Ava's Friends

I never imagined that a two year old could have so much spunk and personality.  Ava constantly amazes me with her words and actions.  She can count to thirteen now and the other day told me that she could not go to school because it was closed...she is way too young to be coming up with excuses not to go to school! 

Ava loves life and loves to play with her friends.  Last Monday her school was closed because it was Easter Monday, not sure what this is but her school loves an excuse to close.  We went to the zoo and she ran into two of her classmates.  After going through the kangaroo walkabout they had the best time playing with the hand dryer for ten minutes.  Ava is the youngest of the three but you would not be able to tell it by the way she towers over them.

Her best friend at school is Vivi and we spent an afternoon at the park with her and Ava could not have been happier.  These girls are the cutest chasing each other around and singing songs while swinging.

She also does great playing with new friends that she just met. How sweet is this picture of the kids jumping on the bed and our great friends for letting them make a mess of their master bedroom.

While she does get in her moods sometimes for no reason at all...

her sweet smile makes my day and brings so much joy to our lives!

Building Update

While lots and lots has been going on at the house, I do not consider it any of the fun stuff so I have not been taking as many pictures.  The plumbing, HVAC, and electrical has been installed and inspections should be completed today.  The cedar timbers for above the windows and doors have been stained and the brick has been delivered.  If all goes well they should start bricking it tomorrow!

The last two weeks we have been busy with appointments.  Last week I started with our lighting, did a walk through to discuss our audio needs, I went to look at granite for the fourth time, did a follow up meeting on our tile, and met with our two cabinet companies.  Months ago we had received two different bids on cabinets and while we liked the idea of true custom cabinets, the cost was so much more that we decided to go with the prefabricated cabinets.  Once we made our decision we talked about doing a custom stain on the island and in the butlers pantry and our kitchen cabinet company was not able to achieve the look that we wanted.  We went back to the custom cabinet company for a bid on the island and butlers pantry and after looking at the additional cost, decided to compromise and only do the butlers pantry in this stained finish.  I love the style and colors that we picked out with the prefabricated cabinet company and am also excited that we will still get the stained look in the butlers pantry that we wanted.

Tomorrow I am picking out our door knobs and the fireplace surround and on Monday we are meeting again to hopefully finalize our lighting.  I am happy that I am still on maternity leave because I do not know how I would find the time at work to make all of these appointments for the house.

The fireplace insert was delivered and they are changing out the design from a stacked brick to a houndstooth.  We asked for an inset above the fireplace  for our television so that it is flush with the wall and does not stick out.  I went by the house and noticed that they put it at the very top which does not make sense and would be hard to view the television so they are moving this down so it starts 6 inches above the mantel.

 We want a large island in the kitchen and this will be able to sit four people.  To give us extra depth our builder built the dummy cabinets below.  Our cabinet company will place their cabinets in front of it and then do a wrap all the way around it to make it look like one piece. 

 We have three HVAC units in the house and because of how they had to run the duct work in the kids playroom, they have to build a seat under the window to cover this.  I wanted to have a window seat here anyways so this worked out perfectly.

Pallets for bricks!

 The dark color of the stained timbers will look great against the lighter brick that we chose.

 I never understood why they have to install the bathtubs earlier than any of the other plumbing but this is in the kids bathroom and the guest bath was also installed. We are doing a pedestal tub in the master and this is not in yet.

Britt James- 11 Weeks Old

My handsome little man is 11 weeks old today and all is continuing to go well with our precious baby boy.  Not much has changed in the last week except for the fact that I continue to fall more in love with him.  I love that he still has the new baby smell and I love it when he takes a nap on me and the top of his head that has his patch of hair tickles my chin.  He continues to love bath time and is more alert each day.  While I have not been able to capture it on camera, he is smiling more at me which melts my heart and he loves to coo.  He continues to sleep well in the night and is still doing the 3am feeding and then around 5am he wants to be held which is when I let him come in bed with me so I can sleep another couple of hours.  Big sister Ava still calls him a girl and refers to him as her sister sometimes but she also loves him so.  She is so sweet giving him kisses and still wants to see him as soon as I pick her up from school.  Life is good in the Swearingen household!

