sherlock hemlock, michael jackson, cutty and mush

A few weeks back, when we had that awesome Elmo Party (wooo hooo, elmo par-tay), we had Reese's friend Ava come down from Boston. Good times! And after Ava left, Reese looked around the house for her for a few days and would ask where Ava was. And then she stopped asking for about a week or so. But sometime during the week of sickness, she started asking where Ava was again and we always told her that Ava had gone home to MA with her mommy. And Reese's standard answer was "I see her? I wanna see her again.", which we would respond with "Yes, we'll see her again." And then the day of the blizzard when we had this conversation, J told her that we couldn't see Ava b/c it was snowing out to much to drive and you should have seen the reaction we got. Wooo! This girl was ANGRY with that. She said, "Daddy! Clean up snow! Clean up messy snow! I wanna see her again!!" She was, for lack of a better word, pissed! And then she put out a pair of purple dressup shoes for Ava to wear when she got here, and we all played along and let her leave them out for whenever Ava arrived. And really thought nothing of it.

But then a few days later, I noticed something strange. Reese was TALKING TO AVA. She would look over her shoulder and actually have conversations that were like "Ava? You want a snack? You do? Ok. In a blue bowl? Ok. Mommy, get it ok? Good." and then would look at me and say "I want snack and Ava want snack. Ava want pah-corn in a blue bowl, mommy. I want pah-corn, too." Hmmmm, that's a little weird. Until it hit me...Ava is not our friend from MA anymore. Ava is Reese's imaginary friend!!! And since then, Ava is pretty much all our girl talks to and about...it's amazing! Ava wears the purple shoes, she likes the color blue, she prefers popcorn for dinner, she gets to stay home when Reese goes to school, she stays downstairs when Reese has to go upstairs to bed, and she always needs to have her own plate/bowl/cup of whatever Reese is having, , which ultimately she shares with Reese. Sounds pretty much like Ava is living the good life and getting to do all the cool things that Reese constantly asks to do. They talk and giggle and chat all. day. long. And I don't know how long it's going to last, but oh my is it cute.

So here are a few pics of Reese that I took the other day while she was making me tea. She was looking at them with me after I took them and this one she said was "Reesey making tea".

And this one she said was Ava. This also happens to be the funny face she made when I said "make a funny face for happy" and based on how silly this pic is, I'm betting the reason Ava gets to have such a good time and do all the stuff that Reese would like to do is because Ava makes her happy. And that makes me happy.