Keeping Busy

Ava did some heavy reading today, looking at Grandma + Grandpa's book. I like how she looks so serious.



Later this evening she helped Grandma water some flowers; we'll be lucky if the flowers don't drown.

"Lub You, Daddy"

Hi Jeff, we miss you...LOTS! Sorry I haven't posted much since you've been gone; someone has been a little difficult lately. I suppose I can't blame her though, she knows something is up, between Daddy not coming home at night, spending long hours at Grandma + Grandpa's house, and probably sensing something with the baby coming. I had to let the babysitter leave early twice this week, and even her buddy, "Me-you" (aka Grandma), can't seem to settle her down; seems that she is VERY attached to Mommy in the last few days. Anyway, Grandma and Aunt Lisa seemed to hit a break-through yesterday with some retail therapy. While I was trying to work on some projects they took Ava to the mall for some "merry" (merry-go-round), lunch & ice cream, the Disney store (a big hit), and some Easter clothes. They said she did really well, and only looked for Mommy a couple of times. So today when I went to my parents' to work she was much better, and played hard with her "Me-you". She's not real jabbery on the phone with you, but she always says she is calling Daddy when she picks up my cell phone. And when I ask her if she misses Daddy, she says, "Lub Daddy" (or "love" Daddy in Ava talk). Can't wait to see you soon! We love you!

Example of a "fit face":

Grandma tries to calm the situation by diverting attention to Ava's new bed at their house: (Bed frame coming soon).

Now the princess is ready to show off her new bed:

A dive into the soft bed and Elmo:

Talking to a little shopping cart; I think she is saying, "shopping" here:

Playing with Mommy's & Aunt Lisa's old toys in her toy closet at Grandma's & Grandpa's:

Wanting Mommy to play:

We're Moving...Again!

No, not the baby in my tummy, but our little family is actually moving! Can you believe it??...well, if you know us, YES! Jeff accepted a job in Dallas, ironically at the firm we both worked for when we met, but no, I didn't date him until he left. But that's another story, for another time...

Anyway, I can't express how excited we are!! But yes, it's kind of a bittersweet happiness. We have really enjoyed living back in my home town in Indiana while Ava was really young, and having the support of my parents. We've enjoyed living near them and my sister, Lisa, in this great little college town. However, I find peace in it all knowing that my sister is getting married soon and moving anyway, and my parents are avid travellers! We know Grandma & Grandpa will come to visit lots!!

And as usual our timing is going to make things a bit hectic. Jeff leaves next week to start work right away; I will stay behind to have the baby (we just couldn't bring ourselves to inducing the birth and planning too much) and live with the parents for a bit. Why do it this way?....lots of reasons, but we think we can make it work. The girls and I will probably head out to Texas around the end of summer; meanwhile we'll try to be good tenants at Grandma & Grandpa's house and hope for lots of Daddy visits!

Baby Update

Saw the doctor this morning; I'm on the once a week schedule now.
Finally! I feel like we're getting somewhere.
I will be 38 weeks on Monday. I am about 1 cm dilated and 70% effaced.
Doesn't mean we'll be rushing off to the hospital just yet, but about right for the April 9th due date.

Ava's World

La la la la, la la la la...Ava's World!
Ava saw Elmo & Cookie Monster at Target yesterday and decided she needed them. She was singing the "Elmo's World" song from Sesame Street, so of course I couldn't resist. She also is into requesting specific Sesame Street characters during her diaper changes; she absolutely throws a fit when I don't open a new box to find one of the few diapers with Ernies or Cookie Monsters on them!

And finally a snapshot of her in her bassinet, soon to be her baby sister's bassinet. She talks a lot about the baby in Mommy's tummy; she pats it and says, "nice baby", she plays peek-a-boo with the baby under Mommy's shirt, sometimes she will kiss it too. She's been really into bathing her baby dolls lately too, maybe Ava feels the need to nest as well. Me, I don't feel the same need to clean the house yet, maybe because I have already let the toys and clutter consume me, or maybe it's because the pending move is too overwhelming to even think about being tidy. However, I will start doing the baby's laundry this weekend; maybe that's the thing I'm obsessed with being clean...laundry.

Baby's Bassinet

And finally, I have almost finished my project of making a skirt for the bassinet. I haven't finished yet because my stupid sewing machine broke shortly after starting to sew yesterday!! Oh, that made me so mad; luckily my mom has her machine up and it was a good back up. So after cutting and pinning at my house I headed over to mom's this morning to do the sewing. Now I just have to make one more trip to actually sew the ribbons on, they are currently just pinned. It's so funny to think that Ava once fit in this little bed; I put her in it earlier, but no pictures because it made her cry. Oh well, I'm sure her little sister will appreciate it now.

Wrapping Up Spring Break

Here are a few pictures from the end of our Spring Break week...

Splashing after rain showers:

Before our last swim at the Y:

A requested bath at Grandma's house:

Painted Piggies

In honor of Spring Break, I decided to paint our "piggies", as Ava calls them. This should make our swimming at the YWCA tomorrow feel more like swimming in Florida...I'm hoping anyway. We only have two days left to use the pool this week at the reduced rate!! We didn't go today, and I couldn't find my camera on Tuesday. We'll be sure to get some pictures tomorrow though.

