Our cute baby

My cute cousin Jess took these fun pictures when Ava was two months old...what a sweetheart, huh? I am a proud mama, it's true :) Just proof that she is the cutest baby ever! EVER!!







Ava is so happy and so expressive now - it is really fun to see. Of course I am already evaluating her speech, and she has actually had a couple of consonants lately! Could be a fluke, but I'm betting she's just precocious. :) Her cries are differentiating and she is known for "protesting" often. Not really a cry, but an obvious verbalization that she didn't want you to leave the room or that she is not happy that you're not paying attention to her. The doctor mentioned that it means that she is understanding that she doesn't need to cry all the time to get what she needs. Erik and I often laugh at how expressive she is.

She also can grab things and LOVES conversing with her toys...like all the time. It's already a great distraction for her. Lately she has been wanting to sit up a lot too, it's really funny. She'll be laying on my lap and start to lean forward until I put her sitting on my lap. Of course then sometimes while sitting up she will lean until she falls over. That is pretty funny to watch.

It's so fun to see her learn and grow! This week I have finally realized that I no longer have a newborn...she has changed so much! We are SO grateful that feeding is going better and sleep is...........well I won't say too much about that. I have been able to put her down after she falls asleep which has been such a blessing. Still working on regaining longer stretches at night, and until then, the bags under my eyes are growing :)

BUT WE SURE LOVE HER!

Yuck

It's snowing in Boston. Sick. I literally feel sick in my stomach. Here is something to cheer me up...it's from a few weeks ago when Ava "found" her hands...she is concentrating so hard!

More Ava!

The babe is growing, growing, growing! She will be 12 weeks this week - time sure flies! At her two month appointment these were her stats:

Height: 24.75 inches (off the charts)
Weight: 12.5 lbs (75%)
Weight vs Height: 10%

Is she the child of Erik and I or what? ;)

So I guess I have to do the dirty work if Erik isn't going to post the videos about Ava :) She is so fun...LOVE her smiles and almost laughs. I think I've heard a real laugh from her once or twice when she is awake, so hopefully they will be coming full fledged soon. She keeps us plenty busy with her "talking" - cute exchanges of coo's when we imitate her back to her...it is cute cute! Here is a video of her talking to one of her toys:

She is so cute, but we can't wait until she gets a little better at sleeping. She was doing so well for a while with 6 hr stretches at night and sleeping on her own during the day, but she is recently on a 1+week kick of not being able to sleep without being held and waking up every 3 hrs or less at night (she did this a few weeks ago too). It is killing me and I am feeling like I have a newborn again. I've tried so many different tricks and read up a lot, but it seems like she is just not able to calm herself down and put herself back to sleep once she wakes. I'm hoping that improves as she gets older because right now I just feel like we've regressed!!

Anyway, sleep deprived and all, her smiles sure make up for the hard times. Erik has been a great support as well, so that has helped. Needless to say, I haven't been very productive this week, but I have lots of projects in the works, so I'll post about those soon!

Forgotten Picture

Instead of posting the pictures or videos of Ava like I was planning, I got distracted (and it got late) so instead I will just post this. It is a picture of a shirt we saw when we were wandering around Newburyport with my sister and Brother-in-law. I enjoyed the shirt so much that I had to take the picture.

Enjoy!