Ava is 15 months (plus almost 2 weeks-oops)

Playing with her puzzle pieces - wonder when she may want to play with the puzzle itself?

Eating applesauce with Daddy

This month seems to be getting away from me and I don't really know that I have any excuses. Ava is keeping us busy as usual. She has made some good progress in the behavior category as she is starting to understand what "no" means...that is great for us. She still opens all the cupboard doors, but will close them when we tell her to (yeah!). She seems to be able to understand much more of what we are saying. She certainly is showing us what she enjoys lately, especially music. She loves when I turn music on in the house. She immediately begins to sway back and forth...her version of "dancing". She smiles and will continue to do it for 10 to 15 minutes. Music can brighten her mood immediately! She also has a couple new words, one being "hot" and the other is "bite". Of course, both of these are related to eating....her favorite pass time. She tries to say lots of words so we are anxious as to which one we will be able to make out next. Ava has also taken a liking to TV lately. She really pays attention, especially if there is music on.

At her 15 month well check, she weighed 24 lbs 3 oz and was 30.75" long. She is doing well and has a healthy appetite. She is eating lots of veggies which I am happy she likes. Faves right now are green beans, squash, carrots, and broccoli. Some day she may eat a fruit, but it's not looking good at this point.

Our Active Little Girl

After licking the spatula

Riding on Mommy's shoulders

Carrying several things as usual

Ava gets a hold of Daddy's cell phone

Preparing for her somersault

Okay, so Ava probably is not going to be a gymnast, but she certainly loves to do flips on the floor. She started doing the stance pictured above a couple of weeks ago, and we would flip her over when she'd do it. Well, needless to say, ever since then she assumes the position with hopes that someone will see her and flip her over much to her delight. Other favorite activities right now for Ava include carrying 5-6 small toys at a time around the house and dispersing them into cabinets or under furniture. She also loves to play under the kitchen sink and in the pantry at any chance she gets. She is very good at making messes faster than I can keep them picked up! She is also getting a little fussier about eating. We have to hide any bread items from her until she has eaten her main dish or she will refuse to eat until she gets the bread (this has caused some unhappy moments). She is also starting to run away when she knows you want her to do something (i.e. change her diaper). We are throwing out quite a few "no's" to her lately as it seems she is always into something that we don't want her to. Most of the time, she is pretty good and will stop, but not always.

Ava is 14 Months Old...

Playing peek-a-boo behind Mommy

Showing off her new bottom teeth

peek-a-boo!

Here we are in 2009 already! Where does the time go. On New Years Day, Ava turned another month older, 14 months. She is quite the character lately. She loves to play "peek-a-boo" at any chance she gets. She will suddenly cover her eyes, and then check your reaction. It is precious. She will also play by hiding behind objects or her parents.

Here are the stats:

Weight: 24 lbs, 3 oz.

Movement: Ava has advanced from just walking to running. She still falls quite a bit, especially on the wood floor. She is getting better all the time at walking while carrying objects. This is one of her favorite pass times. She loves to pick up three or four smaller objects and try to hang onto them all while walking around. Needless to say, she drops things often and spends a lot of time trying to bend over and pick it up while hanging on to the other stuff. It is too cute to watch!

Speech: Ava continues to advance with her words. She doesn't have a wide vocabulary, but she is starting to verbalize more and more. Common words she says are "Mum"(Mom), "Daa"(Dad), "Woah" (when she falls or sees something neat),

"num, num" (while eating), "hi" (to greet us). She is also understanding more and more of what we say which is fun.

Food: Ava continues to be a great eater. She eats pretty much anything and quite a large quantity. She typically eats at least 1/2 a cereal bowl full of oatmeal with 1/2 a banana for breakfast. She still has room to have some of Mommy or Daddy's cheerios. Other favorites include vegatable soup, pizza, any bread, apple sauce, and most any dessert. She still will not eat any fruits unless you hide them in something and even then, sometimes she will separate it and spit it out.

Teeth: Just shortly before the new year, Ava got two new teeth on the bottom. That brings the tally up to 7!

Sleep: Ava has been sleeping really late lately. She typically goes to bed at 8 or 8:30 and will sleep until 8:30 the next morning. We were spoiled over Christmas with this wonderful schedule! She is not taking very good naps right now. It could be the teeth or the fact that she is sick, but many days she will only take one, two hour nap per day. This is much less than usual for her and she seems tired, but just not able to sleep. We shall see....maybe the one really long nap or two nap days are over.

We have been continuing to battle the double ear infection. We went back to the doctor to recheck her ears, and she still had infections. We are currently doing another round of antibiotics. Hopefully, this will take care of it. Overall, Ava continues to be in good spirits despite the infections. She seems to be in a very clingy stage right now. I am not sure if it was all the company over the holidays or what, but she certainly likes her mommy. Sometimes, she won't even go to Brad. Hopefully, this is short lived.

