18 Month Update (long and for my records)

"We are incredibly blessed to have such an amazing little girl. I don't take her for granted for one single second. I wouldn't wish any of my time with her away to be doing anything else. My patience with her has grown exponentially in the last year. Struggling with secondary infertility has been an emotional trial for me but oddly enough a blessing at the same time. I am so grateful for Dan and Ava."

I posted that today on my facebook status. Exactly sums up what I've been feeling for a while now!

Our sweet little Ava turned 18 months old today. That may not seem very old but it feels like she has been in my life forever! I can't imagine it without her! I'm so thankful for her and the joy she brings to my life. I love being a mom and want nothing more than to have more children. It has been a struggle emotionally and physically. However I'll talk about that more another day.

We took Ava to her 18 month appointment today. I think this was by far our best doctors appointment ever! Normally we find something wrong with her ears or lungs or eyes... This time all we discovered is she is allergic to grass....... no big deal right? lol she promised me it wasn't.

Ava's stats today were

34 3/4 inches tall (99.5%)
28 lbs 3 oz (91%)
19 inch head (90%)

She is just growing like a weed lately!! She's wearing 2T and some 3T clothes. I still haven't had the heart to put away all of her 24 month clothes yet however. I keep getting them out too! They are all summer clothes and too small but I love them! Its turning into fall very quickly here. I think we've entered 70 degree weather for good and dropping. Gotta pull out the sweaters soon! She also wears 5/6 in shoes... probably closer to a 6 but once again, I don't want to put away the 5's! TOO much cute stuff! Oh and we finally moved her up to size 5 diapers! Its pretty tough getting any diaper on her wiggly self so we figured the bigger the better!

Our doctor also was very happy with Ava's speech. We were stretching for maybe 5 words back when she was 15 months, and now she has well over 50! She can count to 10 and no longer skips 8 and will even count by herself sometimes. She always cheers for herself at the end :) She also says really funny phrases like "what are you doing" "how are you" "whose there" (always after knocking on something) and "ready set go" in which she always has to run after!

She can name all the Yo Gabba Gabba characters (her favorite tv show), she knows what a dog and a snake say :) she loves animals, especially dogs! She can play this game called "wiggle wiggle hold still" and she dances and holds still when we say. She also knows all the signs to "popcorn popping" "itsy bitsy spider" and "patty cake"... we even found her trying to sing along with one of her shows the other day. So cute. She'll do a lot of the same signs as her shows or talk along with them (probably means we have the TV on too much)...

Lately her favorite things are to color, play outside, play with other kids, read books, open and close everything, sing songs... she's very easy going and generally happy!

She has 7 teeth in as of today! 5 in front and 2 molars on the ride side. Hopefully the other 4 coming in come in quick! Ava still sleeps 12+ hours a night. 7:15p-7:45a usually and then takes 2-3 hour nap in the middle of the day. She is very much a schedule girl and we like it that way!!

She's totally off the bottle and has been for awhile. She drinks great from a sippy cup and is starting to drink from a real cup too at dinner! She's also doing much better at feeding herself with a spoon and fork! Her favorite foods are watermelon, peaches and graham crackers (and milk). She also thinks ketchup is a food... but we will ignore that for now.

Ava still has a binky at night, at naps, and in the car. I don't feel like taking it away yet so I won't. I used to hate the binky but since she doesn't have to have it all of the time I don't really care if she wants it to help her sleep.

Ava also is still rear facing in her car seat! We <3 extended rear facing and will keep her that way till she is too tall for her seat to stay that way... I'd really like her to stay rear facing till 3 or 4 at least, I know people think I'm crazy but I'm okay with that! If they had gone through my major and were anxious about driving anyway, they would feel the exact same way!

Ava is a very sweet and loving little girl. She loves to give kisses and hugs, she'll kiss and hug her baby dolls and she even gave the doctor a hug today and said "awww" while doing so... It is just crazy to see all the things she mimics. All of her little phrases are things I say all of the time and I say "awww" a ton. She also does a little happy sigh after she drinks (does that make sense)... then I realized I do that too!

I love her. She's better than any little girl I ever dreamed about having as a little girl :) She's perfect.

Fall

I can't believe September is already here! I LOVE fall in Utah! Its so pretty and the weather is nice through Halloween... then it starts to get too cold for my blood.

