August

Asher came from Texas to visit

She looks like me :) and we finally decided to turn her forward facing in the car, made it almost to 2 1/2 years rear facing so happy about that

Grandpa Lane and Grandma Marilyn came to Utah

Sweet sweet beautiful adorable perfect baby Ellerie Kristin Lane was born 3 weeks early on August 11th at 7lbs15oz and 20 inches long :) Kirk and Kate are so in love and so is the rest of the family! She is a doll!

 

Ava got a big girl twin bed :)

We went boating on Utah lake :) it was a lot of fun but mostly the playing in the water and sand part;)

Cannot believe this girl will be 2 1/2 in 2 weeks!!!! Time is going too fast! Crazy to think we are getting closer to her 3rd birthday than her 2nd!

Ellerie Kristin Lane

Ava's new BIG GIRL room!

Last week Ava attempted to climb out of her toddler bed via the crib side and got stuck between the wall and the crib. She's gotten too big for her crib toddler bed. I also LOVE our crib and it is one of the few things that I do want to use next time so I did not want her to break it either with her new gymnastic skills.

I never in my wildest dreams thought we would have to take the crib down. I ALWAYS thought it would be hard for me to get pregnant with our first but once we had our first that we'd be able to have our kids all about 1 1/2 - 2 years apart and we'd never have to take down the crib till we were done having kids. Oh how wrong I was. Ava was our "easy" child to conceive and nearly 2 years later number 2 is proving to be extremely difficult.

I was able to take down the crib this morning without crying. I did it with Ava there and that helped because she was so excited about her new big bed.  We managed to take the crib down and put her twin bed up in an hour and then my mother in law watched her while I hung tissue pom pom's from the ceiling and a clothesline of rompers :)

And if you noticed that this is the same quilt that we have in our room... then you are right. I have loved it all along for Ava's room. When we decided to change Ava's room over, I looked it up on Pottery Barn and they were clearance them out and all they had left were King size duvets.  I decided to go for it and used the material to make the twin comforter and the extra material for curtains, pillow cases and I still have more left! 

Ava was so excited about it and went to sleep so easy tonight. She has napped 1 time (yesterday) in 3 weeks so we are hoping that maybe this will help nap time too :) Ignore the messy bookcase, still need to work on it.  And I'm changing the pom poms in this last picture, I don't love the pastels. AND I'm doing a contest on my brittybird blog to figure out a vinyl for right over her bed!! :)

Toddler fun ~ 28 Month Update

I love this age (but what age haven't I said that about!)

Ava is SO much fun. Her speech is amazing and she communicates so well with what she wants or needs. She spends most of her days playing with her little dolls, and each group must stay together! She loves to sort things and takes a lot of pride in the fact that she knows which things go together. She is little miss independent and although I know some moms struggle with independent children, I love it. It may take longer to do pretty much anything but its great that she wants to do things herself and learn.

The other day she sat eating cereal for lunch (her favorite food) and she ate for an hour and a half! She definately didn't get my families "fast" eating genes.  She takes her time and thats fine :) I just let her do her thing. She's been a picky eater lately so we just feed her what she likes which pretty much consists of the following: honey nut cheerios, peanut butter and honey sandwiches, grated cheddar cheese, bananas, and animal crackers. Milk is still her FAVORITE drink. She goes through 2+ gallons a week (also didn't get that gene from me!).

She has learned that if she "drops dead" while we are trying to get her to go somewhere that it will take about 4x as long to get there.  Going down for a nap, up the stairs, in a direction at the store she doesn't want to go... she just goes limp! And I can tell you 35 pounds of toddler dead weight is a lot! Thankfully she doesn't scream or throw tantrums... she has silent ways of telling us she doesn't like what we are doing. But distraction always wins and we can convince her to do what we need to do :)

Her latest thing we are working on is the fact that she is CONVINCED that Dan's name is "AVA" She thinks they are both named Ava. He will walk into a room and say "Hi Ava" or "you found my Ava!" We are trying to get her to call him Dad again :)

She is a riot and repeats everything. She talks constantly and loves to give kisses and hugs all day long. She asks me "are you alright momma" a lot and likes to hold my hand! She is such a sweet girl. I cannot believe she will be 2 1/2 in September! It simply blows my mind! Also in September we are starting her in Dance at the dance studio near our house :) I'm so excited!

Physically she has all her baby teeth except 2 of her 2 year molars (top) and 1 canine on the bottom is missing.  She's about 35 pounds and 38 1/2-39 inches tall.  She wears 3/4 in clothes and size 8 shoes.

OH and little miss has developed my love for car seat safety! She buckles her seat belt every time we get in the car (and then we tighten it) as she says "seatbelt! So we can be safe!" thanks dora for teaching Ava about car seat safety! We still have her rear facing and although its not always a piece of cake, I'm trying to keep her that way till she's too tall for the seat.

Oh and if anyone has any suggestions on how to keep a 28 month old from giving up their nap... let me know! I know she still needs one since she gets tired by 5:30 if she doesn't' get one and falls asleep in the car but she's been fighting naps and playing in her room instead.

New blog!

I've decided to start a new blog. This blog will still be our family pictures and things blog but in the coming year I anticipate my life becoming heavily weighted with thoughts in the infertility/baby arena. I know that subject isn't a favorite for everyone so I'd like to keep those thoughts separate. If you would like an invite to the new blog let me know.I will likely make it public eventually but for now I'm keeping it private. But if anyone is interested in a lot too many details into my life and mind then let me know ;)

Start of Summer and Ava Update

There is no denying that Summer (in UT) is my FAVORITE season! I love being outside and going swimming! There is nothing better (especially with a little water baby like Ava)

So far this summer we spent lots of time in the pool in AZ and once we got back we took Ava to the Orem Summerfest to ride the rides.  We celebrated Grandma Kathy's birthday last week and that same night Ava came down with a fever of 101.

