Happy New Year's Eve

What a great 2010 the Leptuch Family has had. So many exciting things have happened this year and 2011 should be even better. Ava grew up right before our eyes. We are looking forward to meeting Noah and having him be a part of our family. He was trying to grace us with his presence this year, but I guess he wants to wait.  The past 2 days I had been having quite a few Braxton Hicks Contractions. They started on Wednesday night and went into yesterday. They seemed to have let up now, so today, I am going to get out for a walk in this brisk AZ weather. I am most uncomfortable!!!

Mike was off this week and we got a lot of things crossed off our to do list. I am nesting and therefore making lists for my lists and trying to get Mike to get everything done. I think we are pretty much ready for Noah, just a couple of last minute things that aren't the end of the world if they don't get done before he comes.  My mom was down here for 2 days which helped us get those things done.

Now it's time to think of our New Year's Resolutions! We won't stay up late tonight, but we will have our Friday night pizza and enjoy the rest of the year. Happy New Year to all that read my blog and to a great year ahead!

Update on baby Noah

Here is me and baby Noah at 35 weeks. I am now 36 weeks and have just one more week until I am considered full term. Yay! It has been a long road. Last week, I really noticed a drop in baby Noah's movement. It was a drastic drop, so I was worrying and counting kicks like crazy and noticing when he was kicking and when he wasn't. Usually whenever I eat or drink juice or have any type of sugar, he kicks within minutes. By Monday, he wasn't responding to any of that, so I headed over to L&D. They checked him out and everything was fine. I had my Doctor's appointment on Wednesday and she decided that I should get twice weekly stress tests on the baby to make sure that his heart rate, fluid levels, breathing and muscle tone were fine. I got the test done that day and all looked good. It made me feel a little sigh of relief. I go back on Monday for another test. As of yesterday, he started kicking more, so I am going to see if I can go once a week because this is going to cost me an arm and a leg.  Other than that, I am feeling big these days. By the end of the day, my feet hurt and my back hurts. I am just ready for him to be here.  The big day  is less than 3 weeks away. I have been telling everyone that he is going to come early, which means he will now wait until his scheduled c-section! Mike is off this week and will be helping me out a lot and I couldn't be more grateful for. I might have my nanny come next week and help out in the mornings. I just can't get up and down off  of the floor a million times, so it is nice to have someone who can. Then I can get some last minute things done. I am officially done working. It really hasn't sunk in yet and I am not sure when it will. I am going to enjoy this time!!  

Merry Christmas

 Merry Christmas to everyone. We had such a great Christmas and Christmas Eve.

Every year for Christmas eve, we go to my step-brother's house for a pasta and seafood affair. We all got dressed up and headed over. The food was amazing as always and it was nice to spend time with family.

 Here is Ava in her Christmas eve dress.

 Here is our family picture in front of their tree. We have the exact same shot from last year and what a difference a year makes.

We woke up early Christmas morning, well, I guess I should say Ava woke up around 5:20am. I just decided to get her up because we had to be at my sister's house around 8:30 for brunch.  Santa brought Ava a new kitchen.  Santa's helper put it together during her nap on Christmas eve. He was smart to do it ahead of time. Ava came into the family room and saw it right away. She loved it!!!

 Here she is opening the plastic food that is going to be everywhere in our house until we can get a good storage bin to put it in!!

Ava didn't really get the part where she had to pull all the wrapping paper off, so I helped, but she was all ohhhh and ahhh's when she saw everything. Of course, we had to pull everything out of the boxes for her to see.

**Note to self next year: pull everything out of boxes and cut all strings, put back in box and then wrap...

Next year, we will have an almost one year old and an almost 3 year old. It will require some serious organizing.  Ava got tons of toys and I know was way overwhelmed by the time we were done. She got lots of toys and clothes. I wish I didn't take everything out of the box and held on to some for later. I may still do that.

 After we opened gifts, we all went over to my sister, Jacy's, house for brunch. Here is Ava in her Christmas outfit. Super cute.

We gave her a couple of gifts to open while everyone prepared breakfast. Her Auntie Jackie and Uncle Nick got her the Thomas the Train beginner train track set and she LOVED it. She was so excited and yelling and screaming. Her Aunties said that they haven't seen her this excited before. 

