Daddy Is Not Amused!

This has become the norm for Ava during her feedings. She turns to see what is going on in the kitchen. We have to tell her numerous times to turn around and eat. Sometimes we even have to hold her with one hand and feed her with the other. She is quite the wiggle-worm!

Playing In The Kitchen

I Do Not Agree

I saw this bumper sticker recently and was hoping it was sarcasm:

I believe that the Bible is God's inspired word. I believe that its authors are inspired by God. I believe that it is flawless. However, I believe that man is imperfect and therefore cannot PERFECTLY translate God's word. End of story!

Walkin' On Sunshine

 At a  certain time of day, the sunlight pours into our house via two panel windows that flank either side of the front door. I am so glad I had my camera ready on this day because Ava's little adventure was pretty en"light"ening! :) Okay, so that was really corny! She crawled over this patch of light just like she would normally do. 

 Then she stopped and looked up at me.

 She tried to grab it several times but to no avail!

 She finally crawled over to one of the windows to investigate. Ava likes to investigate!

Then she realized that it was sunshine peeking through our windows! Too cute!

Splish Splash, I Was Takin' A Bath!

Polishing The Pulpit

This post is about a month late, but I just have not found the energy to blog everything that needs to be blogged. I still have an extremely long list of stuff that needs to go on the blog, but I have been super busy with church activities (we will be kicking off the iCare Ministry this Sunday) and baby shower  planning. Two friends at church are having babies soon. Rachel is due early November and her shower is Sept. 25th. And Maggie is due in the middle of January which means her shower will be at the beginning of December. There are several other women at church who are expecting, but I am not heading up their showers. Not to mention, there is a certain little girl who will be turning "1" on December 13th! I am a planner. I love to have everything completed in advance. I am typically not a "wait until the last minute" kind of gal. I have also found a new love: Pinterest! I am ashamed to admit that I have spent hours on Pinterest pinning projects that I will probably never do. :) Pinterest is heaven for the hoarder at heart!! So...all the above mentioned stuff are real reasons why I have been negligent in my blogging!!

About a month ago, Jeremy, Ava, and I, hopped in our new car and traveled to Sevierville, TN, to stay in the Wilderness at the Smokies Resort. If you have passed through Sevierville, on your way to Gatlinburg, you have no doubt seen the Dr. Seuss-esque waterslide protruding from the side of a HUGE log cabin hotel. This is where we stayed. It is a neat place and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to vacation in the area! Anyway, the reason for this trip was Polishing the Pulpit (or PTP) It is a Christian conference held every year for members of the church of Christ from all over the globe. Everyone wears a name tag that tells where they are from. Missionaries from New Zealand, India, Tanzania, the Philippines, etc. can usually come while on their furlough. And ministers, elders, deacons, and church members come before school starts for their children. It lasts for a full week (Thursday to Thursday) and has sessions for everyone. I am going to brag on my husband for a minute and then I will post a picture and shut up! :) Jeremy was asked last year if he would be willing to be a speaker for the 2011 PTP. He was very honored and said yes. He had four 45 minute sessions and one 7 minutes of wisdom session. He spoke about youth leaving the church, creative VBS ideas, and did two sessions about Family ministry in the church. I was really proud of him for the great job that he always does. He spent a large time away from our family for the few weeks before PTP so that he could study and prepare for his lessons. Here is a pic of one of his sessions:

I was wrangling a baby while trying to take this picture and Jeremy was, of course, completely embarrassed that I was taking a picture of this. But, I was a proud wife! You see his session at 7:00. :)

Okay, as promised, I will shut up with my bragging! We did not get to sit through as many sessions as we wanted. Ava is an extremely wiggly baby girl and did not want to sit. She wanted to crawl and "talk" to the speakers while they were speaking. It really is cute, because she tries to talk to everyone, but we have to whisper in her ear to remind her that she can't talk to everyone sometimes! Jeremy and I would take turns taking her out so that one of us could sit and listen. It was not bad at all. We knew before we came that she would not sit through the lessons, so neither of us was really upset that we missed so much. Besides that, PTP has a policy that anyone who has to take their baby out, gets a free CD of the lesson. So, basically, we racked up on free bible lessons!

We had a great week delving into God's word and learning how to apply those lessons to our life. It was a refreshing week; just what we needed!

 This is right before one of the sessions started. Ava had her bow intact and was enjoying the company of Mommy, Daddy, and her Mrow-Mrow (the little leopard looking animal was her favorite toy that week)

 As is her custom, she pulls out the hair bow. There is nothing we can do about it! She can feel the weight of it in her hair and she can't stand it. :)

 We finally got her to sleep through one of the sessions so we could pay attention! She is a sound sleeper when she naps!

 The hotel had a pond between the conference center and the main lobby. Whenever we had to take Ava out of sessions, we would usually end up at this pond/fountain. It was very entertaining!

 Daddy was so sweet to Ava. It didn't matter that he was in his suit, he took time to show Ava the pond and the little frog fountains. She loves water, so this was a special treat!!

Jeremy finally dipped her toes in the water. She giggled! It was a pretty cute moment between father and daughter. :)

Ava's New Friends!

While on our vacation in Sevierville, we met up with two families who have little boys. The Thompson's have Braden who is almost 3 and Tandyn who is almost 4 months. The Jones's have Ryder who is about 15 months old. I got some cute pictures of all three boys (Ava would not cooperate!)

 I tried to get a picture of Tandyn and Ava together. She would not have it! I tried to get them laying next to one another several times and she kept rolling over. This picture and the one below this are the only two salvageable pictures!!

