They saw me coming

That would be the Walmart portrait studio. They saw me walking in the door and probably started doing a happy dance that a new, clueless mother was coming in. They thought,"Hey, we can sell her a ridiculous amount of pictures!" And they did. I spent way too much money, and now have a RIDICULOUS amount of pictures of Ava. Don't get me wrong, I love having pictures of her, but now we have tons, and you can only put so many around the house. We would need a much bigger house for all these pictures. And the kicker is that I don't even like half the poses. They took 6 or 7 different shots and I only really like 3. I think Ava is the cutest thing in the world, but she only really has like 1 facial expression in pictures, as you can probably tell from the pictures on the blog. So it is basically all the same picture, just with different backgrounds. Oh well, I'll be giving away pictures to everyone I see.

Ava has been going through some changes lately, and I can't say that I like them all. The good changes are that she is holding her head up so well now, and she has been rolling over from her stomach to her back. She is really trying hard to roll from back to stomach but has yet to do it. She is having little baby conversations with us too. She'll put her eyebrows down and look very serious when she talks to you, and there will be lots of spit bubbles. The bad changes are in the sleep department. She is at war with herself and us over sleep. She does not like to nap during the day. Pretty much the only way we can get her to take a decent nap is by laying down with her on the couch, and then we have about a 50/50 chance of her sleeping longer than 30 minutes. Sometimes she'll sleep for 3 hours, other times it seems like mere minutes. She takes micro-naps. Then there's bedtime. She was the BEST baby when it came to bed time. We would put her in her crib around 10:30pm while she was still awake but half asleep, and she would fall asleep in her crib without a peep. Now, we put her down in her crib and she fusses. We'll go in, put her binky back in and leave, and a few minutes later she's fussing again. This will go on for about a half hour. Sometimes we pull her out of the crib and she's happy as can be. We however, are not. So her bedtime is getting later and later. We are trying to keep her up more during the late afternoon/evening. Last night she was tired around 9pm so we put her to bed early, and she woke us up at 5:30am this morning. Still not too bad, at least she's not waking up during the night for food.

She is sleeping on the couch right now, and it's like a time bomb getting ready to go off. I scramble around the house trying to get as much done as I possibly can, while being very quiet and waiting to hear her wake up. Today we are going to my parent's house to see my Aunt & Uncle from California.


An absolutely horrible picture of me. So it's only fair that I post a horrible picture of Brent too...

He is going to kill me for this.


Her shirt says "Shhhh...Baby sleeping." If only!

3 Months Old!

Ava turned 3 months old on Sunday, also my Dad's birthday. On Saturday, we had to make an unscheduled trip to the doctor's office. Let me just say that I LOVE Ava's doctor. They have a really nice office, walk-in hours every morning, they are open on Saturdays, and if I call in the morning with a problem they will get me in to see the doctor by the afternoon. Sweet! And the doctor is great with Ava. Anyway, she just had a little rash on her leg that wasn't going away and seemed like it was bothering her, so I took her in for some help. Just a little exczema, no big deal. She is now 13.6 lbs, almost doubled her birth weight.

Okay, tonight was a big night for us. We went out to dinner - all three of us! This is the first time we have gone out to dinner since Ava was born! And she was awesome! Can you tell I am excited?!?! First we went to Old Navy and bought her some cute shorts and T-shirts. I could go crazy in there, their stuff is so cute. I have to restrain myself. Then we went to dinner and she was the best baby. I just have to brag on her for a minute. She rarely ever cries, she sleeps through the night, she is so much fun. She's the best baby! Did I mention she's the cutest thing ever?? Well, she is, and now I'm done.

I am typing this in the dark since Brent is trying to sleep, and it is starting to hurt my eyes, so I'm just going to post some pics now. Gaze upon the wonder that is my daughter...


This her practicing her pose for a future Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar.


She is trying to roll over. She has done it twice so far. I missed the first one, but I saw her do it today. She was cracking us up when she was trying.


Yes, she is drooling in this picture but I like it anyway. She drools all the time, my shirts are always soaked.


The outfit next to her is what we brought her home from the hospital in. I was trying to show how big she's gotten since she was born, but it's kinda hard to tell.

Happy Easter!

