The Veldmans: Ava turns 4

It's been an exciting couple of weeks at the Veldman house. Two Saturdays ago Ava and I had a date. I took her to see her first movie at the theater. We saw Frozen. She was so excited, and looked so darn cute sitting in that big seat with her popcorn between her legs. She barely made it through the whole thing before wanting to leave. As we walked out I asked if she liked it. Her response, "mom, it was A-Mazing!". I'm not sure who enjoyed it more, me or her. I love that she's at the age that we can start doing more fun stuff like that together.

Saturday was also a big day for Ava because we took one of the bed rails off her bed. She's been in a double bed since we moved out of our Mounds View home. However, she's always had railings on the sides because she is the craziest sleeper and still found ways to fall out the bottom of her bed. So far we haven't found her on the floor.

Last week was pretty low key. We were stuck inside Thursday afternoon and all of Friday due to a big snowstorm that we got. It took Nate and I almost an hour to clear our driveway Friday morning...and that's with a snow blower. We got about 11 inches on top of a bunch of ice. It's amazing how crappy the roads still are. We are definitely ready to be done with winter.

I worked this past weekend so Nate was at home with the kids. I got a text Sunday evening as I was leaving work that Grant didn't nap and had a fever. Well, he's had fevers all week and continues to. This poor kid! I took him to see our pediatrician on Monday morning and she thought it was viral, but gave me a prescription for an antibiotic and told me to fill it if he still had a fever Tuesday morning thinking he may have a sinus infection. Well, he was 102.4 at 3:45 in the morning and the poor thing just couldn't get comfortable. He's got the runny nose, the horrible cough, the fever...and then this morning he decided to add liquid diarrhea to the mix. Oh fun! I've been concerned that he has pneumonia. I called our pediatrician Tuesday morning and she said that she would use the same antibiotic even if it was pneumonia and to not expect any changes until this evening. Well, tonight his fever was 101.2, the cough continues, and the diarrhea worsens (I'm assuming from the Augmentin). Ava has her well child check tomorrow, so I'll try to get Grant an appointment at the same time. It's supposed to be a balmy -35 wind chill tomorrow. I love taking children out in this.

So yesterday Ava turned 4. I honestly can not believe it. I know that I say this every year, but I remember that day like yesterday. I'm assuming that I always will. When the clock turned 5:22 yesterday evening I stopped and just thought about that moment that we met her for the first time. What an amazing feeling that was, and am amazing feeling to see her now...happy, healthy, smart, sassy, dramatic, caring, brutally honest, and motherly. She fills my life with so much laughter and love (and sometimes craziness and drama). I love our snuggles and stories at bedtime. I hope those times never end.

I tried to make her birthday special, while still trying to tend to her sick brother. I was supposed to work Tuesday but had to call in sick for G-man. I guess it turned out ok since Ava could not believe that her dad had to work on her birthday. I think she thought that it should be a holiday where nobody works. I can't imagine how she would have felt if we both had to work. We had doughnuts for breakfast, stopped at Target to pick up Grant's antibiotic, and then headed to the zoo. Ava got to choose what/where she wanted dinner. She chose Cane's (which is a fast food chicken place). I tried to tell her that it would be super cool if Daddy picked it up and we ate at home (since I wasn't thrilled about taking Grant out when he was sick). She, however, wanted to eat there. So, we all went out for dinner. I was quickly reminded why we don't do that very often. It's so chaotic, especially with Grant who had a fever, was overtired, and didn't have a good appetite. We came home, had special cupcakes, opened some gifts, and then got ready for bed.

Ava had preschool today, but Cyndi took her since I was busy cleaning up liquid poop off Grant and myself. She had a great day celebrating her birthday at Cyndi's and preschool. Now we're just hoping that the forecast for IA is once again wrong and that everybody is able to make it to Ava's birthday party this weekend. If not, we'll be eating tacos and Hello Kitty cake for a very long time!