Easter Egg Hunt at Cheekwood

This was the first  year that we took Ava out to go Easter egg hunting and we could not have picked a better location or day to do it.  We enjoyed a beautiful sunny day at Cheekwood and was able to see their 100,000 tulips that they still had in bloom.

We went a little late in the day and were not able to enjoy all of the activities that they had but Ava certainly had a ball for the time that was spent there.

 Patiently waiting for the egg hunt to start.  Ava was in the 2 and under egg hunt. After watching the other age groups, I was happy that Ava was not with the older kids because she would have been trampled.  She was however the oldest in the 2 and under and she dominated the egg hunt.

 Ava had so many eggs that she dropped them and a sweet little girl helped her pick them all up.

 Getting an egg airbrush tattoo with glitter!

 First time using our double stroller.

 What a beautiful day to celebrate and to enjoy God's beautiful creations.

Britt James- 10 weeks old!

Each week I am amazed at how fast time is going and today my little man is 10 weeks old.  What a great week and I am so happy at how well Britt traveled and slept on our three night stay in Atlanta.  Within this last week Britt is doing a better job at focusing, cooing, and smiling!

He continues to get loved on all day by everyone and I could not ask for a sweeter son!

Baby Emme's Shower

We took a fun road trip this weekend to Atlanta to celebrate our best friends and their baby girl, Emmeline Blake, who is due the beginning of June.  We left before rush hour on Thursday and both Ava and Britt did great traveling to and from Atlanta, thank the Lord!  Friday Travis went to the Masters for the first time which he called a once in a lifetime experience.  The weather could not have been nicer and besides the beautiful course he enjoyed several pimento and cheese sandwiches and shopping at the pro shop.  There were three boys that went and one of the wives, Holly,  came in with her two kids and also stayed at the house with us.  It was great because the kids were so close in age and gave Ava a playmate on Friday and Saturday.  Holly also just had a baby boy who is five days younger than Britt so we had our hands full.

How sweet are these precious children!

On Saturday I helped to co-host the baby shower and I love how all of the planning came together.  Everyone contributed something different to the shower and all of the details were so great and really made this shower special for baby Emme and her beautiful mommy!  We went with an animal theme and used peach, light pink, white, and gold as our color pallet.

Holly had this iron sign made at her store with Emme's initials.

For a guest book we had each guest sign the inside of a Golden Book.  I think everyone grew up reading these and I tried to pick out classic Golden Books.  I hope the Emme enjoys reading them as much as we did growing up.

We had a mimosa bar and served the momma to be sparkling cider.

Kaitlin and Lisa did a great job recreating this Pinterest idea.  Peanuts were spray painted gold and placed inside a pink crate to hold popcorn in cones with stickers on them that matched the invitations.

I loved how the burlap with the pink giraffe table runner complimented our theme. 

Of course we had lots of yummy food...

I worked on making these tiny monogrammed banners to place in the baby bundt cakes which are a favorite of the mommy to be!

After looking at a hundred buntings on Etsy, I fell in love with this fabric name banner and loved the quality of it.

My favorite detail of the party had to be the spray painted animals.  Kaitlin took a container of plastic animals from Walmart and spray painted them gold to give them more of a chic look.  She even cut slits in some of them to use as place card holders, so creative.

For favors Lisa hand made gold bracelets with a giraffe charm on them, this was such a special gift to give each guest to remind them of baby Emme.

As a thank you the mommy to be gave all of the hostesses aprons from Anthropologie along with matching dish gloves.  She did such a great job matching each apron to our style and it was such a fun gift idea.

What a great day celebrating Becca and baby Emme!