December Update

Hello most boring blog post title ever.  The reason is, it's been so frigid cold here, we have been staying cooped up inside not doing much of anything!  I think the highest the temp has gotten since it snowed last Sat is 22 degrees.  So, here are some "Avagrams" to enjoy until I can share some other exciting news coming our way!

 Ava has been blowing on her food lately, whether it is hot or not.  This has transferred to candles now that I am lighting them daily.  She is very careful not to get her hands close to the candle at all.  I love seeing that she really is aware that it is hot.

 ^^She got silly today and decided to do a tunnel crawl under her walker to get to me :)

And we'll end with our favorite time of day, bath time! Look at those cheeks! Ava goes up to the bathtub multiple times a day and smacks the wall with her hand to tell me she wants to get in.  If only we could be pruny all day!  

And here is a fun one that I put on Facebook yesterday:

 My mom told me I was 2 years, 9 months in this pic and the story to the face I am making is: I had never ridden in/played with/or seen one of these cars before and we were at a family picnic where all the kids were taking turns riding in it and I was NOT about to let anyone else take that awesome toy away from me now that I had discovered it.  Uh oh, please don't be foreshadowing ;)


I'd also like to note that I put Ava to sleep tonight without nursing her first (which I've only done a few other times - but we're really starting it this time!) and she didn't cry! Pin It

Ava 7 months

Since she turns 8 months tomorrow.....Here's what the last month has looked like!

Ava has done a lot of traveling this last month! With Devin's brother Greg leaving on his mission, we've been to Declo quite a few times.  I'm sad we didn't get her a picture with him to compare with when he gets home.  Darn!  But Ava did have some "firsts" this last month:

 First time meeting Great-Grandma D (Dedrickson). 

 First Parade - Declo Days.  

I thought she'd be scared of the fire engine sirens but she seemed content! I just gave her a lollipop to hold and she was happy :)

 First time being SO worn out that she fell asleep upright in my arms like this. Thanks to long, fun days with cousins!

 Ava's first real fever since we've been home from the hospital was over the 4th of July.  It got up to 102 :( She and I stayed in and slept all day. She really did sleep/nurse practically all day which was good because she was basically over it the next day!

New Teeth

Just after turning 7 months she started cutting her top two teeth.  About a week ago she started getting one on each side of those two and another on the bottom = 7 teeth!

 Hence, she chews on EVERYTHING.  She absolutely loves this mesh teething thing that I put frozen fruit in (and watermelon!).

 While being sick and traveling so much I wasn't feeding her real food as much as I had previously but we are back into the full swing of it to get her full throughout the day to keep her asleep at night!  Squash is still her favorite, but she finally seems to like fruit now too (applesauce).  Before it made her pucker! And no, I'm not feeding her Mike and Ikes.  She likes to crinkle the bag :)

Our (somewhat consistent) Daily Routine

 Wake up!! This was her within a minute of waking up at Devin's parent's house.  She was sleeping in bed next to me because she would cry every time I tried to stop nursing and lay her down in the pack and play during the night.  At home I would've let her cry it out but there were too many sleeping people to wake up there!  As annoyed as I was for the lack of sleep, this face melts my heart :)

Walks: As soon as we've eaten and dressed, we go on a walk in the morning with a neighbor friend.  Ava loves to be outside, especially in her stroller.  Sometimes she falls asleep, which is great because it is right at her naptime and I can just wheel her inside and let her sleep in the stroller.  This is usually when I get some work done.

Chores: I usually try and get some housework done too while she is sleeping like...laundry.  But if she wakes up in the middle of it, then I let her join the fun!  She loves it when I drape clothes over her face when I'm folding.  I love this pic below because it looks like her first "selfie".

Tummy time: Ava still isn't crawling, so I've been trying to give her as much floor time as possible considering she's been in a car so much with all the traveling we've been doing!  After a little while, this is the face I get, haha!

