eating lunch with dad

Teressa and Ava came up to GFA to have lunch with me today. Heres a couple of photos from that and also a few from some kids at GFA tonight. A bunch of these kids all see the same great doctor here, and were thinking to put one of the pictures in a frame for him this Christmas! It was kinda wild getting a bunch of excited kids to look the same direction and not hide behind somebody, but kids are fun like that :)

I sure hope Tress and Ava come to eat lunch with me more often. It was fun!

Happy 1/2 Birthday to Ava!

Six months ago today we got to meet Ava for the first time. It's hard to believe that she's already lived for half of a year here with us. . .

In celebration of this big day Ava got to go see Dr Paruolo and get a few more shots. She may never forgive us for giving her shots on her half birthday. However, she LOVES Dr Paruolo, so that may have made up for it.

Dr Paruolo is a very friendly, animated guy so she's always seemed to like him. But I have never seen her respond to someone, including myself and Tony, the way she did to him this morning. She was constantly watching him, grabbing at his hands and stethoscope, talking and giggling at him, even when he was just talking to Tony and I and not even looking at her. It was so cute! He kept laughing at her because she kept trying so hard to get his attention. It makes me like and trust him even more that she so evidently likes him so much. I am really thankful to the Lord for giving us a pediatrician that we like so much, not to mention one that says at least 10 times during the visit "Man! She is such a doll ya'll." Sometimes "ya'll" just sounds right and it feels good to live in Texas.

Also Ava weighed in at 17 pounds 7 inches and 27 1/4 inches long. That places her in the 97th percentile for height and the 75th percentile for weight. The Dr said that if she keeps that up she'll be in range to be a supermodel. But since I know he's also told that to a friend of mine, that may just be something he says about all baby girls (along with "she's a doll ya'll) to score points with the parents. It works.

Oh, and one last piece of Ava news. She's has TEETH coming it! We noticed them several days ago, but since they are her two side ("canine" I think) top teeth, not the usual middle teeth on the top or bottom I was a little leery of proclaim them actual teeth until I got a second opinion. But my friend Beth inspected them on Tuesday and assured me that yes, they were teeth. We're just going to have one cute little vampire baby when those two come all the way in . . . you can imagine the fun we'll have with pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I'm sorry there aren't any with this post, but Tony did take some cute ones of her at the Drs. office so we'll be posting those shortly.

Mama and Dada

Yesterday the long anticipated day arrived. I picked Ava up out of her crib that morning and laid her on the changing table and she looked at me and said, clear as a bell, "Dada." Granted, I'm her mom not her "Dada", but I've been trying to get her to say "Dada" pretty much since she was born. I got all excited and made a big deal of it. She waited until I calmed down a bit and then said "Dada" again to see if it had the same effect. It did, but then she decided to hold out on saying her special word until she wanted to use her powers to make mom act like an idiot again. We're still waiting for her to say it again, even though I tried to bribe her with getting to try some bananas today if she'd say it while Tony was home last night. Stubborn child.

I was a little sad because Tony had just left for work 5 minutes earlier and missed it. I called him right away and told him and he was of course thrilled and said, "Did you write it down on her calendar? Did you blog it? We can't forget when she first said 'Dada'" He's right of course, this is an important milestone, but truth be told, she's been saying "Mama" for over a week now . . .but we decided it might not be a real word yet because she's been prattling "mamamamama" for weeks. But she has very clearly said just plain "Mama" a handful of times over the last week. But the first day she said it was not logged and now that precious date is lost forever. Sigh. The sacrifices we mothers make . . .

I think we may be seeing some teeth coming through soon too. She's been eager to chew on anything and a little whiny the last few days. She's also been cuddlier, which I am enjoying. She actually let me rock her to sleep the other day for her nap. She hasn't let me do that since she was tiny. It is definitely a blessing that she knows how to fall asleep on her own, but when she's tired she wants to go to bed, she doesn't want to be held, and sometimes I miss the rocking her to sleep. But mostly not-rocking her for a 1/2 hour before bedtime and every nap would get old pretty fast.

Below is a whole slew of pictures from our Thanksgiving, (most notably, Ava with a turkey leg), Ava eating some avocado, my moms visit and a sneak peak of Ava in her Christmas dress. Enjoy.

All ready for breakfast

Patiently waiting for mom to mash up her avocado

Yum, avocado. . .

She actually did like it

Chocolate Cream Pie

Green beans for Thanksgiving dinner.

Ready to head out

"I've been waiting and waiting for something I could actually sink my gums into!"

Room for just one more bite . . .

Heading out for a post-thanksgiving dinner walk

Our friends Matt and Amy, who graciously invited us to spend Thanksgiving with their family.

pretty leaves

Scott and Tania

Boomer

Belly shot

"I love my new Christmas dress Grandma . . ."

" . . .it makes me feel mischievous!"

"And I love the hat and mittens mama made me!"

happy elf

Ava's First Meal

So we wanted to wait as long as possible to start Ava on solid foods and make sure her tummy was good and ready for them. We were waiting for her to show some real interest in what we were eating. Well last Friday we were at a pizza party at GFA following their biannual day of deep cleaning and Ava was trying to grab everything off our plates and grabbing our cups and trying to drink out of them so I knew she was ready. She REALLY wanted some of that pizza! She is an Italian after all!

So the next morning we fed her some rice cereal and boy was she excited. As I think the following pictures and video clip will prove. Since then she's been eating a little rice cereal and also started eating some avocado and loves them both. Next will be sweet potatoes . . .

We spent Thanksgiving with our friends Matt and Amy McDaniel at Amy's parents house. We had a great time with them. Although Ava didn't get to partake of the Thanksgiving dinner we did take a picture of her holding onto the turkey leg (a tradition of my Grandma Dot's) and she stuck it right in her mouth. I think she really wished she had some teeth.

We hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving weekend!

Yum Yum

I'll do it myself, thank you very much.

Want some Dad?

All full

This is the hat I made for her with my mom while she was here. There's matching mittens too.

A bedtime bottle from Grandma Margie