New Teeth, homade popsicles, and new words

I have been meaning to blog for a week or so now and it just never happened.  We haven't been doing anything super interesting just day in and day out.

Ava now has 7 teeth!  She cut another bottom tooth last Thurs and is trying to cut at least one more.  This one wasn't nearly the production her teeth usually are.  I was talking with a friend about how I thought she might be cutting a tooth and stuck my finger in her mouth and there was the tooth!  This next one hasn't been quite as painless.  She has had some crying in her sleep last night and tonight.  Tonight she has been so restless, cries and thrashes in her sleep even when I pick her up.  Wish she was out of the crib so I could lay next to her until she calmed herself back to sleep.  I feel so bad for her.

Ava has enjoyed following daddy around the disc golf course in this nice weather.  One of her little friends was also there the other day and they had a blast.  Throwing discs and just running around in the grass.  They were so much fun!

Ava has also had a lot of fun playing with daddy at home.  She is going to be so sad when daddy goes back to teach next week.  She likes to play on his drums and bounce on his lap.  She is really becoming a daddy's girl.

She has started to say a few new things.  Has said "tay tu" (thank you) a couple of times now although will of course never do it on demand.  She will also answer "oooo" for "what does a cow say?"  She still hasn't learned to say "yes."  Everything is no, even when she means yes.

On a completely unrelated note, there has been a yellow cat wandering around our neighborhood for several weeks now.  He is super nice and super friendly.

We decided we were going to take him to the vet and if he was healthy bring him home.  Then today he hasn't been anywhere to be found.  So sad :(  I am ready for another cat, but Jason isn't quite there yet.  I swear people are trying to torture me with cats.  2 different people are giving away super cute kittens on swap shop for free today.  A well I guess I will have to enjoy the ones I have :)

Almost forgot to mention the homemade popsicles.  I made a few popsicles with frozen strawberries, blueberries, and white grape juice.  They were a big hit with Ava and I even thought they tasted good.  I will definitely be keeping a running supply of these this summer.

We are enjoying our time together before Jason has to go back to work next week.  Thankfully his summer schedule isn't super time consuming.  We will still get to see him everyday from lunch on.  Ava is such a ham.  Her laughter is just the best sound in the world.  She has even been sleeping a little better the last couple days (although tonight is looking to be not a good one).  Well, that is all for now!

Visiting with family

We are here in NC visiting my parents and having a great time.  We celebrated my dad's birthday Saturday, Mother's Day Sunday, and my Mom's birthday today.  Ava has taken to everyone great, even my sister whom she hasn't seen since Christmas.  Only hiccup is that she isn't sleeping well here (big surprise!).  She doesn't like the pack-n-play at all.  It is too far for me to lean over and lay her down, so I have to drop her the last 2 inches or so.  It is very narrow and she moves around in her sleep alot so she wakes herself up running into the mesh walls.  So after fighting with it for a couple naps we just laid a blanket on the floor and laid her on top.  She liked this much better. 

Mother's day we had a TON of people in my parent's house, it was great!  It was us, my parents,  my brother and his fiancee Anna, my sister, my Nana and Papa, my Aunt Lynn and Uncle Brad, my cousin Erin and her fiancee Joel, and her cousin Luke.  I love having a house full of family.  After dinner we all went to see my brother and Anna's new house.  It is beautiful.  Lots of character.  Even has a "Harry Potter Closet" as my brother calls it.  It goes from the entrance hallway back into the spare bedroom on the bottom floor.  Their kids will think that is super cool.  Narnia anyone?  They have a large red lab named, Red.  Ava thinks he is super cool.  She likes to try to grab his face and let him lick her hands, she thinks he is funny.  She has to be held by someone whenever he is around though, he is about 100+ lbs of puppy and will knock her over in 1 sec.

Today was my mothers birthday so my sister and I braved the crazy thunderstorm and torrential rain to get a cake.  At one of the grocery stores I pulled my pants up past my knees and ran into the store.  The store was freezing when we got in, so I went to pull the hood of my hoodie over my head and it had water in it, got a shower in the front of Harris Teeter.  Nice. 

I felt today and Ava FINALLY has 6 teeth.  The last of the four top front teeth has taken FOREVER to come in.  I have been able to feel it past the gum line now for about 2 weeks.  I was actually beginning to worry there was something wrong, but today it had cut through the last little bit of gum covering the tooth.  WOO HOO!

Got a little bit of nice weather after the storm to try out my parent's neighborhood pool.  Ava LOVED it.  The "kiddie" part is 1.5 ft deep which is too deep for Ava, but she enjoyed going down the little baby slide with mommy.  They also have a 1ft deep area that doesn't have any fun water toys in it, but she had a blast just walking around and climbing up and down the one step.  Hope we have some more water fun before we leave. 

