Potty Trained AND a Big Girl Bed

We set up Ava's new big girl bed yesterday and her first night was a success! She only woke up once in the night and after I sat with her for a few minutes she fell back to sleep until 8am!

She's been in bed for nearly 3 hours now and so far so good. She cried a little bit about an hour after she went to sleep but only for a few seconds.

We've put the potty in her room so if she needs to pee in the night she can. We're also still using nappies overnight in case of accidents. She's pretty much completely potty trained now, which is great. Most nights she wakes up around 3am to use the toilet (even though she has a diaper on) but last night she didn't want to go when she woke up. I did notice that her diaper was a little bit wet when I got her dressed this morning though, but I'm not sure when that happened.

Once she's been settled into her big girl bed for a few weeks I'll try and take away her bedtime milk and that should help with staying dry overnight.
My little baby is growing up so quickly!


(Ignore the ugly blue carpet - if it were my house it would have been out of there a LONG time ago!)

New Clothes!

My mom sent over several cute new outfits for Ava and this is the one she chose to wear yesterday.

She went through a pretty big growth spurt a few weeks ago and now most of her clothes don't fit anymore. (Thanks for the new clothes mom!)

Potty training is going really well, Ava uses the potty or the toilet every time she needs to pee or poo during the day. At night she still wears a diaper but most days when she wakes up it's still dry.

She is getting her last molars in now, I've seen the two at the top coming through but not the ones on the bottom yet. I think sometimes they hurt and she gets a bit grumpy because of it but most of the time she seems okay.

She's such a happy little bug and gives the best hugs!

Potty Training

We started seriously potty training Ava this week and it has been remarkably successful!

The first day was a bit of a disaster - she peed everywhere - but she improved every day after that. Now she gets really excited about using the potty and even knows how to pull down her pants before she goes.

She didn't have any accidents yesterday or the day before and so far none today either :)

Way to go Ava!

Whirlwind Canada Visit

It's been a crazy few weeks!

Since the middle of August, things have been a mixed combination of stressful, fun, surprising and expensive.

On August 15th we had a very important appointment at the United Kingdom Border Agency to apply for my next visa. £1350 and 6 hours later we walked away with it stamped into my passport. One stress down, one more to go!

On the 23rd of August we got on a plane at Heathrow and headed to Toronto for our wedding.

We stayed with my mom and dad while we were there and they put up with us so well! I don't know if I could have handled having 2 messy people and a tornado-like toddler for 3 whole weeks.

On the 27th I went out for lunch with my bridesmaids (minus Ruthie who said she had plans.) And when I got back to the house I was greeted by about 20 friends and family members who were there to attend my surprise bridal shower!

Ruthie, mom and my grandma had put together a beautiful shower for me and I had such a nice time. The food was delicious and I know they all put in a lot of time and work for the shower, I feel so special!

The following Friday my bridesmaids had a big day planned for me: manicure and pedicure at the Silveryblue Butterfly spa, dinner at Alice Fazooli's and then an evening out at Emma's Back Porch. It was time for my bachelorette party!

Before we left for Emma's, the girls surprised me at the house with some pre-drinks and a British themed party - including matching t-shirts for everyone!

Once we arrived at the bar, the girls made me complete 20 tasks by the end of the night. Some examples of these tasks are:

- find a cute guy and ask him to practice walking down the aisle with you.
- give a random guy a shoulder massage.
- kiss a bald man's head.
- have your photo taken in the mens washroom.
- get a pair of underwear from a guy.

And so on...

Somehow I actually managed to do every single task! The only difficult one was finding someone else named Graham, and someone else named Becky and having them sign my shirt. We only managed to find a guy with the middle name Graham so we had to settle for that.

It was a really fun night and I had such a good time. My bridesmaids are the best!!

*I will add pictures when I get a chance.*

Summer Fun

I'm so bad at keeping up with this journal!

We've been so busy this summer... between starting up the business, sorting out my residents permit, and wedding planning, we haven't had much time for anything else.

It hasn't helped that the weather has been so crummy this summer either. I can't find the motivation to go anywhere fun when it's cloudy and cold. Hopefully when we get to Canada next week the weather will be warm and sunny for us!

Here are some pictures of Ava in her lovely birthday dress from Sarah!


My friend Isabelle let us borrow her son Cody's tricycle for a few weeks because he already has one. Here are some pictures of Graham trying to teach her how to ride it. This was one of the four days of nice weather we've managed to have so far this summer.



We ended up giving the tricycle back to Isabelle and Cody because it played loud music and noises whenever Ava was using it. I'm pretty sure we were annoying the neighbourhood and it was getting on our nerves as well. Maybe one day we'll find her a quieter one.

Funny Faces

Today was the last day of play group for the summer. I'm going to have to think of something else to do for the next several weeks now.

A few of the other mums gave me their phone numbers and we'll probably try to get together over the summer sometime.

Some pictures of Ava being silly. The second one is what she looks like when you tell her to make her 'funny face.'


It's been so rainy for the last week or so and it's getting hard to find things to do indoors that don't cost any money. We had about 15 minutes of sun this morning while we were at the playground but it's raining again now.

Where has summer gone?

About a week ago I noticed a red rash under Ava's left underarm. At first I thought she had just rubbed it on her highchair strap but it stayed for a few more days and I began to wonder if it was something else. I showed a few friends and they all seemed to think it was a heat rash from the warm weather.

On Tuesday I took her to Boots and asked the pharmacist what she thought it might be and how I should treat it. She also thought it looked like heat rash and gave me some calamine lotion to try.

On Wednesday morning it looked worse and I could see some redness under her right arm as well so I decided to take her to the doctor.

The doctor seems to think she has eczema :( so we were sent home with a few tubes of Aveeno cream to apply whenever it's needed. Ava has been really good about it and stops scratching whenever we tell her to, and she's very cooperative with letting us apply the cream.

This is what it looks like today:


If it doesn't improve over the weekend I'm going to take her back and see if they can try something else.

Poor little Ava :(