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!