Also, last night I had a REALLY hard time getting Ava to go down and got really frustrated.  Don't know if you know or not, but my daughter just might be the worst sleeper of all time.  She hates going to sleep and still at 1 yr old + wakes 3+ times a night.  If she has a really good night she only wakes 2 times.  So anyway, Jason and I talked and decided that he was going to start trying to put her to bed at night (we had tried before and she just screamed) and I was going to night wean her (which I had almost done before but had gotten lazy).  So tonight was the first time for Jason to try to put her to bed.  SHE FELL ASLEEP IN 10 MIN!  I couldn't believe it.  I think I might throw Jason a party.  So happy.  I now feel like I can breathe and really share some big responsibility with Jason, and maybe go out at night every once and awhile.

Last bit of news: got a new computer.  So excited.  Got a Dell again.  Had a Dell in college and it lasted 8 years.  Since then we have had an HP (lasted 1.5 years) an Asus (lasted 3 years), and Jason has an HP for work (which has already had the hard drive crash on it).  So we decided to go back to Dell and hopefully have some better luck.

Hope you all had a WONDERFUL mothers day.

Beautiful day and lots of Swimming!

We had a GORGEOUS day today, blue skies and HOT HOT HOT!!  I decided it would be a great day to blow up her pool.  I invited friends over and filled the pool while she was down for her nap so the water would be nice and warm for the kiddos.  Ava LOVED it. 

She walked around and splashed around the pool.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Sullivan wasn't as sure of it at first, but very quickly warmed up to the pool experience.  Rachel and I were wishing the pool was bigger so we could get in as it was 90 degrees.  After the kids were done we went inside for a little while for some much needed AC and refreshments.

Afterward we went outside to see some friends from the neighborhood and sat in the shade to let the little ones play and visit.  Ava was dressed in a cute bubble but decided she wasn't done with the pool and walked across the yard and jumped in.  I had NO IDEA a diaper could get so full of water!!  I ended up stripping her naked and letting her play in the pool some more.  Molly got in as well and filled her diaper with water. Braydon was already dressed for his picnic later, but managed to splash himself enough mommy had to take him home to change before the picnic.  I think it is safe to say the pool was a hit!  We will have to continue to bring out the pool and let the kiddos splash to their hearts content.  We have a date with Molly's pool tomorrow so lots of fun ahead.

At Awana tonight Ava was really fussy toward the end and ready to head home to bed so I packed up our stuff and got ready to go.  All of a sudden (it was music time) the song that says "do you feel the beat, wanna make you wanna jump, jump, jump..." came on and Ava started kicking her legs in my arms and smiled real big.  I put her down and she clapped and giggled and danced in circles it was so much fun to watch I danced right along with her.  I know I looked ridiculous (I saw you laughing at me, Rachel) but her joy is infectious and she won't let me dance with her forever.

Well, goodnight everyone.  Enjoy the weather :)

Life with a toddler

It is crazy to think that I officially have a toddler.  I mean she has been walking for awhile, but it takes a long time for my mind to switch over from baby to toddler. Don't get me wrong she is still a baby, but there is definitely a distinction and change with "toddler."  She never crawls anymore and had her first skined-knee this week :( She didn't like the band-aid though.  She lifted up her leg and yelled so I just took it off, it wasn't bleeding very much anyway.

I am nursing a toddler.  Never thought I would say that.  My goal was 12 months, but then we reached her birthday and the day after her birthday was the same as the day before her birthday and I couldn't tell her, nope no more nursing because you are 365 days old :)  Also, the WHO recommends nursing through age 2 so I am not pushing it.  There are also some serious upsides to still nursing: she has a great source of liquids when she has diarrhea which she had a week ago, it is a great way to soothe boo-boos and teething pain.  Really, she doesn't nurse much anymore.  4-6 times a day and for 2-5min total.  I think she will wean long before we reach age 2.  I am sure I will miss it in some ways and be glad for it in others (the acrobatic nursing can be really annoying).

She is seriously a dare devil.  She can't just walk around, no, she has to climb on anything available and test every limit mommy puts in place.  She was playing a beach chair and tried to climb on the arm and promptly fell over the arm before I could reach her.  She doesn't cry very much when she does hurt herself, at least not for very long.  She gets over it, gets up and keeps moving.  She is scared of NOTHING.  Well, except her friends toy elephant go figure!

She tries to talk so much now.  Mostly she talks nonsense, but she chatters on constantly.  She tries to mimic words often, "bees" for frisbee, "nanas" for nurse, "stop it," and many others.  I love to listen to her talk.  She really thinks you can understand her.  I just smile and nod.  

She now knows two body parts, her head and her toes.  We sing "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" every day in the bath and she now will point to her her head and toes, but that is as far as we have gotten.  She also rubs her thumbs and forefingers together for "itsy, bitsy spider" which is so adorable.

I can't believe how much she changes all the time, it is overall very gradual but when I look at how little she was just a couple months ago it floors me!

Well, that is all of the updating for now.  Hope you are all enjoying the warm weather!  I know we are.  I think I will get her pool out tomorrow.  Good night!