Happy Halloween!!!

Nap!

Today Ava nad I took a nap.  I took her upstairs and put her in bed with me.  We slept for about an hour, and then I got up.  Ava was still sleeping and she looked so silly in our king size bed.  She looks so tiny laying there!!  I had to take a picture.

We also tested out the baby bjorn carrier.  She hasn't liked it much in the past, but it had been awhile since we last tried it, so we thought we would try again.  She did a little better this time!

I WON!!!!

I won the quilt giveaway!!  I couldn't believe it!  There was something like 50 entries!  I got a stroke of good luck!  I'm going to get it on Thursday!  I can't wait.  Nan has such an amazing talent, I am so honored to own such a beautiful piece of her work.  I will take some pictures of Ava wrapped up in it and post them on Thursday!  I posted a few more pictures of the quilt below!

There are also a few pictures of Ava from tonight. The batteries are dead on my camera, so that is why it has been a few days since I have posted pictures.  We managed to snap a few tonight in between the camera shutting itself off...

Quilt giveaway!!

My friend Lyndsey's Mom is doing a quilt giveaway at http://www.potsandpins.com/!  All you have to do is comment as to why you should win it to be entered!!  Here is my comment:

Nan,

We need this quilt!! I am in love with the one you made for Ava!  She looks so cute peering over it in her car seat.  There are many reasons why we should win this quilt!  I will list each one.

*Ava is growing so fast, she has almost out grown the one you made her and will need a much larger one by next weekend or she will surely freeze.
*Ava may very well one day be your granddaughter-in-law....  How special to have a quilt made from your possible future grandmother-in-law!!
*I have tried and tried to pick up the creative seasonal decorating gift you and my sister always had!  I have failed miserably and have nothing but a plastic skeleton hanging from my porch.  A lovely Halloween quilt made by you would put the spirit of the season in my home!
*Ava has three letters, as does Max; and I know you love Max and have made him many, many quilts.
*We have a last name that has to be repeated 10 times and then finally spelt to the asker in order for them to get it. Poor Ava... a quilt would make her feel better.
*And lastly, we would love to be wrapped up warm in your quilt!

The drawing ends at 6pm tonight, so go and enter quick!!!

What a deal!!!

                                              Ava can almost get both hands in there now!

     Daddy home for lunch to visit!

                                                                  Pretty new dress!

This is an awful picture of me with no make up on, but
   I don't have that many photos of Ava and I on here.

Finally Wednesday!!!

I went back to work on Sunday.  It was awful!!  I cried for a few hours on Saturday night and 3 hours at work on Sunday morning!!  To make matters worse, every time I answered the phone I got a "Hi Jenny!  Welcome back, how is the baby?"  Then I'd cry more...  I knew it was going to be hard to go back, but I didn't expect it to be THAT hard!!  I have never been away from her for more than an hour or so!  Rafael brought her to see me everday and I went home during my lunch break.  I have been looking forward to Wednesday!!  I get to be with my girl again.  Right now she is sleeping in my arms. I haven't left her side all day!

      Ava's getting pretty good holding her head up, but still gets a little overwhelmed sometimes... :)

                                       
                                         What a silly look!! I wonder what she is thinking...

Grandma!!

Grandma came to visit Ava today!  Ava was so smiley and very happy to see her Grandma!  My mom is so sweet and has made the hour long trek to our house almost every weekend to visit!!  Ava definitely loves her Grandma!  I get a kick out of watching them. They already have a cute relationship!

Visitors!

My friend Marie came over last night for dinner and brought her 3 girls!  They are so cute!!  All her girls are tiny and petite but they made Ava look huge!!  They had a lot of fun with her!  The girls were full of energy!  Ava was exhausted by the end of the night!

Almost rolling over!!

From what I've read, it typically takes until 5 or 6 months to roll from their back to their front, but Ava has almost mastered it at 2 1/2 months!  She started this a few days ago! Go Ava GO!!! :)

Weird but Yummy!

I watched a healthy cooking show last week where instead of mashed potatoes (full of carbs and starch) you can do mashed cauliflower!  It sounds kinda gross, but we tried it tonight.  Boil a head of cauliflower in milk.  When it is fork tender, strain it and put it in the blender until it is the consistency of mashed potatoes.  I added some Italian seasoning, salt, pepper and a little butter.  It was really good!!!!!!

Mommy, stop slobbering on me!

Sitting!

We got Ava a chair today!  We thought she would be too small for it, but when we sat her down we were pleasantly surprised!  She loved it!!!  She was looking around all over the place!  I'm sure it felt weird for her to be sitting!

Last days off with Rafael!

I'm going back to work on Sunday!  I am sooo sad!  It has been so much fun to stay home with Ava.  I found out that I can take FMLA (unpaid) leave until Ava is a year old, but I'm going back to work and taking Wednesdays off until August 9th.  That way Ava won't need any daycare!  I am so happy about that!  It would have been so hard to leave her with someone I don't know.  I will be working Sun, Mon and Tues, and Rafael will be working Weds-Sat.  We won't have any days off together so that is going to be a hard adjustment.  We've had the same schedule since we met!  The good thing is that our work is only two miles from home.

I know I have a ton of pictures of Ava in this same spot on the couch, but she is getting big enough to fit some really cute clothes, so I have to pose her for pictures!  I looked at the memory card on my camera last night and there is 896 pictures of Ava!