Family Antics

For family night, we entertained each other with a living room masking-taped hopscotch. Ava got the hang of it, and we tricked her once again into staving off a sedentary lifestyle.

Any time something is just so much fun, Ava breaks out in dance. I wish I had the nerve to do that every time I am having a grand time.

I thought my hopscotching with a giggly 23-pounder on my shoulders was pretty commendable....

But Derek had to take things a step further, and hopscotch with one leg tucked behind his neck.

Show-off.

We have another new family favorite: sandwich-making. This hearkens back to my childhood when all of us kids (the younger crowd of us) would pile on my parents' bed with my mom and make sandwiches by stacking ourselves up. We loved it.

I introduced it to Ava: one of us humans was a bottom piece of bread (or bun), and then various blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals (and books and scraps of paper, once things got really silly) became the other layers of foody goodness. Well, now Ava thinks being a slice of bread is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Here she is as the bottom bun of a very large hamburger:

And adding the top bun makes it all the better.

I especially enjoyed taking my turn as the bottom bun and letting Ava pile things on top of me, while she provided details of each delectable item. For instance, the pink and white blanket above is "bar-de-cue Mexican bean soup mayonnaise onion poop spicy sauce." Obviously. In Ava's personal heaven, her parents would make her into human sandwiches for hours on end.

Friendship has been blossoming between the girls. In the past, Ava has been fairly aggressive with her affection towards PJ, and it hasn't always gone over very well. But PJ is finally accepting Ava's goodwill embraces and offering more of her own. The double carts at Costco seem to especially evoke feelings of tenderness for PJ, as she will lean over into Ava's side and wrap her arms around her, squeezing her sister in a smiley hug for minutes at a time, while I melt. And load the cart with milk and eggs.


(The next one is a couple of months old, but it reinforces the main idea, so I'm including it.)

And Ava has even condescended to play computer games with PJ's participation.

And speaking of LOVE, we had a lovely Valentine's Day complete with the requisite pile of heart-shaped pancakes (pink, no less!).

Who can resist heartsy little girls' dresses?! Obviously not my mom and sister. Thanks, you two!