In the doghouse

I'm not sure who I'm going to throw in there first, my husband or the dog. Last night, we came home to a horrible smell that permeated from the garage into the house. My loving, wonderful husband made the quick and smart realization that it was probably dead minnows still in the boat from his fishing trip over the weekend. The boat that he just HAD to have. And the boat that he HAS to keep in the garage which is much more important that me being able to park my car in there. Whatever, I'm over it. So anyway, he cleans them out, throws them in the yard and is done with it. Fast forward to today. I took the dog out without his leash and all was well. He played, ran, and rolled around. Nothing out of the ordinary. It wasn't until we got back inside that the smell started coming again, and this time I realized that he had rolled all in it. And you know what else he's done today to continue with the stellar behavior?? Peed in Ava's room, and shit on my freshly mopped floor. Anyone want a nice, friendly basset hound that's great with children?? I'm kidding of course.

I'm off to give him a bath. And wouldn't ya know of all days it decided to RAIN here, something we haven't really had all summer. Looks like I'll be breaking out the mop again today. Sigh

Officially Summer

So I took Ava to the pool yesterday along with some friends and their kids, and thankfully it was a success. Last year, we took her (granted she was not even 3 months old) and she hated it, I mean HATED. Screamed as if I was intentionally trying to torture her. Fast forward a year, and I could barely get the child out of the pool. One thing I couldn't understand though. How is it possible that in constant 85 - 90 degree heat, a pool with no more than one foot of water has a temperature of, oh say 60 degrees? It was FREEZING! But teeth chattering and all, there was mucho fun to be had.

Here is what I mean by last year's excitement. This was taken right after I attempted to put her feet in the water. See the outstretched legs?? Yeah, she was pissed. (and I know, my boobs pretty much take over the picture, so as hard as it may be, just pretend that I'm not there!)


Then here's yesterday. That's my friend in the background. She would probably kill me if she knew I posted this on the Internet.



All in a day's work :-)

Pushing the horn on daddy's NEW fishing boat. And he thinks I'm a compulsive shopper??
The biggest catch he will probably every get...if not the biggest, defiantely the prettiest.
.
Got a busy weekend ahead. I have a friend in from Cincinnati and then we're off to the lake tomorrow to catch up with the boys who will be fishing. Ava will be spending quality time with her grandparents and I will be spending quality time with the sun and my liquid friends.

Hope everyone has a nice weekend...

Fru-strated

I'm going out of my mind! When we moved I bought a new laptop, complete with Windo.ws V.ista which I am quickly realizing my hatred for. I have burned a total of 10 discs from my old computer and I'm slowly getting things organized on the new one, but using Wo.rd and Ex.cel, forget it. I'm not even going to try. I'm old fashioned. I liked my Wind.ows 2000 just fine. And it doesn't help the computer nerd in my family (a.k.a. my brother) has no idea to use it either. Fantastic...

In Ava news, little Miss Priss stood by herself for a whole 10 seconds at Gymbo.ree today. And naturally I've been trying to get her to repeat it all afternoon. Any such luck? Not a chance in hell.

She's also started sticking her tongue out when she's concentrating. Which normally would be cute but since my mom and I both do it without realizing, it's looking more and more like we have a third generation tongue sticker outer. I assume it's Gods way of getting back at me since I used to constantly make fun of my mom for doing it.

Ta ta

Me likey me daddy

I always knew Matthew was going to be a good father to any kids we had together. I had seen him around his son, and was so proud to stand next to him and call him mine. I will never forget something he said to me early in our relationship. He looked at me and told he was terrified of having any more children, mainly because he was terrified of having a girl. He knew that it would be a love he could never match, and he would never be able to put her down. He knew that someday, as hard as it was going to be, he was going to have to punish her for her own good. He knew that she was going to be rotten and hateful as a teenager. He knew that someday he would have to watch her start dating, and that meant showing all prospective boyfriends his enormous gun collection. He knew that one day she would get married and that man will become responsible for her. He's afraid that after that day she would no longer be daddy's little girl and need him. He on the other hand is completely wrong. She will always need him, she will always be his little girl, and there is nothing in this world greater than that.

Happy Father's Day Matthew!

Daddy and Ava

Ready to go to church

My sister-in-law and nephew. I wish I had the pic of him also wearing Ava's old sleeper that we put on him after he had a massive diaper blowout.

Cards are way more fun than anything else.


I hope everyone else had a wonderful Father's Day!

She slapped me first...

I imagine that's what is going on in my childs head, because I just slapped her hand as she was doing something she wasn't supposed to (imagine that) and she turned and slapped my hand back. I had to laugh really, because it really is just funny.

