christmas celebration is like a day straight out of Charles Dickins. There are people walking around in character speaking in character as if it were the late 1800's. And, every Saturday and Sunday they do a very quick little parade of Santa's. There are different representations of Santa...different eras as well as different countries. They have carolers and horse drawn carriages, fairy princesses and chestnuts roasting over open fires! It is a quaint step back in time. AND...the shopping wasn't too shabby either :) They have an outdoor ice skating rink set up but we decided Ava should make that request on her own!

Fall Time, Fun Time

Well, I LOVE fall for photogtaphy here. It makes the most beautiful back drop and I'm learning to be a better photographer for sure. Of course, I have the perfect subject who doesn't mind having her picture made.

Enjoy the fun day we had at Bee Tree Park...

Cinderella's Ball

This year for Halloween, Ava selected her own costume. As we admired all the costumes in the aisle at Target, I tried my hardest to insist she choose to be Minnie Mouse. It was darling...and she LOVES Minnie. I thought it was a win, hands down. Just as she was about to grab the costume from my hand (so I thought) she reached just past me and pointed to the "Blue Princess" aka Cinderella. There was no changing her mind. She was sold on the blue princess costume. We even brought it home and wore it around the house for DAYS before Halloween.

Pickin' Pumpkins

It's fall Ya'll...so we rounded up some folks and headed to find some pretty special round, orange, pumpkins! Special because we got to pick it out from the patch and bring it home.





Ava picked out this year's pumpking all by herself...well, kind of :)She tried for a big one, then decided it may have been too big.







But her favorite part was of course, RIDING the TRACTOR!! {as always}






She was in HEAVEN when she saw the ponies :)



They also had some little carnival rides and a petting zoo.

Visitin' with Nana

Seems like since I went back to work full time, Ava has been able to spend lots of special time with our sweet and wonderful family. Most recently we spent a couple days with Nana while I attended a mandatory orientation for my new company.


For this trip we traveled to Pelham, AL...{Super sorry to my Birmingham and Huntsville friends, wasn't able to sneak in any visits}. Thanks to "Carmen" the Garmin, it was very easy to find a playground. Of course, all we had was an address so we weren't sure what we would find when we arrived...but we were blessed to find an AMAZING playground.

Gettin' Pretty toes and fingers

More lost memories from the summer...

Brooke giving Ava a mani and pedi

Swimmie Wings

From the lost archives of summer memories...

"I fimmin'"...or as we say..."I go swimming".

Ava is a little fish. I can't keep her out of the water. We go to the pool every chance we get and she has learned how to "swim" so quickly...and she's fearless! We got a pair of swim wings and she is so comfortable in them. She even jumps in the water by herself! Her new favorite thing is to go under water. I'm not even real sure she can hold her breath yet - but she has survived thus far so she must not have inhaled too much water :)