Christmas 2008

Grandma Flo, Mom, & Dad

Ava after church Christmas Day Shelly & Addison

Ava & Grandma Chris

Ava opening up her nursery rhyme book

Daddy & Ava

Sally, Mom, & Shelly

Our Family Christmas 2008

Ava trying to get rid of her cardigan sweater...not a fan of it. We had a wonderful Christmas this year. My sister Shelly and family came to stay with us through Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve, my parents, Grandma Flo, and Aunt Donna also came over. We had turkey and all the fixings along with about a million desserts :)) It was fabulous, but not so great on the waistline! We then openend gifts which proved to be chaos once again. Maybe in about 5 years all the grandkids will be big enough to open their own gifts and enjoy the whole event. For now, there was some crying and whining, but overall it went pretty well. Ava did not have anything to do with opening gifts. She could have cared less. She just wandered about all the packages and picked up little pieces of tissue paper among other things she wasn't supposed to have. We would have never thought a year ago that she was going to be quite this busy this Christmas. She did play with a book that played music that she got from Grandma Chris, but other than that, there was just too much going on for her to sit and play with a toy. Ava loved her time with Sam and Addison. She would watch them run around and struggle to get her legs to move as fast as they were. On Christmas Day, we went to church in the morning. Gary, Joyce, and Joe came over late in the afternoon. We had a little lunch and visited with them. Hopefully, we can get together with the rest of the family soon.

A Short Visit to Bridges Bay in Spirit Lake

Look, I can stand up in the water!

Ava loved the lazy river! We joined my sister and her family at Bridges Bay Resort in Spirit Lake, Iowa for a short stay just before Christmas. We rented a little condo so we had plenty of bedrooms for everyone, and it was just a few steps from the action. The indoor water park was really nice and not very busy. They are not normally open on week days, but they were open for Christmas break. Ava really enjoyed the water more than we thought she would. She loved floating in her little ring around the lazy river. She'd just giggle and smile the whole time as we floated beside her. She slept in the pack-n-play a little better the second night. The first night was pretty rough. She certainly prefers her crib over that. Overall, it was a really fun trip.

A Sick Weekend for All of Us....

Feeling under the weather for a couple of days really makes you realize how much you take being healthy for granted. These pictures were taken today where Ava is doing the best of all of us. Ava started having cold symptoms early in the week and seemed quite cranky and I was right behind her. On Thursday when I picked her up from Katie's, she told me she thought Ava was sounding worse with more congestion and coughing. We decided to take her to urgent care where we found out she had her first ear infection, both ears no less. I guess I feel fortunate that we have made it this long without fighting an ear infection. Friday morning we were supposed to leave for Brad's cousin's wedding in the cities, and Brad and I could hardly move. We just felt horrible. I took a shower and had to lie down afterwards because it wore me out. Ava was cranky and you could certainly tell she was not feeling well. We felt terrible missing the wedding as we were looking so forward to seeing everyone, but I don't think either one of us could have stayed awake to drive. We are thankful to be on the mend and doing better. I still have Christmas shopping to do that I was hoping to finish on our trip this weekend. Between the blizzard and being sick, I am not sure when that is going to get done! Oh well! Christmas will come whether I am ready or not!

Ava's Surgery was a Success.....

Ava did not like the blood pressure cuff...

Before surgery rocking with Daddy

Cuddling with Mommy after surgery

It was an early morning for us to be up and at McKennan Hospital in Sioux Falls by 5:30-5:45 am for Ava's lacrimal duct opening surgery. As the usual surgery routine goes, Ava was not allowed to eat or drink when she woke up that morning, and I was a little worried that she was not going to be in a great mood. We got Ava up right around 5:15 out of a dead sleep, and with her usual perkiness, she was able to stay awake for the whole trip over to Sioux Falls. She was pretty quiet, but kept those eyes wide open so she could see why we were in the car when it was still dark outside. The roads were a little icy, so we did not get to the hospital until almost 6 am. Ava was really good until we had to change her into the gown and the nurses checked her vitals. Once that was over, she was fine again. Then at around 6:45 they took us into the pre-op holding area where we met the scrub nurse and anesthesia people. Dr. West, the pediatric opthamologist performing the surgery, came in to talk to us as well. Everyone was very nice and reassuring. When they took Ava from us to take her into surgery, she went to the male nurse anesthetist without hesitation. She turned and looked at us, so we waved to her and said goodbye, and she waved back and smiled at us. That certainly made us feel better. They started the surgery at 7 am and paged us at 7:10 and told us it was over and she would be heading to recovery. We got to see her by 7:30. It was very short and she came out of surgery crying pretty hard. She was very happy to see us. Her eye was very red and watery, but other than that she was fine. They were able to just use gas sedation and never had to start an IV which was nice. She slept on me (shockingly!) for about an hour after surgery. Then she woke up and we offered her some food and she perked right up. By far the most traumatic was the blood pressure cuff and the stethescope. She had to do quite a bit of crying over those things, but other than that she remained in very good spirits. We left the hospital around 9:30 and headed to Fryin Pan for breakfast. She was cheery as ever and ate almost a whole pancake. We are so thankful that everything went well. It has been a week now since surgery, and you can definitely tell her eye is not nearly as watery or mattery as it was before. I am sure she is loving that I am not washing her eye all the time.