A Quick Post ...

Just a quick post with a few pictures with my NEW camera!! We ended up getting a Canon Powershot ELPH--a very awesome point-and-shoot camera so far!! Bonus: it's Buckeye Red!! :)

Anyway, enjoy!

I can't get enough of these rolls!! CHUBBY WUBBY!!

Uh-oh! Caught in the act ...

Always striking a silly pose for the camera ;)

I don't know what's going on with this face ... but that left cheek seems to be hanging pretty low.

Daddy and Ava ... two seriously cute people that I'm totally in love with!

Cereal shot





Bath time! Ava's favorite! You think she's getting a little too big for the mesh tub seat? I agree :)

A Day at the Beach!!

We went to Alum Creek Lake today so Eric could play around on his jet ski and Ava could get her first dose of sand between her toes. We thought she needed a preview of the "beach" before we go on our real vacation to the beach in September! She enjoyed every second of it! We had a great time! The weather was fantastic, too.

Enough jabber ... enjoy the pictures!!

Don't you just wanna smooch those cheeks! OouuWee!!

Blowing razzberries ... with a very runny nose--Ha!

This beach is no Siesta Key -- but, it's the best Columbus has to offer! ;~)

She loved feeling the waves come up over her toes!! Unfortunately, pictures only show so much of her reaction--she flapped her arms and hands so fast I was pretty sure she was going to approach lift-off! Huh-larious!!

She liked clapping her hands with the sand---notice daddy has buried her chubby feet in the sand. I have a feeling these two are going to be a handful when she gets a little older. ;)

She's kinda lookin' like, "Uhhhh dad, what are you doing to my feet?"

Going for a ride!!

Silly Willy :)

I cannot get enough of this girl. 0:)

Happy 9 months Ava!!

It feels like just yesterday that I posted about Ava's 8 month milestone! Summer is flying by waayyy too quickly ... I'm sure it's because this is my favorite season. :) It's almost August and we have yet to make it on vacation!! Anyway, back on topic ... Ava has been a BLAST this month! Even through teething. :) Thank goodness I'm keeping a journal for her (well, and me ;) to look back on at how sweet of a baby she has been!! I just want to quickly say that bringing a baby into this world and experiencing the joy & intense love I feel for her has been the most awesome experience of my life! If my heart was filled with any more love than this I'm sure it would explode! With that said, I wouldn't wish a baby for anyone who wasn't completely ready to shower that baby in love, affection, attention, and patience! Babies (and kiddos) deserve to feel every ounce of their mommies & daddies love for them and for each other!! Yes, okay ... that's all. :)

So, Ava has finally cut a couple teeth!!! I knew they were coming!! Two sharp lil teethers are poking through on the bottom! I'd say they are about half way up. They are the cutest lil things! About a week of sleepless nights (okay, it wasn't that bad, she woke up once or twice a night...so I guess that's not sleepless) and a rather grumpy baby for a day or so just before those 2 teeth erupted. We feel more are coming ... and you can guess why.

My favorite new thing this month is Ava giving kisses!! Oh My Gooooooodness! Melt my heart!!! I say, "Can I have a kiss?" and she leans toward me with a big wide open mouth with her tongue hanging out to give me a kiss!! Sweetest. Thing. Ever. The best kisses come in the morning when I pick her up out of her crib ... I barely get the words out and she's already leaning over to give me a big wet kiss!! She gives Eric kisses, the kitty, tries to give them to Portia, but never really succeeds ... she even tried to lay one on her babysitter with a mouth full of sweet potatoes! She is a natural lovebug. ;) Gosh, I love it!

Ava loves clapping and giving high-fives, especially while she is in her highchair! She really loves listening to pat-a-cake and watching your hands do the "rolly-rolly-rolly" part. She giggles every time. And boy is she a razzberry blower!

Eric's favorite thing to do with her when she wakes up in the morning is bring her to our room and let her hang out in bed with us for awhile. She grabs the tv remote and fiddles with it for a bit ... then she crawls all over us and gets lost in the blankets. Portia, of course, sleeps in our room at night, so while Ava is on the bed with us Eric will say, "Ava, where's Portia?" and she'll get all excited and crawl up on daddy's chest so she can see down to the floor where Portia is laying...then she'll flail her arms in the air and say something like "dododabahlalado!!!" She loves that dog. :) It's really neat how she's learning and associating our words with actual things.

