Ava's Christmas Program Performance

Ava participated in her second Christmas Program tonight, and here is a video for your viewing pleasure.




Unfortunately, she spotted Daddy and was slightly distracted, but it was still successful.

First Bike Ride!

All summer long we've been planning to buy a bike trailer so that we can go for bike rides with Ava . . . well, now that summer is nearly over we've finally gotten one! Hurray! We haven't actually gone for that first ride yet, but we plan to squeeze one in today. First there is cleaning and basement work to be done. Boo.

Here are some pictures of Ava exploring the new trailer and its accessories:

Hey, I kinda like this thing.

This picture pretty accurately portrays how she feels about her new Winnie the Pooh helmet!

Ooh, the camera . . .

Can I take this thing off yet?!

Wish us luck for our first ride! We're hoping she likes it!

Ava's Famous Dance Move

Our little girl is discovering that she likes to dance! And she'll dance to just about any little ditty she hears. Daddy caught her doing this the other day and was able to get it on video:




That's the little farm we got her for her birthday. She has started playing with it a lot, but we didn't even know she knew how to make it play the music! Such a funny girl.

One to Remember

In case you didn't already know, our little girl turned one on June 25th. It's hard to believe it has been that long since she came into our world! She is very busy as a one year old, and even managed to start walking days before her birthday. So now she toddles all around our house, getting into all kinds of trouble. She has been so much fun and such a blessing to us. We can't imagine life without her anymore.

Happy First Birthday, Ava Marie!

For Your Viewing Pleasure

Here's a video of Ava crawling around the kitchen, and eventually attacking a kitty. I had to intercede at the end. Mia handles it very well usually; but a couple minutes after I filmed this Ava got a hold of Mia again and ended up getting bit on the hand. Nothing major, just a little natural consequence. She seemed more confused than hurt, and it hasn't stopped her from the going after the kitties again and again.



Here's a more recent video of Ava clapping! I've been waiting a long time for her to figure out how to do it and all of a sudden she got it! Now she does it all the time (probably because Mommy and Daddy react with such excitement). It's pretty stinkin' cute.

I Like to Move It, Move It

That's right. Ava is up and crawling and all over the place! She seems to really be loving her new found freedoms. Gone are the days when she would sit on her blanket for extended periods playing with a few toys. She still does that some, but she quickly becomes bored with her toys and moves on to find something or someone else to entertain her. She stays out of trouble for the most part, but we do find ourselves saying "No touch" a lot lately. She loves to go for the trash can under the desk or the computer power button. It lights up all pretty and blue so why shouldn't I touch it?
Anyway, it has been requested that we get a video of her crawling and we finally succeeded, so here it is:




In other news, the basement is a go! We got the building permit about a week ago (you don't want to know how much that cost!) so now it's just a matter of having time to start. Last weekend was busy. We went down to Boulder and met Grandpa, Gigi and Uncle Toby (Tim's family) for lunch on Pearl Street. After lunch we wandered around a little and took a peek at Toby's store, which was really neat. It was snowing and chilly, but pretty beautiful. Ava seemed to enjoy walking around in the snow with Daddy holding her. On Sunday we had a big Superbowl party for our small group and another young married small group. Pretty fun. So the basement has to wait although Tim is itching to get it going. First off he is tackling the laundry room remodel, though. That's the project for this weekend. We hit a bit of a snag trying to stack the washer and dryer. Tim had ordered the kit directly from the Frigidaire factory and--come to find out--they sent the wrong one. Bummer. He managed to make it work, though, which is good since they won't take it back. Not the greatest example of customer service, but what are you going to do? He's on a parts run to Lowe's right now. Hopefully we'll get those machines all set up soon and then it's just a matter of installing the cabinets and building the countertop (he makes it sound so easy).
Thankfully we're finally all healthy again. I'm hoping that lasts for a long time! I've pretty much used up enough sick time for the whole year already.
There's your Ava update/fix for the week. I'm sure there will be more cuteness to come soon.

Back by Popular Demand...

We posted this video on Facebook a while ago, but decided to re-post it here so that all who don't have FB that want to see it can. Enjoy!

My How They Grow!