 After we ate our brunch, it was time to open gifts. Ava had an easier time opening presents in tissue paper.

 Here is a dress from auntie Jacy.

 And one of her favorite gifts from Nana and Papa Ron... It is a Sesame Street Riding toy. She loved it and rode it around saying bruuuummmmm the rest of the morning. That allowed us to open our gifts..

After opening presents at my sister's house, we headed home to get Ava down for her nap. She was super tired and way overstimulated from everything and needed a good nap in her crib. She slept for 2 hours and was refreshed when she got up. Then we headed back to Brian and Melissa's for a Prime Rib Christmas dinner. It was so good. In fact, these past 2 days, I don't think I have felt hungry as the food has been plentiful and I have no room, so just a couple of bites fills me up. Do you think I stop after a couple of bites, nope, so I have been a bit uncomfortable. Today, I detox!! We had a nice afternoon, in which Ava played in their playroom and ran around outside. Below is a picture of Ava with her cousins. When we put Ava down on the step, she moved away from her cousin Alex, but in order to get the picture, we left her there.  These 2 were the best, even though Ava has red eye. I just can't get the red eye reduction to work on my camera and when her eyes are so small it won't correct it either. (Patty, I will upload to snapfish for you today or tomorrow).

After this we went home for Ava to take a bath and play with her toys that she had yet to play with. As soon as we got home, she was looking for her kitchen. She just loves it!! She played for a while then off to bed we went. I think next year, we are going to have to invite the family over for brunch at our house so that we can enjoy the day a bit more. All the driving around was a bit crazy, but still fun to be with family!

What a great Christmas we had. It is always over too fast. Next year will be twice as fun!

Ava is 22 months old!

 Ava is 22 months old today. I say it every time, but she is growing up so fast. It is hard for me to sometimes see the changes she has made until we hang out with someone that hasn't seen her in a while. You remember when you were little and people would always say to you, "wow, look how much you have grown." and you thought to yourself, really?? That is how I feel about Ava.

She is talking so much more. She will repeat at least one word from every sentence you say. She is learning new words daily. I am amazed sometimes that she knows what something is. She has started to string words together to make phrases, like "No Way", "Oh Wow", "Oh Man" and "See it", to just name a few. She will also say a bunch of words together to tell a story. For instance, she will say "Choo-choo", "Mall", "Ho-Ho", "Car", which translates to, The Choo-choo train is at the mall and so is Santa Clause (ho-ho is how she refers to him) and you have to get in the car to drive there to see all that. The other day, I asked her if she had fun at the park and she said "boy" because there were some boys there that were running around. She is learning the art of conversation. She likes to describe things to you when she sees them. The other night she was pointing out the body parts on one of her animals. She does it on her own, without us having to ask. She will just start to say words that describe something. My favorite thing that she does is that she will stop somewhere, sniff the air and say "good". Every thing to her smells good.

She has become aware of people even more now. When Nick, Jaclyn's Fiance, came over the other day, she put her arms up in the air as to hide her face and clung to me so hard. It took awhile, but she eventually warmed up to moving around. By no means was she going to go near him, but she was at least not going to cling to me.

I have been taking pictures of some of her favorite things to do as of right now...

First, is flying bo bo. I already posted a picture of Mike and her playing it, but this time, bo bo got stuck on the ceiling fan! Mind you, Mike and I are the only 2 that can play this with her!!




 

She loves to color. She will ask you to draw something and then she colors on top of it.

She loves to play with her magnets. They spend most of the time on the floor than on the refrigerator. She will put them in buckets or in this case, a beer holder, and then pour them out and play with them. She has a bunch of horses that she loves...

She loves to help sweep. She is such a great helper and will be more so when she can actually learn how to sweep the crumbs up!!

The latest thing is that she loves to line things up. She just started this a day or two ago. She picked up all her shapes and lined them up. They have to touch each other! Then she will call someone over to see it....

She is such an amazing little person and seeking her independence daily. Her life is about to change drastically with the arrival of her baby brother, but hopefully she will love him as much as we do. If not now, in the near future!