Ava went to her well-baby checkup this morning. Fun times. :) She is 21 lbs (80th percentile) and 28 inches (90th percentile). Chubby Wubby ;) I'm not sure where she's getting her 'height' from since Eric and I are both pretty average, but Dr. Brown said she'll plateau after her first birthday, most likely.

She still has a clogged tear duct ... I feel like a broken record. I'm really avoiding intervention on this because she will have to be put under some type of anesthesia, obviously because babies do not hold still while they're being probed in the eye. I am not down with the anesthesia part. Nooo, thank you. It really bothers me to think about it so, I'm hoping and praying that it opens on its own. Unless I hear an option that doesn't involve anesthesia, I will not be hopping on the bandwagon with this one. I am thankful that this is Ava's only medical issue so far! A very minor issue at that!

Ava still takes about two, sometimes three, naps a day and then goes to bed around 8:00. Lately, due to teething issues I'm sure, she's been getting up a couple times a night. Usually, if she gets up twice and it's early in the night I will give her some Motrin. She seems to have trouble relaxing and falling back to sleep, which I've been blaming on teething pain. The Motrin always helps and she's able to sleep untill morning then.

Something Ava and I have really enjoyed lately is the walking group we've joined called Mommies & Munchkins. It is tons of fun!! A friend of mine introduced me to the group about a month ago. We all get together on tuesdays & thursdays (just tuesdays for me & Ava since I work thursdays) and meet up at different parks in the Dublin/Hilliard area and get some exercise & socialization! It's a christian-based group, so we start out the morning with Summer (she's the creator of the group) reading a devotion and then we stretch our muscles before the walking and exercising begins. We do lunges ... lots of lunges ... and then I'm sore for days!! The soreness process starts over the following week ... when we do MORE lunges & crunches and yada yada yada. So, picture this---a group of about 6-10 moms with their munchkins in strollers power walking around the park ... stopping every so often to get down and do some crunches ... and then back up to do some lunges ... and then we do various other exercises as well ... and this goes on for about an hour. Then at the end, we get our munchkins out of their strollers (if they're big enough) and do circle time ... so, we sing "Ring Around the Rosey," "Head, Shoulders, Knees, & Toes" and recite the memory verse of the month! This month's verse is, "We love because He first loved us." John 4:19. There are munchkins there from the age of 3 or 4 months to 8 years old! It can be a little elementary at times, but I think it's a pretty awesome group. Ava loves getting in on the action, too!! Eric gets a kick out of my group and says, "You guys have got to be a sight out there strolling around the park doing exercises with your strollers!" I agree--we are a sight to see, I'm sure! The old folks at the parks love watching us! ;) We are having a Mom's Night Out soon which I'm really excited for! Thank You Jess for introducing me to M&M! :)


Enjoy the pictures from my seriously lame old 3.2 MP digital camera!! :)

"I'm coming to get you, Momma!"

"Hi there, Smiley Bear!"






"Wait, is that a butt cheek hanging out? Or just another chubby roll?"

"I'm wearing shoes!! For the first time--real shoes!!"

"Soooo Big!"

Today ...

I'm on the hunt for a new camera today!! Let's hope I can find a good one that will last and hold up to being thrown in my purse or diaper bag on the run! And of course it's gotta be one that's on sale, right!? My posts will be much more interesting once I find a camera... I promise ;)

Food, Inc

I highly recommend this movie to all!! It's not a huge budget film, so naturally it isn't playing at all theaters, but I'm sure you can find one close to you! As you probably know by now, I have become a HUGE natural & organic food advocate, so this movie couldn't have been released at a better time! I know some of you (okay, a lot of you) don't give a flip about watching a movie that details how the most important substance of your existence is produced, but keep that in mind--FOOD is the most important substance of your existence!! I think this movie will surprise and inspire you!

Enjoy the trailer at least!!

Houston, We Have a Problem ...

BIG problems over here in the Williams' household --- my camera BROKE!!!!! This is bad news, bears!!!!! (SIGH) I told Ava that she's not aloud to do anything cool until I find a replacement--no funny faces, no crawling, no really cute sleeping poses, no teeth, no NOTHING basically until I get a new camera! I think she understood ;) At least I have my camera phone in the meantime ...

A New Favorite!

Ava's newest favorite activity is going to the park where she can swing and watch kids play! Too cute!

Here she is watching the kids play on the playground toys -- probably wishing that she was playing with them!

Baby smiles ... gotta love 'em!!

Woohoooo, Ava's having FUN!!