Another Spring Day

It was in the 70s again today, so we took advantage and spent some time outside. Ava keeps requesting that we "draw, draw" and runs to the door, which means lets go outside and draw with the sidewalk chalk. She did draw a bit, but mostly it was an excuse to run around outside. She even runs in the grass now...she's such a girly girl I can't always get her to go in the grass!





Then Daddy came home a little early today and we took a wagon ride, or Ava did rather, I huffed and puffed during the walk around the Celery Bog. I wanted to go to the little zoo here in town but it's closed during a renovation, to we were stuck with the Bog. Not terribly exciting since we couldn't even get near the geese, but Ava seemed to enjoy the walk anyway. She especially liked it when Daddy pulled her fast!

Longest Week Ever!

It's going to be a LONG week! It's Spring Break in a college town, so nobody is around, including Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Lisa and even Kelly, the babysitter. And Daddy works long hours so we don't generally see him much during the week anyway. So it's a true stay-at-home-mom week for me...I thought I might go crazy!! But actually I have found some things to keep us busy. The best part is that I found a pool!! This week is Beach Bash at the YWCA, so we can swim every day for a very reduced rate. Ava and I went today...it was GREAT! Hardly anyone was there, although it would have been fun to swim with a few more kids since Ava likes watching other kids. And the water was warm, the pool area was warm, and it was even 60 degrees and sunny today!! I'll have to get some pictures next time we go, probably tomorrow. We swam for about an hour, we just had so much fun together; Ava had a smile on her face the whole time. And she flirted with about everyone she saw!

In other news, Daddy finished the base for the bassinet. It's not pretty, but it's definitely sturdy! But that was the goal, now I need to sew a skirt for it sometime this week. More pictures when it's done. Ava approved it too; she did some testing with her baby doll. I think it passed.

Crib Play

Ava has been fascinated with playing in her crib lately; it's the funniest thing. At least it lets me use the bathroom in peace or pick up toys without her following me & yelling, for a minute. She puts all of her stuffed animals and balls in the crib and then proceeds to climb up the sides to get in, which only gets her so far so she then yells for mommy to put her in. She knows about jumping, but can't quite figure out how to get her feet in the air yet, however she has her own version...

Baby Update

I am now 36 weeks along with the new baby. We had an appointment with the doctor and the final ultrasound last Thursday. The baby is healthy, no complications, but she did order us an ultrasound because I'm concerned about this baby being as big as Ava, or Bigger! Ava was 9 lbs. 3 oz....that about killed me; the recovery was AWFUL! Needless to say I did not have a "natural" (no epidural) birth; which I am fine with. If a cesarean can be avoided that would be great, but I am ok with that too; just as long as the baby is healthy.

Anyway, the technician estimated this baby to be about 5 lbs. 13 oz. right now, however the baby is head down so it was hard to get really accurate measurements without the true head circumference. I already feel better though, that's about 1.5 lbs. less than Ava weighed at this point. But 4 more weeks....oh, I don't know if I can take that!! I'm not the most pleasant pregnant woman in the last trimester...I am ready to just hold the little person and sleep on my stomach again. Since the weather is nice I plan on lots of walking...maybe I can encourage the little person to come out a wee-bit earlier than April 9th.

In other ultrasound news...it's pretty much/definitely/maybe a girl! Of course no one will say for sure, but all signs point to girl. The technician is very wishy-washy in suggesting the gender, but the doctor was pretty certain. That's good enough for me, because we are so in trouble with a name if it's a boy. More baby news as it develops!

Spring weather...Finally!

Well I wouldn't exactly say it's "balmy" here, but a 50-degree day after the 30s does feel pretty nice! Yessterday, Ava and I were able to go on a walk after lunch; it was supposed to put her to sleep for a nap, but she was just SO excited about being outdoors it had the opposite effect. So after the nap we went back out to play in the yard and color the driveway with some chalk. Ava snacked on goldfish and practiced her running.

Indoor Water Park...Brilliant!!

I can't begin to express how proud of myself I am with this one...The weather here is really getting old, it's still too cold to go outside, so I had the genius idea of how to let Ava play in the water...inside!! You see the problem is that 1) Ava loves to splash, 2) we really don't have a bath tub in this house we are renting, 3) the pool we tried last weekend at Aunt Lisa's health club was FREEZING!!...so, to help fulfill Ava's wish to play in the water, I squeezed her water table in the shower. And it fit!!...that was very exciting! Fridays are generally pretty slow around here, with Daddy gone so long at work, and the rest of the family busy with school, etc., Fridays really drag for us. I have also tried building tents from bed sheets & chairs, something my sister & I enjoyed, however Ava is not too impressed with that one yet. Oh, and the switch from the panties & t-shirt to swimsuit was a request from Ava. My girly-girl wasn't too thrilled with the wet, clingy t-shirt, but the swimsuit she knows is made for splashing, pronounced, "ba-lashing".

Presenting...Aunt Lisa + Uncle Andy

This is a bit overdue, but I just wanted to say Congratualtions! to my sister, Lisa, and her fiance, Andy!! They got engaged around New Year's, but I have been waiting for a picture of them to post before I said much here.

Lisa is working on a website for the wedding, so I will add a link when she's ready. I don't know exactly how long they have been dating, more than a year I know, but Ava has been around Andy since we moved back to Indiana. At first she was a little hesitant around the big guy, but ever since Christmas she has really warmed up to him. I think it was the dog that barks he gave her for Christmas that won her over. On Valentine's Day she follow him around and even let him hold her for a while. So Ava approves of her new Uncle Andy; congrats again!!