Posing for Pictures

 

This morning, I decided to take a couple of pictures of Ava because I am trying to finish up one last Christmas gift. Immediately when she saw me pull out the camera, she said "see it". I told her to stand by the tree and smile so I can take a picture. She is starting to get it now that in order to see something on the camera, I have to take a picture first. Here is what I got today...

This is what I get when I say "smile"...

Holy Guacamole!

Mike took this picture at lunch yesterday. We had Baja Fresh for lunch because we had a coupon and when Ava saw the basket of Chips and Guacamole, she went right for it. She used the chip as a spoon and scooped up the guacamole and sucked it off of the chip.

He was so proud because we love Mexican food in our family and he will be devastated if she doesn't like it!

To our Mexican lover in training!



Flying Bo Bo

This is Ava and Daddy playing flying Bo Bo, or as Ava says "frying bo bo". It all started about 2 weeks ago when I was trying to get Ava to laugh. I took Bo Bo by the ears, spun him around and threw him up in the air. She laughed so hard at the sight of it. I kept doing it and she kept laughing. I could listen to her laugh for hours. So it became a game that transformed into daddy and Ava lying on the ground and throwing bo bo up in the air and lots of laughs. It is too cute!

Me.

I am being very brave to post this picture, but I am telling myself that it is to look back on and remember how BIG my belly got with Noah! He is like a basketball in my belly and sticks out SO far. This is me at 33 weeks. (Last weekend). I feel like there is a 15 lb bowling ball in there that I am carrying around.

I have been feeling a bit better and with that, I ended up doing to much last week and paid for it on Friday. It was partially because Ava had another rough night Thursday night where she woke up about every 1/2 hour from 11:30 am to 2:30 am. Then I couldn't fall asleep after that because I too have been sick and cannot breathe out of my nose at night. It is horrible. Every night, I hope that it will get better and it doesn't. I also had contractions for about 2 hours. I probably had 8-10 an hour and should've gone into L&D, but was able to calm myself down and therefore it calmed the contractions down. So Friday morning, I pretty much felt like I had been run over by a truck. Luckily my nanny is done with school and wants the extra money, so she was here to help me and I was able to take a morning nap and rest.

I had a doc appt on Monday and the doctor confirmed that I am still not dilating, which is good. Maybe that's why I didn't follow my bed rest to the fullest this week.

I was finally able to get the person from the hospital that schedules C-Sections to call me back with a time. If Noah makes it, it will be at 11am on January 14th 2011. I have to be there 2 hours early and she told me that I cannot "eat, drink, chew gum or smoke" 8 hours before. She said that they have to tell you not to smoke for liability reasons, even though I don't smoke. It was comical! Anyway, I don't know how I am not going to be able to drink anything. I drink so much water at night and in the morning. I will get to watch Mike and Ava have breakfast and just sit there. Maybe I can have ice chips!!  I think he will come earlier, but if he doesn't that will be his birthday!! The doctor said that as long as I get to 36 weeks, they wouldn't stop contractions after that. That would be Christmas Eve for those of you wondering.

Along with all of this, I found out some bad news that I knew was coming, my company is finally closing it's doors and I will be out of a job starting Jan 3rd. I have known this was coming, but it is always a shock when it does finally happen. Not sure what my plans will be for this year, but I know that everything happens for a reason and we will figure it out.

Our Visit with Grandma Nini

 This weekend, Grandma Nini, came to visit us.  What a weekend to come too. I will back track to Thursday night. Ava woke up at about 11pm and started crying. Mike went in to settle her and about 5 mins later, we heard her again. We knew something was up. After trying to settle her, nothing was working, we realized she had a stuffy nose. Ut-Oh, I thought, Ava caught a cold. Our nanny was sick this week,so I guess she passed it on. I also was not feeling 100% either. My throat was sore and my nose was stuffy. Let's just say between Mike, my mom and I, we tried to settle Ava and after 3 1/2 hours, she finally went to sleep. She still woke up 3 more times before she got up at 5am. I ended up sleeping on the couch at 2:30am to let Mike sleep because he had gone to bed at 10:30pm that evening and had to work the next morning.  I knew every noise that Ava made, he would hear and get up to settle her because he didn't want me doing too much. How can I not, she is my baby and as her mommy, I felt like I had to be there for her. I only slept 3 hours that night. For someone that is supposed to be on bed rest, it was a rough night for me. Anyway, she still has a stuffy nose, but I am hoping she is on the mend. She did manage to eat some breakfast this morning. I guess I am just happy that she is sick now instead of when Noah gets here.