Yesterday at church we had a heck of a time keeping Ava entertained for 3 hours... I am SOO ready for her to go to nursery, but sooo not ready to leave her there! We decided we would take her next Sunday and I'd stay with her. I'm sure she will do great, she's been to nursery a couple of times when we've been traveling.

I am excited for her to get a chance every week to play with other little kids her age and I hope I can finally figure out who in the ward has kids her age so we can start playing with them during the week. Especially when it gets snowy I won't feel like going out as much so it would be nice to have little kids in the neighborhood for her to play with.

I started some new medications this week to help me in my struggle with PCOS and hopefully on our way to having another baby! We've been doing weight watchers together for a month now! I've lost 7 pounds this month and Dan has lost 11. I'm happy with it, its not fast but its something!

End of Summer

Summer is winding down and so we wanted to use one of the last hot days for Ava to swim! We went to Grama and Grampa's and she swam in the baby pool in the front yard then ran up and down the street (with one of us of course) it was fun!

Cup

Ava has been off the bottle for a few months now and now we are leaning towards getting off a sippy!

Today was day 2 of no sippy at dinner. I'm surprised she's doing so great! Dan kept trying to keep her from spilling but I told him its the only way for her to learn.

Counting

We discovered on Friday that Ava can count with us to 10. Sometimes she'll repeat the number after we say it and other times she will say the next number in line. She also skips 8 which is funny and gets excited about 9 and 10. We went swimming on Friday and counted in the pool with her she thinks its so funny. When did my baby get so grown up!?

(16 &) 17 Months Old

Ava is 17 months old!! I somehow missed writing a 16 month update for Ava with getting tubes last month but here we are and she's already 17 months old!! 1 more month and she's off to nursery and will be 1 1/2!!! How is this possible!

She's talking a LOT more since she got the tubes in her ears. I keep track of her words and phrases in my phone and its AMAZING to see how many shes developed just since getting tubes! I honestly think she said about 5 or so words before she got tubes. That day we got home she said 2 new ones and has been adding tons since.

I'm writing this list for me for future reference so enjoy lol and this is about the order she learned them... but not totally

Words:
Dada
Mama
Wow
Hi
Num
Ya
Bye
Kenji
No
Uh Oh
Down
Thank You
Up
Nice
Eyes
Nose
Go
Papa
Night
Share
Baba
Whose there
Hello
One

Has said before but not as easy to get her to repeat:
Lisa
Dortha
Yes (ya-sss)
Ya I do
Doggie
Grandma
You
How are you
Food
Two

If you ask her want a snake says she says "SSSSS" Its cute, she'll sometimes do kitty right and we are working on what a dog says now :)

Ava is wearing 2T and even some 3T clothes now but I haven't had the heart to put away ANY of her 24 month clothes... I need to though. She is wearing 5/6 in shoes. We went and got her shoes the day she turned 1 and those were a size 4 and now her 5's barely fit, so I think we will be in 6's full time here real soon. Why can't she stay tiny!!! We have a ton of clothes we have been storing and I have even more stored coming up for her to wear... Girl has way too many clothes!

Ava has 6 teeth now, and 5 or 6 more coming in soon! She's got 5 teeth in front and 1 molar on top :) Everytime I try to get my finger in her mouth to feel she tries to bite me! Thankfully she doesn't bite otherwise.

She is such a well behaved little girl. Ava and I traveled 4200 miles in 3 weeks through Az, Ut, Id, Wy, Sd, Nd, and Mt. She was perfect the entire time. She sleeps, she eats, we get out a couple of times when we get gas, she plays with some toys, she doesn't whine or fuss or cry. Its sooo nice to travel with her! If she didn't travel well I'm sure I'd never make the drive anywhere because I hate driving!

I'm really impressed with how easy she is. She loves other kids and is such a sweet heart. I am so grateful for what a blessing she is in our life. I've wanted another baby in our home for 9 months now. Unfortunately we know the wait to have one is going to be a lot longer. Its hard for me to think that getting pregnant with Ava was so simple, if this 2nd child was like Ava I'd be giving birth in a week.

This already shows me that every child is different and although my plans were to have another child already, that's not necessarily gods plan for us. I've learned a lot in the last 9 months, and 17 months for that matter. I am looking forward to the day that we find out that I'm pregnant again and pray that it all works out and our battle with secondary infertility will end soon enough. I need to go back to my doctor and talk about some more medical options because so far I haven't seen much changes with the meformin I've been taking.

Here's to more exciting updates in the future :)

Savage Montana

Arizona Trip

ITS HOT HERE! Ok now that I stated the obvious, lets move on to fun stuff!

