December has been busy!

I'm so far behind and there has been so much going on this month.
Most importantly, I'm off for Christmas vacation and so is Ava! Yes, Ava started the preschool class at my school. It's so wonderful for her, but wasn't so easy for her to get used to it. She started on December 1st. The first day was a breeze when we dropped her off. She didn't cry, but I don't think she actually understood she would be there all day long, so day 2 was a totally different story. She was throwing herself around and screaming "Don't leave me. I don't wanna stay. Daddy, Mommy, please!" Yes, it was totally and completely heartbreaking. Rolando was ready to take her home and be done with this class, but I convinced him that she would be okay and would enjoy it eventually. Since then she has had a blast. She loves her two teachers, and they adore her. She is the only girl out of 10--still the princess and she loves it. The boys just do everything for her. Hopefully she'll remember how much she enjoys her class when our two weeks is up, but I wouldn't bet on it. Here are some pictures from her first day of school.

The trial run the day before with her backpack. Although she would have loved to wear this outfit on the first day, we opted against this look.

Ready to go to school.

And she's off (sniff, sniff, sob)!

Daddy bought cupcakes to celebrate her first day at school.

We also painted her room. She has been wanting her room painted for over a year now, and we finally did it. She wanted pink first, then decided on purple. We found a color that is really pretty, but it sure is lavender. She loves it, and now I have painting fever. I want to paint every room. We're doing the kids' bathroom next and then Adam's room. Here are some pictures of our little painter. I'm not sure what happened to the pictures of the finished room, but lavender is lavender.

Testing the color.

She's ready to paint.

Her first reaction to seeing her room completely done. She was so excited.

We also had family pictures taken at the beginning of the month. What a joke! Ava wasn't feeling well, and neither one of the kids wanted to cooperate. We got a couple good pictures, but nothing great. I guess that's what happens when your family gets bigger--apparently the quality of the pictures you take reduces by the number of kids you have. Here's our best one, which happens to be our Christmas card this year.

The kids saw santa, which went about the way that our family pictures went. There were many to choose from: Adam staring and Ava pouting, Adam looking at Santa and Ava looking at Adam, Adam looking at the floor and Ava with her eyes closed, Adam smiling and Ava moving. We finally decided to buy the one of Ava smiling and Adam squirming around. What a mess they are!

Ava was way more excited about riding the train than seeing Santa.