More painting!

Ava modeling the orange wall and the blue wall..

Ava picked out a purple swatch for the back wall, and I will also paint a purple wall in her room since it's her favorite color. 

Lastly, here is my fortune.. hope it's true!!

 

Ava's Musical Medley

Here is Ava singing post bath in her birthday suit.  :)

 

Ava singing in the mirror and making faces.

Painting the walls bright orange

Well.. just one wall to be exact.  

I had a quart of bright orange paint on-hand for
Ava's table & chairs that I didn't end up using. 

I figured it would be perfect for an accent wall
in her playroom since it's a fun, energetic color..
just like our Ava. 

After two coats of primer and two coats of paint, it is  done!  

The orange is also in a gloss finish, so it has lots of pizazz!  

Ava walked into her playroom this morning and said "Wow, I like it!"  

I still have a lot more painting to do, but at least one wall is done!

Zoo day

We headed to the zoo early to see some animals and water play.

Ava looking out for giraffes

 

We got close-up viewing of the whole zebra family having breakfast.

We also visited the squirrel monkeys before some water play.

  Ava enjoying some play time at the splash pad.

Ava went down the slide at least 10 times and finally stopped for a snack.

Ava LOVED the baby orangutan who was putting on quite the show by coming up to the window and swinging on her rope.

We ended the morning with a carousel ride and some play time in the tree house, where Ava pretended to take a nap.  

We headed home just in time to escape the heat!

Baby Bump

Baby Petri #2 is making their presence known.
I am 17 weeks and counting!
I swear this child doubled in size over the course of a day.
I feel a lot more baby and a lot more moving around!

I found a picture of me pregnant with Ava at 20 weeks, and placed it side by side with this picture of Baby Petri #2.  I am already bigger at 17 weeks, stayed tuned for the 20 week comparision (scary!!) and we will reveal whether this little one is a boy or a girl!!

17 weeks and 3 days

20 weeks pregnant with Ava vs. 17 weeks with the 2nd Petri

Private Swim Lesson

Ava had a make-up swim lesson this morning, and she got one-on-one
attention from the instructor.

Ready to swim!

 

Practicing kicking on the kick board

 

Floating on her back and super woman arms
Ava had a great lesson and enjoyed some hot tub time afterwards!

A Belly Cat Adventure

Last night around 9:30pm we discovered that our persian cat of 7 years, Bellamy was missing.  We were wondering where he was.. we searched the whole house and he was no where to be seen.  Then we thought maybe he's in Ava's room.. but she was asleep so it was hard to look for him in the dark with out waking her up.  Our neighbor knocked on our door and informed us that he was about three houses down hanging out at her place.  She said she first spotted him walking down the street around 10am.  A door got left open before Ava & I left for the day, and we had a cat on the loose!  He was so scared when we went to get him, he wouldn't let anyone get close to him.. even me.  Around 10pm I brought him catnip toy, something to remind him of home.  He slept outside with the feral cats.. the house he decided to camp out at is the most cat-friendly house the neighborhood.  Our neighbor, bless her heart gave him food & water.. and even a basket to lay in!!  Around 7:15am I heard a meow.. Belly's meow.. I jumped out of bed.  He was on our front porch!!  Our neighbor helped show him the way back home by luring him with food.  We are sooo happy to have our Belly Cat back home.  We bathed him and now he is a clean, happy cat back in his home!

All clean!

Friday Funday

Ava making her "taco tongue" while waiting for our morning coffee & bagel.

We went to Baby Stop with Grammy & Grandad to order furniture for baby.  We also ordered Ava a full size mattress so we can convert her to a big girl bed before baby arrives!  She discovered this princess bed that was just way too much fun.  And we thought she was bad about sleeping now.. she would NEVER sleep if she had a bed with a slide & a fort underneath!! 

This bed is way too awesome!!

She had baby dumbo go down the slide before her, and played with grandad while going down the slide again, and again, and again!

We finished up at Paradise Valley Mall with some playtime, lunch & 3 carousel rides!

Cleaning companion

Ahh, yes.. it's cleaning day in the Petri House (or should I say cleaning week since that's actually how long it takes!).  I had a special cleaning companion, which was nice.. actually I had three of them.  I just wish they were house keepers instead of cats!!  My Persian, Bellamy is about the biggest momma's boy ever - he followed me around everywhere.  One of his favorite places to go is on our gas stove  (you realize that even with your summer lion cut, you are still an extrememly fluffy, flammable animal?!!).

He sat with with me while I unloaded and re-loaded the dishwasher, and he even followed me into Ava's room to make her bed.  Did I mention he also slept by my feet all night long too?  This big ball of furr always puts a big smile on my face!

Lastly, I found a special spot for our "Happy Buddha" that my parents brought back from their trip to China.  He is hand-carved out of Jade.  Shall he bring a lifetime of peace & happiness to the Petri Household!

A creative morning

Our Wednesday started off with a nice quiet breakfast together.  We then met up with some friends at our favorite summer play place, The Children's Museum.  Ava stopped to take a picture with the dragon on the way in.  We met up with Ava's friend Hadley, and they wasted no time getting started.

Ava and her friend Maggie thought it would be funny to act like little babies together.  We covered them up with blankets and they made fake baby cries.  Love those girls.

Is naptime over for all of us??

Ava expressed an unusual amount of energy and defiance before her nap today. 
I sure will miss these days once they're over..

Did I really sign-up for this??

I am not much of a writer, but I am going to try to post blogs daily to keep everyone updated on our happenings.  The blogs will probably be mostly photos.. since I take a lot of them, and photos speak words as well.

I just hit the 16 week mark in my pregnancy.  The morning sickness has diminished, and my energy levels are increasing.  It is getting a lot warmer outside, so Ava & I will be heading the the Children's Museum & splash parks a lot more often.  We are working around the house to organize, and I have some painting to do in the playroom.  We will find out the baby's gender on July 5th, so I will have more painting to do after that date as well.  All is well, and we try to be good about posting the "daily dish"!

Courtney & Ava had fun at the Phoenix Zoo "Prowl & Play" event this past Saturday.  The girls visited the Stingray Bay, but neither one was too keen on trying to touch them.  Ava was very fascinated until one jumped out of the water and splashed her.  The night ended with a carousel ride, which both of the girls enjoyed. 

We are starting to plan Ava & Courtney's 2nd Annual Birthday Party.  We did this last year for their 2nd birthday, and it was a lot of fun.  We are going to have a "Mad Tea Party" theme this year.  It just so happens these two are BFF's, and were born on the same day!

Ava's "Princess Pose" photo from Disneyland was entered into the Parent's Magazine weekly photo contest for June.  Voting ends June 19th, so make sure to vote for Missy Ava by clicking here:

http://photos.parents.com/category/vote/photo/905024