Pictures cuz it's all I got...

This is all about pictures, cuz I've already tried writing a long post twice and my internet keeps shutting my computer down. Apparently I need a new router, and until my lazy ass brother gets over here and helps me fix it blogging may be sporatic. Not that I'm consistent about it anyways...

Probably need to get that gate put up huh. (not Ava here, he's my best friends baby)

This is what happens to independent babies who try to climb on grownup exercise equipment.

And her first band aid, which lasted all of about 2 minutes.

Trying to help with the laundry..or maybe making it worse??

Not at all happy about this new conflicting contraption


This one was much better for her first trip to the lake!


And trying to jump out already



See ya on the flip side

Reason why I love being a mom. #7564

Today and tonight was one of those days where being a mom is exhausting, challenging but so worth it. Ava has been sick most of the day. No puking but it seems like I've changed more than 15 diapers since lunchtime alone. Stuff that comes with the territory but stuff that makes it hard when you are the only human being within a 100 mile radius that the child wants anything to do with.

Tonight I got to do something that I haven't done in a very long time. I got to comfort and rock my baby to sleep. She's the kind of baby you lay in the crib, turn the lights out and she goes to sleep on her own. I loved holding her with her back on my stomach, watching her rub her blanket furiously in her face. I loved watching her pelvic thrust and throw her legs all over the place. (apparently this is her newest nightly sleeping ritual.) I even loved it when she rolled over and put her finger in my nose, only to promptly take it out and put it in my mouth. But what I loved most was that she rolled over on her belly and laid her head on my arm, fighting to keep her eyes open while rubbing my face, as if to silently thank me for taking such good care of her.

No one could have prepared me for how much I love being her mommy.

14 Months

Okay so she turned 14 months last Sunday, and this entry is definitely more for my benefit than anything else. I haven't unpacked the baby book yet (not that I'm that good at writing in it) and before I forget I need to mark down her new accomplishments.

She has about 20 words now but new ones this month are:

Kitty (sounds like titty of course)
Sit (sounds more like shit)
Cool
Ook (look)
Whassa? (what's that)
Shoo wa (shoo wee) - she says this anytime she sees me with a diaper or wipes

Things she's doing:

crawling up and down the stairs
crawling up to me to give me a hug
throwing tantrums when she doesn't get her way. Oh boy...
will give kisses on demand to anyone who asks for them, especially her daddy!
laughs uncontrollably when I kiss on her neck and back
loves pulling lids off her snacks with her teeth
is getting closer and closer to walking. Loves pushing her toys all over the house
STILL loves bopping her head to music. Will push buttons on her toys over and over again and just sit there and listen
This kid is constantly cracking me up, and we are loving her more and more each day!

Moved, but not even close to being settled

So we're officially here in our new house, but I'm no where even being close to being unpacked and settled. I thought that I would be so excited to get things rolling here, but to be honest I am still so tired and it's just going to have to wait. The only glitch in the weekend was a pretty major thing. We lost the hardware to put Ava's crib back together. You see, my dad is one of these uber conservatives when it comes to money and he thought he would save me the extra $20 or so that it would probably cost for the movers to do it and do it himself. The problem being is that since the movers DID NOT take the crib apart, they didn't even realize there were parts sitting in a bag next to it, and now we are left without the parts and I'm left with a $50 replacement charge and express shipping deal. Sooo I sent Ava to sleep at my parents for the first night we were here, and since then the poor thing has been sleeping in her pack and play. And.I.feel.awful because have you felt how incredibly uncomfortable those things are? And it's totally out of the question that she come and sleep with me. I love her, but she's impossible to sleep with. I've done it, I've tried co-sleeping and it is just totally not for us.

Not sure if anyone else has satellite or not, but since I live out in almost the middle of no where now, we no longer have the wonderful option of cable and are forced to go with satellite or nothing at all. And since I'm a tiny freak about TV and the zillion shows I watch, I have to have it. I also decided that I needed not one, but TWO DVR's thingies this time. That way I will never ever have to miss another show. But then again it's summer and there's nothing on anyway. But anyway getting to my point. When I scheduled the appointment for a Saturday afternoon I assumed they would be here for about an hour and be gone. Nope, not even close. My guy decided that he was going to hang out all afternoon, and then when he got bored he decided to invite one of his other tech buddies to come hang out for the rest of the evening. Seriously, it took them over 8 hours to install the stuff. And to make matters worse, he had the nerve to come in my kitchen and ask to eat a Snickers, and when he realized it was the last one, he still ate it. Whatever. I didn't need it anyways.

