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.