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

Daddy's girl ...

And she is just that ... daddy's little cupcake :)








* Notice her socks :) * I love chubby baby legs ... so sweet.

Yes, I'm video happy today :)

Here's another cute one of Ava playing on her activity mat. She has been getting quite the personality lately! It's so fun to watch her grow and learn about everything around her! She was really getting into these fish ... so cute! Such an active girl she is :) It's bizarre that she's not even two months old yet and already she's soaking up her surroundings like a little sponge!

P.S. Don't mind my baby-talk ;) hehe.

The reason these things have seat belts! :)

Eric & I were watching TV the other evening in the living room and Ava seemed pretty happy to be in her bouncy seat! It was about 9pm so it seemed funny that she had so much energy this late in the evening, but we let her get good and tired! She played for about 1/2 hr! You know babies don't have much of an attention span so that was pretty good! :) It was cracking us up how excited she was getting about the lights & toys on her bouncy seat so I had to take a little video of it! :) And this is why these things have seat belts! hehe. At times it looks like she's just going to sling-shot herself outta that thing! :)

Just something cute ;) Enjoy!

Silly Girl ...

These are just some random shots I've taken of Ava lately. She's so much fun to photograph! I get some crazy poses outta her sometimes!:) Enjoy!


The first dress she's ever worn :) I love the tights!



Here she is sitting on her glider ... big girl:) I got a lot of pictures of her on this day!



She looks super chubby in this picture! hehe, so cute!



She loves her glider! When she's not staring at mommy's face while we're rocking she's staring at her pink ceiling fan :) Too cute!



This face is well-known around our house ... hehe. We know we're about to have a dirty diaper on our hands when we see her make this face! :)

Caught one!

She's been smiling like crazy lately! But it's so hard to catch one of her smiles on camera ... I snuck right in there for this one! :) hehe. She never saw it coming! :)

Playtime with Ava!

Tummy Time!!

Just starting out ... good and strong!!



Getting a little weaker ... blanket is starting to taste good :)



Whew! Time for a break ... holding that little head up is tough work! :) Next time we'll work on rolling over ... she's almost there!

Christmas Fun with Ava :)

Over the weekend we found a cute little christmas tree farm in Delaware & took Ava to "pick out" her first christmas tree! :) Really, she slept in the truck with daddy while I went out tree hunting. :) She was much cozier there! It was a nice tree farm that had a little petting "zoo" area with goats and sheep and they sold cookies and hot cocoa. :) We got our tree up and Ava loooves to look at the lights! We took out one of the tree light bulbs and put one in that makes the lights blink and she just sits in her swing and stares at them!




I had to have a little photo shoot of Ava in her santa hat. :) She really didn't mind being in nothing but her diaper and santa hat...hehe. I did a little editing of the photos and had some fun so I'll post those on here as well! Too fun...

Before ...

The finished product :)

"Who is this guy?"

Time flies ...

I can't believe its already December!! Where has the time gone?! I love December though...and all it has to offer! ;) Usually we have our christmas tree up by this time, but this year we've decided to find a really neat christmas tree farm and make it a tradition to return every year with Ava to pick out the perfect christmas tree!! :) The past few years we have just gone to Lowe's or somewhere and bought one of their pre-cut trees... they were nice and all but it doesn't compare to finding your own and cutting it down!! If anyone knows of a good tree farm in the Columbus area let me know!

12 things I love about the Christmas season...

• Sending christmas cards


• Driving around to admire the beautiful christmas lights


• Waking up to snow on christmas morning


• Spending time with those I love


• Making & decorating christmas cookies


• Waking up bright & early on Black Friday to kick off the holiday shopping season (although I had to skip this one this year)


• Giving christmas gifts


• Reflecting on past christmas's with family


• Listening to christmas music!! My car radio plays nothing but Sunny 95 until after New Years! :)


• Picking out the perfect christmas tree...as soon as we find the perfect christmas tree farm we will make this a tradition on the same day every year with Ava :)


• Decorating the tree with keepsake ornaments
  
• And a new one for this year... sharing christmas with my lovely husband and sweet baby girl for the very first time :)
  
  

