A little cloudy

Ava has her first hint of a cold. She acts fine but is super stuffy and snotty so I turned up her humidifier. When I came to get her from her nap her room was a little foggy.

Who knew one little froggy could make clouds?

A day of firsts!

Ava is almost 7 months old now and she doesn't sit up well on her own. She can do it for a minute or so before she topples over. I'm on a mission to get her sitting on her own so I have her practice whenever I can. The other day my sister and I were at a consignment sale thinking that would be a great place to get a shopping cart cover so Ava could practice her sitting while we shopped. I didn't have luck finding one that covered the whole cart. The next time we saw Aunt Kimmy she showed up with a brand new shopping cart cover she found for us. Yay! Thanks again Kim!

So today Ava and I went grocery shopping and I was excited to pull it out and see how she did.

She did great in it! I did have to put a blanket on the side of her to give her a little support and when she got too preoccupied people watching she would lean...

...But overall she love it!

Ya think this baby is a little girl?! Sheese! How much pink can one baby be surrounded by?

I loved that I don't have to struggle to look around the side of the shopping cart to see since I'm too small to see over it when Ava is sitting in her car seat on top of the cart. Once we were at Babies R' Us and I was pushing the cart with Ava on top in her car seat and I ran into another cart and woke up the baby sleeping inside of it! True story. I felt like an idiot.

After dropping off our groceries we walked to the barn. It was such a warm sunny day that it didn't take long for the horses to work up a pretty good sweat. After they were cooled I put them in a turn pout to dry off before gong back to their stalls. While Ava and I waited I took her to the picnic area and she had her first feel of grass.

She didn't hate it.

But she didn't love it either.

After our bellies got all itchy from the grass we practiced sitting up. And she did it! For 5 minutes! Way to go Ava!!

The higher prospective didn't make her any more certain that grass was a good thing. Maybe that's why she sat up for so long, she had incentive not to fall back into the itchy green stuff!

Side note: At our barn we have a family of foxes that just had a litter of SIX babies (which is a lot for a fox). What's even more amazing is that their Dad is GREY! Yep, a Grey fox. I have never seen such a thing. The first time I saw him I thought he was a little coyote. According to the Department of Wildlife Grey foxes aren't that unusual but all of us at the barn think hes pretty amazing. What the DOW does agree is amazing about this family is ALL the babies are grey too!

I haven't seen the babies yet. They live under a shed at my barn owners house and I haven't ventured over there with Ava yet. I think her yelling would scare them off, but I did get a picture of the Dad yesterday. How cool is he?!

I think I'll try to get a picture of the babies today.

The Unsinkable Molly Brown

My 8 yr old nephew Ethan is really into knight, medieval and all things Titanic right now. He really likes to dress up and has been collecting shields, helmets, armor and other Knight stuff for a while now. Apparently his collection has grown enough to make 2 complete outfits because a few weeks ago he called me and asked if him and his brother can come over and joust on my horses. After laughing and explaining my horses were not joustable horses I offered to take him to Molly Brown's house instead.

It took a while of trying to get our schedules figured out (who knew an 8 yr old was so hard to make plans with?) but finally on Saturday we had a date to go. It was just going to be Ethan, Graham, Ava and I but 2 of my 3 sisters also invited themselves to tag along.

We started out with lunch at Tokyo Joe's. My little sister lives in a town without one and needed a fixin'.

After lunch, and apparently running some blazing red lights, we arrived at Molly's house.

They very sneakingly have you purchase tickets from the Gift Shop.

Which makes it impossible to walk away with just tickets. So Ethan became a proud new owner of a Captains hat.

..and Ava caught up on headlines.

We were limited on where we could take pictures so I got a few of us hanging out on Molly's front porch waiting for the tour

On our tour we learned that Molly was born in Missouri and came to Colorado at the peak of Gold and Silver mining with her brother at the age of 13 in hopes of marrying a rich miner to help support her ill father. She worked in a factory for a while and then married a mine Engineer named J.J at the age of 19. They lived in Leadville and hit it big with silver and became very wealthy. In 1894 they purchased the house we were visiting for 30,000 dollars. It really is a huge house at 8000 sq. ft. and had all the latest and greatest like electricity and running hot and cold water which was very rare to Find in homes at that time. After the Browns sold the house it was divided up into apartments and once purchased by Denver historic society they restored it back to as close as possible to how it was when the Browns lived there.

