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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8 months- Weeks 33 & 34

Now that the sun is still out when we get home from work and the weather has been nice, we have been taking Ava and the dogs on daily walks. Right across from our house there are always clusters of blue bonnets so we attempted to take a few pictures. It was at the end of our walk so we didn't get any really good shots, but doodle had fun playing in them. She wanted to taste all of them too.
Last week grandmother went on vacation so Steve and I split the week up with vacation days to be home with the doodle. This was Steve's first time keeping doodle all day and he's such a pro! He was very proud of himself and even commented on how easy it was to take care of her. He got her down for her naps, fed her (yep he actually remembered to feed her), and took her on daddy errands with him. He took her to the honda dealership to get his 4 wheeler fixed and he said he had her up on his shoulders walking around and that he felt like mister dad. At one point he was talking to the guy at the desk and looked down to find that Ava had ingested half of the guys business card. oops! I had her the 2nd half of the week and loved being back home with her. We slept in each day and on Friday we went out to my cousin Christine's to see her new house. Ava had fun playing with Brenna and Brenna's toys. Speaking of toys her favorite ones are my blackberry, the remote control and Steve's Astros hat.

I found out that it's not really squash that she hates, just when I make the squash. I guess it's a texture thing. She'll eat it if gerber makes it, but not mommy. I made her some canteloupe and fed her small spoonful, she immediately gagged and vomited. So she's not a canteloupe fan. strange since it's a fruit, but okay.

Standing on my tip toes like mommy

Doodle is baby babbling up a storm. Sometimes it's like she's actually having a conversation with you, only you can't understand what she's saying. We just respond to her and keep her going. It's so cute! Grandmother got the best video of her on Monday, just talking up a storm while eating her puffs. I love it so much that I watch it every night after I put her to bed. tee hee. Maybe I'll post it later, but it's kind of a big file so I may not be able to get it on here.

Gotta represent my daddy the bowhunter

We got our cloth diapers in and have decided to try them for a while and see what we think. I'll be back in a few weeks with a review. My mommy friends swear by them, so I figured why not give em a try. Can't hurt to save a few bucks along the way, plus they are pretty cute in all of their fun colors.

Remembering Memaw