April

2 Year Old Ava (long for my records)

Ava is 2... I have said that so many times in the last 2 weeks and still can't believe it! I am still a bit shocked that Ava turned 2 and not only do we not have another child but I'm not pregnant with another. All my life when thinking about having children I envisioned them being no more than 2 years apart in age... Knowing that Ava will be at least 3 or 4 or even older before she has a little sibling (if she gets one at all) really hurts my heart but its just the battle that I have to go through.

I feel like I'm the only person in the world that's not pregnant or have a newborn some days but I just need to try and not focus on that and focus on the wonderful little girl who really is a miracle and the greatest blessing. I know lots of friends who have battled infertility and are still waiting on their miracle and I pray for those friends daily. Its a difficult struggle, I am 16+ months into it but still have a ways to go.

Onto Ava.

Ava had her 2 year well check today. Yesterday I had to take her in for a sick kid check because our office won't do well and sick at the same time :( She's been having a hard time with her ears, eyes, throat. She has a sinus infection and is now on antibiotics and drops for her ears and eyes. I was worried that maybe her tubes had come out but it appears that her ears are just clogged and nothing can get out.

Ava's stats today were

37 inches tall (99%)
32 pounds 6 ounces (98%)
19 1/2 inch head (95%)

Our doctor immediately started in talking about how tall she is. She mentioned the whole idea of doubling a 2 year olds height to estimate their height as an adult. If you double Ava's height she would be 6'2! Our doctor took the guess that she will be 6+ feet tall. I looked back at my height at 2 and turns out I'm just 1 inch shorter than my height doubled at 2.

Ava's wearing 3T clothes... her ideal outfit is 4T shirts and 2T pants. But overall 3T fit best :) She is wearing 7/8 size shoes depending on the shoe and is in size 5 diapers when we used disposable. We are not anywhere near potty training.. no motivation yet.

Ava says SO much, she repeats everything. She even knows her ABC's, how to count to 10, she knows her colors, she can recognize her ABC's and the sounds of letters. Her latest saying that she learned the other day is "have a GREAT day!" its very cute!

She has 11 teeth right now and is currently getting 3 of her canines... I hope they come in soon! She hasn't been to the dentist yet but our ped told us to take her closer to her 3rd birthday. She loves brushing her teeth/getting her teeth brushed so I think we'll be okay.

She is still sleeping great! She was going through a phase where she was waking up every night at 4am but now shes back to her normal self. She also moved into a big girl toddler bed in January and she LOVES it! She will sleep anywhere. We have found her on the floor often but she is happy to be free.

She is eating better and a ton. She loves most foods but must feed herself. Her favorites are peanut butter, black beans, chocolate :) to name a few. She's FINALLY drinking water. She would never drink water but the last few weeks shes actually been willing to drink it :)

One thing I didn't think she would have still at 2 is the pacifier. She uses it to sleep and I have no motivation to take it away from her.. so OH well.. I know some people don't like it but thats fine by me. She is also still rear facing in her car seat which may seem "babyish" according to some but I'm keeping her that way.

Other than that shes a super happy rough and tumble sweet little girl. She really rolls with the punches and makes me so happy. She is the best little girl I could ask for!

First Two Years

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She's 2!!!

Avas birthday was on the 15th of course. We were down in AZ for 4 weeks straight. I had some really crummy things happen that have put me into a bit of a slump but I am hoping to start feeling better soon.

Ava had lots of fun with her grandparents, aunts and uncles :) We also were able to see quite a few friends when Ava and I weren't sick.

Speaking of sick, Ava had her first ear infection since her tube surgery while we were down there :(

Ava's 2 year check up is on Wednesday. I'll do her 2 year update post then... for now I need to get some sewing done, since Ava broke my machine in AZ so I couldn't sew down there!

Almost 2

Asher Elliott Calkins

Mr Asher Elliott Calkins arrived last night at 10:18 pm on 2/10/12 He weighed in at 6 pounds 12 ounces and 19 inches long, with the cutest light brown fuzzy hair!

I wish we were in Texas and could snuggle his cute little self but so far we are enjoying him via picture messages :) Caroline ended up having a c-section last night after a long induction dealing with pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes. She's a trooper for getting through it all with little to no sleep.

Asher is perfect and so thankful he arrived safe and sound! They have been wanting kids for years, thats one of the first things I learned about them when I met Dan. As soon as I saw them, I remember thinking how cute their kids would be! 4 1/2 years after meeting Dan I'm so thankful Asher is finally here!