Friday afternoon, Mike's mom came to visit us from LA for the weekend. She and Ava had a blast outside yesterday playing in her sandbox and with all her pods. Ava has collected over 100 pods. She loves to put them in her bucket and then dump them out and then put them back in. Here they are playing with all the pods...

 Ava's newest thing is crawling under the table. I don't get why kids like to do it, but here she is!!!

We bought our Christmas Tree yesterday as well. I told Mike to get a small one and that is exactly what he did. This is the smallest tree we have ever had, but I didn't want something that felt so overwhelming. We decorated it this morning with a couple of my favorite ornaments and the rest will stay in the box for another year or two. Ava really enjoyed looking through the box of ornaments. She kept saying "woooow!" and "ooohhhh". She has such great expressions!



I am starting to feel a little bit better. I feel like I can do a little bit more, but not much. I am still trying to make rest and liquids my priority, but some days it is just hard when so many things need to get done. I got all my Christmas presents wrapped yesterday. I only have a couple more gifts to buy (or should I say send Mike to buy). My little sister, Jaclyn, was nice enough to go out and get some Christmas gifts for me and I am forever thankful!!! I just have to wrap those this morning. I wanted to give Mike's mom all our LA gifts so we don't have the send them and get all the presents that have to be shipped done, so Mike can send out tomorrow. Doesn't it feel like you spend more in shipping then on the actual gift!!

Well, another week down and Noah is still sitting comfortably in my belly. I am thankful for everyday he is in there and take it one day at a time!

Modified Bedrest Until.....?

Yesterday I decided that I wanted to follow up with the Doctor's office to let them know what was going on and to also see what they think I should do. I am still having tightness in my belly when I stand up. They pretty much said what I have been hearing all along that I am having Braxton Hicks Contractions. They put me on modified bed rest and they gave me a Doctor's Note just in case I am asked. That basically means take it easy, stay off my feet when I can, drink plenty of fluids and no heavy lifting, pushing or pulling. The doctor said that the tests that they preformed at LDR (Labor and Delivery ) is basically what they would have done.   I have another appointment on Monday. I want to follow up with them on an action plan. I mean, how do they know if I am dilating or not? I guess the pre-term labor test sorta helps them think that I am not as it means I won't go into labor in the next 2 weeks .It is a fetal Fibronectin test and mine came back negative. From my research online, this is what that means:
The fetal fibronectin (fFN) test can't tell you for sure that you are in labor, but it can tell you that you're not. This is useful because in the early stages of preterm labor, it's very difficult to tell if a woman really is in labor based on her symptoms and a pelvic exam.
A negative result on the fFN test means it's highly unlikely that you'll give birth in the next week or two, which can set your mind at ease and allow your practitioner to hold off on treatments that may prove to be unnecessary.When lab technicians analyze your sample, they measure the amount of fetal fibronectin (fFN), a protein produced by the fetal membranes. This protein serves as the "glue" that attaches the fetal sac to the uterine lining. It's normally found in increased amounts in your vagina during the first half of pregnancy and again late in pregnancy as you near labor. But if fFN leaks from the uterus and more than a small amount shows up in the vagina too early (between 22 and 34 weeks), it may mean that the glue is disintegrating ahead of schedule because of contractions or an injury to the membranes.
If this happens, your risk of going into labor and giving birth prematurely is significantly higher. More important, if no fetal fibronectin is found in your sample, it means your risk of giving birth in the next two weeks is very small.
I am hoping to get some sort of game plan together at my next visit, but I am only meeting with a Physician's Assistant to get my Disability paperwork filled out. (Which at this point, I really need to get done, just in case). I still have a lot more questions for the doctor especially since I will eventually have a scheduled c-section date (which I am still waiting for them to call me back on...)

So the modified bed rest has been hard. It is something that I had mentioned to Mike early in my pregnancy that would be difficult. I guess I can be happy that we are close to the end and this isn't months and months of it. He is having to pick up all the slack. He said to me the other night that he never thought he would be happy to force me to sit on the couch!! He has been a super dad and husband and I could not do it without him. He is rearranging his schedule to help me out and working into the wee hours of the night to finish up. I cannot express how lucky I really am.

