New words and Epiphanies!

Ava is getting bigger everyday!  She is learning new words all the time.  She says, "up," "down," "roar," "meow," "done," "shoes," "sigh (for outside)," "kide (for slide)," "Mah-ee (for her friend Molly)," "cup," "wawa (water)," "tickle-tickle-tickle," and these are just a few of the new things she is saying all the time.  She definitely is like her daddy.  She will try to figure something out for awhile before getting frustrated.  She finds lots of different ways to try and complete her objective (i.e. bring my cell phone up the ladder for the slide with her or buckle her own seat belt).    She also figured out how to turn on the washer and dryer.  It is AMAZING to me how much she learns just by watching!  I love my little girl!!

I also realized in the last couple days that I expect more from my daughter than I do from myself.  As you all know, sleep has been the bane of our existence throughout Ava's entire life.  It has been much better in the last several weeks.  She typically wakes once a night sometime between 2 and 4 am.  Last night she woke 3 times and I found myself very frustrated, but I realized something.  I sometimes wake several times in one night, whether with indigestion, having the use the restroom, weird dreams, or just a mind that doesn't want to shut down.  I don't always fall back to sleep immediately either.  Why then do I expect my daughter, who is just learning to sleep through the night, to do better than I do?  It is easy to get frustrated with her and annoyed that she is not doing exactly what I would like, but I need to remember that she is also probably annoyed that she is tired and not sleeping.  Now if I can just keep this in mind at 3 in the morning :)

That is all for now.  We are finally home after being gone visiting family for 3 weeks.  Thankfully it was pretty pain free to get back into our routine.  Lots of fun things coming up with the Soybean festival :)

Been a long time...

I haven't posted in awhile, because not too much is going on right now.  We are in North Carolina visiting my parents.  My cousin Erin's wedding was this past Saturday.  Beautiful wedding, beautiful bride.  For the daddy daughter dance they did "Little Miss Honkeytonk" which is their song.  My Uncle Brad comes out dressed in full country attire.  Blue jeans, ball cap, and cut off jean shirt.  IT WAS AWESOME!!!

Ava even did well at the wedding.  Thanks so much to my parents and my sister Tina for watching her all afternoon and through the wedding so I could get ready with the bride and take pictures, etc.  It worked out really well.  I swear my daughter must not like weddings, between her fever and new molars at my brothers wedding, and her fever, trip to the ER, double ear infections, and UTI at my cousin's wedding, it was stressful.  Why she can't just be her wonderful self, I don't know.  She has to keep me guessing I guess.  She looked cute at the wedding though.

My parents have a cat named Boots who meows very loudly and very often.  So Ava has taken to meowing back at him very loudly.  It is absolutely the cutest thing.  I am hoping I can get it on video to share with everyone else.  It makes me laugh every time she does it.  We are enjoying our time with my family, but we miss Jason big much.  Ava will often walk around the house saying "daddy" or walk up to the door and say "daddy?"  Poor thing.  She will be super excited when she sees him on Friday.  Well that is about all for now.

Our little helper

Been a long time since I blogged...I have been lazy.

Ava is currently in the wanting to help phase.  She wants to help mommy and daddy do everything.  She wants to help me with the laundry.  She will pull something out of the dryer and then hand it to me to be hung up.  She puts things in the trash if you ask, and she wants to put her dirty diapers in the pail after we change her.  She also likes that she then gets to put hand sanitizer on her hands, she likes doing that too.  She is such a big helper.  You can also get her to clean up, sort of, she pulls everything back out like two seconds later.

She also has started thinking it is hilarious to put her forehead to yours.  She even does it to the cat :)

She now often at least tries to repeat something if you say it to her.  For instance, if you say "say pink" she may repeat everything but the 'k'.  She is coming out with new words all the time, and using the words she already knows even more appropriately.  It is amazing how fast she is growing and changing right now.  She also is obsessed with babies.  If she sees a baby on tv she will point and start jabbering, and loves to see other peoples babies (she can be a little rough though so we are trying to learn to be gentle).