I'm officially off the running trail for a while. My fat ass apparently isn't ready to be running and have suffered some sort of injury to my heel and foot. Gotta go to the doc to figure out what's going on, but until then if I decide to exercise it's off to the elliptical I go.

We attempted to eat at our new kitchen table last night officially for the first time. Yes it's exciting to me because I'm used to eating at the couch, on a wobbly tray table, because I had a kitchen table with no chairs. Really living the life of luxury huh. The ironic thing is that we really didn't eat there. We got these chicken kabob thingies and Matthew just couldn't get the chicken to cook right, so we ended up with pizza instead and ate it in front of the TV on our brand new couch downstairs. That's the classy kind of folk that we are. We'll try again tomorrow.

Okay totally rambling. Here are some quick pics. I decided to splurge and get a new laptop and I haven't installed picasa on here yet so I'll do a lovely collage for y'all when I get a chance.

Here's a pic of the living/dining room. I hate these couches, but my new ones won't be in for another 4 weeks so these will have to do for the time being.

Another view of the living room.

View of the deck and back yard.

My child loves her some central vac outlets. Don't worry, all was childproofed after photo was taken.

Ava's room. Maybe I'll get it finished when the new crib parts come.

As they say on MTV cribs, this is where the magic happens, or doesn't.

My new baby. Which is frustrating me to the core because it came with Vista and I have no idea how in the hell to get anything to work. It took me 2 days to figure out how to download my pics.

I think that outta do it for now. I'll post new pics when we get completely unpacked and the rest of the new furniture comes in.

Hiatus...

Because I know you all care so much, I'm not going to have internet until next week, what am I going to do! We're moving tomorrow so wish us luck. Next post will be published from the new digs, and I promise to take lots of pictures.

Round, round get around, I get around...

Not that way you pervs. But I have been getting around, around town, flashing my credit card and getting everything that I want! I'm in such a time crunch, I honestly can't even remember when I went to the bathroom last. I'm completely sleep deprived, neurotic, bitchy and anything else you can imagine, but in 4 short days I will be sitting on my new patio, enjoying a nice cold beverage in my new house. So you wanna hear what I'm going to do for the next 4 days?? I'm running in the morning (yep, still doing it), going to the new house to await my beautiful new bedroom furniture, cleaning new house until it sparkles, then coming back to old house to pack and then have a cry in my baby's nursery as this will be the last night that she spends in her first house. Thursday will be much of the same. Packing, heading to the new house to await new treadmill. See you all really didn't think I was taking the running seriously huh! Going back to old house to whip hubby's ass into packing mode and then crying again as it will our last night in our first house. Friday will be spent in my throne telling people what to do. Can it get any better than that??

Yes I know that was long and completely long winded but if I don't hurry up and publish this post my computer will shut down on me again, which is has been doing non stop for 3 days.

MIA...

And it doesn't mean missing in action, it means mommy in action. Because that's exactly what I've been up to. Between the running (yes I'm STILL doing it, but I gave up running outside and am now going back to the gym), the packing, the child chasing, the moving, I've completely neglected my blog.

We closed on the house last week, so now we are in a mad rush to get the hell out of here so we can get our house ready and on the market. I've got the movers scheduled for the 25th, so at least I have to get it done by then.

Mother's Day was great. Not as eventful as last years, but it was still great. Last year's was spent at the Tim McGraw and Faith Hill concert where I had floor seats so close to the stage we could reach out and touch them! It still sometimes hasn't hit me that I'm some one's mommy, but I am loving every minute of it. We got up and had breakfast with my parents, then they took Ava back to their house to nap, and Matthew and I ordered my fancy new Duet' washer and dryer from Lowe's, then we had a late lunch before picking the babe back up. I'd have to say that was a pretty good present.

We did have a little scare last night. I was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher and I heard a huge crash, and then an even bigger scream. My poor little baby was surrounded by this

By some miracle she only had a scratch the size of a papercut It makes me sick to think what could have happened. I was already in emergency room mode as soon as I heard the crash.

Here's a few pics.

Here we are at my parents feeding the ducks.

And sitting in her big girl chair. You will be excited to know that she is FINALLY cutting her top two teeth.

I absolutely love this dress.

This is totally unrelated, but I think you know who she's rooting for on American Idol tomorrow night.

Motivation

I've never been one that has actually enjoyed working out. I did it in high school because I was a cheerleader and I had too. I did it before my wedding because I vowed to look smoking hot in my wedding dress, and now that I've had a baby, I just can't seem to get it together. My husband and I bought an expensive elliptical machine and all it does is collect dust. It's a shame I know.