On the bright side, this will give me lots of time to catch up on some things that I always want to do, but don't see as worth my limited time. For example, today, I pulled out my recipe box and went through all my recipes and took out the ones that I will NEVER make. I mean, I had one in there for a chocolate-espresso roulade (sp?). Who has time for that? what is it anyway??? I took all the recipes that were just on the magazine page folded up and put them on index cards. There is now room to add more recipes, ones that I will actually make.  I am pretty sure you will hear about all the random things that I will be doing. Maybe it will prompt you to do some too!!

Excited Uterus

So apparently I have an "excited uterus". I am 32 weeks along and everything was going well with this pregnancy. I had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday and my doctor mentioned that I looked a bit puffy or tired. I was probably a bit dehydrated. I tried to get a lot of water on board that day. Thanksgiving was the next day and I was helping out with the food prep and watching Ava and I neglected drinking as much as I probably should have. Then I went shopping on Friday morning. By Saturday morning, when I would stand up, I noticed that my stomach felt really tight. The kind of tightness that I would feel after a walk. But the tightness didn't go away until I laid down. I wasn't having any other contractions except for one big contraction when I stood. I took it easy on Saturday and was hoping it would go away by Sunday. No such luck. I stayed on the couch all day yesterday and called the on-call nurse to see what she had to say. She just said to take some Tylenol and drink lots of fluids and rest and unless I am having 4-6 contractions in an hour that I should just rest. That is what I did. Then at about 1am last night, I started having contractions while I was lying down in bed. I looked at the clock after what seemed to be closely spaced contractions.They were about 2-3 minutes apart. I decided to change position, so I went into the Living Room and sat down in the chair. The contractions were for sure coming on and getting a bit stronger, so I decided to lay down and see if that would make them go away...nope... I went into the bedroom and told Mike. He immediately popped out of bed and said let's go. I called my little sister and she was over within 5 minutes. Luckily, I listened to my ultra prepared husband and we had packed our hospital bag this past week. Our main concern was remembering our cord blood kit. So we packed up the car and off we went. The triage nurse hooked me up to all the monitors and she said that I was having contractions and that they were 2-3 minutes apart. She did 3 tests also to see what was going on.  One was to make sure I wasn't getting a UTI, because that can bring on contractions. The 2nd one was to test pre-term labor. I guess it can predict if you will go into preterm labor within the next 2 weeks. That one came back negative. The last was to see if I was dilating and I am not. The baby is not even moving down yet. I am 40% effaced, which really means nothing. So, we asked why I would be contracting and she said that sometimes dehydration or too much activity can bring it on, but not progress labor, which is what is going on with me. To stop the contractions they gave me some shot. I had to get a 2nd one after 30 minutes because I was still having a few more, but I was good after that. She released me and just told me to rest and drink lots of water and come back if I get contractions again. Let's hope I don't. I still have the one big contraction when I stand, so I have put myself on bed rest. I luckily have the nanny 3 days a week and my mom is coming this Thursday to help out. Mike's mom is coming this weekend so we are going to see if she can come on Thursday so that she can help me all day Friday. She lives in LA. I have one week covered. I am going to take it one day at a time and see what happens. I just hope Noah will stay in at least another 5 weeks. That would put me at 37 weeks, which is considered full term. Keep your fingers crossed!!

Ava's new sandbox & update on life

Mike has been saying for a couple of weeks now that he wanted to build Ava a sandbox. In my mind, I really wanted her to have one, but realistically I didn't think it would happen. I mean, we are so busy as it is, when was Mike going to have time to build one. Well, Friday afternoon, Mike said he was going to Lowe's to get stuff to build Ava's Sandbox. I was a little taken aback, but went with it. He came back with all the stuff and in 2 hours, he had it built and ready to go. We didn't take her out that night to see it because it was after dinner that he finished it. So yesterday afternoon, Mike was telling her all about it on their walk back from the park. She came home and looked at me and said "SANDBOX", in her own words. So we went out to play. She loved it, although she needs more toys, she still had fun...

