Happy New Year everyone! I know, a little late. :) Eric & I got to enjoy a night out with our friends on New Years Eve, which was very refreshing for both of us! My mom watched Ava for us and she was such a good girl! I was, of course, worried about her all evening, but she was in good hands. :) Hope everyone had a great New Year!!





** CHEERS! **

At Ava's doctor appointment last week she was 12 lbs 7 oz and 24 inches long! 90th percentile for both. She's a long little girl! Lately, she's really been getting into sucking her fingers and hands and grasping things and putting them in her mouth. Her little fingers are starting to get chapped and irritated with all the finger sucking she's been doing! She's discovering that she has feet too! hehe. She'll sit in her bouncer and stare at her kicking feet and then try to swat at the toys that hang in front of her with her feet! And she loves staring at the TV. I'll lay her down on the floor in her activity gym and despite all she has to look above her in the play gym she somehow always manages to find the TV and stare at it! Eric says, "well that's because she likes football." HA! Well, that's all for now ... enjoy the pics!


**Sucking those fingers.**


** Oooo, new toy! **





**Yummy!**


**Everything's starting to go in her mouth.**





**Look how excited she is wearing her Juicy Couture! hehe**



**Look how un-excited she is to be frosty for a day! hehe.**

Happy 2 months Ava!

Boy, this milestone crept up on me! She's 2 months old already! Seems like just yesterday I was trying everything in the book to get this little one to come out of my belly! :) I was telling her last night during our "quiet time" after her bath that she's getting so big and becoming such an animated and playful little sweetheart. :) That's our most special time of the day, especially for me. She has a nightly routine where she gets a bath (which she looooves) then I bundle her up in a towel and take her to her crib and give her a binky (one of the few times she actually likes her binky) while I massage her head and dry her hair (she almost falls asleep during that part:). Then I massage her chubby little legs & arms with lavender sleepy time lotion (another thing she looooves) & put her jammies on her. :) By this time, she has spit the binky out and likes to talk to me about her day ;) and gives me the biggest smiles ever! No matter how tired and cranky she is she always coos and smiles at me during our bedtime routine. Her little eyes just shine as she studies my face and the motion of my mouth as I talk to her. Then daddy comes up with her nighttime bottles and tells her how sweet & baby-fresh she smells and gives kisses & hugs to her before I feed her and lay her down to sleep. We are so in love with her. :) I just thought I'd share one of my favorite moments of the day with you!

She doesn't go back to the doctor until next Monday so I don't have and weight and length updates, but I will share a few other milestones of hers ...

• She has been sleeping 8-9 hours straight at night now. She usually gets up between 5:30-6:30am. We may move her bedtime back a little though, she starts to get really tired and fussy around 8-8:30pm (I don't usually let her nap anytime beyond 6:30pm). I normally start her bath at 9 and she's in bed by 9:30. So we'll see how that goes!
• Her hands have discovered her mouth and vice versa! :) She sucks on those things like crazy! Not fingers though, she sticks her whole balled up fist in her mouth! hehe.
• She eats about 4-5 ounces every 3 hours.
  
• Loves car rides ... hates stoplights, stopsigns, traffic jams, drive-thrus, basically anything that causes the car to stop moving, hehe.
• She also loves Little Einstein's music! :) I play her cd's in the car and if she's fussy (and not just hungry, nothing but milk soothes her when she's hungry!!) the music quiets her down and she falls asleep.
• She's not a big nap-taker. She sleeps for about 1 hr at a time ... max. I used to get a good hour and a half to 2 hours out of her, but not anymore.
• She has gotten into a pretty predictable eat, play, sleep routine. It's funny because almost exactly 1 hour after she eats is when her eyes get sleepy and she gets a little cranky. Everytime:)
• She's not a binky lover ... she will take it if she's really tired or during a nap, but otherwise wants nothing to do with it ... I'm sure she'll find her thumb one of these days :)
• She loves her face covered or snuggled with her "snugli" as we call it :) It calms her right down and she falls asleep. If I uncover her face she gets mad and will try to bury her face back into her snugli. hehe, silly girl.
  
• She loves to "talk" to us and she just spontaneously smiles at various things we do nowadays, like when I do the motorboat sound with my lips ... works everytime :) hehe.
  
• She wears size 3 months clothes. Most 0-3 month clothes are too short, especially sleepers ... her little toesies are smashed if I put a 0-3 month sleeper on her :)
• She's in size 1 diapers ... could probably wear size 2 diapers ... she won't be in size 1's much longer, maybe only a couple weeks.

So, that's where our munchkin is these days! We sure do have a lot of fun with her! It's a busy life we are living nowadays ... lots of adjusting and trial & error, but Eric & I (& Ava) are continuing to learn how to balance everything and hold onto our sanity. ;) I think we are adjusting well ;) We are so thankful that Ava is a very healthy and very happy baby!

**Our pediatrician recommended taking a picture of Ava in the same position wearing the same thing every month & we'll be amazed at how she changes month to month ... so that's what we've done! **


Ava at 2 months :)


2 months old



1 month old



1 week old



1 day old