Most of the tour talked about Molly being an advocate for women's rights and helping children of poverty. I was a bit worried that Ethan would be bored since what her really wanted to hear about was the Titanic but he did really well and asked questions to the tour guide every step of the way. When it came time for the Titanic portion of the tour Ethan surprised everyone by correcting the tour guide several times on Titanic facts, and the name of the last surviving passenger who was 3 months old at the time of the wreck and just passed away in the last few days. Such a smart kiddo!

The tour ended with a room full of interactive stuff for the kids to play with.

I'm not intending to flip off the camera in this picture, I'm trying to keep the hat out of Ava's eyes. Whoops!

The area of Denver that we were in is so beautiful and historic. So we explored a bit, but my camera died right after this picture.

and it came back alive long enough for Ethan to take this shot while leaving. So cute!

Happy Earth Day!

You turn your head for just a moment...

...and they find a new toy!


She was having a great time kicking and hitting the swing to make it move! I might have to try parking her under there when nothing else works to keep her occupied.

2 1/2 hours....

2 1/2 hours ago I put Ava down for a nap and I haven't heard a peep from her since. Now I sit here torn if I should go in and check on her or count my blessings and let her be....

Game night!

You know it's gonna be a fun night when you get a free drink from Starbucks and it comes out smiling at you!

After a day of very little sleep (hence the need for caffeine) Graham and I set off to drop Ava off at my sisters so we could have an adult night.

Ava and Aunt Kimmy


After an hour long drive in the rain we arrived at Brian and Rochelle's to hang out with friends. Tessie and Travis's babysitter was snowed in so little Tanner tagged along.


I can't believe what a good baby he is. After a bottle he went to bed and not a peep came from the baby monitor the rest of the night!

Which is good, since the drinks started flowing and the next day pictures like this were found on my camera...



and this...



and this...

...and a snuggly made an appearance too.

Eventually we got around to the games.

Dave and Graham

Pretty Amanda

The girls (with me, hiding behind Tessie)

Fun night!

Ava and I meet up with my friend Courtney and little Logan to go walking since the weather has been so nice lately. How cute are they in their Bobs? Ava even matches hers (not intentional). We grabbed some coffee and walked around a near by park.

The park we happened to be at was Clements Park, the park neighboring Columbine High School. I live super close to this park and in the almost 10 years since the shootings at the school I have yet to visit the memorial. Today on our walk Courtney and I stopped to see it. I was a senior in high school when the shootings happened and it brought back a lot of emotions seeing the memorial. Hard to believe it's been almost 10 years.

After our walk Courtney and I went to Susan's house, another nurse we work with. Susan just let a bunch of us borrow The boy in the stripped Pajamas. It recently came out on DVD so we gathered there to watch it. As always, the book was way better.

Susan, a mom of twins had no problems holding two wiggly babies at one time

Ava just LOVES other babies. She has so much interest in them and likes to look and touch and talk to them.

One this day she was particularly loud. Ava would wiggle and holler and talk. Every time she did poor Logan would burst into tears. It was fairly comical. I think he thought she was crying and was trying to sympathise with her. Eventually Logan figured out Ava was not upset, just loud and then he didn't mind playing with her.

All that playing is hard work and eventually took its toll on Ava.

...and soon both babies were down for the count.

Ava didn't go home empty handed. Susan had a ton of books that her girls were too old for so Ava went home with enough reading material to last a very long time. Thanks again Susan!

Easter

Ava hit a huge milestone on Easter. She finally rolled from her back to her belly! Okay, I know its not that huge of a milestone but I was so excited! And better yet- she did it in front of my family so they all got to witness it, which was very cool!

Hi Mommy!

Watch this!

Okay- that wasn't the roll. It never happens when you're expecting it. But all of us (much to Ava's delight) watched her like a hawk for the next 20 minutes, video and cameras rolling in case she did it again. She never did. I personally think she got a kick out of teasing us. She would roll onto her side, stop as if to look at us and say 'Just kidding!' and then return to her back.





We got to spend all of Easter with my family which was nice! We started with a yummy brunch at my moms. Ava hung out with her oldest cousin, Austin.



..and got really comfy on Aunt Kimmy.

We ate ate and afterwards Ava napped. My Mom kept an ear on her while Graham and I went on a bike ride with my 3 nephews in the rain. So fun!




Next we went to my Grandmas house to visit with my Dads side of the family. There Ava got to see my 11 month old Goddaughter Adrianne again.






Ava was VERY interested in Adrianne, much to Adrianne's dismay! Its a good thing Adrianne is mobile and able to crawl away because Ava was all over her!