On Tuesday, the 25th, Ava turned seven months. Now seven months is a fairly decent length of time . . . but it's not that long, really. And yet the changes that a baby goes through in seven months are incredible! In so many ways it's hard to believe that Ava even is the same baby that she was last summer. The things she has learned and the ways she has grown . . . it's incredible! And miraculous. That's exactly it. She's a miracle. Every baby is. God's creation is so evident in the amazing life and growth of these tiny humans. I love it. Every part of it. It's such fun to watch her learn and grow and change . . . and it really is still just beginning!
Almost as if in on cue, Ava started crawling on Tuesday, too. She has been able to crawl for several weeks, but hasn't really cared to do it. Well apparently she decided seven months was the right time to start. She crawls all over the place now. Yesterday she went from our living room to the kitchen, which is probably the furthest she has gone yet. And now my job starts getting a little more difficult. :)

Here's a size comparison for you:

Ava in her bouncy seat at two days old

Ava in her bouncy seat at seven months old. Crazy!

Doll Baby

How could I forget? I have to show off this one!

Oh So Beautiful!

Last September we got together with our friend Kathryn Bacalis and she did a family portrait session with us. The pictures turned out great except, unfortunately, all the ones of just Ava and I were lost due to a corrupt memory card. Kathryn felt really badly about the whole thing and wanted to get together with just us two to redo that part of the shoot. We weren't able to do it until just a couple weeks ago, due to the busy-ness of the holidays. Anyway, the pictures are fabulous and I am SO happy with them. I love her photography and I wish we had known her when we got married! I would have loved to have had her do our wedding photos (that's her forte and she's amazing at it). Anyway, here are just a few of the pictures of me and my girl. I love being her mama!

Pictures!

Ava was a ladybug for Halloween, as were some of the other girls at her school. She likes to think she's one of the "big kids"!

Decorating the Christmas Tree with Daddy!

One of Ava's new ornaments from Grandpa and Gigi.

Eating rice cereal in her highchair!

Christmas celebration with Grandpa, Gigi, Uncle Toby and Rachel! Ava was very much spoiled by them all.

In her new jumper at Nana's house!

Christmas outfit #1 of 4.

Opening stocking stuffers on Christmas morning!

Christmas morning with Nana (outfit #3).

Ava really enjoyed opening presents. She likes to rip paper!

Final (and most fancy) Christmas outfit right before Christmas dinner.

It's About Time!

We're back! And with a fresh new look. This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. It's hard to believe it's been over three months since I last blogged! Ridiculous, but there just hasn't been time. Now that the holidays are over and I'm back to working four days a week instead of five, I'm finding a little more time to do things other than just the basics of living. Not only am I back to working four days a week but my day off is now Friday! How awesome is that? A three day weekend every weekend? I'll take it!

So what's new with us? Well, Ava is getting so big I can hardly stand it! At her 6 month check up she was almost 17lbs! She's in the 50th-75th percentile for weight and the 90th for height! We're not sure where she got that. She can do all sorts of things now. She crawls . . . well, she can crawl but for some reason she doesn't love it so she has to be pretty motivated in order to do it. She can sit up from any position and moves around like she's been doing it all her life. She eats baby food and/or cereal at all three major meals. And yesterday during what should have been her mid-morning nap, she figured out how to pull up and stand in her crib! I'm not so excited about that one. We struggle enough with naps without that new trick keeping her from sleeping. She's been teething a lot, but those darn teeth still refuse to actually come in. All in all she's doing very well and is even more of a joy now than she was when she was born!

The holidays were good, but crazy and a little hard. We spent Thanksgiving in Colorado Springs with Grandpa and Gigi. That was a lot of fun and there was tons of good food. For Christmas we spent about five days in Montana with Nana and Papa Ernie. Everyone was amazed at what a good baby Ava is. We've been telling them! We are so thankful to have Ava around as a distraction from the sadness of missing our parents. That was especially true around the holidays, and even for our extended families as well. She brought a lot of light and fun and excitement where there could have been a lot of sorrow and pain. She took her first trip out to Ol' Granpappy's grave on Christmas Eve. It was very cold and there was a lot of snow on the ground, but she was very good and almost seemed to understand the importance of the occasion.

Our new year is off to a pretty good start, although Tim has not been well. He's been suffering from shingles for almost four weeks now, and has a cold to go with it this weekend. We're really hoping the shingles gets better soon. Who knows why it suddenly came upon him (he's pretty far from the average age!) but it has really been a bummer. He won his Fantasy Football league, so that was pretty fun and exciting. A little surprise cash is always nice to have around! We submitted the plans to the Town of Wellington yesterday in order to get the necessary permit to finish the basement. So hopefully we'll be starting that project soon. It's going to be a long one. But first we're doing a quick remodel of the laundry room. It will be nice to have that done and have a little more storage downstairs!

That's about all the news for now. See the post above for some pictures from the last few months and hopefully I'll be blogging again soon!