Happy New Year

Yes, it's New Year's Eve, and I'm sitting at home on the computer. We are not really the party type, but we had a long day today. Ava spent the day at her Grandma & Grandpa's house while Brent and I went to a Buc's game up in Tampa. This was my first pro-football game, so it was really exciting for me. The Buc's ended up losing to Seattle, as expected, but it was still fun. But I am tired after sitting in the sun at the stadium all afternoon, and it was pretty hot out. Now Ava is in bed, and fireworks are going off all around our neighborhood. Brent is at his brother's house but he promised to be home by midnight. Anyway, I hope everyone has a really good and safe New Year.
Our little family had a great Christmas. Actually, the Buc's game was my Christmas present from Brent. Ava opened her presents on Christmas morning, or more accurately - Ava pulled some pieces of wrapping paper off of a couple of boxes, got distracted with one of the toys, lost interest in opening things, and I opened the rest of the present. We didn't even wrap some of her presents since we knew she wouldn't be that interested in the unwrapping. Since we celebrated Christmas with Brent's family on Friday night, we just went over to my parent's house later in the afternoon. My family made a big dinner and we hung out there. Ava got so many nice presents and lots of cute outfits. She loves her walker and all of the things that make noise!
Now that Christmas is over it is time to start thinking about Ava's first birthday! I know we are going to have a party at our house, and it will probably just be family. We are remodeling our kitchen the first weekend of January, so that will be all done. I just need to nail down an exact date for the party and figure out what I'm going to do exactly. I can't believe she is 1 already. She is so close to walking. When we hold her hands she walks so good, and she walks holding on to furniture. Lately she gets so close to letting go, but at the last minute she just goes back to crawling. I think it will happen before her birthday. She is saying things now too - she says mama, dada, and bye bye, and she says something that sounds like "duck" and "kitty." She does have a rubber ducky and we do have a kitty so I think she is referring to those things. She eats almost everything that we eat now - she likes vegetables (corn, peas, carrots)and fruit, but she doesn't really like meat. Her favorite thing is cheese and crackers. We are slowly weaning her off the bottle, but it's still tricky. I hope that the bottle will go bye-bye for good within a few months.

Oh Holy $#@!$ Night

Last Tuesday, December 12th was not the best night for Ava. First, we dressed her up and made her wear tights. Then, we put her on the lap of the monster, Santa Claus. Ava did not like him at all. We went with Linda, Bruce and Tara and Matt and their son Nathan. Nathan went first and he did pretty good. He looked scared but didn't cry. Ava was fine until we put her on Santa's lap, and then she instantly broke down in tears. We tried to calm her down, I sang to her, and at one point I even sat on Santa's lap with her, but it was no good. She would stop as soon as we took her off his lap, and start again if we put her back on. So Ava, here is your first official picture with Santa:

Doesn't she look thrilled? Little did she know that the worst was yet to come. I was finally talked into getting Ava's ears pierced, and we figured why not do all the traumatizing in one night, so after Ava saw Santa, she got her ears pierced. I still don't know how I feel about it, but they do look cute. I did not want to be present during the ear piercing, so I walked with them to the place, picked out the earrings, and then Tara and I took off. Brent held her in the chair, poor guy. I won't go in to details, but Ava did scream and I heard her from quite a distance, but she calmed down as soon as they were done. She was fine by the time I walked back. The piercing people did both ears at the same time, so it was over with very quickly. Since then they have not bothered her a bit, and it is done and over with. If she doesn't like them when she's older she can always let them close up. Here is a picture right after the event:

Besides Ava, I have gotten zero Christmas shopping done! I don't know what to get anyone, including Brent. I feel like I should be in the Christmas spirit because of Ava, but I'm not. It has been so hot here, we still have the AC on and I have been so busy I haven't had time to wrap any of Ava's presents. It just feels weird to have Christmas music on when it is so hot outside. One bit of good news is that our new kitchen cabinets are in. They weren't supposed to be in until the beginning of January and I was worried that the kitchen wouldn't be done in time for Ava's birthday party. Hopefully now it will be.
I'm going to bed, so here are a few more pictures of our baby:
Getting ready for the fun

Not having it

Doesn't she look mad at us?