We got here a week ago Saturday. We decided to split up the trip into 2 days and stop in Saint George over night and see Dan's Grandma! Ava got to see all her animals and loved them! It was fun to stop to see her!
We stayed in a motel but since it was pioneer day weekend motel prices were nearly double (75$) for 1 night!!! NOT FUN! And Ava decided to only sleep for 2 hours. She started getting a cold right when we were heading out on Friday and I didn't want to cancel because of it so it made the trip a bit more interesting. I ended up staying up with her the whole night that night and by 5 am we just gave up and got on the road. We ended up getting into Tempe just after noon. We were exhausted.

Grandma bought Ava this little slide and at first she loved it... not so much after the first fall, but it will be fun to have a grandma's house our next visit!!

Kate and Kirk came over the first day right after we got in and we immediately started in on projects! Kate and I did this crayon melting project that took 2 days... this was the first half
We decided Ava needed her own week long project :) She did 7 paintings while we were here! She loved playing in the paint!
Sunday we got to go to my moms ward which I always love doing! Ava dressed up in "corona colors" and looked adorable. She spent the whole time walking around or coloring. Her 2 favorite things!
We sat our crayons outside all day Sunday
Ava made more art
Monday we hung out and I ran errands :) and we went to my Dad's for dinner. Ava also enjoyed playing Grandma's piano while we were down
Tuesday we took Ava to the splash pad, which she loved!!! This girl is a busy little bee!
Tuesday night we went to a BBQ at Lonna's mom's house and got to see a lot of our friends.

On Wednesday we went to lunch with my friend Tera and took Chloe and Ava to play at the mall playground. I was chasing Ava the entire time because she thought it was so much fun to run out of the play center so I had to catch her! Still cute but exhausting!
Thursday I woke up with horrible back pain, probably from Wednesday. We took it easy that day, not to mention Ava's lungs were sounding really bad. Either from the cold or from asthma. It was NOT fun! I hate when she gets wheezy and I don't have all her medicine with us. We still went and had dinner with my dad that night and after getting Ava to bed finally went and saw Harry Potter.
On Friday I met up with my cousin Melissa and helped her find some hair flowers for her wedding (11/11/11) It was fun catching up with her.
On Saturday I worked on projects most of the day... etsy onesies and headbands and bows. Dan and my mom watched Ava most of the day. It was Kates birthday so we went to an aquarium to celebrate with her.

Update

I don't feel like I've written in a while! We've had a few things going on!

First we've been talking about doing tubes in Ava's ears for months now! We almost did them in March but because of a bad cough we kept postponing till we finally cancelled all together.

After our last trip to AZ Ava got another ear infection and her ear drum burst. We realized we had to move forward with tubes. We were trying to get Ava into a doctor in Salt Lake when we found out our health insurance was going from pretty good to very bad, all starting August 1st. The doctors in Salt Lake couldn't get us in for surgery before the 1st but thankfully a doctor closer to home could get her in!

We took her in on Tuesday this week. Thankfully she was 2nd for the day and from the time we walked in till we left was 2 hours exactly. There was a little boy that was a little older than Ava that was going before us. They took both of us back at the same time to wait in a little hospital room with a curtain dividing us. He screamed and fussed the whole time before he went back. Ava just hung out with us and we watched "Wonder Pets" They took the little boy back first and he was back there for a long time compared to what they told us.

They finally came out and told his parents he was done and they took Ava back. Then the screamer came back, but this time he was screaming like someone was murdering him and did so for the entire hour till we left! It was probably the worst part of the whole experience, so thats pretty good.

Ava was only back for 15 minutes before they came back and told us she did great, passed her hearing tests and would be coming to us in a few minutes. This was the part I wasn't prepared for. I had no idea how sad it would be for her to come out of anesthesia. When the nurse handed her to me she was crying so hard and had her eyes shut. She was totally out of it. We gave her a bottle of formula and she chugged it since she hadn't had anything to eat since midnight.

Unfortunately the nurses or doctors didn't tell us that we shouldn't bring her milk. We should have brought her juice...... She then threw up on Dan :( We took her home and she threw up 1 more time and then started going back to normal.

We can already tell a difference the tubes are making just in her hearing alone! She's said more words since Tuesday than she has in any other week. She also is responding to us a lot faster than normal when we speak to her. She is up to 15-20 words! Its crazy!

I need a baby boy!

Happy 4th of July

Question Time with Ava