She still would prefer to be outside, but it has been so hot lately that those times outside have been few and far between.  Hopefully next week will be a little cooler and we can get out more.

Hopefully this gives you a little Ava fix.

15 Months - words I am saying!

Since Ava just turned 15 months old and seems to be saying more words everyday, I thought it would be a good idea to make a list of what words she is saying now, and then again maybe in 3 months.

Words she says:
Mama/Mommy
Dada/Daddy
Cat/Kitty (although usually cat)
No
Yes (although usually it is No)
Dog (although usually even the dogs are cats)
Duck
Ball
Baby
Up
Down
Bye
Hi
Hot
Weee
Wow
Whoa
Moo
uh-huh
uh-oh
Eyes
Ears
Knees
She tells us she is hungry by saying "mmmm" it is really cute!

She has even said "mama down" once.  And, I think she may have called my friends son Ben a couple times and his name is Benjamin, so that is pretty good.

Can't think of anything else at the moment so maybe I will add more later if I think of them.  Problem with Ava is she doesn't perform, she says something when it is appropriate, but if you say "Ava can you say..." she won't do it.  She has started mimicking actions and that is super cute.  She will pretend to brush her teeth with her toothbrush, or her hair with my hairbrush, or she will take my contact case and pretend to open it and put her contact in her eye.

She knows where her belly button is, where her eyes are, ears are, head is, and toes are.

I guess that is it for now.

15 Months and Loving Every Minute of It

I am really enjoying this stage of Ava's life.  She is just so much fun now.  New words are coming out all the time.  She loves giving high fives, kisses, and hugs.  She is so curious about the world around her.  She will stand outside and turn around pointing at everything and talking.  She is so much fun to play with.  She is still pretty whiny so I have started working on that.

She loves putting on and taking off my shoes.  She likes to put them on me, she will bring them to me while I am in the living room and put them on and off and on and off.  Now she like to have them on herself.  Jason was watching her yesterday and she brought him my shoes and had him put them on her feet and she would take one step and they would stay on, so she would just take off and run right out of the shoes.  She would then look back see the shoes on the ground, get frustrated, and bring them back to daddy to start all over again.

She loves her daddy.  She does a little "daddy dance" when he comes home.  She squeals and stops her feet really fast.  She is also his little drummer girl.  She likes to drum on anything that is the correct height.  She will even drum on her own tummy.

She has started putting her arms out behind her sticking her neck out jabbering and then taking off.  It is the funniest thing to watch.  Not sure if she thinks her arms behind her will help her run or fly.  :)

She now consistently will find her belly button if you ask her where her belly button is.  She says and will find "eyes."  Hopefully you don't mind her poking you in the eye :)  She also has said and pointed to her nose, head, and toes.

She also listens if you ask her to go pick something up and then put it in a box or, put it away.  I guess this means we can start cleaning although she will just pull it all back out again :)

She now is in a toddler bed and had no trouble going from the crib to the bed, she likes that she can climb off her bed and meet me at the door after her naps.  She is sleeping much better over all.  She only wakes once a night if she wakes at all.  We are still having a fight about the going to sleep part.  She doesn't ever want to go to sleep, but is better once she is asleep.

I think she may be afraid of the dark.  We turned off the wipe warmer which was acting as the night light in the room, and she refused to walk in the room to go to bed one night.  I thought maybe she just didn't want to go to bed, but then the next night she woke an hour after going to bed and refused to go back to sleep in her room.  So last night I turned on another night light and she slept in her room just fine.

She has now cut two of her molars, and of course had to cut one at Josh's wedding, making for a VERY fussy baby.  Sorry Josh and Anna :)  She looked super cute though :)  It was a wonderful wedding and I am so happy for both of them.  I can't wait to see pictures from their honeymoon in Jamaica!

