We Made It!

Just unpacking all of our "valuables"

Ava of the North

The last thing I do before I climb into bed at night is look in on the girls. This is what I saw when I tucked Ava in last night. I had to sneak back in with my camera, it was too good not to capture.

She's had this thing about winter clothes lately. Last week, it was raining and she claimed it was "cold and bwustery(l's are w's)" and insisted that she wear her cut velvet pea coat over her shorts and tee shirt when we went to the grocery. Uh, it's July in Georgia. The other moms at the store all just nodded with a knowing look, but she got quite a few "Nice coat" comments from other patrons and employees at Kroger. After every such comment, she looked at me defiantly...as in: "See Mom, I told you it's okay to wear my coat right now". I had tried to talk her out of it before leaving the house and then again before entering the store. I had explained that people would think her "weird" for wearing a winter coat in the middle of July.

Two days ago, while lounging in a tank top and undies, I found her with 2 pair of my Karen Neuberger socks, one pair pulled up to her knees (they looked like furry go go boots on her scrawny lil' legs) and the other pair over her hands and pulled up to her elbows. "Ava, don't you think it's a little warm for those?" I asked. To which she replied, "No, Mommy. I like cold weather. I wish it was cold weather here ALL of the time." If that's true, I think she'll be very happy where we're headed tomorrow.

Smartypants Emily

It's my blog, so I get to brag if I want to, right? Here are a couple of things that Miss Emily has done in the last day:
* She's starting to walk forwards in her walker (opposed to scooting backwards or sideways)
* She figured out how to push the button on her box of wipes, open the lid, and pull out about 5 or 6 before I caught her. Maybe that's not that impressive, but it was pretty funny. You could see on her face that she knew she'd been "busted" and then she just gave me the biggest smile
* She's starting to recognize certain words. For instance, if I mention "bath" (her favorite activity) or "puffs" (her favorite snack) she gets so excited that she starts squeaking and babbling and waving her arms. If I say "kiss" she actually opens her mouth, leans over and plants a big ol' drooly kiss on my face. I'm pretty sure that she knows what I'm talking about.

I'll be bragging on Ava again soon. We all know she's a smartypants too. This week she discussed "photosynthesis" with me. Love it!

Happy 29th Birthday Karla!

Yesterday was my wonderful sister's birthday. I almost got to spend it with her. Both Karla and my mother-in-law were nice enough to come down this week and help me pack and take care of the girls. It was so good to have help and get to spend time together. I was ready for some girl time! Karla must've liked it down here, because her plane was overbooked on the way home and she tried to give up her seat and spend another night with us (for a $400 voucher). However, there was still one open seat after everyone boarded, so she flew home just in time to spend her birthday with her own lovely family. Happy Birthday, lady! I love ya!

Here are a couple of pictures I took of Karla and the girls the first night she was here. I'd say she's lookin' pretty good. She'd been travelling all day and then I promptly put her to work packing up our toy room and helping with bath time this night.

Playing in the hose

I told Ava, "If you want to come outside and play while I wash out the aquarium, you need to put on some clothes." Obviously, that was pointless. At least she had a good time.

Emily

Emily had her 6 month appointment today. She's 6 months and two weeks now. A little sad, because it's our last appointment with our pediatrician. She's been wonderful and Ava adores her. So much in fact, that she pretends to be sick and asks to go see Dr. Kemi.



Emily is doing great besides a little head cold that's keeping her up at night and making her a little miserable. She weighs 19 lb. 1 oz. and is now 25 3/4". She got a couple of shots today, but took them in stride. She cried for a second, then made some angry noises in the direction of the nurse and then it was back to her signature megawatt smile.



Developmentally, she sits up unsupported, and I've actually watched her trying to pull up a couple of times this week. She's not quite strong enough yet, but I'm sure she'll be there soon enough. I guess when we assemble the crib at the new house, we'll be dropping the mattress down. She loves playing with her toys and her special talents include arranging herself so that she has the best view of Ava, no matter where she is in the room. She LOVES her big sis. She's doing pretty good with all of the baby food. I did give her a chicken and veggies yesterday and it must have tasted so bad that she gagged and threw up right on the spot. Sweet potatoes and cereal are still her fav, but we're trying new things. She's really starting to perfect her pincher grasp. Instead of shoving those Gerber puffs by fistfuls into the vicinity of her mouth in the hope that one falls in, she actually pinches them between her fingers and pops em' right in.

Oh, and she jabbers up a storm, so she might have also inherited the "gift of gab" that I passed on to Ava.



That's the latest on Miss Emily. Here are a couple of pics that I took yesterday.

Heart

That's what Ava calls her fishy. Let me explain how "Heart" came to live at our house. Soon after Emily was born, it was Mike's turn to put Ava in bed. Sometimes this task is extremely challenging. After a drink of water, 2 stories, back rub, another story about when you were little, a dramatic and well planned need to go potty even though she just went, suddenly she can't find Snow White (her favorite doll), and so on.........you can find yourself getting very frustrated. At this point I usually lay down the law and become pretty stern. If Ava doesn't stay in bed and quiet down, I start taking away privileges. Daddy, on the other hand, starts making promises. Somehow on this night he must have been pretty desperate to get Ava to sleep because he promised her a trip to the pet store. I'm not sure if a fish was part of the promise, but once they were at the store they decided to get a fish. Well....they couldn't just get a little fish in a bowl. It turned into a 3 day project, complete with getting an aquarium, rocks, plants, decorations, fish, etc. and then setting the whole thing up. I hesitantly gave my blessing (not that anyone asked) to this project because it was a good father-daughter bonding experience and because I do feel a little (very little) guilty that Ava does not have a dog, cat, bunny, whatever. I was hesitant because I just knew that I'd end up being in charge of the cleaning and care of the aquarium and fish. Yuck. Well, the fishies were Heart and Flower. Ava specifically picked them out and named em'. Flower has perished, but Heart lives on, no matter how neglected he, excuse me SHE is. In the background of the first 2 pictures you can see the scummy aquarium that I need to clean and take apart for the move. I had thought about giving Heart away to a neighbor with an aquarium or even (gasp!) a little flushy flushy on our way out the door. But as you can see from these pictures, I'm pretty sure that she needs to make the move with us. She is Ava's pet. This morning Ava was watching Noggin and the topic was pets. The character on the show asked, "Do you have a dog or a cat?" Ava yells back at the TV, "NO! A fishy. My Heart." Yep, the fishy will be riding shotgun.