The other night, I decided to check Ava's teeth to see if she was getting her 2 year molars that I have been thinking have been coming in since June. I check randomly without any luck, but the other day, I felt one almost in on her bottom right and a small point on her bottom left. It might explain the early morning wake ups that she has been having and the fussiness that we have been experiencing, but it is hard to say.  Sometimes I think that it must be normal and other times I want to find something to blame it on to make myself feel better that it is just a phase and it too will pass! Hopefully the other 2 will come in quickly..

Her latest thing is to call for mama or Dada when one of us isn't around. It made me realize that she is hitting that stage where she realizes we are not around. It scares me for when I go into labor...which speaking of...the past day and a half, I have parked myself on the couch because when I stand up, my stomach feels like one big contraction. It is really hard and won't let up unless I lay down or sit down. I have had a few contractions. I called the on-call nurse this morning as I was getting a bit worried and she just said to take some Tylenol, drink lots of water and rest. As long as I was not having more than 4-6 contractions in an hour, it is just Braxton Hicks. I kept asking about the one big contraction that I had every time I stood, but as long as they are not coming or going, just rest. It still worries me because does this mean I am on bed rest??? I am going to call my doc's office tomorrow morning to see what they want me to do as this is not the easiest thing to do.. I am supposed to schedule my c-section time this coming week, but I think it will be a moot point as I feel like Noah is going to come early, I just hope not this early. We picked Jan 14th as our date and now we just have to schedule the time with the hospital. The lady is supposed to call me early this week.I will keep you posted..

Bo Bo's Eye Surgery

Bo bo finally got his much needed eye surgery yesterday. I know you can't really see it on here, but the eye on the right that is a little brownish-yellow is the one that had the surgery. I know that this will be the first of many.
Ava was biting his eye for a while now and half of it had come undone from bunny. Recently she started putting her finger in the hole that it created.We were worried that she would eventually get the entire eye off and choke on it and that she would pull all of bo bo's stuffing out of his head.
Once we finished patching up his eye, we brought Ava in to see him. She started to cry and kept saying "eye". She was upset and it took her about a day to get used to the idea. She now points at isr eye and says "eye" and then gives it kisses.

Glad to know bo bo and Ava will be safe now!

Happy Thanksgiving & Black Friday

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. There is so much for me to be thankful for this year. I have a healthy and happy family and one on the way and I have a big family here in AZ to share it with. We didn't have that when we lived in CA. It used to be Mike and I. I would make a Cornish hen and all the fixing's for just the 2 of us.

 This year, like almost every year, we enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner at my sister Jacy's house with a lot of family. There were 23 people there!  The morning didn't start off too smoothly. Ava decided that she wanted to get up at 5am. She wasn't quite ready to get up, but she woke herself up and then couldn't go back to sleep. Needless to say from 5 am until we went to my sisters at 10am, she cried, whined and melted down every couple of minutes. It was just one of those mornings. Finally we decided to put Macy's Thanksgiving Parade on to watch. We thought that Ava would enjoy it. She did except for the fact that the commercials interrupted her parade and she would say over and over again, "parade,parade,parade." Trying to explain to her that it was coming back was really a moot point as she doesn't understand the concept of time.  Once we got to my sisters house and she saw her dog and all the toys at her house, she was much happier! That picture is Mike and Ava watching the parade.

This year Jacy decided to deep fry the Turkey. We had 2 turkeys and deep fried them both. They came out excellent. All the food was good. I left with absolutely NO room left in this big ol' basketball of a belly...

Later in the afternoon as Ava warmed up, she had such a great time with her cousin Sophie. Sophie is 4 and has been waiting to play with Ava since she was born. Ava was chasing her around the backyard. I didn't get a picture, but they were having a blast and laughing it up. I am just happy neither got sick after all that running. It definitely wore Ava out that night. She kept saying "home" towards the end of the night, which pretty much means, she is ready to go home and have some down time. She went to bed early that night. She asked for it. She does that occasionally now. All and all it was a great day with great food and good family time. Next year we will have a 10 month old and 33 month old with us. Crazy!!