Nah, just tickle her neck, she's fine

Ava with the glow worm that she got at Brent's work party. She loves it!

There was a Santa at Brent's party and we tried it again with no luck. Oh well, maybe next year!

Santa Baby

I don't have much to write about tonight, we've just been doing the same old stuff. I did some Christmas shopping for Ava today. We are only buying her a few things since her birthday is next month so she'll be getting presents then too. Plus she really isn't going to know what's going on anyway. I think she's going to have a pretty good spread of presents at Christmas though. This Tuesday we are going to see Santa at the mall with Brent's parents and probably some friends of ours will bring their son too. I can't wait to see Ava's reaction to sitting on Santa's lap. It's hit or miss with her, she might be fine, she might freak, it all depends on her mood that day. For pictures sake I hope she lets us get at least one good one to make it worth waiting in what I'm sure will be a pretty long line. Also, she might get her ears pierced that night too. I am really on the fence about that. I know a lot of babies get their ears pierced and they are fine and they look really cute. However, I can't help but feel like it's a violation of her body, and maybe it should be her choice when she's older. I also don't want them to be uncomfortable to her when she's sleeping, since they are supposed to keep the earrings in for something like 3 months or they will close up. And why put her through unnecessary pain? I will probably do it, but I told my mom-in-law that she will have to sit with Ava when they do it, I will go for a walk.

In other news, I so don't want to go to work tomorrow.

Today was a Good Day

Ava is an Aquarius, but she acts more like a Gemini - I never know what kind of baby I'm going to wake up with. Since we've been back from NC she has been going through a phase, and it is wearing me out. One day she is the happiest baby, like today. She was so good. Then other days she is cranky, whiney, won't nap, and just hard to deal with. The past couple of days she has not been wanting to nap. She will fall asleep in our arms but as soon as we try to get up to put her in the crib she wakes up and starts crying. We've been having to let her cry it out, and it is so hard. We know she's tired, but she just will not sleep. On Saturday Brent was working and I tried to put Ava down for her nap. I knew she was tired, she fell asleep while I was rocking her but woke up when I put her in the crib. She started freaking and cried so hard for an hour! I would go in every so often and try to calm her without taking her out of the crib and make sure she had her binky. After 30 minutes I called Brent at work asking what I should do. I had to go in my bedroom and close the door and turn the TV on loud to drown out the crying because it is so hard for me to listen to, it breaks my heart. But I know it is for the best. She needs to nap, and she needs to know that crying isn't going to make us take her out of bed. It's becoming a power struggle and she has to know who wears the pants. She has never cried that long before, not even close. Ava, when you read this when you are older, please know that your crying is harder on us than it is on you, but it is for your own good! You're a much happier baby and we are much happier parents when you've had some sleep.
I know I say this everytime but Ava is learning so much and she's so smart. She is saying "uh-oh" and the other day Brent swears she said "duck." She was playing with her rubber ducky at the time and Brent kept saying duck, and he said she copied him. She learned how to operate light switches and she loves turning them off and on. When we go for walks she points at everything and we tell her what it is, and she looks like she's really listening to us and wants to know. She likes it when we read to her. Her favorite is a Dora the Explorer book. She will sit next to me and play with the pages and point to things.
She hardly eats baby food at all anymore, she doesn't like it when we feed her. She wants to do it herself. At Thanksgiving she had cranberries, mashed potatoes and stuffing and she liked them. She loves cheese and crackers. She likes everything we give her for the most part. I buy little cans of mixed vegetables and she loves those. She likes noodles, really likes spaghetti. I like it because it's so much easier to let her feed herself. Even though she makes a little mess, it gives me a chance to do other stuff while she's eating, and we can all eat together. She still doesn't have top teeth though, and it's starting to bug me. She's going to be 11 months old this month, and it seems like most babies her age have more teeth than her. I keep checking for some top ones and nothing. All she has are the 2 bottom ones. I don't want to have to have her fitted for baby dentures so she can eat real food.
We are starting to Christmas shop for her and soon it will be time to go see Santa! I can't wait to see her reaction with that whole thing.

These are old-ish pictures from the Y.


Ava trying to wear Daddy's hat. In the background is the red car from hell that has run over her fingers a few times.