Solid Foods

We have started Ava on solid foods.  Our first trial was around 4 months.  I didn't really expect her to start chowing down, but I really wanted to start experimenting so she could get used to the spoon, highchair, and different textures and tastes of food.  Our first food was bananas.  She liked the taste, but her tongue moved in the wrong direction which was expected.  However, she didn't cry with the introduction of everything so I thought it went pretty well!

Then one of my friends told me I may want to try veggies first because otherwise after the sweet tasting fruit it can be difficult to introduce veggies.  Makes sense.  So Iwe introduced Ava to carrots.  And then peas.   And now we have been stuck with carrots for awhile because Mom pureed wayyyyyy too many carrots and we have a few servings left to finish.  Although, solid feeding hasn't been a consistent day to day thing, she has gotten a lot better with keeping the food in her mouth and is now trying to hold the spoon herself.

I'm looking to try and make a few more pureed versions for her.  I'm no Betty Crocker but season-less, steamed and mushed up fruits and veggies is right up my alley.  We have a couple trays to freeze the food into little baby ice-cube portions and so far it has been really simple.  And so far I've only done peas and carrots because I wasn't that smart with how many carrots you need to fill up and ice cube square.  Just FYI it's not that many!  And if you want to freeze a variety of baby foods then I would suggest starting with only a few carrots :)

Feeding time begins

Grabbing for the spoon

Sometimes we get nervous she is going to sling-shot her food at us

Other times she gets it just right!

But either way we have a pretty good time :)



Snow Day

Every year I countdown until warmer weather.  Once the chill comes in the air around October or so I'm thinking ok the holidays are coming up so that is good.  And the cold weather will come and go by January.  So then January rolls around and I'm thinking just make it to February and then winter is over because if it's February then it's basically March and if it's March then it's SPRING!  And everyone knows you can't have snow when it's spring time so in February there can be no more snow!  This is my thought process and once in awhile the weather does not agree with this train of thought.

This is one of those years.

In the middle of my work day on Wednesday we were already told that we did not need to come in on Thursday.  The weather forecast predicted over 10 inches of snow!  Schools and events were already being canceled before a single snowflake fell.  Anyhow, I was excited to stay home - not excited for the snow part.  I woke up Thursday morning and looked out the window around 6am.  No snow.  What the hell?!  I was half waiting to get a phone call in the early morning to come on into work.  But about 30 minutes later the snow begins.  And it keeps going and going and within a few hours we had several inches of snow on the ground.  Kyle got to stay home, too, but he worked from his computer.  So we got our first snow day on February 21st.  Seriously only a week from March and we are getting snow?!  I hate this.

The dogs were ecstatic and leaped around the backyard for hours.  And later in the day we all ventured out as well.

 

She was happy to go out.  But once we got out she was kinda like Mom - looking around and thinking what the hell is this cold with a scowl on her face.  We are warm weather folk.  But she looks pretty cute as an eskimo baby!

 

 

 

This pic is from the next day with the roads cleared.

 

Apparently we are getting another round of this on Monday.  Not just another couple inches.  Another 10 inches.  Then hopefully the sunny skies open up and melt all of this so we can start going on walks and wearing shorts!

 

 

Happy almost end of snow season!

Mommy & Me Mondays

I have started a new job as of this Monday.  I am excited and nervous about the change.  Even though things change pretty often for me, I get pretty comfortable with where I'm at and the people I meet so I hate the initial transition phase.  However, one of the changes for this job is that instead of working 8-5 Monday thru Friday, I will now work 10 hour days Tuesday thru Friday and have Mondays off.  You know what that means?! I get Mondays off with my little girl :) 

I am very excited because although I have had the same schedule as my husband and we got weekends off as a family, going from 24/7 with our baby after she was born to 24/2 and minimal time on week nights really blows!  And as much as I love parenting with Kyle on the weekends, there is something special of just getting to have the day with the two of us.  So this week and next week I will have a varied scheduled because of training, but after that our Mondays will be just us girls (and the dogs)! 

