Ever Changing

All those curls...

I am absolutely amazed at how fast Ava is changing right now.  I feel like every day is something new and different.  After she turned 13 months old, she moved from the infant room to the toddler room.  She seemed so ready for it - every time that we walked through the room she wanted to get down and play.  I was not as sure that we were ready to leave the wonderful women who had taken such good care of her and loved her as their own for the last 10 months.  Martha and Sharina had made our transition to daycare so easy.  I could not have asked for more.
Of course, she is doing great in the big-kid room and is loving her new teachers!

The first day in the toddler room, with Miss Heidi.

Ava's first art project.

Ava started walking at 10 1/2 months, and ever since that time she has been such the explorer.  She loves to take everything out of the drawers and pile them on the chairs in the kitchen.  Then she pushes the chairs all over the house.  I like to think that she is feng shui-ing the house for us.

She loves to "help" unload the dishes from the dishwasher...

And we have been playing outside after dinner every night, enjoying the beautiful weather outside.  We thankfully live on a cul-de-sac that allows Ava to run all over the street, chasing the neighbor's cat and finding soccer balls and newspapers in the neighboring driveways.

Walking up the curb....and down the curb....and up the curb....

Loves to pull her popper all over the driveway.

She still loves going for walks (and her sunglasses)...

...and learning to feed herself with a spoon.

Feeding Emmitt - leaves.

Loves her Emmitt dog.

It has been amazing to watch how her vocabulary has started to explode.  She sounds like she is talking all the time, although you really can not understand most of what she is saying.  She has added "all done", "mo" (more), "nigh nigh", "uv ooo" (love you), "baaa" (sheep), "bye bye", and "ank ooo" (thank you).  She is an expert at waving bye bye blowing kisses (from the side of her head).

One of my favorite parts of this age is how much she likes books.  She will grab one off the shelf and bring it to me to read.  After she hands me the book, she turns around and backs up until she sits down on my lap.  Then she turns the pages one by one as she takes in the pictures and the story.  Her favorites right now are Sandra Boynton's "Moo Baa LaLaLa" and "Doggies", "Brown Bear, Brown Bear", and her zoo, ocean, and farm fold out books.

You are paging me about WHAT?  Do you see how busy I am?

I can't wait to see what the next few months bring!

Family Day

Ava's first chocolate (soy)milk mustache.

Josh actually had a day off today, so we decided to have a family day.  So needed and so much fun!

 First stop was IHOP (Josh's favorite) for some breakfast.  Ava and daddy colored while we waited for our meal.   And Ava enjoyed the bananas, eggs, and blueberry pancakes like always.  Her new favorite was daddy's hashbrowns.

Next stop - the DeAnna Rose Farm Pumpkin Hallow!

We went straight over to wait in line for the hay-ride that took us out to the pumpkin patch.  There was a little bit of a wait, so daddy and Ava went over to look at the goats.  Ava loves her goats, especially when she gets to see them with dad who lets her pet them.  I, of course, slathered her little hands in hand-sanitizer the second that I saw her.  Guess that's the difference between her country-dad and city-mom.

"Look at those goats!

Finally, it was our turn to take the hay ride out to the pumpkin patch.  The horses were beautiful and Ava was excited to see them, too.  The scenery was great!

There were a ton of games and fun things for the kids to do; unfortunately, Ava was really too small for most of them.  There were a lot of kids running around, and none of them were paying attention to the small-fry named Ava trying to walk around the uneven dirt.  So, we mainly carried Ava around and watched all the action.  And of course we enjoyed the beautiful (and slightly chilly) day.

Corn Maze

Then it was time to pick a pumpkin!  I thought this would be lost on Ava, but it wasn't at all.  She walked right on over and picked up the first Ava-sized pumpkin that she could find.  Josh and I then found our own perfect pumpkins and hauled them back to the wagon for the ride back to the farm.

"Where's that wagon?"

We enjoyed a little Chipotle (Ava and mommy's favorite) for lunch.  Ava was cracking us up, dancing to the music after we had finished eating.

Beautiful baby girl.

I have been so blessed to have this week off and we've had a great time.  I have savored every single second of it, and am looking forward to our weekend before heading back to work and my big-kid job on Monday.  I think I could like this stay-at-home-mom thing.