Crabs and some party planning inspiration

Saturday night we got crabs and had a good 'old Maryland style dinner.  Complete with corn on the cob, grilled chicken, and baked potato.  Aunt Denise and Uncle Doug came over to join us.  Ava sat on Uncle Doug's lap and ate about 10-15 crab legs and two whole crabs before getting down to play.  After everyone was done my Mom and I picked the remaining crabs and put the meat in the container but it didn't last long because Aaron came in and Kate came back for seconds.  Aaron had gone to sell his bike so he missed the tedious picking which was fine for him since he hates that part. 

Now on to the party planning....I LOVE party planning.  I typically come up with an idea and then go start to designing the invite and the outfit.

Ava's first birthday party was butterflies

The invite

The outfit

Her second birthday party was Mickey Mouse

The invite

The outfit

This year the theme will be ICE CREAM....I'm so excited and of course ice cream is Ava's favorite thing in the whole world.  I'm going to be doing cake pops again too.  Last year I did Mickey cake pops

                   ....this year I'm going to do mini ice cream cone cake pops and I'm going to tackle a fondant covered cake.  The cake will just be a round cake nothing crazy but I'm thinking of covering it it bright polka dots and a big three.  I'm going to be doing a practice cake next week and maybe another one in September if I can come up with another reason to make a cake :)  I plan to get the invite designed this week and take some pictures of Ava for it.  Oh and her Halloween outfit I'll leave secret for now but I'm giddy with excitement over it.  It's being handmade to fit her and will be pretty unique so I can't wait to get that going.

Well it's dinner time and I've got a hungry family to feed so I'll be back later this week with some reviews of the travel items from vacation and some photos from Ava's camera.  

See you on the flip side...

Playing Catch Up

Seems I took a vacation from my blog the week after my actual vacation.  Taking care of life and trying to catch up on editing/uploaded all the photos just took forever.  So let's see where did I leave off...

One of the days we walked the back way out of the cabin and I realized how awesome the steps that way would be for pictures so we got it a quick impromptu session.  Lately I find it to be easier to get photos of Ava if I ask her to do funny faces.  Funny faces lead to laughing which lead to "real" smiles.

 Love this one...hahah

 Then she went to pick me a daisy....love her :)

 and then she was done.

 Morning Sunshine

 She loved the fireplace which she lovingly referred to as her "stage" where she would she and dance for us daily.

We went to check out some waterfalls and wildflowers and this is a sampling of Aaron photography.  He scaled down the rocks to get closer (water levels were so low everywhere with it being July) while Ava and I stayed on the path.

 Then we headed over to the cranberry glades which Ava called the jungle.

 Little cranberries

 Being silly in the car making elephant and monkey sounds

 Ava and I went to the kids store and starbucks that night and to her favorite spot...the waterfalls :) She is now obsessed with waterfalls

 Red stained lips and teeth from some sort of red slushy thing she drank...it was pretty gross...someone had a heavy syrup hand...yuck

 Taking her in the hot tub for the last time

 We spotted deer and Aaron took some pictures

 We could have gotten some awesome close ups but I was in the hot tub and the zoom lens was in the cabin so he had to make due with the 35mm

 Last morning while I cleaned and packed

 Aaron taking our trash down the street to the bear proof dumpster

  All week we had tried to get her in the big chair but she was not into it so this was a semi forced effort...hence her total lack of enthusiasm.

last year on the big chair

 Taking a picture of me taking a picture of her...next I need to see what gems she has on her camera and post them.

Now we need to head to Nans so I'll post some more later.  I've been busy with halloween costume planning, birthday party planning, and so much more.  I'll fill you in on specifics later :)

**Edited to add photos of Ava in the big chair from last year.