My goal was to have more time with Ava by the time she was 5 months (I made this my New Years goal and she turned 5 months in mid-February) I didn't exactly give myself that much time to make this change - unless I just up and quit working.  Sounds nice and would have helped me cross off my New Years resolution, but isn't really a realistic option at this time.  The job is still 40 hours a week, but if you take off my travel time and blah blah blah I still have extra time...and regardless one full day with Ava instead of an hour each night after work is going to be fabulous!  So I am pretty happy with how things are working out!

So with all that said...I have decided that I will be starting a post called Mommy & Me Mondays!  We may just stay in our PJs all day or venture out as the weather gets warmer or try new solid foods (I know, I know hold back your enthusiasm - we sound pretty crazy and adventurous over here!) But it will just be a post to remember my days with Ava and will be fun to see how they change as she gets more mobile and functional.

I've also decided to end each post with a few things I'm loving right now so here it goes:

• I love that our dog Samson whines at 4am to cuddle in bed with us each morning
• I love that Ava whines when I leave her for a second - her separation anxiety (that she barely has) just makes me know that she knows I'm Mom and know she loves and misses me
• I love that Ava will bury her head in my shoulder when a new person comes around
• I love that Kyle and I still laugh with each other
• tonight's example: sadly there was a gas leak in a restaurant downtown and it burst into flames - at the same time this is on the news our dog Koda is farting like crazy and it smellllllls. so Kyle makes some comment about having a gas leak at our house, too.  Yeah it may come off as corny but he makes me laugh a lot.
• or we laugh about my chapstick obsession - we find chapstick under the pillows, under the coffee table, and sometimes multiple chapsticks will fall off of me as I stand up - dropping out of my jacket or pants - and crash to the ground.  We don't even have to say anything - we just look at each other and laugh.
•  I love making Ava laugh and squeal by burying my head in her cheek and neck and making goofy sounds
• I love our awkward dog Samson who just stands in the backyard staring at us like a weirdo when we try to call him to come inside

And I will probably always have a few pics because as much as I laugh at my mom for being a paparazzi...I have now become my mother. and one day Ava will become me.  So hopefully she will enjoy all of these pics just as much as I love capturing them.  All thousand plus of them!

 

 

Trying to clean her, but we have a spew monster.  She cracks me up.

 

Loving bath time!

 

Have a good night :)

Valentine's Day

I feel pretty lucky to have a Valentine - we have gone from boyfriend/girlfriend, to fiance, to husband/wife, to parents in just over 3 years.  I love him more each day and love seeing the way we change and grow with each other as our lives change.  This Valentine's we shared with our baby girl Ava and even though we don't do a lot with regards to flowers, balloons, and expensive dinners, I loved spending the night with both of them.  I love you both with all my heart!

Here is a recall of our romantic gift exchange:

We don't do a whole lot for Valentine's day, but I do always request a card.  I learned early in our relationship to not say "I don't want anything for Valentine's Day" if you actually do want something...anything.  So I make my request even if it's small so that I don't end up with my "I don't want anything" ever again.

I got off work early, picked up Ava, and arrived home around 4:45pm.  I try to entertain Ava while rummaging through my purse to find the two cards I bought the night before.   I get my cards set up on the coffee table, let the dogs out, grab a quick bite of food and sit down to write on the cards.  I check the time. 5:05.  I know Kyle will be home in about 5 minutes...maybe 15 minutes if he still has to run to the store to get my Valentine's card.  Which is a good possibility.  I got Kyle a card from me as well as one from Ava.  I get Ava's card out first because we have to get a little crafty with hers.  I find an inkpad and put a couple handprints of Ava's on the card and write with my left hand to sign her name and say "Happy Valentine's Daddy".  It's a mess, but it's cute because it's supposed to look handmade by her.

Then I get out my card and just start the first sentence and I hear the garage door open.  Crap.  Kyle walks through the door and I yell from the living room to not come into the room.  He states that I shouldn't look either and he runs into our room to grab his Valentine's cards.  He sits down in the other room as we both write on our cards last minute.  I do put some thought into my card for Kyle and write a few things about how much I love him and finish up in a couple minutes.  And then I wait.  What is taking Kyle so long.  So I shout to the other room that I didn't take that long to imply that he doesn't need to try too hard either.  Or more so so that he doens't one-up me on what he writes.  Romantic right?!