She's been sick since and turns out she has a nasty virus that is going around that causes sores in her mouth. She hasn't eaten in 3 days and thankfully is drinking again.  I feel so horrible that she doesn't feel good. We took her to the doctor on Saturday night and she gave us some instructions on how to help her feel better.  I'm hoping she starts to eat again asap and feels better soon!

The doctor measured her height and weight this visit (they don't normally do height at sick visits). She is now 38 1/2 inches tall (99.7%) and 34 pounds (95%) She is officially 27 months old (can I still go by months ;)  She talks non stop, she repeats everything and its amazing to hear the things she comes up with.  The other day Dan picked up a pair of Ava's shoes and she ran up to him and said "You found my shoes!!" It was so cute. She gets so excited when she/we find things!

She also loves to help clean up which is so funny to me. She will get excited if we put her toys away and she gets them all in the baskets.  Her favorite toys right now are little beanie baby dolls. She has some yo gabba gabba, dora and toy story ones and she likes to take them everywhere.  She loves making them talk and have little conversations. It is AMAZING to see her imagination run wild! I love it. She also has started doing little dances and singing a lot. She is so much fun.  

Shes very much into Dora the Explorer lately and speaks in spanish a ton. She can count to 12 in spanish and says lots of the Spanish phrases from Dora that I don't understand :) She knows all her letters and numbers to 20 and tries to write. So far the only things she has successfully written are W and L.

We finally got rid of the binky for good... its been 2 months since we cut them all up. I turned her forward facing in her car seat right after her birthday and within 2-3 weeks flipped her back rear facing.  I can't for the life of me figure out why parents want their kids forward facing.  As soon as she was forward facing I spent way too much time checking on her in the rear view mirror and when she would fall asleep her head would slump over.. if we stopped her head would jump back up, waking her up and she would start bawling... I was so DONE! I am going to push rear facing till she absolutely can't sit rear facing anymore. She's getting close to her seats height limit but not there yet so we will keep it going as long as possible.

My dad asked me while we were in Arizona if Ava was a "terrible 2?" or not.. I definitely say "or not" she is very easy. People tell me that its not fair that we have such an easy child but I just remind them there are lots of other things in our life that are not easy.  She may be our only child we have and for that I'm so grateful we have such a sweet little girl that cheers me up when I am sad and always wants to hold my hand! The sweetest words I've ever heard are "momma I love you" and I'll forever be grateful that we have Ava.

Arizona Trip

Desert Breeze Splash Pad

Playing in Grandma's backyard

Loving Grandma's pool!

Went to the splash pad at the Phoenix Zoo

Feeding the Giraffes at the zoo

Kirk, Kate and I took Ava to the Phoenix Childrens Museum

Getting ready for Aunt Kates Baby Shower

Weight loss

I'm down 17 pounds!!!

On Ava's birthday I weighed the most I've ever weighed which is very depressing since I've gained all the weight I've lost before on Weight Watchers back :( I weigh more now than I did at 9 months pregnant with Ava as well, since I'm being honest.  Its VERY frustrating.

I've dealt with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome since I was 13 (so half my life now). Its very frustrating and the accompanying insulin resistance makes it very hard to lose weight and really easy to gain and the more you gain the harder it is to lose. Its a really crummy cycle. 

Ava's 2nd birthday was one of the lowest times of my life (and no nothing to do with Ava).  As soon as we got home from our trip I made the decision to not let my weight stand in the way of what I want. All I want in life is to be happy, healthy and have more children.

At times it feels a little strange to think "I have to lose weight so I can gain it again while pregnant" but being pregnant will be SO completely worth it. 

I'm hoping to lose 80 pounds, which isn't even all I need to lose but 80 is my goal right now.  Sounds like so much some days so I try to just focus on small weekly goals first. Dan has lost nearly 30 pounds (he also started about a month before me however). I'm proud of him and of myself for doing this.

We have been using "my fitness pal" on our phones.  This is the first time I've ever tried anything other than Weight Watchers, and I'm really liking this.  It has its similarities to Weight Watchers but I also very much enjoy not having to figure out points.

Anyway I'm halfway to my first big goal I set on Ava's birthday which was to lose her weight of 33 pounds!

April Update

How is it almost MAY?! When did that happen?

Life is busy as usual! I am very busy with Brittybird.com and Ava :)

We are getting rid of her binky this week, finally. Lots of people have given me a hard time about it and I'll be glad when we are totally done. The last two weeks we also decided she was too old because she would walk around saying "binky, binky, binky!" or chew on them, bite them, tug on them... anything but use it as a binky

We threw them all away except for one that has a snipped end so she can just see that its broken. 2 nights ago she got up a bunch but last night she stayed asleep the whole night without it! Naps not so easy but its a step in the NO binky direction.

We also just changed her car seat into a "big girl" seat as we call it. Its SO weird to look back and see her, I'm so used to having her rear facing. I wanted to keep her rear facing till 3 but she's almost too tall to be in her seat rear facing and she was running out of room so we turned her. I keep saying I'm going to turn her back but I know at some point she has to sit forward

Dan and I are also losing weight which is a HUGE plus! I unfortunately hit my highest weight on Ava's 2nd birthday. Sadly her birthday (not because of her birthday) was a really low point in my life for many reasons but I'm happy in the last month things have improved. I'm down 14 pounds in a month and Dan is down 24 in 2 months. My fitness pal is awesome and a great website/ap that we have been using!

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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