This Week's Highs and Lows

Here are some of the highs and lows from the last week or so.

HIGH: My mom bought Ava some Play-do

LOW: Ava is mixing all the colors together

HIGH: At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter because we can always buy more.

LOW: Another expense

HIGH: Noah is getting his two bottom teeth

LOW: He has been fussy and not sleeping well

HIGH: I now know he WILL eventually sleep because the teething WILL eventually end.

LOW: He is putting everything in his mouth (and so is Ava)

HIGH: Grammy has been helping out this summer, 3 days a week.

LOW: Last week was her last week

HIGH: I have been working out all summer and getting closer to my goal weight

LOW: With my mom gone, I am going to have to motivate myself to work out during the week.

HIGH: Ava comes up with the greatest sayings lately.("Not quite yet" is the latest)

LOW: I realize I really have to watch what I say.

HIGH: Noah had his follow up appointment with his Gastroentrologist this week

LOW: Looks like we have a long road ahead of us with introducing solids and he has to stay on his reflux medicine. 

HIGH: Ava has become way more interested in her brother

LOW: She wants every toy that he has and grabs it as soon as he gets it. Noah gets very MAD when she does that. We are going to have a battle of strength as he gets older.

HIGH:  Ava is forced to learn how to share.

LOW:  It has involved many tears on all ends.

HIGH: Ava has the wildest imagination.
LOW: She scares herself easily and sometimes has nightmares which wake her up at night.

Pool Party

Our friends, Kerri and Chad, have lots of pool parties over the summer and as I have posted before, they have a son, Carter, that is 4 weeks older than Noah. A girl that Kerri works with, Amy, has a son, Parker, that is 6 weeks older than Noah. Last weekend, they had a party and here are some pictures of the boys.

Left to Right: Parker, Carter, and Noah.
I love how Parker is so excited, giving us fist pumps and Noah is putting his hand on Carter's back.

Maybe Carter was mad at Parker and Noah was upset about that!!! JK, but that could be their story.

We had a lot of fun until the end of the party when Ava came up to me and said, "mommy, my foot hurts." I took a look at her foot and saw that she had somehow stepped on some cactus prickers. We tried to pull them out with tweezers when we got home, but she screamed bloody murder and twisted and turned until she got out of our lock hold. We just decided to put her to bed because we weren't going to get anywhere.
Mike went online and read that you can put Elmer's glue on them and it pulls them off. We also called the ER in the morning and took her to a pediatric Urgent Care and they said the same thing. We did it about 4 or 5 times and by the next day she was fine. So it did the trick. Lesson learned, Ava MUST wear her shoes outside. Now all we say is you have to put your shoes on to go outside or you will get prickers and on they go.

Randoms

I have started keeping notes on my phone of the things I want to blog about, because I feel like every time I blog, I leave something out. Plus, I want to remember some of the things going on in our lives, the good, the bad and the funny! So here are some randoms....

Noah.
Noah had his 6 month check up last week. He is a growing boy. He topped the charts at 29" long, which is in the 99th percentile and weights 19 lbs 4 oz, which is in the 78th percentile. His head was 17 3/4" long, which is in the 50th percentile. The doctor said that there was no helmet needed for this kid, yay! yay!. We mostly talked about food. I am keeping, well I have been keeping, a food/sleep log for Noah since he was 2 months old. (I know, I am a freak). She said to go slow with the foods and keep an eye out to see if he has any problems with them. If he does, she is going to send us to an allergist. So far, squash is good. Sweet potatoes started today.

His sleep has been hit and miss. He started rolling onto his belly in the middle of the night and in the wee, wee, wee, like 4 am, hours of the night and he can't figure out how to get back, so he cries for me. With him, it is always one step forward, three steps back. oh well, this too shall pass. The biggest problem with the rolling is also that he wets himself all the way up to his chest, so even if I did try to put him back to sleep at 4 am, I can't because he is soaked.

Other than that, he still loves his sissy and grabbing her hair. When I pick him up from his nap, he loves to try to blow bubbles. He is all smiles and laughs.

Ava.
She is really growing into a little girl. As I mentioned before, she is fully potty trained. She did it within a week and after 10 or so days of dry nap and night diapers, we went cold turkey. She is having a reaction to the underwear though. A little cortisone and it clears it right up. It is the elastic, I think. (My poor kids have the most sensitive skin).

She loves to sing and dance. I posted her fish dancing video. It cracks me up. She is learning to sing Old MacDonald, the Itsy, Bitsy Spider and of course her ABC's which she now sings the ending to.

She still loves her books. There are some rhyming books we have and she will finish the rhyme. For ex, we have one that says, "when a bear bakes a cake, he throws it in the ----" and she says Lake. She does it for the entire book. I have a Sesame Street one too that she does it with.

Her favorite thing is to be tickled. She will say "mommy, tickle me". She likes her neck to be tickled.

Some of her funny sayings:
"Mommy, you leaving" (when I pack up to go)
"That's a good question" (she gets that from Mike)
"I have to go the the grocery store" (she gets in her car and drives around)
"I need a list"(and when asked what we should put on the list) "hugs and cookies"

She continues to be a picky eater. Breakfast is always a struggle. She wakes up saying her tummy hurts but when you make her something she won't eat it. It isn't until about 8am that she is ready to eat and even then, she doesn't like what we have to offer her. She does good with lunch and dinner is hit or miss. I am trying to limit her snacks, but around 6pm, she is starving. I am going to start just giving her dinner again. When she doesn't want to eat anymore or doesn't like something, she gags. My mom says it's payback.