He finishes the cards and comes into the living room with us.  He hands a card to me and then proudly hands a card to Ava.  And I'm like shit! I didn't get Ava a card.  So I hand him a card...and then I laugh and hand him another card.  Two cards for him from us, none for Ava. We both wrote pretty thoughtful things and his card to Ava was adorable.  Telling her how blessed we are to have her and how much he loves her and that she is his Valentine and it says Love, Dad at the bottom.  And I let him know I will be signing Mom at the bottom, too.  I can't let her look back at this card years to come and think only Dad cared about her.  Fail!

We also decided we were going to celebrate by making dinner together.  I found recipes online the day before.  I googled Valentine's Day recipes and came across recipes like Veal with fresh Thyme and Pork Loins with Apricot blah blah blah.  Come on now!  There is no way I'm capable of making that and especially not if I'm looking up a recipe the day before.  So I look up pasta dishes and print off a few and we settled on Cheese Ravioli with Basil.  We obviously didn't buy the ingredients yet, so we are off to the store around 6pm the night of Valentine's Day to get our meal started.

We head out the door and our grocery store is all of 3 minutes away.  But 2 minutes into it we realize that I didn't grab the diaper bag on the way out the door.  We decide to go without since we just fed her before we left.  Wouldn't you know the parking lot is full of people just like us.  Slam packed with people just like us.  Shout out to all the procrastinators! We grab our ingredients quickly knowing that we are treading carefully with our baby that doesn't have her bottle.  Kyle adds some steak to the recipe because he is good at improvising like that and we also realize we need white wine for the ravioli recipe.  As we leave the grocery store to head to the liquor store literally another 60 seconds down the road, Ava lets out a cry.  Game over and we didn't beat the buzzer.  Kyle drives us back home and heads back out for the wine without us.

Kyle gets back home as I'm still consoling our crying girl.  She really just needs to fall asleep but she's not letting herself.  I rock her in the living.  I feed her in the rocking chair.  I sing to her with her my favorite Pandora station.  In the meantime Kyle has made the entire meal and she is finally konking out.  In addition to the white wine (that apparently had a screw top), Kyle got me moscato to drink.  I'm not a real wine drinker, but moscato is like delicious alcoholic grape juice and right up my alley.  He gets out the moscato and then I hear him grumbling.  We don't have a wine opener.  While I would have just given up, Kyle tries to think of some Macgyver way to open the bottle.  A couple minutes later I hear a strange sound coming from the kitchen.  I shout to Kyle to figure out what is going on and he comes around the corner with his new electric screwdriver he had gotten for Christmas.  Whatever, I'm getting kinda used to these things.  And for the most part what he does actually works.  So soon enough I had a glass of moscato in my hand.

In the end we had a delicious Valentine's dinner and it was nice to spend at home with all of us.

Here's are a few V-day pics

 

Happy Girl

 

 

Dad & his Valentine (not on Valentine's Day)

 

 

Ava reading her card from Dad

 

 

Ava's artwork from daycare.  Love the projects she "makes" at daycare :)

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Round 2

Round 2 of blogging. A year later. This is so sad. Anyhow, Happy Valentine's Day! I'm not anti-valentines or anything. But my little girl went to daycare in a yellow ducky onesie - no pink to be found on her. No little hearts or glitter on her outfit. Yellow ducks. She is adorable, but I should probably try a bit harder to celebrate holidays with her. Even if it's just for the one picture we'll snap of her before she spews on her outfit :)

I have been trying to re-vamp my blog all day! This is complicated people! I have gone to blogging help websites, websites that say just save this picture for your background or add the HTML and it's supposedly so easy...and I follow directions...and it doesn't work. Seriously?! I will keep fiddling with it, because although my blog isn't the standard template that blogspot offers, it is still not what I'm going for.

I'm more determined to keep this blog up and going, because our little girl is now 5 months! Meaning I have 5 months of pictures which by my calculations of have 5 months of pictures x first born status x paparazzi mom = thousands of pictures. Literally thousands. I have got to at least get a few on this blog. I also want to capture a few of our daily happenings and Ava's firsts. Even just a few months down the road it will be awesome to have this blog as a little diary of sorts.

Go Cats!

Almost 5 months

On our first walk this Spring - love the warm weather!