More play: If I have work to do and Ava's awake, I can usually sit her on the couch or the floor with some miscellaneous items (those are her favorite - magazines, car washing sponge, kitchen utensils, the remote) to keep her occupied.  A friend also just gave me some Baby Einstein videos that she really likes!

 Errands: If we have to run an errand, it usually doesn't happen until the afternoon.  Like I said, she loves the miscelleneous items and the turkey baster just so happens to be her favorite.  It travels with us.

 Then daddy comes home!  Ava's been a bit of a momma's girl since she had that fever.  She's really been saying "ma ma ma ma" and leaning for me whenever someone else has her.  Everyone told me this stranger danger phase would come, I just wasn't sure when or how extreme! Ava LOVES Devin though - he can make her laugh like no one else!  As long as I'm near she is happy though.

Bath:  After dinner and playing at night, she takes a bath (still not everyday but...whatever). I just love her little back, especially her shoulder blades and tiny spine.  Cutest thing ever!

Sleep: Then it's off to bed...usually around 10 or 10:30.  Now that we have no upstairs neighbors I am really trying to sleep train her this week.  Night time has proved to be much better than naps - she only cries for like 30 seconds when I lay her down at night.   She is looking so big in that crib!

She has seriously gained the most personality during this month, I think.  She's started throwing her head back when she's mad and "yelling" instead of crying.  But she's also gotten even more giggly and smiley and we just love her to pieces!

Although this has been the longest post ever, I do have to note that in this last month we had a cat.  We had him for about 2 days, then went to Declo and came home to find that he had peed on our bed while we were gone (even though he was totally litter trained).  Back to the neighbor he went :(  Ava loved him though - farewell McGwire! Pin It

May madness

I've had a pretty long blogging break, but that's what happens when in one month you:

-start working 20hrs a week instead of 10 (only for the month of May, thank goodness)

-take family photos for some friends and have so much fun that you use every spare minute editing said photos and using them to learn how your photoshop program works. I feel like I know how to do so much now!

-play in a softball league with a practice and a game every week. So fun, we've won two games-Devin is an awesome pitcher and I got brave and tried catcher last week and actually liked it. 

-your husband goes on camping trips and instead of blogging/watching a movie, etc you decide to clean/organize the house. Only to tear it up the next morning looking for a binky-very important. 

-convince your husband that Mother's Day is something to be celebrated all weekend long (we checked out Boise's farmers market) 

-decided to start feeding solids to Ava and trying out a bottle here and there (successful!)

-and last but not least, we've had a teething baby on our hands who is rather clingy and kind of cranky. Her 6 month post will include tooth photos! 

This post was really done so that I don't have to play TOO much catch up and I can post about our rafting trip we just had :)

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Ava - 5 months old

I won't get ahead of ourselves, but I really can't believe Ava is almost 6 months old! I love this stage she is in, she's such a doll!  So incredibly smiley, will go to anyone, gets overjoyed at the sight of herself in the mirror, and babbles away - often I can hear her while we're in the car or while I'm changing her diaper.

SLEEP:  Still taking 2 naps during the day while Devin is at work, each is usually about an hour - hour and a half long.  She's going to sleep a little earlier at night...usually between 9:15 and 10:15 but the past couple nights she has been waking up at 5 am to eat and then again at 8 am.  I know I've been spoiled this whole time with a baby who slept from 10:30 - 8:30 straight, but the past few days of waking up to feed her have been rough! Props to all you mamas who know what I'm talking about!

DEVELOPMENT:  I wish a tooth would get here already! She's been "teething", it seems like for at least a month! I finally gave in and got some teething tablets because she was really fussy about it a couple weekends ago.  She's a good little grabber! I went into her room when she was napping the other day and was surprised to see that she had found her binky in her sleep and put it in her mouth all by herself (well, she was trying to put it in, but it was backwards haha) because she had fallen asleep without it.  I've been kind of anxious for her to start sitting up on her own. I can sit her down and she'll keep her balance okay, but it's not very long before she's toppling sideways or almost bending forward in half.  Our friends are letting us borrow their bumbo and she loves it, so hopefully that helps!

