32 Weeks

First we have great news! We got the pathology report back from MD Anderson on Friday. Kristi sent it to us as soon as she got it and there was no more tumor detected so Steve is free and clear! We were expecting that news but still a tad worried we might get a surprise. It was so good to hear. You hear about Melanoma all the time but never realized how serious it was until Steve got it and we started doing our research. Then last Thursday on Grey's Anatomy one of the main characters Izzy was diagnosed with a Malignant Melanoma that had already spread to her liver and brain. Just a TV show but that really got us thanking God for catching this so early and thanking Kristi for getting us in so quick at her office!

In doodle news....the bugger is moving and moving. Now that she can crawl she wants to crawl at all times now. She still loves her walker and it's like the indy 500 in here every day, but she loves to crawl and explore. Of course she's really drawn to electrical cords. We unplug everything when she's on the floor and can get to it. I told Steve maybe she's going to be an electrician when she grows up. He said if that's the case then she may also be a pole dancer because she's always pulling up on the floor lamp and then swiveling around it until she's back on her bottom on the floor. NOT FUNNY!

Thursday we went over to Courtney's to visit her and cousin Trent. Ava apparently didn't learn her lesson with Kate and went right up to Trent and smacked him in the face a few times. Then she reached up and grabbed a chunk of his hair. He was a tough boy though and didn't make a peep. Courtney said "well I'm glad Kelley's raising the neighborhood bully!" LOL. Then Nana came over and Courtney and Nana were surprised at how quickly Ava has started crawling and standing. Courtney checked her chart and said that standing usually doesn't happen until around 9 months. When Nana saw Ava's two bottom teeth she said "I can't believe she already has teeth!" and Courtney said "Yeah next time we see Ava she's going to wearing a training bra already geez!" I told Steve and we got a chuckle. She better slow down this growing so fast thing because mommy can't handle it!!

Things Ava loves at 32 weeks:

• electrical cords
• practicing talking
• grabbing a chunk of the dog's skin and squeezing it as hard as she can while pulling
• daddy's baseball caps
• chewing up her crib railing so it now looks like a little beaver sleeps in there
• chewing up her cardboard books like a puppy dog
• Gerber Puffs!!
• pulling up on anything and everything to stand
• running over the dogs with her walker
• chasing casper through the house in her walker while waving her arms in the air and screeching at the top of her lungs
• giving mommy a kiss on the cheek (really an open mouthed suck on the cheek)
• MUSIC....loves any kind of music.
• slapping other babies in the face
• her sippy cup
• the remote control
• her vitamin drops
• peeing on the floor when daddy changes her diaper
• taking the zip lock bags out of the pantry and carrying them around on her walker tray
• pulling all of her books off of the shelf and "displaying" them all over the floor

Things Ava doesn't like at 32 weeks:

• squash
• diaper changes
• getting dressed
• being restrained in her car seat
• when mommy or daddy leaves the room
• when mommy tries to get boogers out of her nose

Giving cousin Trent CPR after I slapped him around pretty good

Ballet Dancer maybe?

30 & 31 weeks- 7 months!

Now that I have less time to blog I've been losing track of how many weeks old Ava is. I actually had to break out the calendar today. I thought she was just now 30 weeks but turns out she's 32 weeks!

Steve now works 9/80's so he gets every other Friday off to spend at home with the doodle. He also gets off work a little earlier during the day so he gets a good 1.5-2 hours each day at home with her before I get home. Last Friday he had his first day with her (I get off at noon on Friday's so it wasn't too bad for him) and when I got home he said "man this is easy I could do this every day." He has really been enjoying his time with her.


Ava is growing so fast it's scary. In a matter of two weeks she learned to sit up on her own, scoot and then crawl! Then as soon as she was crawling she was sitting up on her knees in her crib, and a couple of days later she realized she could stand. I went in there to get her and saw two little eyes peering at me over the top of the crib. Thank goodness we dropped her mattress over a month ago! She is really getting around these days and so we have to keep a very close eye on her, she moves quick! We had another squash episode this week where I fed her a different kind of squash and she gagged and threw up. I don't understand how she can eat spinach but not squash? Oh well..I give up on squash for a while.





