July 2011

This month our activities were real estate heavy, with the purchase of our new home, 8 home inspections, packing up our old house, moving, and unpacking. On moving day, Ava showed off her leadership skills by standing in the doorway of the new house, shouting "move faster" to the moving men. Not that we weren't thinking the same thing...we just didn't have the nerve to say it ourselves. Kids can be handy sometimes.

We're all settling in to the new place quite well. Ava is especially fond of the porch, where she likes to stand and scream, "You're my new neighbors" to everyone passing on the sidewalk. There are plenty of kids and sidewalk chalk to keep Ava entertained so that piece of the move has been nice and easy.

This month's slideshow includes a picture of the whole family saying a fond farewell to our old house and hopefully by next month we'll have pulled ourselves together enough to take a family portrait in front of our new house. Until then, we'll be wading through a sea of boxes.

June 2011

Oh, June. Yeah...not a big fan. To put it simply, this was a very hard month. That being said, there were some standout moments:

June started out with a bang, as Ava skyped for the first time with her new cousin Caleb Edwards, who finally "came out of Tommy's belly." I suppose congratulations should also go out to Emily, who we understand was smoking cigars in the waiting room during the delivery. Just as Ava's baby fever was subsiding, our next-door neighbors brought their new baby, Austin, home from the hospital and she hasn't stopped talking about Caleb and Austin since.

At the end of the month, Ava and Brian made their way to D.C. to visit the Rabold and Stephenson families to celebrate Layne's 70th birthday. Brian, of course, proved he was well up for the task of solo parenting on the plane and received far too many compliments from his fellow travelers to be considered reasonable. While in D.C., Ava met cousins Casey and Paige, whom she is still talking about weeks later. It was a whirlwind of zoo animals, parties, and sprinkler fun.

Almost Homeless!! (in a good way?)

To make way for another human in our home, a couple of months ago we decided to put our house on the market in hopes of finding something larger. Today, the deal was sealed and soon we'll say goodbye to our first home. It was a good little house and needing to move makes us all a little sad. Well, actually, Ava seems pretty excited but she's a little foggy on exactly what this means for her.

Being that Ava is the boss of the household (I jest. Don't worry...we totally have this kid under control), we let her pen the deal. She likes signing papers and was happy to do the honors.

We don't exactly have a new home to move to, which might make the next few weeks interesting for all of us. Wish us luck...

Today in Ava

Ava: You got a baby in there?
Us: Would you like a new baby in the house? We would need to buy a new house.
Ava: Okay.
Us: Then yes. There's a baby boy in there. That's your baby brother.
Ava: I meet him at the hospital and I feed him.

For those of you who didn't know, our new arrival is coming around Halloween.  We've been trying to keep the news from Ava, reasoning that she couldn't handle the many months of wait.  She can be a little--how should we put this--obsessive, and we were anticipating a bevy of questions about how soon we'd be able to see the baby.  Now that she's uncovered the truth on her own, the gig is up.  And now we look forward to a few months of this scene:

Piggies!!

After--I kid you not--2 1/2 years of attempts, I have finally achieved Piggy success.  It took some convincing. I had to tell her that the brand new baby boy next door would like to see her in Piggies and she was happy to oblige. I have been informed by other parents in the house that it was wrong to convince Ava to pretty herself up for others. Okay, sure, but I don't regret the manipulation. Look at how cute she is. I took 100 pictures and almost cried in excitement.

May 2011

May was a big month for everyone in the family. First, the weather finally started to cooperate, and we were able to get outside. Second, we had a nice visit with Brian's parents. Lastly, Ava packed up her pacifiers and mailed them to the babies in the hospital. As she recounts, "The babies are crying in the hospital. I give them my binkies. Cuz they are crying."  She was rewarded with a "big girl bed" and a pillow, both of which were much more welcome presents before she knew we were serious about the mailman taking her binkies. We hope the babies are enjoying those pacifiers because it has been a grueling four weeks in the Rabold house.  We are currently in a no-nap standoff and Ava seems to be fairly sure this is a battle she can win.

Slumbersault

So exactly how would you suggest she get into bed?

April 2011

Tickle Torture

A Is for Alphabet

Today in Ava

 After swim class, in the men's locker room, Ava yells to Brian, "I want to see penises!"

Ava's 26th Month

This month brought snow, birthday parties (happy birthday Maisie and Ava's class!), and lots of play time with Ava's pals. It also brought out more of Ava's personality, for better and for worse. Now that she can pretty much say whatever she wants, we've developed some favorites:

• "My tootsies are cold."
• "This is tasty."
• "Actually..."
• "Yah, cuz..."
• "2 MINUTES!" when you ask her to complete any task at all.
• "Please," with her hands placed together as though she were praying.
• "I'm proud."