As for Miss Ava, ;) she is growing, growing, growing! She is such a little sweetheart...6 weeks old already:) She is smiling at us nowadays ... cutest thing I've ever seen! :) She's getting such a personality! She is one of THE MOST active babies I've ever met! She's all arms & legs ... constantly kicking her lil legs & swinging her arms all over the place! She really watches every move we make too. She is really into her surroundings and likes to see what's going on at all times. :) OH, and she has started to coo and make all kinds of noises! Melt my heart! She acts so surprised when she hears what just came out of her mouth...haha, kind of like "wow, did that sound come from me?" Then she'll do it a couple more times and get bored of hearing that sound so she'll make some other silly noise. Such a lil turkey she is getting to be. :) And this girl likes noise! She falls asleep to the vacuum cleaner, hairdryer, dishwasher, running water ... it's so funny, she does not sleep well in silence that's for sure! She stills sleeps in our room at night in her bassinet and I swear she sleeps so well because our room is filled with noise ... we turn on a humidifier, play a lullaby CD (put it on repeat of course), and we have a little sound machine that plays the sound of crickets! I'm nervous about moving her to her room in complete silence so we're waiting until we can get a humidifier & CD player in her room so she'll sleep peacefully there too! :) So, there you have it ... the secret to keeping a baby asleep during the night, hehe :) I found this out when I laid her down in her crib today actually after she had fallen asleep in my arms and she stayed completely out of it until I started walking out of her SILENT room and just as I was about to get out the door the floor creaked & it startled her awake! So then I knew it ... the girl needs white noise to stay asleep, hehe ;) She looks bigger to me everyday. She's getting easier to hold now that she's filling out some and getting a little chunk on her! ;) She holds her head up really well now too... only a little bobbing now and then, hehe:) She had a little case of cradle cap there for awhile...that's getting better too. Although she didn't really get it too bad on the top of her head...it was worse in her eyebrows! Weird, I know ;) Wow, this post wasn't supposed to be this long !

Well, that's all for now folks! Hope you enjoyed the update ... stay tuned! :)

"Ok momma, I'm ready to find that christmas tree!!"

Portia & Ava ... neither one really cares much for the other ... oh well, they will grow to love one another :)

Here's Ava-cakes (as daddy would say:) at 6 weeks old ... that outfit is 0-3 months, I can't believe it's getting a little short already!





She loves to stare at momma :)

It's tummy-time! Doesn't her hair look much thinner!? Pretty sure her eyes will stay blue ;)

This is her "okay mom enough with the pictures" look... hehe

Cutest lil baby rump ;)

Happy 1 month Ava!

Happy 1 month Ava! (I know, couple days late;) I didn't feel it was official until she had her one month check up with the pediatrician:) She's growing like a weed!! She is now 9 lbs 13 oz and is 22 inches long!! You go girl! Looks like she was getting somewhere with all that nursing she was demanding... :) Anyway, we are all still doing great... we're falling into somewhat of a routine which makes things a little easier! Ava has been sleeping through the night for quite awhile now so there's no complaining here about no sleep;) She's obviously been a good eater as well! She's a happy baby girl...she loves to be held:) And who doesn't love holding and snuggling with sweet smelling cuddly babies, hehe. I love having the time off to be with her. I learn something new about her everyday;) Here are some photos from Ava's first month...I did a little photo editing and had to throw some of those pics on here as well :)

Oh, & I have to post a few milestones that I think are worth mentioning :)
~She's losing her baby hair:( My baby's goin' bald..hehe. You can't really see it in the pictures b/c she still has a lot of hair, but she's starting to get a receding hairline..haha
~She has grown out of her newborn clothes... ALREADY! She's so long that her NB onesies barely snap anymore and her NB pants are high-waters...hehe
~She's wearing size 1 diapers ;) By the way, Huggies have really been letting me down lately. Pampers have won that battle!
~She eats about every 2 to 2 &1/2 hours (that's a big one;)
~She can follow objects with her eyes & focus! She loves staring at my hair--if I get close to her face she just stares at my hair! It's so funny--must be b/c it's bright?



1 month old

1 week old

1 day old



Tuckered out after a long Thanksgiving day with family!

1 month picture with daddy!


Ava with cousin Allie!


3 peas in a pod :) Cute as can be!


I looove her cute little baby feet!


Have a Safe & Happy Thanksgiving week!! Good luck to all the black Friday shoppers!!