How funny is this picture? Ava is having a ball and poor Adrianne is pleading with me to rescue her from the handsey baby! Gotta love baby whimpers!

Adrianne found a safe spot out of Ava's grabby hands in the lap of my oldest sister, Angie.

..and Ava retreated to her Daddies lap.

My favorite picture of the day is this one. Papo doesn't like to hold little babies so at 6 months old this is the first time my Grandfather held Ava.

Hope everyone had a nice Eater as well!

Easter Out takes

Several weeks ago while cruising the aisles of Target I found these super cute bunny ears and bucket in the dollar section. I bought them with the intentions of doing cute Easter pictures of Ava to send out to family and friends. I never got around to doing it in time to send something out I did get some pictures taken.

Ava has this new thing where she screams and yells. I know it's gonna come back to bite me in the ass but right now when she does it I laugh and totally encourage her to do it more! I can't help it, it's so cute!

Um, hey! What gives? This bucket is empty!

See?

bunny mail

Ava got some fun mail today. A Easter greeting from her friend Logan. She was so excited, "Hey, I know him!"

That is she was excited... until she found the envelope it came in. After that Logan became chop liver to tasty green paper. Yum!

Lunch

One of my older sisters Kim, is now among the tons of people who have been layed off. She and my Mom were meeting up for lunch to go over Kims resume and talk about job options so Ava and I decided to tag along. Who can pass up a free lunch?

Ava has become like trying to hold an octopus. She is hands everywhere! If she sees it she wants it!

Happy Birthday Grandpa Ray!

We love you!

6 month appointment

Ava had her 6 month appointment today. Overall she is doing well. They were pretty concerned about her weight and height at the beginning of the appointment. The first girl who did them got 24 1/2 inches for her length and an even 14 lbs for her weight. After seeing that it wasn't too far off from her 4 month measurements she took us back to do them all again, still getting the same results. When the PA came into the room she looked Ava over and said she didn't look like she was falling behind but her length was actually less than her 4 month length. Surely Ava is not shrinking so back out we went to do them all again! This time the PA did the measurements and we got the same weight and 25 inches for her length. Which brought Ava's percentiles down from her 4 month percentiles. Since Ava looks fat, healthy, happy. Has doubled her birth weight and is meeting all her milestones the PA isn't too worried. Apparently at 6 months the fat content of breast milk tapers off so the PA recommended to really start pushing the solids and do 2 solid meals a day and be open to the option of formula if we find Ava needing it.

I have very mixed opinions on feeding Ava formula. Not that there is anything wrong with it(outside the Rocket fuel and melamine ;) ) I just really wanted Ava to go from breast milk to cows milk without having to use it. I've always felt my supply is low and I'm pretty proactive about combating it. I never work out or try to watch what I eat anymore outside walking because it drops my supply. I eat oatmeal with Brewers Yeast every day, take Fenugreek, Blessed Thistle, More Milk Plus, drink gallons of water and it's a bit disheartening to think even with all my efforts my body cannot keep up. It doesn't help that Ava is now a distractable eater too. She pulls off all the time to look at the dogs walking by or turn towards a noise or just for the heck of it. On the other hand it would be nice to have my body back and to get back into shape but I plan to stick with it until the Ped says we have to use formula. My plan is to work on feeding Ava in quiet room, or with a nursing cover. My pump is also going to get more of a workout to see if I can increase my supply, or at least pump out more to supplement with. We have to go back in 6 weeks to recheck Ava's weight. Hopefully I can fatten her up a bit more before that appointment.

Poor Ava also had to get 5 shots this visit. She got all her scheduled shots plus a half dose of the Flu shot. These shots were the hardest so far on me! All during the first part of Ava's appointment she was happy and smiling and babbling away. When the shots came it was so heart breaking to watch her go from so happy and trusting to scream out in pain. Working with newborns in the hospital I must admit, I would always get slightly annoyed when parents would cry along with their babies when I had to poke them. I'd think, 'Dude, chill out. It's just a blood sugar check'. But today I was thisclose to being that mom! I had to choke it back so Graham didn't make fun of me. Poor little girl. Now Ava is sleeping it off. Hopefully when she wakes up she feels better.