Friday morning Mike and I got up at 5:30am and got out the door by 6am to hit some of the sales. I was sitting in bed and not wanting to get up, but thought that I just couldn't pass up some of the deals. Our bedroom TV is starting to go and I know there were a lot of TVs on sale, so we thought maybe we would check it out and see if any were left. Boy, were we wrong. We went to Target first and asked one of the sales people and she said they sold out of all there TVs in the first 4 minutes. The guy at the checkout said that people started lining up at 6:30pm on Thanksgiving. Those people are just plain crazy!! Anyway, we didn't need to get one and we didn't think we would, but we thought we would give it a try. We picked up a couple of things for Ava and some family members. Our next stop was Toys 'R' Us. This was Mike's first of many trips to that store. It actually wasn't that busy. I guess they opened at 10pm the night before. We went to get a kitchen for Ava and they still had tons left. I was looking for one more thing to get her that she would enjoy playing with, but she is kinda in that in between stage where she is going to outgrow the 18-24 month toys soon and the next group of toys is 3+ and she is still too young for that. We ended up getting a baby monitor for Noah that was a steal! That was about all I was up for. I can't do too much. We stopped and picked up some bagels and headed home!

Ava-21 months old today!

There's my girl! That was this morning. She loves to sit on the counter top. We have gotten into a bad habit of letting her do it, but she just likes to be in the mix. Mike was making his coffee and I gave her a small bowl of Captain Crunch. 

These past 21 months have flown by. I will probably say that every time, but they sure do. Ava is such a blessing in our lives and I can't imagine it without her. She is silly yet serious, shy yet curious, strong willed yet compassionate....

Ava's silly side. She loves to laugh. If I laugh, she will laugh.My favorite is when I am laying down next to her with my eyes closed, she will stick her face right up to mine and open her eyes really wide until I open mine and then we will laugh.  She will do things over and over again if she gets a laugh.

She is very compassionate. She currently concerned about her bunny, bobo's eye. She has torn half of it off and we are going to have to perform surgery on it next week to fix it, but every time she bites it, she gives it a sad look and kisses it.  If someone has a booboo-owie, she will kiss it. If you are sad, she will come sit next you you.

Her latest is saying oh-tay, ava speak for okay. When she plays with her toys she is constantly saying oh-tay, oh-tay, over and over again, as if she is talking to them. It is super cute.

She is communicating so much too. She will let you know what she wants and what she doesn't. The other night at dinner, she kept saying "bray", which i decoded to be "break". She was holding her red bell pepper and then would make the motion of tearing it apart, letting me know that it was too big and she wanted it broken into smaller pieces. She really does understand more than I give her credit for.

She really enjoys her veggies. She is not your typical kid in the sense that she does not like mac-n-cheese, hot dogs and chicken fingers or broccoli with cheese. She will eat her veggies really well, unlike her mama, but she likes them either steamed or with a little bit of butter. At the end of the day, if all she eats is her veggies from dinner, i am OK with that. It could be worse....

Recently on our nightly walks, we will walk around the block and when we get to the end of our street, we let her walk home. I will walk ahead with the stroller and about 1 minute after I walk away, I hear her yell, "mama" and when I turn to look, she is running as fast as her little legs will carry her to me. We make it a game of "you can't get me". I will take a video, because watching her run is the cutest thing in the world. One arm is down and the other arm is bent moving in circles like a train propelling her along!

Happy 21st Month Birthday Ava, we love you!

Barney & Raisins

 If Ava could watch Barney and eat only raisins, she would be a happy girl. I made the mistake of letting her watch one show (well, some days, 2 shows) a day. She love Barney and asks to watch it all the time. I let her watch it in the morning at 7 everyday so that I can get ready. It allows me to do my hair, brush my teeth and clean up the dishes. She will sit there and watch the entire 30 min show. She is usually upset when I turn it off, but I try to have breakfast ready or something to distract her.

Her new favorite snack is raisins. Whenever she is hungry, she says "ray", which is Ava speak for raisins. She will eat 4 small snack boxes a day. She would eat more if I would let her.

This morning I put her in her "Big Sister" shirt. I figured, why wait until Noah is here. I want to get my money's worth on this shirt.  Here are some pictures...



