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.