 Some other random things - I've been laying her on my bed in the mornings and reading a couple books to her.  Her favorite is "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed".  When I hold the book up in front of her she starts waving her arms and kicking her legs - she loves story time!  She also loves to feel the pages and I let her "turn them". 
   She got diagnosed with pink eye and an ear infection on Monday.  The doctor prescribed eye drops and Amoxicillin for the ear.  Lots of her clothes now have bright pink stains on them because she kept spitting out the medicine.  It tastes like bubblegum/strawberry and she still hates it, as well as having anything dispersing liquid in her mouth (like a bottle).  The first 3 days or so were hard - we found out we couldn't do it with her laying flat on her back because she letting it pool in the back of her mouth/throat and choking on it - sheesh.  We also learned to have a rag close by and that blowing on a baby's face makes them swallow.  It's amazing.
   I've gotten it down now where I can get almost all of it in her without her getting mad once!  I put her in her bouncer so she's a little upright, turn on a movie, and make funny faces really close to her face while blowing on her face to make her swallow.  It actually makes her SMILE now! So to those who feel like they have no hope getting their kid to take medicine - do NOT give up!

I know, these two pictures are not proportionate but she does keep looking chunkier and chunkier!

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Quitter

Yep, I'm a quitter.  I've decided to break up with my job as a Mary Kay consultant.  If this were really a relationship, I'd say "It's not you, it's me!" because I LOVE the products.  I just don't have the time/mental capacity/motivation to sell it now that I have another (at-home) job and Ava to take care of, not to mention that the last thing I want to do on a Thursday night is leave my loves to go to my weekly meeting and talk about trips I can't take and goal-setting. 
     Here's the dealio - if I could do it all over again, I think I would. But differently.  I shouldn't have started out with SO MUCH dang product. See below:

I started out with this much inventory because when I started I had a whole summer of nothing ahead of me and planned on doing tons of parties and getting rid of lots of it! Well, little did I know, it took forever to meet people here and talking to strangers was not as easy as I thought it would be.  So here I was stuck with all this product and wanting to order some of the NEW, exciting stuff Mary Kay was coming out with but not allowing myself to because I had already spent plenty on what I already had and wasn't selling.  If I did it again, I would have started with the most basic inventory and then ordered when I needed to, which also would have kept my status ACTIVE, which I haven't been since like September.   Now that I have another job that still lets me stay home with my baby, I haven't been motivated to do parties or anything and I simply need to simplify.
   Anyway, I have until April 18th to send my products back to the company for a 90% refund (of what I paid for it all - so still not all my money back, but the money I've made from selling fills in the 10%). I obviously want to ship as little back as possible, so I had a big open house on Saturday and discounted everything 40-50% off and it was great! I had lots of ladies come, or place orders via text/Facebook. Thanks to everyone who came, my amount of products have gone from two big 18 gallon tubs to one large cardboard box. Hopefully I can get rid of even more in the next month.
       Of course, I'll need to reserve myself some cleanser/moisturizer/microdermabrasion/satin hands/ultimate mascara to last me for the next couple years because I just love it so much :)

              Devin's days of asking me "when are you going send all this back?" are almost over.

On another note: I went to a Pampered Chef party last night and it was SO fun :) We played games, ate a delicious potato soup and molten lava chocolate cake she made in the microwave with their new line of stoneware baking. That's my kind of party.  Not to mention, their products are fantastic.  I want to host one, so if anyone wants to come or order through my party let me know, you can have the products shipped right to you! Pin It

Ava - 3 Months

I wasn't very good about being consistent with her positioning and stuff in these pictures, but I can still tell how much she's grown!

