6 years of Ava. #inlove

"I wish I had two moms. And the best one would be you, but the other one would take me to the toy store and I would get to have whatever I want" -Ava 5.5yrs

my heart. my heart is so full. It's the biggest gift from the universe. to love. there is nothing that makes me feel like I could burst like a balloon than the love I have for the my children and it's always growing. I'm overpaid. Now we're celebrating another year of Ava. She is 6. She lights me up. She's almost finished with her first year in public school. Kindergarten. And she thrived. She blew me out of the water with how she adapted and learned and developed friendships and with how bright she is. Now that I'm fully on board with who she is-I get it now-it's so much easier to be her mom.  Her teacher calls her an "old soul". She's connected and she knows what she needs. She knows who she likes, she knows when she needs to be alone. She knows and now I trust her. Letting go of how I thought she should act and who I thought she should be has made our relationship fuse and bond. I feel so close to her.  I'm head over heals in love with her and she's in love with me too and I feel it. It feels so good.  Her innocence is still so intact, which melts me. She wants ice powers to be real. She asked me if she could study how to get ice powers in college. She spends her time playing school, acting out Elsa from Frozen and asking Nathan to be Anna. Nathan happily fills her request. We finally suggested that he might also play a good Kristoff too ;). She's an awesome big sister, who of course has her breaking points when she'll tell me "it's too hard to be a big sister. I don't want a little brother anymore". I can't really blame her. Nathan watches her like a hawk and follows her around, imitating almost everything she does. He goes to her for comfort sometimes and she is always open arms. I think in those moments she really likes being a big sister.
She still has her little giraffe blankie, which is now called "mimi" b/c that's what Nathan calls his. When I walk into her room at night to stare at her while she sleeps and admire her before I go to bed I notice that she still moves her mouth like she sucking a paci to soothe herself.
She's interested in Daddy's "stories" and asks him to tell her stories about mountain lions. She's fascinated by dinosaurs and watches documentaries on them. She said to me "Mommy, when I'm 20, if you're still alive, which would be lucky, can we go dig for bones together?" Geesh, I hope I'm still around when she's 20. I guess it would be "lucky". She's a deep little thinker and she's emotional. It's a lot to handle at times, but I adore that she can speak how she feels, that she's in touch with it at 6 years old. That's a gift that can help us to live a life awake. We say her metta prayers every night and it's all I hope for her:
May she be peaceful
May she be happy
May she be filled with love and kindness
May she love herself just as she is
May she accept others just as they are
May she forgive herself when she makes mistakes
May she forgive others when they make mistakes.

Thank you God for the love that you put in our hearts everyday to share with each other.

Thank you God for Ava. (then she never fails to say "and thank you God for mama").

I feel like the luckiest mom. This is the image to capture her crssoing over from 5 to 6.
Happy Birthday Ava Pava. You have our hearts.

 a quick series of film images I took of her about a month ago....

And this is the Frozen Party she requested.

wearing the Elsa gloves Nathany gave her while watching Elsa sing Let it go | The snow we made

Olaf Cake Pops (the hit of the party)

My helpers | Frozen Scavenger hunt

Ava, Emily, Mariko, Greta and their magical ribbon wands!

singing let it go!

Nathan's treasure (a life size Olaf balloon)

opening gifts from friends.

We love her spirit so much. This party was so fun to put together for her and she was my biggest helper. She noticed right away that it's a little easier to go to someone else's party because you don't have to do any of the work! Right she is! It was a big deal for her to commit to saying she wanted to have a party with friends at all. She chose 3, which was the perfect amount. After all the structured activities were over she went inside of herself and I could see her feeling a little stressed. She slipped and fell and couldn't hold in her emotion anymore. She burst into tears and cried her little eyes out. She said she wanted her bday to be over and all her friends to go home now. Of course that's right when family arrived to take her out to dinner. After a little mommy time and a lot of holding and soothing she was able to go the the restaurant and enjoy her family. Our little introvert. 

Last thing about being 5 that I loved. 

She still says "aminals" instead of Animals. I'm not going to try and fix that yet.