A day late. Oh well. Hope everyone had a nice day yesterday. We went to Sarasota to Brent's brother's house where his family was gathering. Ava participated in her first Easter Egg hunt, and I am proud to say that she found 6 eggs, with a little help of course. However, we forgot them over at their house, so it was all for nothing. We had fun though. Brent's sister-in-law made nice dinner and it was so good to have real food for a change. We've been so busy that we haven't had time to cook an actual meal. More like microwaving something. Hopefully that will change soon. After hanging out at Eric's we went over to my parent's house. We didn't stay there very long because Ava was living up to her nickname - Bear. It wasn't her fault. Because we were away from home for so long, her schedule was all messed up. She wouldn't nap because there was too much going on, too many new faces and noises. So by the afternoon she was a bit cranky. By the time we got home, she was overtired and wouldn't fall asleep, so it wasn't a very fun night. She normally doesn't cry very much at all, she normally just yells for something. Usually food or sleep. Last night she just cried. I put her to bed at 9pm, a little early for her, but she just needed to sleep so bad. She slept through the night until 8am, and she's in a much better mood today.
On Saturday we went out to Boca Grande to my Aunt & Uncle's house. Another Aunt & Uncle from Wisconsin were down and staying over there, so they got to meet Ava. It was nice. I haven't been out there in a long time, and the water was beautiful! It looked the best I've ever seen it. So clear and blue, because it hasn't rained to muck up the water. I just wanted to jump in but we couldn't stay as long as I wanted. I have to go now because I'm starving and she's awake, but for now feast your eyes on some of her Easter pics. The Easter Bunny did bring her a basket but we have yet to take a picture of it! We were going to do it yesterday but she was in such a bad mood when we got home that we didn't. I also took her to Walmart and got her first portraits done but I'll write more about that later.




And this one just cuz it's funny -

Finally!

Brent is feeling better after being sick since Thursday. We don't know what it was, some kind of stomach flu I guess, but I have never seen him in so much pain! At first we thought it was food poisoning, but then we heard other people had it too. It was really bad. So Ava and I were on our own this past weekend. It was nice spending so much time with her. She really is such a good baby. She's still sleeping through the night, and she has a pretty predictable routine.




Here she is playing with a new toy I got her. Since she has started reaching for things so well, we figured she would have fun with something like this, and she does seem to like it.
Of course, I also made her model some new outfits I got her -




No matter what I do, I can never get a picture of her without that same surprised expression on her face. It was so funny, I must have taken 8 or 9 pictures of her in that green outfit, just trying to get one of her smiling or making a cute face, but they all came out the same. I promise, she really does have other expressions.

One thing that has become an issue is the television. It's funny too because lately there has been all that controversy about those Sesame Street DVD's for babies. Anyway, sometimes when we need to get things done around the house, we put Ava in her bouncy seat, which happens to be near the TV most of the time. Well, one day Brent noticed that she appeared to be watching TV. So he put it on a cartoon, and she was staring at it. At first I thought that was cute and didn't see the harm in it. I figured it might actually be good for her to see the colors and hear the talking on TV. We would put it on the Nickelodeon channel Noggin, which is a really good station for toddlers and preschoolers. It's very educational. However, now I am not so sure. I notice that whenever the TV is on, no matter what we are watching, her eyes are glued to it. It could be golf or the news, it doesn't matter. The other day I was doing something in the bedroom, and when I went out to the living room, Brent was watching Van Helsing, and Ava was on his lap staring at the TV. Now, I don't know if she can actually see very well that far, and she probably doesn't know what she's seeing, but I asked him to change it anyway. I don't think she needs to be watching vampire movies just yet. So now, I no longer have her bouncy seat in front of the TV, and I am very aware of what I have on. I'm okay with her seeing the occasional episode of Dora the Explorer or Blues Clues. But I do not want her to get used to watching television. I am the kind of person who has the TV on almost all the time, just for the background noise, but I am even thinking of canceling the cable for a while. I don't need to be watching that much TV, I don't have the time anyway. I think those kids shows and DVD's can be an okay thing as long as it is in moderation and parents are involved as well, watching with the kids. I won't just plop her in front of the TV for hours while I do whatever.

Okay, that was my rant for the day, and it is only 7:30am. On the subject of TV, we watched the movie Crash last night. It was pretty good, but I don't think it was Best Picture good. It was very predictable. I think that was the first whole movie we have watched since Ava was born. We are both SO tired today though, because we had to watch it after Ava went to be so we were up late. She's yelling for me so I have to stop now.

I will be posting some pics today or tomorrow, but I am taking care of a sick husband and a baby, so I have no time. Damn that stomach flu. Brent is so sick he can't move.