So...I have been recruited by two of my closest friends to start running...to train for a 10,000 K race that they have here every July 4th. That's a whopping 6.2 miles. I don't think I have ever run or walked that far in my life. I have asthma and a bad back, neither of which bode well for a nice long jog. But I keep telling myself I can do it. If they can do it, I can do it. These are two girls that up until November had probably never worked out a combined 20 hours in their lives. They were more into partying in high school and college than working out. But all it took was one of their fathers to tell them that if they trained and ran a mini-marathon, they were off to a destination of their choice for a free week vacation. Motivation enough? They completed their first mini-marathon on Saturday and they are off on an all expense trip to Punta Cana at the end of May. I guess my motivation is that I will not allow myself to get pregnant again until I'm 10 pounds down from my pre-preggo weight. And since we want to try at the end of summer, I better get my ass in high gear.

So I have the jogging stroller ready (which was still in the box I got it in last February until last night) and I'm motivated. At least for now. Wish me luck.

And the blog slacker award goes to...

Me, of course. We got back from Florida on Sunday and I just can't seem to get back in my routine. When Ava's napping, I'm napping. I know I need to be doing other stuff but I'm beginning to feel extremely overwhelmed. We're moving in just over three weeks and there is so much to be done. I have yet to pack a single thing, and I have no idea when I'm even going to start. Ava is into everything and anything these days, and I can't turn my head for 2 seconds. I know, I know...that's what I get for wishing I had a crawler, and I guess I can thank my lucky stars she's not walking yet. Normally my parents are great for that, but conveniently enough they are now in Florida for two weeks.

I had intended to write a big long post about the trip, but I changed my mind. It was a great vacation, but there's nothing really interesting to tell. We ate, we drank, but the best part was the sleeping. Ah the sleep. I haven't slept that much in so long, and it was a little slice of heaven. And since Matthew was there on a business trip, he let me get alot of room service! The only bad part of the trip was the beginning, as our flight was 5 hours late taking off, but we got upgraded to first class and Matthew let me upgrade our rental car to a convertible so all was well. It's a good thing the airport bar was close to our gate. Oh, and sitting by the pool was nice too, except for the fact that there were 1400, yep 1400 high school kids there for some sort of Math tournament. Yee haw...

Anyhow moving on. Just for fun sake, I'll post a few pics here.

Self portrait shot, in the convertible, in front of possible the worlds best restaurant. Seriously, it was absolutely amazing. So amazing that Matthew got his $45.00 steak free because they had to send it back to be cooked a little longer. No big deal if you ask me, but since we weren't able to "enjoy" our steaks together, it was on the house.



Cell phone pic that I took while laying out at the pool.



Pissed off husband here totally didn't understand the importance of putting the top down every.single.time we left the hotel. His quote "no one's looking at you." To which I responded "Um...that's not the point."



This is what my legs looked like....



After I had a few too many of these by the pool...



Now I must run and put lotion on my itchy, peely body for the 5th time today.

I'm still here...

Just wanted to let you know that all is good and HOT in Florida, we get back Sunday so I'll update with news and the few pics that I have then!! Have a great weekend!!

Ladies and Gentleman...

Can I be the first ones to tell you that as of May 17th we have a new house!!! Oh my god...I cannot believe it. What a day...it has been crazy, but things worked out, and we're off tomorrow to Florida to celebrate!! (and Matthew has to work, but I'm planning on sitting by the pool and sippin on me some magaritas!!) Oh and a side note, I actually dropped the F bomb when I was talking to my mom today...and have never been more humilated in my life. Sure I cuss all the time, but I mean the F bomb is totally off limits with her. I think I still hear Matthew cracking up in the other room.

I do have to stop and say that as excited as I am, I'm going to break down when we leave where we are right now. We moved into this house right when we got engaged, we conceived Ava in this house, and this was the house we brought her home from the hosptital. This was where she had her first room, and there will never be anything to replace it. And I will show her lots and lots of pics of her playing in her nursery, but there comes a time and a place to move on and we have reached that place.

I'm not really sure I should be doing this, but here we go...we moved here in July 2004

and we are moving here May 2007!!!!

Separation Anxiety and other Random Thoughts

So basically Ava has decided that now would be a good time to start suffering from separation anxiety. We've had instances before, but nothing and I mean NOTHING like this. It goes something like this, if I I put her down, she screams. If I take a shower while she's awake, she screams AND beats on the shower door. If I leave the room, she screams while beating on anything she can find. If I fold laundry, she screams while throwing all my freshly folded items in another cute little pile. You get the idea I'm sure. She only stops if I'm holding her, playing with her, or feeding her. I know this is normal at this stage but lord I had no idea. Right now she's screaming in her crib because she hasn't napped today (Monday is Gymboree day and as much as I love it, it puts a super wrench in the schedule). I'm just hoping that she will give in and go to sleep, even though it is a little late for a nap, momma needs a little break. I guess she could be teething, but she's had Tylenol and that hasn't changed anything. If that's the case, then disregard everything I've just written and offically label me as worst mother of the year.