Had to throw this one in there--sleeping babies are precious--I just wanted to crawl in that crib and snuggle up!! Now that would be a picture ;-)

Privacy Ahead!

Attention all of our Wonderful Friends, Family, Coworkers, Neighbors, and Faithful Williams Family Happenings... Blog Followers!!

After much thought and discussion with my husband, I am pretty positive that we will be setting our blog to private sometime here in the next few weeks. I want to give everyone a chance to get their email address to me so I can give you access to continue following our blog! Shoot us an email at eric-liz@hotmail.com sometime in the next few weeks! Don't forget! ;)

I love that our blog is so open to friends and family to freely browse right now, but I am wigged out at the number of people who may follow our blog that we have no control over. I'm a pretty open person and like blogging about what's happening in our daily lives and such but am not necessarily fond of the number of weirdos out there. You know they're out there! Kinda creepy! I was watching the news the other day and there was a story on there about a family who had their pictures stolen from their blog and used for advertising purposes. I think their pictures were enlarged and advertised on some store front. I don't know, but that's the kind of thing that weirds me out, ya know? If I had a different type of blog I don't think I would be as protective, but I sometimes pour my heart out on this thing and smother it with pictures of my family life. I love sharing with our friends and family, but not really with that stranger in Chicago ... or St. Louis ... or Canada ... or the sex offenders ... or the super-nosey people who have no clue who we are, but still want to snoop around our lives. You never know who's looking and lurking!! Ok, maybe I'm paranoid. ANYWAYS, just wanted to let all our faithful and trusting followers know!

If you follow our blog and want to continue keeping up with Williams Family Happenings... please send me your email address to eric-liz@hotmail.com so I can add you to our list of followers! For those of you who aren't familliar with viewing a private blog--you will just have to log in using the email address that you gave me and create a password to open our blog and view it. No big deal :)

I will keep reposting this information for the next few weeks to a month or so to keep reminding those who are interested!! Eric is a bit concerned that we will lose some valued followers by going private--but we hope not!!

Our Green Thumb

Here's how our garden is looking these days. Now that we finally found a way to keep the critters from eating our goodies! Man, I'll tell you plain and simply-- I despise weeding. Tammy, I promise to do it more often--but know that I really can't stand doing it. Can we hire people to weed it for us? How 'bout your kids? I bet I could bribe them! :) Kidding. I'll just throw a cheesy smile on my face and head up there this weekend to do my share. ;)

Everything is growing plentifully!

Grow baby, grow!! Our lettuce was being enjoyed upon by some grassland creatures--rabbits, I bet! So we (and by "we" I must give credit to Tammy and Dale on this one) put chicken wire fence up around the perimeter of the garden and I think that has helped.

YUCK!! Look at those weeds!! Just waiting to be pulled--they're screaming my name!!! Aahhh, I hate those things!! All kinds of bugs in there just waiting to jump on me!!

Oh, and here's some strawberry freezer jam that my sister and I made last week! It was our first attempt ever at making jam--and it's dee-licious if I do say so myself!!

8 Months of Baby Love!

Miss Ava-pie turned 8 months old--last week! I'm finally getting around to posting about the glorious occasion. She's a busy body these days!! Keeps me on my toes for sure! I love this stage--wish she could stay 8 months old forever! She's interactive, playful, cuddly, a copycat, silly, shy, boisterous, curious, and the list goes on and on! We really enjoy her--in case you can't tell :)

So, here's her rundown for the past month ...

*Teeth are coming soon--I know it! I think I've been saying this for the past 4 months, but now I truly believe we are nearing tooth eruption. All the signs have been there (for months now!) but just recently I've noticed that her bottom gum line looks swollen. Maybe by next month we'll have one ... the wait continues. ;)

*This baby girl loves her food! There for a week or so she was being so picky about her bottle and not really drinking more than 3 or 4 ounces at a time, but would gobble up her food with no problem. Well, now she's taking to her bottle again AND really enjoying her food! She L-O-V-E-S bananas. She sees a banana and goes crazy! If I get a banana for myself I better be prepared to share half of it with her. That goes for any food, really. I still have a freezer packed with food, but have been giving her finger foods lately too. She's not quite sure what to do with the food--especially cheerios! She plays with them, sticks them in her mouth, spits them out, puts them back in her mouth, and by this time they are pretty soggy and stick to everything! She loves teething biscuits and ice cubes that we put in her mesh fresh food feeders. She likes pineapple and watermelon in her fresh food feeder, too! We've also been giving her Yo Baby yogurt lately, banana flavored of course, which she loves ;) She still takes bottles too--about four 6 ounce bottles a day.