She has had a couple of play dates with her friend Ella. They are about 9 months apart. She has done well. Ella came to our house the first time and Ava didn't want to share and then we went to Ella's house and Ella didn't want to share. She had so much fun playing with someone else's toys.

Last week, we took Ava to the Sea Life Aquarium. It was fun for her, but expensive and small.

One last thing, I just found out two of my friends are pregnant with their second kids. Congrats! I am so excited for them! (One would be you, Heather-Congrats!)

Ava Dancing

Here is Ava doing some of her "dance" moves.

(The, umm..., music is from a car my mom bought for Ava)

Ava Reading

This is Ava reading Blue Hat, Green Hat...Sooo cute

Seen and Heard

Here are some of the things seen and heard around our house...

SEEN: 2 kids dressed in red, white and blue (or whatever version of them I could find in their closet)

We had a pretty low key 4th of July. We went to my sister's house the day before to do some swimming. Ava  decided that she was not going to like the pool on that day and Noah was so serious checking everything out. It was just nice to have a 3 day weekend with all of us home.

Heard:
Here are some of the things that Ava has been saying lately. They have come out of nowhere
"Mommy, How was your day?" (She hears me ask Mike that every night at dinner.)
"No, that's my butt" (As I try to pinch her naked bottom)
"I have to go pee-pee" ( We are officially potty trained, day and night trained, no more diapers, sniff, sniff)
"Boo" (She will greet daddy from behind the couch when he comes home and she shouts, BOO!)
"Mommy, are you coming?" (She will ask each person in the house when we get ready to go to the store.)
"That's mine" (Everything is Ava's)
"I don't believe it" (This came out of nowhere after I told her that we were out of some snack)

Seen: Mike built Ava a "spaceship". She put all her animals in it with the flashlight. It didn't last long as she kept saying there were monster's in there. (It was actually just Tex the Armadillo, who is the grey animal in her spaceship)

Heard: From down the hallway, Mike and I heard a door open and then a little girl's voice saying "Hey, where are my animals". It was Ava, who had gotten out of her bed from the nap we had just put her down for, opened her door and she came right out of room and was ready to play. Ummm. yeah... that isn't going to happen again.

Seen:  Bobo with his many band-aids from tripping. Every day Ava comes up to me and says Bobo has a boo-boo-owie and he needs a band-aid. When I ask her what happened, she says that he tripped. At one point we had 4 band-aids on his tummy and one band-aid on each of his feet.

Heard: Ava loves books. There is one book in particular that she loves and it is "Blue hat, Green hat" by Sandra Boynton. She reads this book to us. I love to listen to her.

Seen: Ava dancing like a fish. I don't know where she got this "fish dance" from, but it will make you laugh EVERY...TIME...

Heard: Mike and I talking about our workouts. We rejoined the gym 5 weeks ago and are loving getting back into it. Right now, I am able to go on the weekends and 3 days a week while my mom is here helping out. Once she goes back to school, I will have to motivate myself to work out at home, yuck!

Seen:  The 2011 Tour de France on TV. I love the month of July and I love the Tour. This year has not been disappointing either.

Noah is 6 months old

To my Bubba Noah,
You are 6 months old today. I can't believe that we are half way through your first year of life. Your daddy and I went into your room this morning at 5:44 am, which was the time you were born, to get you up.

You are growing up so fast. Just last weekend, we put away your infant carrier car seat because you had out grown it. You are now in your big boy car seat.

You are sitting up so well on your own. You only fall over when you get too excited or are reaching for something off to the side.

You are still not rolling over. I have had to go into your room a couple of times at night because you have rolled onto your belly and can't figure out how to get back to your side or back.

You are the most chill baby. You are content to play on your own for a long time. You will reach around for your favorite toys. You will move around from side to side on your belly to find a toy.

You are sensitive to loud noises and people that you don't recognize. Grammy and I took you to Buy Buy Baby the other day with sissy in your double stroller and someone came by that you didn't recognize and you let out a loud cry.

You still LOVE to watch your sister play. If she talks to you, you giggle or talk back to her. You love to squeak. Mama says you squeak like a girl! You talk a lot when you wake up in the morning.

Unfortunately, you have inherited your sisters hair curse. It sticks straight up!!

You are getting better at sleeping. You are still taking 3 naps a day. A morning and evening catnap and then a nice 2-3 hour nap in the middle of the day. You are sleeping through the night now, but you are an early riser. You are usually up no later than 5:15am. Luckily, you will just chew on your sleep sack or talk to yourself until I come and get you at 6am.

Mama took you off ALL your foods for 2 weeks and that is finally when you started sleeping. I think you will have troubles with food.  We just started you back on baby food, squash first. You will get it for a week to see how you do. I hope that these allergies or intolerance's to food is something that you will outgrow. You love your bottle. You get so excited when you see it.

You are still on prevacid. Hopefully we can take you off that soon!

You are wearing 9 month and even some 12 month clothes and size 3 diapers, although you are probably ready for 4's!!!

Mommy and daddy love you so much. We couldn't have asked for a better little brother and son!

Thanks Nana and Papa Ron

Sorry it has been a while since I have posted. We had to bring our computer in for some work last week and I haven't had a chance to post. More to come this weekend on what we have been up to. In the meantime, Nana and Papa Ron got Ava and Noah a shirt and onesie  from the Indy 500 and of course I had to get a picture of them and get it posted.

All Noah wanted to do was touch Ava's shirt!! These were the best I could get. Trying to get 2 kids to smile at the same time is hard to do!