Ava had her first baby play date with her very first friend Kate. Kate was born 3 weeks after Ava and I posted a picture of the two of them back in August or September. Ava explores everything by slapping it with her hand and so when Rhonda set Kate down on the floor, Ava crawled over to her and started slapping her in the face and head. Kate tolerated it for a few minutes and then started whaling. Poor Kate didn't want anything to do with Ava for a little while after that! Eventually she was happy again and they played to their little hearts content. Ava was excited to play with all of the new toys that Kate brought over.





Last weekend Gigi came in town to visit Ava. She was amazed at how happy Ava was and loved how she lit up anytime she saw one of us come into the room. Ava warmed up to Gigi right away which was really nice. I have been showing her pictures of Gigi and Papi for a while now and we try to talk to them on skype when we can. Oh and for those of you who were skyping with, our laptop crashed which is why we haven't been online in a while. We'll need to add it to this computer to be able to chat again.
In other news...Steve was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma last week. Naturally we freaked out a little bit because of course the doctors gave us NO information. We are so fortunate in that my cousin's wife Kristi (Ethan's mommy) works for the MD Anderson clinic we were referred to. She had me send her the pathology report so that she could explain exactly what was going on. She was also able to get Steve right in and set him up to have the surgery in clinic under local anesthetic instead of having to go to the OR. So we went in on Friday and the doctor said that we caught it early and that it was a very thin melanoma. She was 99% sure that the surgery would be all Steve needed. If it had been any further along they would have taken a couple of lymph nodes. So they did the surgery right there and now Steve goes back twice a year for check ups. Now that he's had a melanoma he has a higher chance of getting another one so we'll need to watch him closely.


We took Ava with us to the appointment and she was an angel all day. She played, she cooed, smiled and then conked out for a nap later in the afternoon. She really liked riding on the little golf cart thing that totes you from building to building and charming the front desk clerks.

Last week we took her to the dog park and she LOVED it! She loves animals and would get so excited when another doggy would run by her. Afterwards we took her next door the kiddy park and put her in the toddler swing. It's a little big for her now but we let her sit in it and swing a little bit. Of course that made her very happy.




On the mommy front...I think I can now officially be a hippy mom. I ordered a sample package of cloth diapers and I'm pretty sure that I really like them! When I told Irene that I was going to switch to cloth she had the image of the old school cloth diapers with diaper pins. She joked "I quit!" LOL! If you had to change this little wiggle worms diaper every day you'd say the same thing! It takes everything short of a song and dance to keep her still long enough to get her diaper on! I've learned that I have to give her something to play with and it can't be a baby toy. It's got to be something new each time like a shoe, baby lotion, butt paste, etc. This will hold her attention just long enough to get the diaper back on her little bottom. The cloth diapers are a little bulkier but they are really cute, come in fun colors and I don't have to worry about running out of them! For those of you who are thinking of the old school diapers, here is what cloth diapers look like now:
Not so bad huh?

Steve Humor

Today we were talking about how we need to wear Ava out during the day so that she'll take good naps. Steve said "what else can we do, put her on a treadmill?" Then he said "tomorrow I'll tie her walker to the back of my truck and drive up and down the street"

I was laughing so hard I was in tears. Not exactly what I meant, but love his humor.

Those of you thinking you need to call CPS, put the phone down...he was JUST KIDDING!

Walk n Snort

28-29 weeks

Girls hunt too!

Last week I spoke too soon. Ava's sleeping went to hell in a hand basket this past week (wonder where this term comes from?). Suddenly my sweet little girl who was putting herself to sleep at night was now popping right up and refusing to nap during the day. I spent all weekend trying to get that little bug down for her naps and bedtime. I would finally get her down but after a LOT of work. So this week it was back to rocking her, setting her down in her crib and walking away. It didn't take too long for her to get back on track at night. Grandmother has been working with her during the day to get her back on schedule. She's doing really well in the mornings and really poopy in the afternoons. She may be starting to cut another tooth, but I think part of it could also be that she's so mobile now!