Baby Noah-Last Ultrasound

We had our last ultrasound for Noah today. He was being a little stinker and kept his hands over his face, so we couldn't see it on the 3D screen.  The ultrasound tech kept trying to get him to move his hands, but he just wouldn't do it. We were both a little bummed out, because this ultra sound that we had with Ava, the picture ended up looking just like her. I was hoping to get a glimpse of my baby boy!!! Oh well, such is his personality. The doctor estimated him to be 4 lbs already. Yes, I AM carrying a big baby, there is no question about that. I was hoping to also have scheduled my c-section, but they don't have their call schedule out yet and I would like to have the doc that I have been seeing deliver him. So, I go again in 2 weeks and should be able to schedule it then. BUT.... I don't think he will make it to 39 weeks anyway, so it is probably a moot point. I am just hoping to make it to the beginning of the year. The ultra sound estimates your due date based on how big the baby is and a lot of them said over 32 weeks along. I am currently 29 weeks and 5 days today.
 I was relieved to hear that I passed the glucose test with flying colors as I know 3 other pregnant friends that didn't pass it and had to take the 3 hour diabetes test and only 1 that didn't pass that one. So I was a bit nervous. I think I will celebrate with dessert tonight as I have not been eating any lately!!
I hope the next 8 or 9 weeks go by fast and slow at the same time. I am excited to meet Noah, but not ready to give up my one-on-one time with Ava. I am also not looking forward to the lack of sleep, but I will hopefully have help for at least the first 3-4 weeks.

Tis the Season

 Tis the season, the Christmas Season that is. I had a friend post this very same picture on facebook last week, The Starbucks Red Cup. It only means one thing, that Christmas is here, early. I get very excited to see the "red cup" every year. This year, it will be filled with decaf lattes, but it gets me in the mood for Christmas. It seems to be starting earlier every year. I was at the Chandler Mall on Thursday last week and they have all their decorations up too. Ava enjoyed looking at the big Christmas Tree. This will be a very special Christmas because I think Ava will actually get to enjoy it. Last year, she was still too little to understand what was going on. I am super excited for Christmas this year because that also means Noah will be here shortly. If I haven't mentioned this before, I think he will come early.

I went to a baby shower this weekend for a coworker who is due 6 days before me. Wow, what a difference in our belly sizes/shapes. I know you can't compare a second baby for a 32 year old to a first baby of a 22 year old, but I look like someone stuffed a basketball under my shirt. Noah is definitely sticking straight out. She barely looked 6 months pregnant (She is 30 weeks along and I am 29 weeks). Oh well, soon enough I will be able to get back to my old self. I am growing a tall/big baby, that's for sure. With that said, it is getting increasingly more difficult watching Ava by myself on Thursday's and Friday's. She wants to be out and about and active and it is so hard for me to be, well, not near a restroom. Noah likes to kick at my bladder. We go to the mall and parks with bathrooms in the morning. It is easier to do stuff in the mornings because I am not so full of food and I have way more energy. My energy levels are starting to decrease and I could go for a nap everyday around 11am and 3pm.

I leave you with a picture of Ava this morning.....She was playing with my Tiffany's Necklace that I wore last night!

Happy Halloweeen

 We had a nice Halloween. We did our usual, which is go to my sister, Jacy and Todd's house, for Trick-or-Treating. We didn't really trick-or-treat, but we enjoyed some pizza and candy. I am not really a Halloween person, so I apologize in advance to Ava and Noah. We got her costume as a hand-me-down from my sister-in-law and I thought, perfect, now I don't have to spend any money on something that Ava will wear for 20 minutes. In fact, she had it on long enough to walk out the back door and show everyone how cute she looked and then she wanted it off. I knew that she would because it was bit itchy and she is sensitive with her clothes. If she has a tag in the back of her shirt, I have to cut it out or else, she pulls at it all day long.

 Can you see her unhappy face?

Get it off me now mom!!

We walked her up and down the street to see all the decorations and she loved that. She kept playing with the lights that my sister had on some bushes in the front of her house. She ate some yummy chocolate candy bars and overall had a good time. There was no way she was going to go door-to-door to trick-or-treat. She is more timid with that stuff, so hopefully next year we can get her to go out to a couple of doors.

Another Halloween down, many more to go. Next year, I will get on the costume thing early.