We haven't addressed Ava's milestones in a while because it seems like there aren't many to talk about. Lest you think she's just sitting around on her heinie, not achieving greatness, here's what our girl can do:

• The hand jive.
• Put on a shirt. Take off her shirt.
• Pull up pants and take them off, but she's still mastering zippers and snaps.
• Put on boots and shoes, take them off, put them in the right place (if we badger her).
• Put on her jacket by flipping it over her head. Very cute.
• Pour liquids from a pitcher into a small glass.
• Wipe down the table after pouring liquids from a pitcher into a small glass.
• Recite some of her favorite books, adding in new endings as she sees fit.
• Go down a two-story wavy slide by herself.
• Wash and dry her hands.
• Wash dishes, as long as you're not too worried about the quality of the job.

A couple from the vault

Technical difficulties delayed the posting of some December-ish videos. These are a little out of date but so stinkin' cute we're posting them anyway.

Obstacle Course

Ever wonder what our weekends look like?  They look like this...

Ava's 25th Month

Ava's second year got off to a rough start with a Happy Birthday bout of pneumonia and two ear infections. Other than that, everything was smooth sailing. So long as the destination you had in mind was a super whiney 2-year-old. In between those whiney episodes, though, she really is quite sweet. Honest, she is.

This month's highlight for Ava was her transportation field trip. We melted some hearts riding the bus downtown and then hoofed it to the waterfront to check out the boats. Then we boarded the streetcar and headed back across the river on the bus. Ava was beyond excited about her adventure and talks about her thrilling ride downtown almost every day.

A new development this month was Ava's interest in storytelling.  She now averages one 10-minute story a day, drawing from her narrow range of experience. Her latest story had her changing Brody's diaper while he stole her cereal at Nana's house. Gripping stuff. Not that it's easy to determine the subject, however, as her main focus seems to be on delivery and showmanship. During these monologues she forgoes using her vocabulary in favor of ample hand gestures and plenty of vocal inflection. It appears we have a talker on our hands.

Yarr!

Ava's Second Birthday

We may have slacked on the Christmas card, but we're coming in strong with the birthday card. Enjoy.

Ava's 24th Month

1. Ava never stops talking.
2. Until she's out in public.
3. Ava just recently stopped shunning her mother.
4. Ava is a tattletale. So much so that she tattles on herself. "Aya-Vah...get down from table."
5. Ava is short. The Internet predicts she will reach 5'1" at age 18. Gymnastics classes anyone?
6. Ava is slight of frame but gradually gaining weight. At 21.6 lbs (with clothes), this month she made it onto the growth chart.
7. Ava thinks cupcakes are "Yucky." At her birthday party, she requested an orange instead.
8. Ava loves to paint.
9. Ava knows her alphabet but refuses to go past S.
10. Ava says, "8, 4,7 GO!" before she throws a ball.
11. Ava is a poor counter.
12. Ava is very particular about what she wears and could easily go through her entire closet every morning if we let her.
13. Ava uses Brody as a couch.
14. Ava is a music snob. In the car, if she doesn't like a song she repeats "New song. New song." If we don't change to her favorite song, she just sings it over what we're listening to.
15. Ava tucks her classmates in for nap.
16. Ava sets the table for dinner and busses her plate after meals.
17. Ava calls all types of juice "apple juice." She just doesn't get it.
18. Ava always congratulates herself with a heartfelt "good job" after she eats her no-thank-you helpings.
19. Ava still hates jackets. Maybe more than anything.
20. Ava's favorite food is bacon.
21. Ava now asks "did we get it" after we take a picture.
22. Each night, Ava says goodnight to our neighbors' cats.
23. Ava helps in the kitchen while we cook dinner.
24. We have taken more than 6,000 pictures of Ava. Be happy we don't make you sit through more.

Dog's Breakfast

If Brody's spirit wasn't broken before, it certainly is now.

Tis the Season. Again.

As we sit down to write this post about Christmas we realize that we've given Ava a rather odd view of the event. To coordinate with family from afar we've staged "Christmas" five times in her two years of life: February 14 2009, December 20, 2009, December 25, 2009, November 25, 2010, and her most recent one. This girl's cleaning up!

The concept is still pretty vague in her mind, but she was over-the-top excited that the Christmas season starts off with a bunch of lights. Her (self-appointed?) role during the season was to scream out "Lights!" whenever we passed some. Bless the eagerness of a child, she seemed just as surprised and proud to call out the 2,000th house as she did the first.

Tom, Emily (+1), and Ian flew in to Portland on Christmas Eve. Ian was so eager to start opening gifts that he woke up at 5:00 a.m. and started knocking over tall towers of stackable cups. It was a few hours before we actually started the festivities but Ava seemed truly excited to walk us around the tree and point to gifts saying, "That's Ava's present." With every gift, she let out a gasp as she ripped off the wrapping paper and then finished with an exclamation of joy of some sort. That is, until she opened the apron that Helen handmade for her (might I point out, my first sewing project ever). To that present she cried "Don't like it!" and actually ran away from the gift. A mother's heartache begins here.

Ava was, of course, very excited to spend a week with grandparents and the Boston gang. Weather aside (7 straight days of heavy rain), we had a great time hanging out with family. We spent almost all of our time inside, but that was fine by Ava--it just gave her more time to mother Ian. Here's the two of them in the bath together, with Ava kindly attempting to wash Ian's hair.

While the Edwards family was together, we had a photo shoot. We haven't seen all the photos yet, but here's a preview: