Two years old!

Ava Grace Gulliver, born 11/30/2007
Kylie meeting her baby sister for the first time-a moment I will never forget...
Two years later...Ava's birthday party, 11/28/2009
The big two year old-what a ham!
She sure loves the camera!

Our sweet Ava Grace is two years old! It is so amazing how fast time flies. I feel like we were just announcing to the world that Ava had finally entered the world and here I am talking about her 2nd birthday! What a sweet girl she is and it has been so much fun to watch her learn more things everyday. I must admit that she has a bit of a fiery streak in her that she shows when she doesn't get her way! She is talking more and more everyday and absolutely adores her big sister, Kylie. Kylie loves to read Ava books and play pretend with her little sister and yes, she loves to boss her little sister around too. But hey, what are big sisters for, right Tia? :) Just kidding! (Tia is what the girls call my sister, Noelle.) We had a fun party for Ava this past Saturday and had a quiet celebration with her at home just the four of us on Monday, her actual birthday. It made me sad to realize that this is most likely my last "baby" and it was hard for Mommy to put her one year old to sleep on Sunday knowing that she would have a two year old the next morning. Why do kids grow up so fast?
I have much to update on but need to get dinner ready. Happy birthday Ava!! We love you so much!!
Mommy, Daddy and Kylie

Can it be?!?!

Kylie at 1 day old-so precious
My sweet girl-again 1 day old
Kylie-almost 6 in this picture!
Kylie-the big sister
Mommy and Kylie right after she was born-what a miracle

That Kylie is SIX years old now? It is so hard for me to believe that Kylie had her 6th birthday yesterday! Aaron and I took her (and Ava) out to dinner at Applebee's to celebrate last night and Kylie immediately informed our server that it was her birthday. Such a change from two years ago when she was hiding behind me when the servers came out to sing happy birthday to her! She was soaking up the attention she got last night! We then took her to Toys "R" Us after dinner and she got to pick out her birthday gift from Mommy and Daddy. She picked out a couple of Barbie items to go along with the Ken doll and Ken doll outfit that Ava (with help from Mommy!) had given her earlier that night.
I will add some pictures when I get home from training tonight of my big six year old! Happy birthday sweet girl! Daddy, Ava and Mommy love you SO much!!

Mr. and Mrs. Walker!

My cousins, Amy and Justin-so excited that I can now call Justin my cousin!!!!

Showing off some dance moves at the reception

Mr. and Mrs. Justin Walker--July 11, 2009

Miss Kylie Jane

Amanda and I at the rehearsal dinner

Me and my BEAUTIFUL girls-they were the best flowergirls!!

Sweet sisters

Amy, myself, Adriane and Amanda at the rehearsal dinner-I feel a little left out at all these A names. :)

This past Saturday, my cousin, Amy, married the love of her life, Justin. They had a beautiful ceremony at Mayflower church where of course I bawled my eyes out the whole time. Then we had a fun time on the party bus in between the ceremony and reception with a stop to the Gerald R. Ford museum for picture taking.

The reception was held at Fredrick Meijer Gardens and was SO much fun!! I seriously lost two pounds by dancing all night long and I have never sweated that much in my life! Aaron, Kylie, Ava and I were so honored to be part of Amy and Justin's special day. They mean so much to us and we are so excited to welcome Justin into our family. We love you guys and wish you nothing but the best! It was also so wonderful to see all of the family that came in from out of town and Aaron and I want to give a big thank you to my parents as well as they helped out so much with Kylie and Ava over the weekend and taking or dropping them off when they needed to be somewhere. Thank you!

These are just some of many pictures but I wanted to give you a little preview of the pictures. Sorry I have been so bad at posting lately. With my new job, I am in training in Lansing for two weeks and I don't have too much time when I get home to do "computer" type stuff as anyone with two kiddos will tell you. :) So that is it for now. Hope to update again soon!

Great Wolf Lodge Pictures

Mommy and Ava

Andrew & Ava-ready to hit the pool!

Me and my beautiful girls!

Daddy and his darlings!

The magician at dinner and his special helper, Kylie!

As promised, here are some pictures from our trip to Great Wolf Lodge last week. I have more at home that I'll have to put on here but here are a few from my mother-in-law, Julie. I wish we were back up there again! We had so much fun!

New Job!

Although I did announce this on Facebook, I thought I would update our blog as well with my exciting news! I will be starting a new job on Monday, June 29th. I have accepted a job with the State of MI as an Assistant Payment Worker for Ionia County. I am excited to see what this new opportunity will bring for not only myself but it has a flexible schedule so hopefully I will get to spend a little more time with my family as well.