 Try #2

 This is Ryder Jones. Ava LOVED him! He can walk and run and Ava can't yet so she just thought that he was the funniest thing ever!! I think she realized that he is a little person like her and she got a kick out of all the things he is able to do.

Ryder playing in Chik-fil-a. He is so cute!

Two More Things...

I forgot to put this in Ava's 8.5 month post!! Here are two more things:

• Ava no longer sucks her fingers!! She use to suck her two middle fingers on her left hand (I think) when she was tired. It was so sweet! She quit using a pacifier when she was about 2 months old. She just got tired of it one day and quit using it. She then used her fingers until about 1.5 months ago. When we got back from our Texas trip, she just quit!
• Ava still spits up occasionally but it has been reduced significantly since the introduction of solid foods. This last month especially, I have noticed that we don't use as many burp cloths. I guess she is on her way to being reflux free!!

This was our Disney World Trip when Ava was 4 months old. I thought it was so sweet that she sucked her two middle fingers. It always made me laugh! My baby girl is growing up!

Hiccups

I had not planned on posting anything today, but I was just on my facebook account and read something that I just had to post about. Facebook has an application that will tell you what your status was a year ago. I read mine and sighed. So sweet. A year ago today, I was 25 weeks pregnant with Ava and felt her hiccup for the first time. I remember those hiccups well. I would wake up every morning to her hiccups. Since she did not move a lot, those hiccups were the sign that everything was still progressing well with her and with the pregnancy. I love having Ava here in my life, but I sure do miss my pregnancy with her. It really isn't something that you can understand unless you have experienced it. You can appreciate it, but until you have another human being growing in your body, you can't know what it is like. I'm sorry if that sounds exclusive, I really don't mean it to be. There is just no other way I can explain it. Pregnancy is the neatest thing. I can totally understand why some women can get addicted to being pregnant!

I guess since I am blogging, I will go ahead and post some pics:

 This was last year at about 25 weeks. I was at Polishing the Pulpit with Jeremy and he felt her kick for the first time. I remember laying in our hotel bed one night reading a book (The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory) and she had begun to kick (as was her habit at about 10pm) I told Jeremy and he put his hand on my stomach and immediately drew it back in shock. I guess she knew her Daddy's hand was there, because she made her presence known!

This was last week. She had just finished her first "Big Girl Bath" in the bathtub. She is also using a big girl towel. She was all smiles after her bubble bath with all her bath toys. So much fun!

Sweet Ava at 8 and 1/2 months!

I dropped the ball and did not post on Ava's 8 month birthday. We were out of town and I had every intention of posting when we got settled in at home. Well, almost 3 weeks later, I do not consider myself "settled in." I still have laundry to wash, showers to plan, a filthy kitchen (even though I just cleaned it), and a teething baby (I think in a week, she will have 4-6 new teeth.) So, I just have to do it! Here is my post on Ava at 8.5 months:

Milestones:

• Ava can almost clap by herself. She has to be looking at her hands to do it, though! If she is looking away and tries to clap, her hands pass one another in the air! :)
• Ava knows to put her hands together to pray before she eats. (Now, this does not mean that she does it every time. She is experimenting with defiance and will pull her hands away from me and fuss when she just wants to skip to the meal. I move the food out of her sight and hold her hands in place no matter how hard she struggles. In the middle of the prayer, she will usually calm down and listen)
• She understands "No, No!" I try to reserve this  for things that jeopardize her safety. If there is something that I just don't prefer her to do, I try to re-direct her attention.
• She crawls everywhere and is into everything!! She can crawl really fast when Jeremy plays with her. She likes for him to chase her while she crawls away and squeals. She comes for me and bangs her head into my chest to get away from him. It is cute and apparently, does not hurt her. :)
• She still just says "dada." She is experimenting with other sounds: "sus,sus,sus" and "boh-moh." I have no idea what they mean.
• She can pull all the way up to a standing position and let go. She can stand for about 1 second and then falls onto her tush. She has learned to fall a certain way so that she does not fall back and hit her head.
• When she is in the middle of a room with nothing to hold onto, she can get herself up on all fours but has not figured out how to pull all the way up to standing.
• She loves to be tickled on her ribcage!!
• While she is standing, she can hold onto something while also bending down to pick something off of the floor.
• She is very curious!! She wants to know what is going on at all times!!
• Everything goes into her mouth!!
• She loves splashing during her bathtime!
• She eats three solid food meals a day and has four bottle feedings a day. She is quite the eater!! Jeremy and I started making her baby food at home and she loves it!! I still pack a baby food jar or two from the grocery store into her diaper bag, but I think she actually prefers the homemade stuff.
• She has about 4-5 bowel movements a day! She is a machine!!
• She still has just two teeth, but several more are trying to pop through her gums. Her gums are very swollen and tender, and she drools a lot.
• She smiles almost all the time!! Especially when Daddy gets home from work! She loves Daddy time!
• She still sleeps 12-12.5 hours every night. When we were on vacation, she slept about 9 hours at night. It was a different place with lots of different faces, but she still acted very rested and was pleasant to be around.
• She enjoys Bible Class so much! After lunch everyday, I teach her a small Bible class. I read stories to her from her Beginner's Bible and sing songs that go along with the stories. She smiles and laughs through the whole thing. Above all, this makes me the most happy. I want to convey to her that Christianity is fun (I know that it has serious moments and I will teach her about that too, but I want her to enjoy worship) Jeremy and I both want her to love God and know that he loves her too. We both feel like we need to teach her to enjoy serving God and others.
• Ava enjoys singing during Sunday worship. It usually comes out as a long vocal note, but in her baby mind, I think she understands that this is the part where you belt it out! :)

I think that is probably it. Hopefully, I will have some new things to add in two weeks when she turns 9 months!!