ALSO I'm very excited that my brothers wife, Kate, is expecting their first by the end of August!!! I can hardly stand it, I'm so excited! This will be our first niece or nephew on my side of the family. Kate is 11 weeks right now and I'm SO looking forward to finding out if we will be getting our 1st niece or our 3rd nephew :)

Only 2 weeks at most till we leave for AZ!!! I'm so excited, I didn't even realize it was that close!! AH

January 2012

I cannot believe January is already over! I feel like we spent the first 3 weeks of it sick. We haven't been able to work on any of our goals yet for the year really. We have started going to the gym more this last week which has been great but I'm having a hard time watching what I eat at home. I need to lose weight this year. I'm dying for a 2nd baby and this feels like our one chance right now.

On another note changing Ava over to a toddler bed has gone great. No big deal now :) which makes me happy when we go to Arizona she will be able to sleep on her own twin bed and I won't have to worry.

We also took Ava to see her first movie this month :) She did great until the very end when she just wanted to clap and sing but the guys in front of us didn't love it. But it was the Muppet movie.

Here are some pictures from this month:

Big Girl Bed! Part 2

Well Ava had been in her "big girl bed" for 1 week now! The first night she got up I think 5 times before she finally fell asleep, not bad, took an extra 2 hours for bedtime. The next night she got up 1-2 times and then went to sleep. By the 3rd night she just stayed in bed but it took her about 20 minutes of chit chatter before she fell asleep...

then on the 3rd night she woke up with a fever of 102 :( so that wasn't fun. But after she was feeling better she went back to sleeping great! She goes and gets in bed now when she wants to go to bed!! Big plus she is staying in bed!

Naptime was a bit different. She hadn't been napping, her room was just too fun. But the last 2 days we have put her in a sleep sack and she has stayed in her bed and just taken a nap!!!

SO happy it turned out to be an easy transition!

Big Girl Bed!

Tonight is Ava's first night in her "big girl bed" OH wish us luck!!
We decided a month and a half ago (well at Thanksgiving) that it was getting close to time. She weighs over 32 pounds now and lifting her out of her crib has been causing my back pain to be excruciating. We ordered the little toddler rail for her bed since it was 50% off on amazon and decided around new years after family had left we would give it a go.
Well new years came and went and since Ava and I both got sick we didn't change her bed over. Since we decided we are heading to AZ in a few weeks I realized I either needed to switch her now or buy some sort of "toddler tent bed" for our trip because shes way too big (tall and heavy) for her pack n play, it was a stretch to use it 6 months ago but now we definitely can't use it.
We did our usual bedtime routine (after I spent over an hour setting up her bed and baby proofing the room) and got her to bed around 7:30 (2 hours ago)... She stayed in her bed for 50 minutes! I thought we were home free but since then in the last hour shes gotten up 4 or 5 times and came to the door trying to open it. We have the baby monitor on as well. I hope we some how get some sleep tonight and we figure this thing out. I'm giving it a few nights and if it doesn't work we are going back to the crib.

Arizona!!

I am beyond excited! We have decided to come to Arizona for Ava's 2nd birthday!! We weren't going to come down again till the last week of May but we talked and I felt that was just too long! By March it will already have been 7 months since our last visit.

Ava and I are driving down on the 5th and Dan is flying down on the 14th. Ava's birthday is the 15th and we are having her party on the 17th and all drive back together on the 19th! I hope it will be a fun filled 2 weeks :)

Asher's Baby Shower

Lisa was the mastermind of this baby shower (for Caroline and Asher) and boy did she do an awesome job!!! She designed everything, down to the invitations and it was beautiful! I was hoping to help a LOT more than I did because I was sick during the week of the shower :( But I did take these photos to remember the shower by :)
I cannot wait for Asher to get here! He is due on Feb 22nd!! Just a little more than 6 weeks max till we get to finally see Dave and Carolines cute baby! From the moment I found out about Dave and Caroline (4 1/2 years ago when I met Dan), I was told that they had been trying to have a baby. At that point it had been a couple of years with no success. I remember feeling very emotional about this because of my own issues with PCOS and a very strong attachment to the idea that they needed to have the first grand baby in the Calkins family.

Fast forward to now, Asher may not be the first grand child but have we all been waiting faithfully for his arrival for a very long time! I'm also so thankful to have Caroline in my life, even more so now that we have been going through infertility for over a year now. She gave me quite a few words of wisdom as we talked over the Christmas break. Having children has not been easy for any of my sister in laws. Not a single one of us has had it "easy", I'm not thankful for this fact but I'm thankful to have women in my life who understand the pain and joy that comes with bringing children into this world.

New Years

So we are 1 week into the new year and so far we have been sick the whole time :( Ava got sick right before the new years and I got sick right after her. Boy has it been an eventful 2012... not how I like to start off a new year but OH well, I'll pretend tomorrow is my real new years start :)