*She still does the army crawl everywhere! She scoots and rolls and shimmies herself where ever she wants to go. It's her chubby mid-section--can't quite get it off the floor and into the crawling position yet ;) Actually, I take that back, she gets up on 3 limbs...usually one of her legs stays straight and the other one lifts one side of her body off the floor--so strange--she'll get the hang of it! Or, one day she'll just up and start walking and say, "forget that crawling business!" It's pretty humorous to watch for now ... :)

*I did notice today that she has mastered going from a lying-down position to a sitting-up position. She was on her belly playing with the knobs on the coffee table and when I turned back around she was sitting up playing with her toys.

*Ava L-O-V-E-S kids and animals! She is completely content to go anywhere there are children or animals. When we pass kids in the store she's rubbernecking every-which-way trying to keep her little eyeballs on the kiddos. She loves her doggy and kitty. She's always trying to scoot closer to them, and anytime she sees Portia she starts "talking" and squealing and gets the full-body wiggles. When we say, "Where's Portia?" she gets really excited and starts looking around to see if she can find her! Pretty darn cute.

*She needs to upgrade into a bigger car seat! My gosh, I've been saying that for awhile now! Thankfully her growth has slowed down a bit which is giving me time to find a great car seat. I think we are going to go with the First Years True Fit car seat...now I just have to find it in the store somewhere!

*Pretty sure she weighs right around 19-20 lbs. She wears 12 month clothes... some 18 months. Still in size 4 cruisers ... which are still a tad big on her, but I've got boxes of size 4's so we're making them work ;)

*Ava is a chatter box. She jabbers all day long! She likes to say, "da-da", "ma-ma", something that sounds similar to "yuck", and a whole lotta other consonant/vowel combos. She copies us when we make certain sounds, and she plays the coughing game... she coughs, we cough, she coughs, we cough, and so on... and then she giggles. She's been shaking her head "no" lately too. Usually, Eric gets her started and then they go back and forth shaking their heads back and forth ... goofballs :) Her voice sounds so sweet--I love listening to her!

*Another of Ava's loves is being outside. I take her outside and sit her on a blanket and I'm pretty sure she could be out there for hours! She likes to pick at the grass, leaves, dirt--whatever she can get her little fingers on!

*She is at prime "stranger danger" stage, so being around people who are strangers to her makes her a little nervous, but only at first. She's pretty quick to warm up to people. I love how when she's introduced to someone new she buries her little face in my shoulder and snuggles up to me. She's so sweet--I will always protect her! Motherhood is more gratifying with each passing day. She smiles all the time! Just take one look at the girl and she grins from ear to ear! Love her!!

*And our last topic--sleeping. She's been sleeping great lately! No complaints here (knocking on wood). She typically takes 2 naps a day--one around 10 and another around 4 or 5 and then hits the sheets by 8 usually. Ava has a couple favorite blankets that she really likes going to bed with. They have a tag and she goes to town sucking on the tag and that puts her right to sleep! Bizarre. We lay her in her crib for naps and almost as soon as she gets ahold of her blanket she is asleep! It's pretty sad to me that I don't HAVE to rock her before her naps anymore ... that phase went by way too quickly!! Now she almost prefers that we just lay her down with her blanket to go to sleep. I love just watching her sleep though ... at least she can't outgrow that!

*I think that covers the major stuff ... there is a lot more to mention but I don't have the gumption for it right now--dinner awaits!

*By the way, Ava's tear duct is still clogged! It gets pretty bad some days--especially with all the allergens in the air! Her eye waters and waters and waters and we keep wiping and wiping which isn't the best thing for it sometimes because the wiping action can irritate her skin. She doesn't seem to be bothered by it. I was talking to an ophthalmologist at work and asked him if I should be concerned that it still hasn't opened on its own, and he said it's really no big deal and it will eventually open on its own, maybe even after she's a year old. Well, okay doc!

Playing on her boppy ... she has always loved that thing!

She's about due for some big girl toys!

Ava loves Portia ...

I do love a messy baby face ...

Momma and munchkin

A messy combination of teething biscuit, cheerios, and corn on the cob that she snatched off my plate. Lil stinker!

Swiping daddy's bright yellow hat off his head to investigate!

"Okay dad, I don't want this thing on anymore!"

Our Sweet Boo Bear O:-)