She figured out how to sit up in her crib and she'll sit up on her knees with her hand on the rails and look out for us. The last few nights she's fallen asleep sitting up with her head on the bumper and one hand hanging out of the crib. Tonight she fell asleep with her hiney in the air and her head resting on her little stuffed lamb. It was so cute I had to take a picture.

Sunday she started crawling!! Yep she is officially a mobile child and we have learned very quickly that we need to baby proof this place PRONTO. She is so curious and wants to explore everything. She's constantly bonking her little noggin on something.

Something she started yesterday that has us all cracking up is that when she gets excited she wrinkles up her nose and snorts. It is the cutest thing! We have been trying to get it on video so we can post it.

Little Amish girl

I have a problem!

My love of shoes has gone to new levels.

This is just absurd.

There should a self help group for people like me.

27 Weeks- What a week!

What a week this has been in the Hendrickson household! Little miss Ava slept through the night for the first time in her crib. I put her down to bed without a fuss completely expecting her to wake up around 2 or 3 for a feeding. At 4:30 I woke up and had a minor freak out because she wasn't in the bed! She slept until 6 a.m. that morning. When Steve got up he brought her to bed with me and I got to cuddle with her for a few minutes before getting ready for work. After that she's slept through every night and yesterday she slept until 7 a.m. in her crib without a single fuss. Anyway so because that all happened I was an emotional wreck at work M-W missing my baby. Thursday I was so happy to be home with her! We had such a great day and the weather was beautiful. I had a dental appointment so Auntie Lisa met us at the Dentist office and took Ava on a stroller ride while I was at the dentist. She even bought her a new pair of shoes. :) Later that day Kelley & Amelia came by to play and take Ava's 6 month pictures. Ava was in her walker when they got here and as soon as she saw Amelia she was practically running over to her. I'm surprised she didn't knock Amelia down with her walker. She was smiling and reaching out to touch Amelia's face. It was so precious.

Friday Steve took his car in for inspection and had to buy a new battery. Saturday I took my car in for the inspection, oil change and tire rotation. I ended up having to get one of the tires repaired because there was a nail in it. Sara met Ava and I for breakfast beforehand and decided to hang out with us for the day. So we dropped my car off at firestone and then headed off to starbucks with Ava. During all of this Steve met the plumber at our house. We noticed water building up in driveway last weekend and got the plumber out to check it out. Well it turns out we had a busted pipe leaking under the slab and we were losing 10 gallons a minute! Of course he didn't have the equipment to do the job so we had to wait until Monday (with no water) to get a plumber out here to fix it. Now there is a nice hole in the wall in Ava's room where the leaking pipe was :( On top of all of that our laptop completely crashed and we have to get a new hard drive for it. The good news is...the plumbing is fixed, our cars are good to go and we still have a working computer!

In Ava news she is sitting up very well and on Sunday she tried to crawl! She was up on her hands and knees and put one knee forward and sat there for a minute or two. Then she got frustrated and got back on her belly to do the army scoot. I'm now bathing her in the big tub in her little tub seat and she loves being in the water and playing with her water toys. Her favorite thing is sucking on her washcloth. She gets so excited when she blows raspberries that if you get too close she spits all of over your face. I've started working with her on sign language and right now we are signing eat, more and milk. She is very attentive when I do the signs and will stop what she's doing to watch. Grandmother learned them too and is signing with Ava during the day. I can't wait until one day she surprises us and does one of them!

She was playing ON the blanket when I sat her down

So week 2 into sleeping in her crib at night and she's gotten so good! Now when I lay her down if she's not ready to go right to sleep she'll play in her crib for a few minutes and then roll over on her tummy and go to sleep on her own. I'm so proud of my little doodle! I am just so surprised at how quickly she learned to soothe herself.