The New Ava Letter cards

Anyone who knows Brandon well, knows that he loves letters and anything associated with them, especially "letter cards." A few months ago, when we were at Katy's house, he was playing with some of her daughter Ava's letter cards and could not part with them, so Katy kindly "leant" them to us. Well, there was no way Brandon was ever going to part with them after that, so although he always called them "the ava letter cards," they were pretty much his. Unfortunately, he lost half the deck at my sister's wedding rehearsal on Whidbey Island. After that, the cards were not quite as exciting. Oh sure, he still played with them about once a day, but he always mentioned the cards that were missing. "Mommy, we left the witch card on Whidbey," he'd say. Fast forward a month and a half, and we are checking out the toy store Child Trek in Tacoma where Katy had originally bought the cards, and low and behold, there is a complete deck of the same letter cards. Once he spotted them, there was no way we were leaving the store without buying them. I thought it was totally ridiculous and such a waste of money to buy them again, but I'm a total pushover for buying my kids things, so we did. Well, thank goodness! They have not left his side since. They are affectionately referred to as "the new Ava letter cards." They go everywhere with us--the park, the zoo, gym class, friends houses, doctor's appointments. He sleeps with them everynight and, more often than not, wakes up between 1 and 3 am wanting to play with them. I even caught him giving them a hug and kiss as we were leaving for the park the other day! Next to Big Bear, it's safe to say, these are his favorite toy ever!! And worth every penny!