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Ava has entered that stage where I cannot understand 1/3 of what she says.

My favorite, however, is her pronounciation of “Yes.”

Yeessth!

Well, funny to me anyway.

Two Saturday’s ago, we decided to go for a hike. After we got all packed up in the car and calculated the time to get to the park and the time Caleb had before he needed a nap, we decided to go to Ladera school and let the kids play on the playground.

Grace loves the playground. Ava headed in a beeline straight for the swings. She loves to swing and doesn’t really want to do anything else. Sally and Caleb were also swinging and I was pushing Ava. Grace didn’t like being alone, so she moped over to the swings.

A few minutes later, a little girl came running by. Grace called out to her, “Hi. My name is Grace. You want to be my friend?”

And with that she had a friend to play with on the playground.

We went to the pumpkin patch at Irvine Regional Park to buy Grace the pumpkins that she was dying to have. However, there was a pony ride at the park. Guess how many pumpkins we came home with? Zero.

We tried in vain to get everybody to look for a picture. Ava bounded all around or stuck her fingers in her mouth, Grace bossed, and Caleb cooperated only because he can’t really move. At least Caleb’s jack-o-lantern smiled for all the pictures.

I am not sure they got the concept of this. Notice my blue shirt behind Ava. I had to hold her up and she didn’t like her head going through the hole. I swear, family pictures are the bane of my life.

Grace was the first to go on a pony ride. Ava was quite interested enough to climb on the fence and watch.

Grace is pleased as punch, happy as a clam, you pick the cliche. To say the least, she was quite happy to be on her own HHH-orse.

Ava’s pony stopped to take a leak. Ava made sure everybody knew the horse was going poo-poo. She got three laps for $4 (I know, I wish I had the idea to give kids horse rides), but only wanted two of the laps. Grace kindly volunteered to take her third lap.

Here is the album of all the fun (click on the main picture to advance to the next or use the slideshow):

I think the girls need a swing set. Actually, why spend the money when the table works just as well?

Ava is obsessed with what she calls “lips.” That is, she likes to have chapstick applied. Sally has this can of lip goop.

Ava helped herself when we weren’t looking. The result:

Finger fangs. And lip goop everywhere.

We were watching some of the videos taken of the girls, including these two videos of Grace and Ava having their ears pierced.

Click the pictures for the videos and turn down your speakers a little.

And fun was had by all (except the piercee).

Tonight is my night of uploading evidence of Ava’s mischief. By pulling chairs around the kitchen, Ava discovered that the counter top and cupboards are accessible. We used to keep a jar of jellybeans on the counter until:

Even more fun is the video.

I know I said I was a bad dad when I said Caleb looked like an alien to me (by the way, he has grown out of that stage).

But I am a really bad dad because I can’t wait until Ava will sit down and watch TV. She is a major mischief maker and if a cartoon or other kid-friendly show is on, she has zero interest, which makes life difficult because she is constantly into stuff. And by stuff, I mean mess making, dangerous, or easily destructed sort of stuff.

So I can’t wait until she is willing to be a vegetable in front of the TV with Grace.

Ava is developing good manners. Whenever she is given something she answers with “You’re welcome.”

It has been a busy past few weeks. Time goes by without posting in a heartbeat. So with no further ado…

Grace and Ava don’t get nearly as much time as they would like with the baby. So when they do get time, they tend to smother him. See the attached video as well. (Ignore the baby talk from dad — I don’t realize I do it…)

And another…

And another. What baby doesn’t like to have their feet tickled by possibly the roughest tickling ever?

The swing is also a big hit. The girls seemed to have forgotten they each took upteen rides in it.

Ava felt like she didn’t get enough rides, however. She climbed in herself while nobody was looking (and after getting busted trying to do it on more than one other occasion).

Grace read him a book. In other words, she looked at the pictures and made up the story as she remembered it. Caleb really liked the pictures… oh wait, Grace didn’t bother to show him the pictures.

That said, she does try to be a little mom (a trait that we are working to cure her of) and is really sweet with him.

This was a Grace cheeseball smile when asked to smile for the camera. It was the best we could do.

Finally, the kid sleeps. He cries more than either Grace or Ava did.

And a closeup. In the next edition, we will get another close up to show what a pizza-face Caleb has become this last week.