I am sad that I will leaving my "second" family, the people that I have worked with for 4 years at DP Fox. I have so many wonderful memories and am so thankful for the four years that I've been with that company. I will miss my friend, Michelle, SOOOOO much. Words can't even describe how much how sad I am to be leaving her. I will miss our morning chats and our lunch time workouts! I know that we will be constantly emailing or texting each other but it still will not be the same. I will truly miss you Michelle!!

My last day at my current job is on June 24th, as I am taking two days off in between jobs to spend some much need quality time with my girls! Well that is my big news! I know that some of you thought I was pregnant, as I saw on facebook!! :)

Our family did go to Great Wolf Lodge this weekend as I will get pictures up shortly! We had such a blast! Then it was off to Beulah for our cousin, Adriane's open house. Congratulations Adriane! We had a great weekend with some awesome weather! Pictures of the weekend to come!

4 years and counting......

Happy 4th Anniversary to my wonderful husband!! I can't believe it has been 4 years already and I can't wait to share the next 60+ years with you. You are an amazing husband and such a loving Daddy to our girls. Thank you so much for all that you do. I love you so much!

My Mom & Dad

My mom and dad-aren't they cute?

Sunset-my dad takes amazing pictures!!

Goats eating on the top of a restaurant that my parents ate at! You don't see this everyday!

Beautiful scenery

My dad emailed me a few pictures of their trip to Minnesota today and they are so beautiful, I just had to post them on here. My dad takes some amazing pictures and has a pretty nice camera to take them with. My parents are in Minnesota for the week and although Aaron and I and the girls miss them dearly, we are glad they are getting some R & R together and enjoying their stay. We miss you and love you Mom and Dad! (Kylie and Ava miss their Nana & Papa so hurry up and come home already!) :)

Better late than never....

Precious Ava

My sweet Kylie

Kylie, Andrew and Ava-Bunny cousins

Ava Bunny!

My beautiful family-I am so blessed!!

Kissing cousins!! :)

My little Ava's bunny butt!

The Gulliver grandkids! My mother-in-law, Julie, always finds the most creative outfits for the kids!

So here are some of our Easter pictures. We've been pretty busy lately so I haven't had much time to post a new blog lately. We've had a wedding, bridal showers, birthday parties, kindergarten roundup and so much in the last month so hence why the lack in updating here. Hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day and Easter. It is hard to believe that we are already halfway through May!

Kylie's last day at Mayflower Preschool is on Tuesday. She's been there for three years so I think I will have a hard time saying goodbye even though Ava will be going there in 2 years. Mayflower is such a wonderful school, we have been so happy with it. Kylie will be attending Knapp Charter Academy next year, starting in kindergarten! Aaron and I decided to hold her back a year and have her do Pre-K this year as she will be 6 on Sept. 15th and could technically and academically be in 1st grade next year, we feel that socially it would be good to wait another year. So we are excited to see what next year brings for her. Kylie is already reading and passed her kindergarten roundup assessment with flying colors!

Ava is becoming more and more vocal and more and more of a Mama's girl. But don't get me wrong, she loves her "sissy" and her daddy too. I love to watch the girls interact now that Ava is a little bigger and can do more things with Kylie. They are so cute. Ava loves to give out kisses and play "catch me if you can". She will wait at the front of our hallway and then look back at you, her eyes daring you to come get her. When one of us tries to run after her, she turns and runs to her bedroom, laughing with delight. It is so fun to watch. The new favorite thing for the girls to do is to take their baths together. Ava loves to splash the water and Kylie loves to make Ava laugh by blowing bubbles in water.

Aaron is done with his first class and got the highest grade on his final exam out of the whole class! I am SO proud of him and I know he can't wait to dive into this new career path that he is studying for. Well, I will post more pictures soon, I promise! I have to download the pictures on our camera to the computer.

Recent pictures

I love this picture-so sweet and innocent!

Then....BUSTED! Her new favorite thing is to climb into the cupboards either in the kitchen or bathroom! Silly girl!

Is she gorgeous or what?! This is one of my favorites of Kylie-I can't believe how old she is!

Sweet smile for the camera! (Yes, we still use her Christmas bib in March!) :)

Ava is such a happy girl! Love the pigtails!

Cousins hanging out at Gee Gee and Ma Goo Goo's!

Kylie playing dress up-her favorite past time!

Here are a couple of recent pictures of the girls. I wish we had some of Aaron and myself but we always seem to be behind the camera. Hopefully I'll get some good ones of the two of us soon!

Park time fun!

Aaron and I took the girls for a walk and for a quick visit to the park by our house a couple of weeks ago. The girls just loved the park-Kylie is a master at the monkey bars and Ava LOVED to swing! She was very upset when we had to take her out of the swing and walk back home. I can't wait for more nice days to take them to the park again!