16 weeks old today!

Happy New Years Eve everyone! We're finally home. I ended up getting the stomach flu over the weekend so we were unable to return home until I could stomach sitting in the car for 4.5 hours. It was a long drive home, and not particularly fun. Now we just need to pray that the flu doesn't make its way around the entire family. The house is a disaster and we are out of sorts but hopefully the holiday tomorrow will give us a chance to catch up. Ava is stuck looking at just Mike and I after an entire week of doting relatives and entertaining cousins.

Ava's First Christmas

Tons of photos to publish but here is a preview.

Ava met her cousins Rhys and Charlie for the first time this Christmas! Rhys is seven months old (left) and Charlet is eleven months old. They live in Brooklyn.

What?!? Christmas is over?!?!

15 weeks old on Christmas Eve!

We elected not to pack the reference zebra so here's Ava with her boppy pillow for reference.

Snow baby!

We're up in Rock Island for the holidays. We're getting lots of snow here, probably 6-8 inches have fallen so far. We took Ava out in her new snow suit.

Scenes from around the house...

Hello Baby! Zzzzzzzz..........I think she looks like a puffalump here:Fashion victim?

Moi?

14 weeks old today!

Ava is 14 weeks old today. Big day today, she attended day care for four hours. She apparently slept most of the time...I cried in the conference room at work while pumping. I think she had a better day than I did.

Already rolling her eyes...

Ya mom, stockings on feet are hilarious. Whatever.

Scary Christmas Moose!

Ava is seen here making friends with her nemisis, the Christmas Moose. He sings "Jingle Bells" in a deep voice and bobs his head left and right. He's adorable, in my opinion. Ava disagreed. She watched him sing for about 10 seconds and then BAWLED. She actually had real tears. It was so sad! Just when Christmas Moose was about to get the Christmas Boot she started to warm up to him.

No use crying over spoiled milk

Our refrigerator went out yesterday. Bummer timing...the cost to repair it was about 1/3rd the cost of the fridge! Argh. Much more annoying, however, is the fact that I lost my entire "milk bank" I'd been pumping and freezing to get me ahead for when Ava goes to day care next week. I was VERY upset but have since gotten over it. Worse things can happen and I am just going to slowly starting to build it up again. The frozen milk is like a savings account...a cushion. You know that you can always get away for the day if you need to...you know everything will be okay if you get sick or if something were to happen that would keep you away from your baby for a few days. Mostly though, it is a pain in the neck to pump, and pumping and dumping sucks. Once defrosted, frozen milk must be used within 24 hours. I left Mike and Ava last night and did some Christmas shopping. Mike certainly had plenty of milk to use. So I figure I got ahead in another way.

Home ownership is kicking my friends Rick and Susan in the rear, too. Here is a photo from the AP of Rick dragging off nearly an entire tree that fell in their yard. A large branch is still hovering over their roof making them very nervous. We feel your pain guys!

13 weeks AND 3 months old today!

Big day today! Ava is both 13 weeks and 3 months old today! It also happens to be Mike's 1/2 birthday too! Because we were iced in the house this weekend, I was inspired to make a cake for them. Here are some photos:

Here is evidence of said ice.

Ava's 13 week week photo.

Ava's 3 month photo.

Here is Mike's cake! 31 1/2 today! I was pretty proud of this cake. I made it from scratch. Like I said, we were iced in so I made the cake and the frosting out of our pantry. I've never done that before!

Here is Ava's cake!

Ava watches as my sister Megan licks the beaters. Yum! Can I have some Auntie Megan?

Here are the birthday kids.

Do you Bumbo?

Yee-haw!! Ava's in the bumbo rodeo. The bumbo is designed for babies that can't quite sit up on their own but have head control. Ava isn't quite ready to sit in it but we tried it out the other day. If you haven't yet seen the YouTube Bumbo video series, I HIGHLY recommend it. Here is part 1:

This isn't a great photo of Ava but you can see that we have all the necessary tools to re-create the scenes.

She can laser Ringle for her latest crime:
Yep, that is Ava's crib.

Assorted Cuteness

Ava's new friend, the "ugly doll". She really seems to like this little guy.

Here we are practicing "modified tummy time". She seems to like flying on my shins more than being planted face-first on the floor. We like to mix it up. I enjoy this kind of tummy time because I get to look at her sweet face.

Here is Ava sucking her thumb this morning! I just can't get over how cute that is!

12 weeks old today!

Check out those chubby arms! I love wrist rolls on a baby. What has Ava been up to these days...well she has recently been reaching for toys. She grabbed a rattle out of Mike's hand the other day. She has also discovered her hand and will stop what she is doing and just stare intently at her fist as it waves in front of her face.