She's a spirited girl

Today Steve and I took Ava for her 9 month check up. We weren't nervous since she had no shots this time. We knew she would get a blood test though to check her for anemia. Steve said he would like to punch them in the face when they prick her foot. A little overprotective??

Anyway we went to the lab first and she was so busy playing with the tongue depresser she didn't even notice they pricked her toe and were squeezing blood from it. She didn't make a peep, just stared at her new colorful bandaid and wanted to take it off her toe and eat it. Once we got into the exam room she did get it off her toe and ended up getting blood spots all over the the little book she was looking at. The book belonged to the doctors office so they had to toss it...oops!

Anyway Dr. Finnila said she was quite a "spirited" little girl because she was all over the place clapping her hands, talking and wouldn't sit still. She did sit still long enough to let the doc to listen to her heart. She still has the heart murmur but Dr. Finnila still doesn't think it's worrisome at this point. She had another doctor come in and take a listen too and they concurred. We also found out that her two top teeth are on their way in just under the gums. They should be making an appearance within the next couple of months.

Here are her stats:

Weight: 18lbs 9oz 40%

Height: 28 3/4 in. 75%

Head Circ: 17 1/4 in 30%

I was just thinking on the car ride that I was excited that Ava would be able to start facing forward in the car in several short months. Then she would be happy because she could see the world. Then we got in the dr's office and found out that they are now recommending toddlers stay rear facing until they are 2 years old. I'm thinking oh great another year of listening to Ava fuss in the backseat because she can't see anything. Whatever is safest for our doodlebug though!

39 weeks- Dada is a winner

Okay so this week we are certain that Ava said Dada and meant it. 3 times she has seen Steve, said "dada" and started crawling to him. Of course she says it when he's not around too, but I think she just likes practicing her new word. We aren't totally convinced yet that she associates it with her daddy, but we think she might! Steve said he read that babies say the name of whoever they love the most first, so she must love him best. He thinks he's so funny...

Doodle is also learning what the word "no" means. One of her favorite things to do is to slap other people in the face, especially mommy. She'll slap me and then pull back and wait on my reaction, so I've started saying "Ava No" and pulling her hands away. She gets upset when we say no and starts crying. Today she slapped me a few times and each time I said "no" and she pulled her hands together and started clapping them together really slow like "what about this, can I do this?" and I would praise her and say "yes clap your hands together, not on mommy's face". She got a kick out of that and laughed. I think she's starting to get it. It's so hard to resist that cute little face pucker, bottom lip out and bottom teeth showing thing that she does, but I can't have her slapping everyone she sees. As you know she's already roughed up a couple of other babies.

This week she is still removing anything she can find from any container she can find. She's removed all of the mail from the computer desk, sorted the laundry, removed every single book from her book case and thrown all of her old clothes and blankets (that were folded nicely before she got to them) on the floor.

She is also back to being a good eater. She's eating more finger foods and actually devouring her vegetables these days! I steamed up a bag of mixed veggies and put them on her tray and she ate them like candy. She absolutely loves yogurt and puffs, her two favorite foods in the whole world. Also a big fan of ritz crackers. She has moved her awake time in the mornings from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. almost on the nose. It's amazing the internal clock babies have isn't it?

Okay so I said I would try cloth diapers for a few weeks and post a "review". I've been putting them on her at night and almost anytime I'm home with her.

Pros

• better for baby's skin and NO diaper rash
• much better for the environment
• No stinky diaper pail
• CHEAPER!
• Nice to open the dryer and have a whole new set of diapers without having to run to the store and spend $20 on diapers that will last me a week.
• They come in cute colors.
• They are pretty easy to get on and off of her.
• Never run out of diapers.
• force you to change her more often, as they don't hold a days worth of pee like pampers do.

Cons

• Grandmother and Steve hate them
• They leak if you don't change her every couple of hours or double up the liners (she's a heavy wetter)
• When she has mushy poops the removal of the poop from the diaper is pretty disgusting
• assembly of the diaper and liner again once you get them out of the dryer
• They are pretty bulky and give her J. Lo booty.
• You can't wash them with your regular old liquid soap, gotta get tide powder and run them through a rinse cycle first, which can be a pain if you are short on time.

