The Hampshire Family: Happy 4th Birthday Ava!!

4 years ago our sweet little Ava blessed our lives on April 10, 2008 at 2:20 PM. At that moment she forever changed our lives and has made it so colorful in ways we never could have imagined. She started our journey of parenthood and has turned our lives upside down and balanced it at the same time. She is definitely our free spirit and loves her independence. Ava has developed such a fun, loving and caring personality...and lets not deny that she is still a strong willed and feisty little girl...but we take each new day as it comes! She exerts much of her energy outside and has become very artistic. She will sit for hours coloring, drawing, writing, making things and decorating anything in sight. She can write her name and copy others once we write them. Not that I thought her name would ever be hard to learn...AVA...but we are still impressed! She knows all her colors and numbers in English and Spanish and has a very colorful vocabulary. Her favorite "Seriously Mom, you are being ridiculous"!! What can I say...she brightens our lives every day! We love this little girl more than life itself and can't imagine our lives with out this incredibly special and amazing knucklehead.

Ava Marie 4 days old

To show her how incredibly special she is, we celebrated her BIG 4 with a fun filled day all about her! It was super fun for Tyler and me this year because she was so into it and crazy excited...as we all do until that number gets to high and we would rather forget it!! We decorated the house the night before so she would wake up and be surprised and then we opened gifts from mommy, daddy and Landy Lou. She has been asking us for about 6 months to get her ears pierced so we figured her 4th birthday would be a perfect time to do so. Tyler and I took her to Willow Bend for lunch, shopping, play time, ice cream and of course ear piercing. I thought for sure this tough cookie would chicken out but she was a champ! No tears, no worries and no complaining! She then had to go to the play area and show any kid she could find...she seriously propped her self up like a little show pony! We then had dinner planned at Benihanas with the whole family. It was SO much fun! The kids absolutely loved it and were amazing there for 3 hours!! It was a fantastic day and I am pretty sure I was more bummed about the day being over than Ava was. At least we still have her super fun Princess and Knights party scheduled in a week so she can celebrate with all her friends!