Brat Attack

Ava is going through such a cranky phase right now. I think she might be teething. One minust she is fine, and the next she is screaming like we just stuck her hand in a fire. She has been really clingy too, she wants to be held more than ever. If I am standing at the kitchen counter doing something, she will wedge herself between me and the cabinets and whine for me to pick her up. She never usually acts this way, but the past few days if we aren't doing what she wants to be doing, she lets you know. It was time to go home from work the other day and she was having fun playing on the bed with Max and Ashley. Ashley took Ava off the bed so that we could leave and Ava sat down and threw the biggest fit. She screamed! It gets so frustrating. If this is due to teething then I hope those things pop out quick because this is getting old!
She was a guest at her first birthday party this past Sunday. My friend Christina's daughter was turning 2, and she had a birthday party at a local park. It was a nice day, a little too hot, but nice. It was hard though since Brent wasn't able to go, I was trying to wrangle Ava by myself. She loves being outside and she loved playing on the playground they have, so I was pretty much glued there with her. When I picked her up to walk over to see them blow out candles, Ava fought me. She is suprisingly strong for a baby. When she wants to get down, she makes it very hard to hold her. It is a little embarrassing walking down the sidewalk with a screaming, wriggling baby in your arms. For the most part, she was pretty good, she just got tired there towards the end and needed a nap. When we left she fell asleep within 5 minutes into the car ride home.
Things have been pretty much as usual. I've been working a few more hours this week since it is tax time and they have turned me into their bookkeeper. I'm a little bit of everything there.
Ooohh I almost forgot to mention that we got a family picture taken last Saturday, just the 3 of us. They came out pretty good. The actual pictures will be here on April 6th but we got a picture CD so I will post them on here too. I will be mailing the actial pictures out to family very shortly after I get them. Well this is short but I am typing in the dark since Brent is sleeping, and it is hard to do! Here are some pics!
Brent had the camera on black and white and I didn't know it

Tara, Nathan and Ava. She can get up the slide by herself!

She takes sliding very seriously

Tinkle tinkle little star...

The title of this blog will make sense once I tell you what Ava's new favorite thing to do is. She likes to pee. On the floor. She tinkles, and I really do think she likes it. She never used to do this, but lately, as soon as the diapers off and she's out of reach, she leaves a puddle. Luckily the past few times have been on the tile floor, but she has done it on the carpet a couple of times too. It's frustrating because I like to let her air out a bit between diaper changes since she's been getting diaper rash more frequently. Right now she has the worst diaper rash ever, I really feel bad, but I can't let her go even a couple of minutes without a diaper, otherwise I will be cleaning up a mess! She got a potty chair for her birthday, and even though I know it is probably too soon, I am thinking about taking it out of the box and sitting her on it, just to see what she does. This morning she peed on the floor in front of the TV, right before we had to leave for work, and she ended up stepping in it and falling in it before I could get the paper towels. Good times.
Yesterday afternoon we went up to visit with my parents for a bit. It is nice to hang out there, but they have stairs everywhere, and Ava is all over them. She loves just going up and down, for no reason at all. We have to try to barricade the staircase with chairs, and then we let her play on the 2 steps up to the hallway. Up and down, with me just picturing the fall on the face that is bound to happen. She is getting better though, she is usually very careful. She loves their grandfather clock. When it makes its noise she puts her face close to it, and watches the pendulum (I can't spell that word). She was very mellow the whole time we were there, until it was time to leave and she didn't want to leave the doggies. My parents have 2 large outside dogs, their tails are level with her face. She wanted to hang outside with them and as soon as I went to put her in the car seat she let me have it. She loves dogs. When we are out for a walk and our neighbor walks by with his dog, she starts crying when we pass them, because we are leaving it. I'm sorry Ava, but your momma has a strict no dogs policy, at least for the time being. We have a cat, and most of the time Ava couldn't care less.
In good news, I got a raise on Monday. Factor in the money I'm saving in not having to pay for daycare, and it is pretty good. I will get another raise if I ever get enough time to get my insurance license. This is not what I want to do as a career for the rest of my life, but for now, it is working. In all honesty, I do it because I am not ready to put my baby in daycare yet. I like the fact that I am in the same house as her, and I don't have to ask someone what she did all day, what she ate, how she got hurt, etc. I don't know how people do it. To celebrate my raise, I took Ava to Walmart and bought her a few things. She got a Dora chair, a Dora book, and a Barney movie. She loves all of those things, and seeing how happy it makes her makes me happier than anything I could've bought for myself. Here are some pictures. I take LOTS of pictures, and most of them are cute so it's hard to narrow them down to just a few.

St. Patrick's Day outift


DORA!

Look how happy!

Sometimes you feel like a blog...

and sometimes you can't think of anything to write about. We've been busy bees lately, but this week Brent has Spring Break off from school, so we get to be like a normal family for a whole week! Tonight we actually made dinner and ate...together! Kind of. Whenever we eat we usually feed Ava first and then we try to eat. She usually would rather eat sitting on our lap and off of our plates then eat in her high chair. I don't usually let her do that, so she usually just tinkers around while we wolf down some food.
In big news, Ava is pretty much off the binky! Friday night was the first night we tried it, and it was pretty much a disaster. The way we would normally do it was to put her to bed without the binky, but it would be in the crib and she would put it in her mouth as soon as we put her in there. Friday the binky went missing from the crib. She was okay at first, but she began to cry soon after we left the room. After about 10 minutes we went in there and she had worked herself up to where nothing would comfort her. We gave her the binky, I tried rocking her, I laid on the floor with her..she just cried. After 30 or so minutes, she finally calmed down, and with binky in mouth, fell asleep. Since then, she has not had the binky at night, and we all survived. No crying.
She is working on learning the parts of her body now. She knows hands, head, belly, toes, eyes & ears (sometimes), mouth, and knees. Sometimes she knows shoulders too. Her 2 front teeth popped out so quickly too. In the morning, when it's time to go to work, she walks to the door and looks at me like, "let's get out of here!" She even gets my shoes for me. She has started to try to wear my shoes. She loves being outside, and she loves playing ball. She knows birdies and she points to the sky. She loves doggies and she loves ducks. Today she had her first glass of real grapefruit juice and she didn't even make a face. Her favorit foods are noodles, especially macaroni and cheese, and bananas (not at the same time). Her absolute favorite things are books. She loves to be read to or just sit by herself and look at them. In the car she will look at a book the whole way to wherever we're going. Her favorite one, besides the big animal picture book (see previous post) is Barney Plays Nose to Toes. She acts out the pictures; when it says "March your feet up and down," she kicks her feet. When it says "Wave your arms all around," she waves them. At any time I can say those phrases, and whatever she's doing she will stop and march or wave. She makes the cutest sounds, and she is the sweetest girl. She gives so many kisses, and she has learned to not open her mouth when she gives them.

Playing at the Beach

Last weekend, we loaded up the family and the camera tripod and away we went to the beach. It is nice that we live about 15 minutes away. Our goal was to get a decent family photo. We got a few nice pictures, not that "perfect" one that we were hoping for, but it was fun all the same. This was the second time Ava had ever been to the beach. The first time was last March when she was about 3 months old. She loved having her feet in the sand, we could not contain her - hence, not very good pictures. It also doesn't help that we have a new camera that we don't quite know how to use properly. Here is a sampling, we took probably 50. Enjoy.