So my final decision is that I like them okay but don't think I can convert to them full-time.

38 weeks

Okay so we take back the da-da comment. Steve is sure he heard it but I'm pretty sure it was baby babble. She's still clapping away but has refused to do bye bye or da-da for us again this week. She will play so-big though. I ask her how big she is and she grabs my hands and throws her arms out on both sides of her like "this big mommy!" She will only do it if she has my hands in hers though.

So we had quite a frightening thing happen on Tuesday. Last weekend it rained and rained all weekend and all of the sudden we started seeing little bugs showing up in our house. We decided to get a pest control company to come out because the tree roaches were beginning to make appearances and freaking us out. Well on Tuesday I was getting dressed for work and had Ava on the floor playing right in front of me. At one point I looked down and she was sitting on the floor with an enormous LIVE cockroach in her hand!!! She was just as calm as she could be and as I'm running over to her it crawled up her arm and then down on the floor where it disappeared. I was so disgusted I ran into the dining room and handed her to grandmother where she would be safe. I called Steve right away and told him to get that pest control company out here ASAP! I am sure that had that disgusting creature not crawled up her arm she would have had it in her mouth in no time. Pest Control showed up on Thursday and since then we've only seen the good kind of bugs...the DEAD ones!

Ava and I spent Thursday afternoon at the park playing. It was so beautiful outside and I was feeling so lucky to be able to have the day off to play with my sweet baby. She enjoyed playing in the grass and watching all of the other little kids play. It was the perfect day...we were enjoying baby and mommy time, the sun was out and the bugs at home were getting evicted.

Ava's most favorite thing to do right now is to remove things from containers. She loves to remove things from baskets, boxes, cubes or whatever she can get her little dimpled hands on. She takes everything out one by one and throws it on the floor. She will make the biggest mess too. We will fill up bowls and baskets all day long just to keep her entertained.

One of her newest things she loves to do is to share her snacks with the dogs. Yesterday I put some shredded cheese on her tray so she could feed herself. She would grab a handful, feed herself and then grab another handful and put her hand down over the side of her highchair for the dogs. She finds it so amusing.

37 weeks- She's happy and she knows it

A little ray of sunshine in her little yellow dress from grandmother and grandad.

This has been such an exciting week!

• Doodle waved bye bye and SAID bye bye while waving.
• She also started clapping her hands when I would sing her favorite song "if you're happy and you know it" or "patty cake"!
• Steve is pretty sure that he got her to say da-da to him today and actually mean it.
• She is also "cruising" around the coffee table to get to things. We just wonder how far away walking is.

She is having so much fun with her new clapping skills that she claps everytime she hears music and sings. This morning she woke up at 5:30 and I brought her into bed with us, she laid down next to me and started clapping. I got a little chuckle out of that.

She is getting to where she no longer wants to be confined in her walker or her jumparoo. She wants down on the floor where she can move all around. She loves her little activity table where she can stand forever and play. One bad thing about her being so mobile is that she's discovered the dog bowls. I was really hoping they were out of the way enough that she wouldn't find them...no such luck. When she plays with her toys she likes to listen to her own voice and she'll just babble away and throw in an occasional scream for good measure. Today Steve was playing with her in her room and she crawled across the floor to a blanket. She picked it up over her face and then pulled it down real quick and waited for Steve to say Peek-a-boo. She LOVES playing that game.

I started introducing finger foods a few weeks ago and so far it hasn't been going too well. She likes cheese, nana's green beans, bread, ritz wheat crackers and rice but that's about all she'll do for now. I've given her beans, pasta and fruit and she is not too impressed with any of them. When I first started feeding her solids she would gobble up anything I gave her. Then she started turning her nose up vegetables so I would hide them in fruit and then she would gobble them down. Now she's eating about 3-4 bites of things and turning her head away like "no more mommy" I've mixed it in fruit and everything with no luck. I'm hoping she doesn't turn out to be a picky bird eater like I was growing up. So hopefully it's just a phase and she'll grow out of it.

