8 Weeks

Ava woke up at 7:30 this morning and was in such a happy mood, as she usually is in the mornings. I tried to snap some shots of her smiling. The camera delay prevented me getting some of the cutest smiles but I was able to capture a few!

At 8 weeks Ava is still enjoying her feet and she loves to stand when we are holding her. She will always stick those legs out and push up when given the chance. She's also still trying her best to imitate faces and noises we make. She is cooing up a storm and it's the cutest! She now notices more of her surroundings and is enjoying her bright colored toys and trying her best to grab them when in front of her. She also just noticed on Monday that the dogs exist. She's been watching Magnum and following him with her eyes. Then she gets a surprised look on her face when he comes up and swipes her with his tongue. It's just a matter of time before she is grabbing his tail and ears. He will be so good with her. I think Biscuit will probably hide from her once she is crawling.

Next week is her two month check up and I am sooo nervous. I know she will be getting her first round of immunizations and it's going to kill me to see her get them. I just know I'm going to by crying my eyes out when she gets upset. Steve was supposed to go with us but with his current work schedule it looks like I'll be on my own :(

Cousin Tyler

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Ava's Hurrication

So like I said we spent the last week almost with Erin, David and Tyler out in Tomball. Nana also was there most of the time so Ava got lots of attention and mommy got lots of help and good mommy advice from Erin and Nana. Tyler just loved "baby Ava" and she would break out into a big smile whenever he was around or talking to her. One thing we were able to do on our trip was to get Ava to take a few normal naps. Most of the time I'm spending most of my day getting her to take a good nap. What happens is that she falls to sleep in my arms and I put her in her crib or bassinett (even our bed or her snuggle nest). Within 30 mins she's woken herself up and is crying, but she's still tired so as soon as I pick her up she starts dozing off again, and we repeat the process all day long. Sometimes even when I'm holding her she wakes herself up. So at Erin's we were able to get her to take a good 3 hour nap one day and the next. We made sure she had plenty to eat just before her nap and down she went. I was so excited!!! Of course now that we are home she will not nap again. I'm going to go and recreate the room at Erin's house with a very dark room and an oscillating fan and see how she does then. The good news is that she sleeps like a champ at night and will get a good 11-12 hours with a couple of feedings in between. It's just the napping she won't do.

She will still rarely take her paci but we were able to get her to fall asleep without me or while nursing. Woot! Another milestone she hit while we were there is that she learned she has hands and feet and that she can grab something in front of her if she really concentrates on it. She was grabbing the parrot on her bouncy seat and letting it go. Good Girl!!!

We also think she may have a touch of reflux because she has been spitting up excessively. Sometimes I wonder if she's even absorbed any of the feeding she just spit up. I've been trying to watch my dairy intake to see if that helps until her 2 month appointment.

Yikes Hurricane Ike!

We are happy to say that we are safe and sound and we finally have power after the crazy hurricane that just came through here. A lot of the city is still out of power and Steve is having to work 16 hour days. Right before the storm my cousin Erin called and invited Ava and I to stay with them. They had their windows all boarded up and they had a generator for when the power went out. My aunt Bonnie (Ava's Nana) also stayed the night. We all went to bed after tiring of the continuous hurricane coverage at about 12:30, two hours later the winds started and sounded scary!!! We could hear the transformers outside buzzing and getting ready to blow right before the power went out. Erin came and got in bed with Ava and I and we just sat there and listened to the wind blow wondering if it would get worse, and it did! For the rest of the night we all played musical beds moving from room to room. The wind got very scary between 4 and 6 in the morning. We were just sure a tree would come through the house. Steve stayed at our house with his dad and I called him throughout the night to check on him. I was really worried about all of the pine trees around our house. The storm finally slowed down about 8 in the morning and Ava managed to sleep through the entire storm. Erin's power was out for a full day and our power was out until Wednesday night, so I stayed at Erin's with Ava until Wednesday. When we got home this is what we found. Not too bad and only minimal damage to the house. We got very lucky and my sweet cousin Michael helped us out big time by coming over and cutting up all the limbs and putting them out on the curb for us. One of Erin and David's friends did get a tree through his house and several houses near us got pine trees through their house.

6 weeks

Today we started Ava's bedtime routine and I'm amazed at how well it worked! I started by giving her a baby massage and she absolutely loved it! She laid there so calm and cooed and looked around. Then I put her in the bathtub and gave her a nice warm bath, which she also loves. Steve came home just in time to read her a book and give her a bottle while he rocked her in the glider. When she'd had enough of him I went in and rocked her and sang her bedtime song (Go to Sleep baby Ava-I made it up) and she was sound asleep within minutes. She is now sleeping in her snuggle nest and I'm watching her on the monitor hoping she'll get a good 3-4 hours of sleep in.

Speaking of baby monitor, I have a video monitor and today I turned it on only to see someone elses baby crib! I had heard that you can occasionally pick up someone elses signal and see their baby, but it hasn't happened to me yet until today. The crib was empty and now I'm wondering what house it was I'm seeing! Kind of freaky!!

This past weekend we went to Grandad and Grandma's house. Again a 45 minute drive so we were very worried about how Ava would do. She did great until we were about 20 minutes away and then it was meltdown time. Steve pulled over and I took her out and fed her which calmed her down. She was okay the rest of the ride there and sucked on her paci. She was really tired though and fussed most of the time we were there. She just kept fighting sleep. I think she wanted to stay up and see grandma and grandad so she fought sleep. Once we got in the car she took her paci and was out like a light the entire ride home.

Telling secrets to the paci

Don't I look cute?

On the way home from Grandad and Grandma's

Newborn Portraits

My friend Kelley came over to do Ava's newborn portraits. It was a rough day for Ava in that she was pretty fussy but we were able to get some cute shots out of the day. I posted a few here. Most of the pictures we have taken so far are of Ava and Steve so I tried to get a few of mommy and Ava but of course she had had about enough of the picture taking by that point so we only got pictures of Ava crying with mommy. We'll try again soon!

Daddy's Funny!

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5 weeks

Ava had her first "playdate" yesterday with her new little friend Kate (who was born 2 weeks ago). She and Kate are going to get baptized together at St. Lukes in a few months. We are so excited. Once we have details we'll send it out to friends and family who are interested in attending the service. Ava also got to meet her other little friends Calvin and Audrey on Sunday at Tiffany's house. Tiffany lives about 45 mins away so I was really wondering how Ava was going to do on the drive there. She did great until we were about 10 minutes from Tiff's house, then it was a major meltdown. She made sounds I've never heard before and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I wanted to take her out and just hold her so bad. Wouldn't you know right when we pulled on to Tiff's street, Ava stopped crying and she was an angel the rest of the day. Everyone kept commenting on what a good baby she was! Then she slept the entire way home.

Yesterday we went out to my friend Rhonda's to visit baby Kate and Ava did great on the car ride there but started melting down about 5 minutes from home. I tried the white noise CD and it didn't help much. She was just tired and ready for her afternoon nap.

Today I had my post delivery check up and poor little Ava had a major diaper explosion in the drs. office. Wouldn't you know I forgot to bring an extra outfit for her! Poop EVERYWHERE! Other than that the visit was uneventful and she did really well. She is napping now.

Steve and I have managed to get a few smiles out of her the last week. She has even started imitating us. Steve yawned the other day while he was holding her and she opened her mouth real wide and then smiled at him. He was so excited and he did it again, so she imitated him again! We were amazed! haha. I got the camera to video tape it and of course then she wouldn't do it. I did manage to get a half smile caught today and I will post that later this afternoon.