Toddler Tantrums, drywall, and a short visit

Last week my mom flew in to help me take Tal to the metabolic specialist (a whole other post!) and then to accompany us on our flight to KY to finalize things for our new house. She flew in on Sunday evening, so we took the kids to the airport to meet her. Ava Ryan was soooo excited to see the planes!

Watching for GrannaGranna covering Tal in kisses

Eating at one of the MANY Mexican restaurants in town- What I found out- Ava's a double-dipper!! YUCK!

The day before leaving we hit up the Targer $1 bins and the Dollar Stores to score some cheap plane toys- we even found Ava a Little Mermaid backpack to carry her things in. She was so excited to get on an airplane and talked about it continously...however, as you will soon read, her enthusiasm was short lived!
Getting through security was rather uneventful and our plane was even on-time- a rarity- all was going very smooth until it was time to board. I had already planned to let my mom take Ava, aka: the easy (well, easier) one, and I would take Mr. Squirmypants. We strolled ever-so-calmly to the door of the plane- all smiles- until..... "NO, IT'S SCARY! NO GO ON THE AIRPLANE! (scream, kick, scream, scream, kick.......scream) Ava refused to get on the airplane and in protest grabbed both sides of the doorway to brace herself. Unfortunately, I had the bright idea of getting on dead last so we wouldn't have to sit on the plane very long before take-off, which turned out to be a horrible idea, because now we had a plane full of laughing passengers as our audience. We finally reached our seats, luckily not kicking anyone in the process, and I struggled for a good ten minutes to get Ava to stop screaming and sit down. She even pulled out the old trick, "I need to go pee pee" which ACTUALLY means I would rather go pee pee than do what you are asking me to do. I am sure that I won't be nominated for the mother of the year award by anyone on the plane because, not knowing Ava, they all thought I was depriving her of her right to go to the bathroom. Let's just say, if some of their looks could kill, I wouldn't be writing this post!! After being told by the flight attendant at least 10 times that she had to buckle up before we could take off, she finally settled down with 2 suckers in hand- hey, at that point I was not against bribes! Tal, on the other hand was calm, cool, and collected! Mom and I were both exhausted by the time we landed in Knoxville and vowed to buy a portable DVD player for the ride back to TX!!

Finally off of the plane!! Geez, Mom, you look pooped!I love traveling!!

After a good night's sleep, we were all re-energized and ready to work on the new house and play.

They played with Aunt Kacey...

...Ate Cheerios......Went grocery shopping......Shared a sucker with Grandma and FaFa......Received early birthday presents from Aunt NeNe...

...Shared a blue popsicle with Papaw......And an orange one......Had birthday pictures taken...

...had a quick photoshoot before church...

...played in the playroom...

...made big messes...

...wore matching jam-jams...

...ate Grandma's good cookin'...

...watched TV with Papaw...

...played dress-up (or in Ava's case, dress down)...

...tried to fit in the doll house (yep, Ava's naked again!)...

...and assured everyone that we will be home in just 5 weeks...

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the house, I was too busy working on it!! However, it is coming along. The drywall is practically finished and paint, flooring, and trim are finally picked out. It won't be long now! I think the thing that I am looking the most forward to is not having Ava's training potty in our living room, having the kids in separate rooms -Ava always seems to end up in Tal's bed-, and having a yard!! Guess it's time to get packing!!!