This past weekend was Ava's first Easter. We started the day off at church and Ava and I spent the entire service out in the hall because she thought it would be fun to talk really loud during the service and tug on other people's programs. We also went over to Nana's for lunch and an Easter egg hunt. Ethan couldn't come obviously but little Trent was there, Tyler, Brenna and Thomas.

36 weeks

I went in to check on Ava the other night because I couldn't see her in the monitor and this is what I found. I was surprised because she almost always sleeps on her tummy with her hiney up in the air. It was so cute I had to take a picture.

This week we went to go see the Easter Bunny at the Galleria. We made it a family affair and even dressed Ava in her little easter bunny outfit from GiGi. Of course when I put the hat on her she got really aggravated and ripped it right off. Then WE got really aggravated at the galleria when we waited for 2 hours for the darn Easter Bunny to get back from his break. Ava started to get grumpy and had had enough of her stroller so we finally decided it was time to go and left. I was so bummed that doodle wasn't able to get her very first Easter Bunny pictures :(

Doodle is really starting to show her personality and some of that is her little temper. She absolutely hates when mommy puts things on her head. She immediately rips it off and screams. She also thinks it's really funny to smack me in the face or grab my face really hard <--totally got that from my side of the family. Speaking of my side..We've noticed a couple of other traits she most likely picked up from my side. She stands on her tip toes all of the time (just like her mommy did and still does from time to time) AND she pre-dominantly uses her left hand (like Auntie Court, Nana, Grandaddy Mungovan, and Great Grandaddy Mungovan). We are pretty positive she may be a lefty. Other than those two things she is still a little Steve. In fact last week we were out at a restaurant with friends and Steve was holding Ava. A lady walked up to him and said "that baby is definitely not adopted!" haha!

Baby Ethan Update

Little Ethan had his surgery last Tuesday. The surgery went well and the first night he didn't sleep very well because he was very aggravated with the breathing tube. The next day when they took out the tube he actually got a little sleep. Kristi and Michael said that he was still aggravated though because he was strapped to so many wires and couldn't roll over on his belly to sleep. Of course the pain of his recovery didn't help. The good news is that he did so well they sent him home earlier than expected on Saturday! Mom and dad said he is doing great, but that he is still in a lot of pain so they are having to keep him on pain killers. So he is 2/3 of the way there! Only one more surgery when he is 3 years old and then he should be done. What a little trooper. We all can't wait until he is feeling better and come play with his little cousins!

35 Weeks

Ava has figured out peek a boo and absolutely loves to play. We usually play peek a boo after her breakfast or lunch when I take her bib off. She pulls it up over her face and then drops it back down to hear me say peek a boo and then she giggles and repeats the process. The funniest is when she pulls the bib so high that I can still see her face through the neck opening. She still wants me to say peek a boo though even though I can still see her. She gets so excited when we play that.

On weekend mornings she is just so precious. When she wakes up around 6am I usually bring her to bed with us and she'll go back to sleep for another hour or so. As soon as she wakes up she rolls over with a big grin on her face and starts patting Steve on the back and talking to him. If he doesn't respond she crawls on top of his back and starts pulling his ears and hair until he rolls over and pays attention to her. Then when he rolls over she grins really big and squeals. What a sweet sight to wake up to in the morning!

The pets are doing so much better with Ava. Magnum is like her little buddy. She lays on him and he always lays near her while she plays. When she starts tugging on him and annoying him, he's learned to just turn around and lick her and she'll stop. Biscuit just runs from her and hides (unless she has food) and Casper lets her do whatever she wants to as long as she stays around his head. Today Steve found her with Casper pinned to the ground. She had one hand on the back of his neck supporting her weight while smashing his face into the floor and tugging his ear with the other hand. Steve got to her and she had tufts of cat fur in both hands. Casper just got up and walked away..never made a sound, what as sport.

In other news...Baby Ethan is having his 2nd heart surgery Tuesday morning at 6 a.m. The procedure is called the Glenn Procedure and they are expecting him to be out of the hospital in a week or so. Please keep him in your prayers this week.

Our camera ran out of batteries this week so I'll just post a short clip of Ava enjoying her new swing outside.
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