4th of July

I hope everyone had a good long weekend, I know we did. Brent and I actually had 2 whole days off together! It was so nice to have a weekend together, it has been a longtime since we've had one. I had to work on Saturday and Sunday, but we had Monday and Tuesday off together. We went to the mall where Brent insisted on buying Ava a bathing suit, so we did. Then we tried to get some stuff around the house done and just hung out. On Tuesday we went over to my parent's house for a small cook out, it was just us and Mom and Dad and Peggy. We managed to wrangle Ava into her swim suit and put her in the pool, and she was really good. The only problem is that she badly needed a nap but there was so much going on that she didn't want to. She only slept for 20 mins and then was awake again. I'm going to try to work on getting her to nap at different places, because she's going to have to do that soon due to my job. We didn't take her to the fireworks since it was too late and it would only scare her anyway.
I am a part-time summer camp counselor at the YMCA right now, but when that ends in the beginning of August, I am going to be working in their babysitting room. My hours will be 4pm-8pm, so on the nights when Brent has school or is working, I can bring Ava with me. Two of the women who work in there now bring their babies, one is 3 months and the other one is 1 day younger than Ava, so it will be nice that she will get to see some other babies. I was talking to the women last night about it. The Y is having me work a few morning shifts in there this month, so Ava will be with me the whole time, from 8:30am - 12pm. She is going to need to nap in there, otherwise it will be a very bad 4 hours. They never seem to have that many kids in there at one time, but I think she will be so distracted by the noise and lights that it will keep her awake. I'm a little concerned about germs too, but I guess we have to deal with that at some point. As much as I would like to, I cannot keep her in a plastic bubble when we go out. Actually, I think she is experiencing her first cold right now, although it's very minor. She isn't cranky or running a fever, but she does have a stuffy nose and she coughs a little. Brent tried to use the "nose hose" on her last night because I won't get near that thing. Gross!
As for her feeding, we have her on a pretty good schedule. She gets cereal at breakfast lunch and dinner along with a bottle, and she gets a bottle for snacks too. She is okay with the rice cereal, but the oatmeal makes her spit up. We just started on baby food too. So far I've only tried bananas, which I usually mix in with her cereal. She likes them. I think tonight I might give her a taste of carrots for dinner. She is a really good eater, I am surprised at how well she took to a spoon.
She is napping right now so I have to do some things before she wakes up. We took some pictures on the 4th but most of them came out bad. We love taking pictures but sometimes we just don't take enough.

Messy eater, just like her mama.

Her 4th of July onesie. While part of me wanted to get her all decked out in a cute little red white and blue ensemble, the other part of me is very practical and also very cheap. I will not buy something she will only wear once, unless I LOVE and have to see her in it. I buy her a lot of clothes, but most of them will get lots of use and are also probably on sale.

My parent's pool. We didn't take a picture of the whole thing, but it is awesome. Ava loved the waterfall and that little turtle.