our little Christmas elf.

we had a children's Christmas party at gfa last week. ava had her first chance to devour a present. It took a few seconds, but once she recognized it, she had it in her mouth. yep- box, wrapping and bow... take no prisoners. :)

we had our family Christmas this morning. i'll have to put up photos soon. it was a blessing to spend time together. we'll be travelling to florida for Christmas, so we wanted to have some time together and do some of the traditions we enjoy. we had the fireplace roaring most of last night and this morning. ava got to open a couple more presents. she even helped me turn lots of pages in the Bible as we read the story of Jesus coming to earth.

we took a walk to subway and kroger for lunch today. wow. cold. in the thirties, but it was nice to get out.

ava can sit up well on her own now. sometimes she'll sit up for about 10 minutes or so. she has some pretty funny falls though and loves making sounds to let us know that she has fallen. she has learned how to make spitting sounds pretty well and enjoys squeeling.

i (her dad) sure enjoy holding her. i'll be pretty sad when shes too big for me to carry around with one hand. we got her some beatrix potter books for Christmas, because we really enjoy reading to her. now we just need to get her a cd player of some sort, because she loves dancing when she hears music. really! she starts moving, singing and even the occasional swaying.

well, i better head to bed. i hope you all had a great weekend.

yummy

matt and simon opening their gift

sunday afternoon photo shoot

I had a great time on Sunday afternoon, hanging out with the Chupp family. Their laughter is contagious and they sure know how to have fun! Here are a few photos from the shoot.

its beginning to look a lot like Christmas

ava is getting better and better at sitting up

ava was happy to put the star on top of her first Christmas tree!

of course the star must be tested, i mean tasted, first

some of these photos are from the grapevine Christmas parade. It was about 30 degrees out and ava did really well. she had many layers on, as well as a big bunny snow suit on the outside. amelia, thanks for the bunny suit! she just loved the lights and all that there was to look at.

we went to the "holiday in the park" with erika and philip last weekend

theres my lil munchkin... always looking out the window.

Baby Smalls

this is our texan tree farm *cough cough* ... home depot :)

there were some really nice trees there though. and the fact that they sell for extremely cheap there was a big plus too. It was fun to just drink coffee and pick out a tree together. we can save the "hiking through snow with a saw" for another year. a much colder year.

photos from ava's 6 month check up!

radiant

adorable

when ava sees the size of the needle ;-)

alone on the scale

weighing in at a super healthy 17.70 pounds. 97% in height. 75% in weight.

ava helping the nurse to measure her head

streeeeeetch

hey dude

one of her new favorite toys, now that she is teething

ava has a crush on her doctor. she literally stared at him and smiled the whole time. when he made comments or talked to her, she would just start giggling!

our poor little baby. she only shed a couple of tears after her shots.

ava feeding herself a bottle

the best kisses ava can give

my two ladies

yay! ava's 6 month check up was a huge success!