It's A...

Baby. We went to the ob yesterday for my monthly check-up (I'm 24 weeks) and she did the big sonogram where we are supposed to find out for sure what the baby is. Now, we have already had an unofficial sonogram at 16 weeks and saw the baby was a boy, but we were having this one just as a confirmation. With Ava, the sonogram took about 30 minutes. We saw every body part, lots of face pictures, watched her move, all sorts of neat stuff. This sonogram took about 5 minutes, we never saw the face (which made me sad), but did see the top of the baby's head and its spine, which both looked good. And when she went to look for the gender, she said the baby was breech and it would be hard to tell, but she thought it looked like a girl! So, we are now clueless about the sex of our new baby, and Micah and I both are people who don't like to be clueless!! I suppose we are being taught a lesson in patience and should be grateful for a healthy baby (which we are), but we are just slightly frustrated!!! I'm contemplating going to a private facility for a 3D sonogram but I'm not sure about that. Oh well, we will find out eventually what the baby is!!!

15 Months and 21 Weeks

Ava is 15 months old! It seems like she has always been here. She is a really great kid and is happy most of the time, until you tell her no or don't let her get her way. Then she can throw a huge fit! She eats well, fruits and veggies are her favorite things to eat. I got her chicken nuggets from McDonalds recently and she would not eat them. I made her some veggies instead and she devoured them. She is also a huge fan of chips of any kind. She has recently discovered how to dip them into hot sauce, ketchup, whatever is available. She tries to do so many things that we do now. She can drink pretty well from a real cup, though we don't try that too often, and she loves to shake something into her cup, like sweet-n-low. We don't let her actually eat sweet-n-low, don't worry, she just pretends. She copies lots of things we say and can say things on her own like: mama, dada (she always knows when Micah is home), Tank (the dog's name), dog, moo, cockadoodledoo (or a variation), bye bye, night night, eat, more, please, thank you, and her new favorite, no. She doesn't always do these on demand, but will say them when necessary. She can follow directions well, which amazes me every time. She know what it means when I say: "Let's go outside", "take a bath", "get a book", "go to Ava's/mama and daddy's room", "go bye bye", "movie", "sesame street" and probably lots more. She walks well, can go up a ladder and get down by herself, go down the slide, climb on just about anything, and can now throw a ball. She loves to read her books and play outside. She's growing fast, and I didn't realize how much she can actually do until I started writing it all down!



As for the new baby, we are currently around 21 weeks pregnant. I will go November 23 to the doctor and get my in depth sonogram. He moves all the time (we are pretty sure it's a boy). I have grown drastically over the past few weeks, and think I have to bigger than I was with Ava. This baby is definitely lower than she was, which I hope is a good thing for delivery. I have more aches and pains this time, but food wise things are good. I still love hamburgers, which I absolutely could not eat with Ava. I feel like these pregnancies are totally different from each other for some reason. We are over halfway there, and I know the next few months are going to fly by!! Overall, things are going good. This is not the most flattering picture of me, but oh well!

Trick or Treat

This Halloween Micah, Ava, and I dressed up as cowboys and Indians. We took Ava trick or treating at our church's Trunk-or-Treat, and she loved it. It was cold and windy so we didn't stay too long, but she caught on to the concept very quickly. She had her little bucket and walked around to all of the cars and held it out until she got some candy. And she would NOT let her bucket go! She wound up eating two suckers that night, one with the paper on because she wouldn't let go of it long enough for me to take the paper off!




Indian Ava and Cowboy Micah


We told her there was no more candy...


Indian Ava


Practicing her Indian yell


Cowboys and Indians


Mickey and Minnie Mouse (Colton and Ellie, our buds) with Ava


Trunk-or-Treating with the Olsens



Thanks to the Boyd Gang for our cute costume, and Whitney for the boots!!

Our Favorite Pastime

Ava loves to watch TV. Every morning when we wake up, we sit in the recliner and eat our breakfast together while watching tv. Sometimes we watch the Today Show, sometimes she grabs the remote and lets me know that's not what she wants to watch and we turn it to the Disney Channel or PBS. Sesame Street and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse are by far her favorite shows. In this picture, you will see that she has her plate of pancakes (with peanut butter, not syrup) and her milk and is intently watching tv while eating her breakfast.

Pumpkin Carving

Last night we carved our pumpkin for Halloween. Ava was a big help to Micah and she thought it was lots of fun. She helped scoop out the insides, then used a very dull knife to help Micah carve the pumpkin's face. She tried to eat the gooey stuff on the inside several times and finally realized it wasn't that great. When we were all done we turned out the lights and lit the candle in the pumpkin and she was fascinated. She even gave the pumpkin a kiss goodnight!

Cooking and Football

Ava loves to cook with me. She will sit on the counter and pour all sorts of stuff into whatever we are cooking. She even made green bean casserole with me the other day, poured all the ingredients in and then stirred it up. She then stuck her foot in it, so we had to make another batch. We made brownies the other day and she was much more interested in eating the batter than actually cooking.



Friday night we went to the Rice football game. Micah is announcing the games, so we got to sit in the press box. We only stayed one quarter, that was as much as we could take. Ava liked the band and dancing on the counter in the pressbox.

Outfits

Ava has many cute outfits, most of them not bought by me! Here are a few recent ones.

This shirt says "Small Fry". Lyneil or Andrea bought it for us before we even knew we were having a kid. It's still a little big for Ava, but she wears it.


This is Ava in her red satin nightgown. I had one very similar to this when I was little. Her Grammy bought it for her at Canton.


This is a super cute outfit Grandmama bought for her. She looks so grown up when she wears it!