This is what happens when I get left alone with Daddy too long....

Ava's belly button!!

YAY!! Ava's umbilical cord came off today!  I have been so excited to kiss her cute little belly button, and now I finally can! :)

Ava has become so much more alert the last few days!  Today she opened her eyes wider than I have seen so far!  She is so cute and has her Daddy's beautiful brown eyes.  It was so hot yesterday and today. I called the nurse and she told me to take everything off Ava except her diaper.  She also told me to give her some water!  Ava took a bottle with water in it with no problem!!  I was worried that she wouldn't like the taste at first, but she did very well!!

Sooo CUTE!

Ava does this thing when she poops... (sorry, I have to share).  She puckers her little lips and flares her nostrils!  It is so adorable!!!

Happy 1 week Birthday Ava!!

Last night we celebrated Ava's 1 week Birthday!  She can't eat the cookie, but Mommy ate it, so she will get a taste of it somehow!! :)

Ava's first outing!

Today was Ava's first day out of the house!  She had her first check-up with the pediatrician, and then we went to target to get a few things.  The pediatrician said everything looked great!  He said she had a little bit of jaundice (yellow skin), but that should go away within the next few days.  She has gained 5 ounces!!  She now weighs 7 lbs 3 ounces!!  That was great news for us, because everyone had told us to expect that she would lose about a pound in the beginning!  Everything else looked great.  We really like the doctor.  He spent a lot of time with us and answered all of our questions.
Ava was so good!!  She slept through most of the trip.  By the time we got home she was so passed out that her arms were down at her sides!!  It was so cute!  I think the car ride really relaxed her.
Here are a few pictures from our adventure!

                                                          Right before we left Target!!







                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                           Back home...

We are having so much fun with our little girl!  She's such an angel and we can't get enough of her. She makes the cutest little noises!!  My Mom came and stayed with us for the weekend and she left today.  We are officially on our own!!  It was scary for me to have Mom leave, but we're doing just fine.

Ava hasn't figured out night and day yet, and seems to be up more at night than the day.  I think I keep myself up at night more than her keeping me up.  Every little noise she makes, I have to check and see if she's ok.  Hopfully that will get a little better for me and I can become less paranoid!  We love her to death and we are the luckiest people in the world to have this new little addition to our family!

Baby Ava is here!!  She arrived 8/6/08, 9:35am, and is 6 pounds 14 ounces.  She got a 100% Apgar score!  She's so precious!!  Mommy and Daddy are tired, but doing very well!  We came home from the hospital last night.  The delivery could not have gone more perfectly!  I went into labor around midnight 8/6/08 after 1 day of contractions.

Uggg!

Hello!  We had another appointment with the doctor yesterday and still zero dilated.  I was so bummed out!  I had a very minor surgery a long time ago, and the doctor thought that maybe the scar tissue could be preventing me from dilating.  We have our next appointment on August 8th (the day before we are due).  The doctor said he would schedule an appointment for us to be induced if we had not delivered by then.

We got a storm door for our front door!  It is SO nice, and gives a lot of circulation in the house! Rafael spent all afternoon yesterday installing it.  He has so much patience!  I would have gone crazy spending that much time on something.

We went to home depot and they had a bunch of really cool cactus plants!!  Rafael said he had always wanted to make a cactus garden, so we bought a bunch of them.  I went to Joann fabrics and bought some cute pots.  We planted them last night. There was dirt all over the counter tops and on the floor... it was hilarious!  We had fun! :)

My Mom and brother came over last night for pizza.  Mom finished the quilt she made for Ava.  It's SOOO cute!  She is so talented.  She took it to work and all her co-workers told her she should make quilts for a living!  It is beautiful!

Here's a picture of the quilt, our cactus's, a few pictures my Mom took of us last night, along with one of my honey working on the door!

Hopefully we will have some GREAT news the next post!! :)

                           














                          Little daisy details

                             So Cute!!!!



                                                                                                                          Handyman...

               
                  Chad, Jenny & Rafael

                                                                                                        Look how big Raf's hands are!! Lol

             
               My Mom and I                                                                             Raf and a tired Jen!

Doctor's appointment

No progress!!  What a bummer!  Zero dilated. :( The good news is the doctor said if I don't go into labor by my due date, he will induce me. :)  YAY!!  At least I know I won't be two weeks late!!

                                    I just bought these and had to post a picture! Sooo cute!

Baby Shower!

My sister Christina and my Mom threw me a baby shower last weekend!  It was so fun!  Everyone spoiled our little girl (again).  She has a bigger wardrobe than I do, and she hasn't even been born yet!!!!!

