My Pumpkin

I always find myself on the computer late at night when I am tired so I slack off on posting, but stuff is starting to pile up so I'd better get to it. As I mentioned before, Ava is going through a tooth explosion. The 2 bottom ones are poking through, and I'm pretty sure the top teeth are ready to say hello too. I was feeding her a little bit of banana with my finger and she bit me so hard she almost broke the skin! I can't wait to see her with teeth, she will look like such a big girl. There are days when I don't see her for hours and it seems like she grew in that short amount of time. I can't believe she is going to be 9 months in 2 days. The 9 months that I was pregnant went by SO slow compared to these past 9 months.
She is crawling everywhere and pulling herself up on everything. She is getting braver and is starting to let go a little and try to stand up on her own. Of course she falls every time, but I think within a month she'll be standing up without holding on. She loves to pull all of our DVD's out of the entertainment center. I don't even bother putting them back anymore, so our living room looks like it's been ransacked most of the time. She also discovered the tupperware in our kitchen cabinets and will add some of that into the mix too.
I have been a little more daring with her food. I've begun giving her little bits of fruit and I gave her bread the other night. She won't put them in her mouth herself, I have to fee her with my fingers. If I put stuff on her high chair and try to let her do it herself she just moves it around and plays with it. Drops it on the floor, smushes it, etc. She liked the bread, she loves bananas, doesn't really care for cantaloupe. She eats yogurt too. When Brent and I eat she wants our food so bad. She goes to the doctor soon so I am going to ask them what else I can give her.
She started waving "hi" and "bye" this month, but now she has kind of stopped that. She has been very smiley lately and has started to laugh more, which we love. The other day when I took her grocery shopping she was sitting in the front of the cart and I bent down to give her a hug and I really felt like she hugged me back. She still loves the ABC song, and she also likes "Little Bunny Foo-Foo" and she will wave her hand around when I start singing it, almost like she's trying to copy the hand movements. She points at everything. She recognizes the words clock, hi, bye, mommy, daddy, fan, outside, and light. And there you have it, Ava in a paragraph.

Today we took her to a pumpkin festival at a big farm. It's a big thing this farm does every year but I had never been. Seeing as how it's nearly the end of October and technically it is "fall," I had hoped that we might have some cooler weather. I wanted to dress Ava in a cute fall outfit and take some pictures with the pumpkins. Unfortunately, it was miserably hot! Geez I hate Florida! After a short time there we were sweating like crazy, wouldn't venture out of the shade, and kept putting water on Ava to keep her cool. The farm even had a "misting station" where people could walk through and get sprayed with water mist. I am dying for some cool weather. It is hard to get into the fall spirit when you are wearing shorts and a tank top and still sweating your ass off. Of course, the weather says a cold front is due this week so next weekend will probably have the weather I'd hoped for. Oh well.

It is now 11:45pm and I am wiped out. Here's some pics:
Ava with her first pair of shoes. She doesn't keep them on very long.

Ava & Daddy. I love those overalls.

Sleeping beauty. I went in her room to check on her before I went to bed and she had her head on that little pillow and she looked so cute I had to get a picture. Unfortunately, the flash made her scrunch up her face. Still cute, and she looks pissed.

Ava and the baby pumpkins. She didn't want to let them go. This was when we first got there, before we were miserable.





Ava eating some yummies.

Busy

I will be posting again really soon. We are in the process of changing our internet, so right now I am using old school dial-up AOL. Very, very slow. We should have it up and going by tomorrow so I will try to post then. We got rid of the cable internet and are going to try DSL because cable is so expensive, but I have a feeling I might regret that decision and go back to cable in the very near future.

All is well, Ava is teething like crazy. More soon...

Teeth!

Yes, Ava is finally getting her first tooth! I was beginning to think she'd be toothless forever! It is one of her bottom teeth, but I think she will soon have a tooth-explosion and will get them all at once. She hasn't been acting that cranky or seemed at all uncomfortable, so that is a good thing. She won't really let us see it but we can feel something sharp on her gums. I can't wait to see her with teeth, and it will be good because then I can start feeding her different things. She eats her baby food and sometimes I give her these wagon-wheel things for babies, but when she sees Brent and me eating anything, she makes a grab for it. She wants whatever we have. The other night we were making pasta so I gave her some noodles. They were the corkscrew kind and I tore them in pieces and put them on her high chair tray. She didn't know what to do with them, and they got sticky and were sticking to her fingers and face, it was so funny. She hasn't quite figured out the whole "self-feeding" thing yet.
She is understanding so many words now. Of course, she knows clock and will point to the kitchen clock. Even if we're somewhere else and we say clock she will just point in the air. She now knows "mommy" and will look at me when we say "where's mommy?" Sometimes she gets me and Brent confused and will look at him. When we say "hi" she will wave. It isn't perfect, but it is definitely a wave. Everyday it seems she is making progress in the learning department, it is very exciting to see. She is doing different baby-talk too, making different sounds.
The weather has been really nice this past week - perfect summer weather in October. We might even turn the A/C off in a few days. We have been taking Ava for walks, me in the morning and Brent in the afternoon. I can't wait until we can actually do things together again. That requires me to get a different job, which I am working on. I am either going to try to get a full-time teaching job or try to work as a substitute, if we can work out the baby-sitting situation. A standard day-care center is my absolute LAST resort.
I get the feeling she is going to wake up from her nap any minute so it's random picture time.

She loves to take all of the DVD's off the shelf, but she never puts them back. That Huggies box is there to block the stereo!

Pointing

Doing the wave

Just being darn cute

Ava and the F*$#%@! cat!

Fuzzy, but again, cute.