aunties

ava's aunties shannon and arantxa came over to visit her tonight. and as an extra treat, they stayed all night and hung out with her in the morning too! we had little trouble getting ava to say "shannon", but "arantxa" proved to be a tougher sell. little does poor ava know that "arantxa" is actually a shortened version of arantxa's actual first name (unpronounceable by non-basque-speaking mortal humans).

we started the evening with a trip to the playground (see cute video clip below). then, john and i left the aunties in charge of both ava and a bowl of salt and vinegar potato chips and went out to dinner. ava quickly figured out that arantxa would read her a story, and shannon was the sucker who would deliver "crunchies" on demand.

i declared october 14th to be "ava day" and invited ava's aunties out for brunch and an expedition in the park. several theories were put forth as to a) why we were celebrating and b) what the significance of october 14th was. one slightly confused partygoer assumed it was ava's birthday. another suggested it was a thinly veiled celebration of my own birthday. it was actually john who hit the nail on the head though, when he said "this is just an excuse to get ava all dressed up, isn't it?". yup, pretty much. unfortunately, i forgot to take a good picture of her amazing outfit.