Two weeks and two days left!  I am so excited to hold her, I can barely stand it!  We have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. Hopefully I will have some progress news!!  We're ready for her to come now, so it's up to her to decide when she is ready for us!

Here are some photo's from the shower, Ava's closet and my big belly!

                            Full closet!




                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                              Woah!!

Baby shower in a box!

Hello!  Our old co-workers from Seattle mailed a box of baby goodies to us at work last week!!  It was SO sweet of them and such a cute idea!  I emptied the box out before I remembered to take a picture so I took some pictures of the box.  They lined it with baby wrapping paper and wrote some cute notes on the flaps of the box. They really spoiled us!  We went to visit them today in Seattle!  It was so much fun to see everyone.  They are all like our family and we miss them so much!

We're going shopping tomorrow to get the last of the necessities before the baby comes!  I have a list of things I found in a magazine to pack for the hospital bag.  We have already washed the receiving blankets and a few going home outfits for our little one.  Her bag is pretty much ready to go.  Rafael and I worked 20 hours of overtime each last week to help get the last of what we need, and to pay down a credit card before she comes. :)

We are getting so anxious!!  The baby still hasn't dropped yet.  There were a few times last week when I thought she had because I had some new aches and pains, but when I look in the mirror I can see that she is still sitting pretty high.

My sister is throwing me a baby shower on Saturday! I' m so excited, and will post some photo's this weekend!

                                                       Aww :) He thinks he is human.

                                                                 Raf cut his hair!!! :)

Strep B Test

I had my Strep B test done today.  I was really excited for the appointment because I was hoping to hear something about how the baby is coming along!  We have a month left!  Bummer, my cervix is not dilated at all yet!!  The doctor did say that my cervix was thinning.... good news!  I guess our little girl is getting me ready for the big day!  She hasn't dropped yet.  I can't WAIT for that to happen.  I feel like she is so high, she is in my rib cage!  I have issues even breathing sometimes! Once she drops hopefully that will make some more room for my lungs!

Even though I was hoping to be able to report some news, I am glad she is not coming yet! We still have so much to do to get ready, and she has some more growing to do before she is ready... I guess it will all work out in the end! :)

Happy 4th!

My co-workers threw me a suprise baby shower last week! It was so sweet of them!!  They spoiled our little Ava!  They were so sneaky and had been planning it for awhile! I had no idea!  The cake said "Rafael's baby momma" on it, it was hilarious!!

Four days from now we will be 4 weeks from our due date!!Rafael cut off all his hair!!  It was so long, that his haircut was FREE because he had enough of it to donate!  Woohooo!!  He looks major hot. I liked his long hair, but I really did miss his short hair.

We didn't go out last night.  Instead we set up the bug zapper and sat on the back porch and watched everyone elses fire work shows.  It was fun, and nice to stay home.
The baby was moving around like crazy the whole time.  I don't know if it was the sound of the fireworks or what...

We are SO excited and getting more and more anxious every single day. There is still so much we need to do to get ready.  I don't think we will ever be completely ready!  We got the car seat a couple weeks ago.  The base is installed in the car and ready for the trip home with our little addition.

My friend Lyndsey came from Utah to visit last week with her little boy!  He is 2 1/2 months old now and adorable!!  It was so fun to see her, and see her as a mom!!  The weather has been hot the last few weeks. We have had the fan going 24/7!  Now I know what everyone was talking about how awful it is to be pregnant in the summer time.  I can't really say that it is awful, just hot.  Even when it's not hot, I am hot.  My feet and hands are always swollen and I can barely get my wedding ring on now!!






















I hadn't gained any weight the last doctor visit.  I asked my doctor about it and he didn't seem to think it was a problem.   He said my overall weight gain so far was 30 pounds, and that is what was important.  I weighed myself last night and I seem to have lost a bit of weight.  I don't know why.  I'm  eating the same as I have all along.  I''ve read that I'm supposed to
be gaining the most at this point in my pregnancy.

I have a doctor's appointment monday for the strep B test.  The doctor is going to check and see if he can feel my tailbone too.  I spoke to one of the nurses last week and she was thinking that I might need to have a C-section because I broke my tailbone in high school.  It has been causing me a lot of pain.  Depending on how my tailbone healed, there may not be enough room for the baby to make her way through without re-breaking my tailbone.  I am hoping like crazy that I don't have to have a c-section.  When we went to our birthing class I couldn't even lean back to practice pushing the way they wanted us to because of my tailbone.  My feet hurt when I stand for too long, and my butt hurts when I sit for too long.  Ugg, 4 weeks to go!! :)  I am trying to stay as positive as possible.  I know it will be worth every second in the end!!

                                                             Rafael reading the how-to