Here are her stats:

Birth
Weight- 6lbs 14 oz
Length- 19 1/2in
head circ.- 14 1/4 in

2 Weeks
Weight-7lbs 5 oz
Length- 20 in
Head Circ.- 14 1/2 in
~25% percentile


2 Months
Weight- 10 lbs 15 oz
Length- 22 1/2 in
Head Circ.- 15 1/4 in
~50th Percentile

4 months
Weight-12 lbs 5 oz ~25th percentile
Length- 24 3/4in ~60th percentile
Head Circ.- 16 in ~50th percentile

and now 6 months
Weight- 14 lbs- 15th Percentile
Length- 25 inches- 17th percentile
Head Circ.- 16 3/4 in- 30th Percentile

Saturdays shots

Our Saturday morning started out like any other...with breakfast followed by tummy time.

So, she makes you do tummy time too huh?

OKay Mom...put down the camera. This tummy time is hard work and we've had enough.

After tummy time and a quick nap we went out to brave the FREEZING cold weather and went to the barn to do our Bi-annual shot clinic. In the spring and the fall a couple different vets come to do the horses vet care so all us boarders can get it done at once and save a 50 dollar vet call. Usually we also have a potluck with the shot clinic but today they were anticipating a blizzard so the barn owners decided to do the clinic alone to get us in and out quickly. Thankfully we have an indoor arena big enough to hold us all because it was cold!

Here Ava is saying good morning to Dave, the barn owner. Please don't mind the mud caked horse and his blanket. All week its snowed, then warmed to the 50's, then snowed and warmed again...makes for very muddy horses (and shoes).

Ava, Bentley and I waited for our turn with the vet while Graham took some pictures.

Shot time! Graham and I switched the horse for the camera while Bentley got his West Nile and 5 way shots. He's such a good boy and stood there and took them like a champ for the vet tech. Joey is a bit too sensitive to all the excitement of the shot clinic so he stays in his stall for his vet care otherwise he gets all the other horses spooked and worked up and we have a rodeo. No pictures of the Joey drama.

After the shot clinic we ran around town a bit and then meet Grandpa Mark and Grandma Dale for a late lunch.

Then we had a relaxing night of dinner and Dominoes with Amanda and Dave.

We were out of the house from 9am to 1am and Ava barely fussed or complained. Some days I'm just amazed at how blessed we are to have such a good, easy going baby!

Mail call

Look! I'm on the cover of Runner's World this month!

Just kidding! But my new copy came in the mail today. It's the perfect compliment to this, which also came in the mail...

It's BOB, my new jogging stroller! Yay! The Regular Bob Revolution come in dark colors or orange. I wanted a color that was visible on the roads but didn't look like a traffic cone so we went wit the Stroller Strides version. I'm not crazy about all the S.S logos all over it but the red is so pretty that I can over look them!

Even though it was a bit cold I decided to walk to the barn to meet my hoof trimmer for the horses pedicure and see how Bob handles. Ava didn't seem to thrilled she was in her new super cool stroller but I was excited. This stroller is so smooth it doesn't even feel like you are pushing anything. It even handled well over the field we cut across and the mud and slim at the barn.

Ava did a great job hanging with Bob while the horses got their hoofs trimmed and did great while I cleaned Joey's stall. But as I moved to Bentley's she was getting a bit tired of sitting around and started fussing. So I moved her in closer to watch Bentley as I cleaned. She thought that was great! She smiled, talked and laughed with Bentley as I finished up.

So far Bob has been worth every penny!

Yum, Yum Oatmeal!

Since Rice cereal has failed to impress Ava, even after countless attempts. We've moved on to Oatmeal which has been a huge hit! She just can't get enough! Look how excited she is to get started on breakfast!

Seriously, how cute is she? I don't think her eyes or her smile can get any bigger!

Now comes the good part...

It's getting closer....

Almost there!

Success!

Feeding her has to be one of the most fun things we do. She gets so excited and pounds her fists on her try and grunts trying to get more. She is asking for more before she even swallows. I just love it! And clean up is a breeze when she likes what she's eating. The rice cereal would be everywhere...on her hands, all over her Bumbo, in her hair, behind her ears. But the oatmeal all goes in! Look at her when she finishes... not a spot on her bib! Way to go Ava!

After breakfast, as we wait for the snow to melt off, (good ol' Colorado, thundersnow last night and 60 today) Ava helped me go over coupons.

I've turned grocery shopping into a real pain since apparently I can't do all my shopping at one store. We go to Whole Foods for milk, Sunflower Market for produce, Costco for meats and the regular grocery store for everything else. Usually I spread it out over the week but I've been lazy and haven't done any food shopping in a while and today we need to hit up all the stores. Thank goodness I have a happy helper.

Looks like Ava thinks the Pineapple looks like a good deal.


Naps first then shopping!