Unrelated, we are going to have a new addition to our family in February.  We have seen the heartbeat on the ultrasound so that makes it official.  I am wondering if this one is a boy.  My pregnancy has already been SO different than it was with Ava.  With Ava once I started having morning sickness I had it every single day.  With this one I have only had it a few times a week and then the other days I feel fine.  For instance Tuesday morning was the first morning I actually got sick, but then I felt fine until today and then I am nauseous this morning.  I have had more food aversions this time around.  I really didn't have any with Ava.  I will not want food I normally love, or I will look at something and think it looks good, but once I start eating it I don't want it anymore.  Like, I cannot take another bite.  It is really weird.  I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Sorry this post ended up being super long, I had lots to get down about where Ava is now since it has been so long since I last posted.

New words, car washes, and petting zoos :)

Well everyday is surely an adventure.  Ava is changing everyday. 

She says new things (or things she has said before, but more consistently).  Her friend Molly has a dog and it was outside barking and she pointed and said "Dog!" several times over and over.  This is a big deal as usually she calls their dog a "cat."  Just today she pointed at Jason's eyes and her eyes and said "eyes."  Woo hoo, the "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" song is starting to work :)  She already will often (but not always by any means) touch her head and her toes in the song.  Now she will actually say "toes."  She said, "up" for me a couple times when she wants to be picked up.  The only issue with Ava is, if she doesn't want to do something she won't.  So even if you know she knows how to say something, if she doesn't want to do it she won't do it :(  She is very stubborn :) 

She has so much personality it just blows me away.  She is so expressive when she jabbers at you I really wish I could understand what she is saying.  She loves to help with whatever we are doing.  She will pull the clothes out of the dryer one by one and hand them to me so I can hang them up (and gets frustrated if something she is trying to get out is stuck under something else).  She helped daddy wash the car by dunking the sponge in the bucket and scrubbing the car with it.  It really doesn't take her very long to pick up on how to do something.  She loves to use hand sanitizer.  You pump some into her hands and she scrubs her hands around.  So super cute.  In fact, we went to a little petting zoo at UTM and she kept going over to get the hand sanitizer, it was her favorite part.  She loves to play and make you laugh and make herself laugh.  She really is such a joy.

She has been sleeping better (MUCH) lately.  It is like she just decided one day that she wanted to sleep.  She has slept completely through the night once without waking.  Then most other nights she only wakes one or two times (and goes back to sleep really fast).  A couple times I have even been able to go in her room, help her find her paci and lay her down without ever picking her up.  This I can handle :)

She is cutting her molars so if she stops playing she gets pretty fussy.  I feel bad for her, they are very swollen and one has already cut through the gum.  She tries to chew on everything, but sometimes this just causes her to hurt herself.  I always feel bad then, poor thing.

We went to a petting zoo on UTM's campus this week and Ava had a lot of fun, so did I for that matter.  The only thing she was afraid of was the camel.  He was awfully big and liked to lick you, which is incredibly weird.  She tried to free the kangaroo by tugging on the door of his cage.  They had lots of other things Ava enjoyed.  Goats, bunnies, piglets, a donkey, a llama, some sheep, chickens that looked like cotton balls with legs, baby ducks, a hare, a turtle, and of course the camel. 

She plays more by herself more often now (mommy doesn't always have to play with her which allows me to accomplish somethings).  The only problem is that she doesn't stay in one place very long, so I will turn my back for a second and she is gone and I have to go find her.  More often then not she is in our closet or bedroom for whatever reason.

Well, that is about all for now.  Life with our squirrel is never dull.

SLEEP!!!

So, last night Ava slept from the time I put her down until the time I went in her room this morning.  WOOT!!  Ava went to bed late for her at 9pm (she took a late nap after the birthday party, so went down late).  At 6:30AM I went into her room because I was like, "what in the world!"  She was laying in bed awake and started talking to me as soon as I came in.  She was happy!  I brought her into our bed for her morning nursing and then we started our day.  I was sooooo happy.  Now if only she would do this more than once....