Moving on, just some random stuff that's happening around here.

• I kicked some serious ass at K.eene.land last Friday. I would tell ya exactly how much but I probably shouldn't. Let's just say I had to sign an IRS ticket so they will take taxes out...boo.
• Ava has officially dropped the morning nap. I thought it might be happening, but it's official now. She has gone from 2, 1 hour naps to 1 REALLY long one mid afternoon. Throws a wrench a little bit in my daily routine, but I'll take it!
• Tomorrow morning we are meeting with the bank, and then we are making an offer on what we consider to be our dream house. I never thought we would find something that we both love, but this house is it. However after our last experience, I'm not getting my hopes up. If we get it I'll be esctatic, if we don't we will move on and keep looking. Keep your fingers crossed that my realtor gets it right this time.
• On Wednesday Matthew and I are leaving for a much needed mini vacation to Orlando. He has to go for a conference, and his boss told him to take me along for the ride. I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to it. He and I rarely get away together for anything other than an occasional date night, so these 4 days are going to be pure adult bliss. Our anniversary was earlier this month, so I guess you can say it's a late anniversary present. The only downfall is leaving the baby for that long. I know she will be in good hands, I'm just going to miss the snot out of her.
• She is offically crawling all over the place. I don't know if it always happens this quickly, but my god. It only took her about 3 days. And in those 3 days things have definately become more challenging. I knew it would be, but honestly I was beginning to think we would skip crawling all together, and while I don't think it will last long, I'm going to enjoy every second that I can.
• My great aunt passed away last week after having a stroke. She was old and it wasn't unexpected, and I'm thankful that I have such a good lasting memory of her. We did a "generation" dance at our wedding, and her and her husband were the last ones standing. When she passed, they had been married for 65 years.

Since it will probably be her second birthday before I get around to posting pics from her birthday, I'll leave you with a picture of my normally super deliciously happy baby! This pic was taken on the day of her party...so at least I included one on there.

Oh and by the way....she's asleep so I'm off to catch up on blogs, and the news of the tragic shootings today in VA...I'm keeping all of those familes in my prayers.

Crawl crawl roll....crawl crawl roll...

Well, Ava finally realized that she can indeed crawl, and has mastered the art in just three short days. The funny thing is, that she crawls a couple of strides and then rolls, gets on her belly and starts the process again. So while I cannot say that she is completely crawling all over the place, this does definitely open a new can of worms...

Better late than never right???

Easter Explosion

So I hope your Easter was swell, because ours...not so much. It started out promising, but that all diminished when I heard bloodcurdling screaming, and noticed a super rotten smell walking down the hallway to Ava's room. Explosion...Ava's first poop out of the diaper experience, and it was not a pleasant one. All up the back, all over the bed, all over the blanket, and she was left with the worst case of d.iaper rash that I had ever seen. We went straight to the bath, and at this point I realized that going to church was no longer a priority. We were able to meet my parents out for breakfast and then back to their house for a while before the screaming started again.

She's had d.iaper rash before, but I have never seen anything like this. There was even a slight moment where it appeared to be bleeding. Everytime we walked into her bedroom to change her she woud scream. Everytime I would even put a wipe near her she would scream and I cried and told her how sorry I was. I felt so helpless and horrible because even though I knew I was helping her, I didn't want her to think that I was deliberately causing her pain. I finally just let her air it out for a while, but in the hour that I decided to do that she pooped on two blankets and a towel. The poor child just didn't stop. The worst is behind us, but now the hardest part is keeping her hydrated. I put Pe.dialyte in her bottle but since we all know she won't take anything out of a sippy cup, she promptly used her baseball skills and hurled it all the way across the room. I finally did get her to take some water, but other than that all she had all day was milk and formula. She would not eat anything else. Yeah for another set back trying to wean from the bottle....

I tried to capture a few good shots of her with her Easter basket, and although they aren't as good as I wanted, she put on her brave face. She's such a trooper.









And I'm working on her birthday party post...I'll get to it eventually!!


And Happy Anniversary to my hubby....thank you for 2 glorious years! I can't wait for many more...

When it rains, it pours...

Just wanted to let you know what happens when it rains around here..

I will have nightmares for weeks...