Ava is now 3 months old and her little chunky arms show it! (I love it when she wears short sleeves, but the chilly weather keeps that from happening too often)   

Here are some things about Ava at 3 months:

SLEEP: She is sleeping at least 10 hours through the night.  She goes to bed around 10:30, just in time for me to get ready and go to bed.  Then she wakes up around 8:30, just in time to see daddy off before work! I feel SO lucky, especially since she's been sleeping this good, consistently, since around 2 months! I'll have to do a sleeping post all on it's own, but I'll tell you right now that I can't take much credit for it.  She just decided that's when she likes to sleep! We also know that taking her for a drive is almost a sure fire way to put her to sleep.

SOCIAL:  She's a smiley one, that's for sure! In the last couple weeks she's started trying to laugh too.  It comes out as "huh" in a monotone "tone" while she smiles but sometimes when we really get her going it sounds like a real laugh is developing :)  She also JUST started smiling at herself in the mirror.  Before she would get freaked out, but now she smiles almost every time.  She has a thing for grandmas.  Grandma Sandone was the first to make her smile and Grandma Harper (Laura) can get her laughing and keep her laughing for a long time! She will smile at just about anyone these days but won't let anyone besides mom or dad hold her for longer than about 5 minutes.

DEVELOPMENT: She is leaning (name that movie).  No rolling yet, which is fine with me - less to worry about!  But we've been laying her on this play mat that she likes and she hits the things that dangle from it now like she knows that her hands are what makes them move.  She also grabs the things that dangle, but not consistently.  She will lean towards them though, making me think that rolling is coming!  Also, her mouth and hands have united.  She sucks on her fingers/hand all the time, which is nice if the binky is not readily accessible.  Or, as seen below, sometimes she prefers both :)

EATING: Thankfully she is no longer eating every. single. hour.  She's spaced herself out again by taking regular naps during the day that last a little over an hour.  However, I am still experimenting with different foods to see what she doesn't like because I think there's still something that I haven't figured out.  So far, peanuts and pepperoni are a no.  Experimenting with citrus right now.  I also love that she takes a binky when I need her to (usually) but doesn't rely on it.  Sometimes I'm able to put her to sleep without feeding her by just giving her a binky and setting her down.

She likes to be read "Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See?" and loves the Barney "I Love You" song :)  As soon as Devin comes home from work he usually takes her while I finish dinner and they sit on the couch together.  He plays with her arms, sings little songs to her, and they smile back and forth. I love it! She's so fun at this age and we just love her! Pin It

And in the bedroom, by the bed, More books were waiting to be read!

It makes me nervous when I see Ava, only 2.5 mo old, gazing at the TV like it's the most amazing thing she's ever seen.  I don't freak out about it too much because I know she just loves anything bright and light, but I really don't want her to be one of those kids when she's older that is just GLUED. I was reading a blog that I love to read.  I stumbled upon her blog, she doesn't even know who I am, but she has the best stories about her kids, marriage, etc and she also seems to be just a wonderful woman.  She had this poem by Roald Dahl and I love it so much, I had to share:

 

Television

The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink --
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away*,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.

Roald Dahl

*We won't be throwing away our T.V. I'll have you know.  We like movies too much and have our favorite shows.  But what a great reminder to keep things in moderation!

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Bath Time

Step 1: Undress baby

Step 2: Love baby's soft, warm skin :)

Step 3: Get "tub" ready with warm water

(We use our sink right now because it's the perfect size for her and we put a towel in it to keep it soft and warm against her body)

Step 4:Wash baby!

She's so happy during bath time, especially when it's daddy! (except for last time when I DIDN'T bathe her in the sink and she felt so vulnerable in our big tub with loud rushing water. fail).

Step 5: Get baby nice and dry

We're pretty casual with baths.  While in the hospital still, our pediatrician said, "If she doesn't stink, don't bathe her!" We've pretty much stuck to that unless we have moments like my last post, where even 3 wipes worth of wiping may not have gotten her all clean...

(honestly, if I had more time I think I'd bathe her more because she's so fun to dress and cuddle with after! I just want to remember this.)

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