Zoinks! That's something!

Ava had her first taste of a lemon when we had lunch with our buddy Meghan. She's making a funny face in the picture but she kept wanting to eat more! I had to take it away from her! It was rather funny. Next, we'll have to see how she likes pickles.

Today she was caught eating pieces of our dining room chairs. Again. Note to self: rattan and wicker furniture are not good choices in the Kingma household. Or is it every house? Does every child pick, pick, pick, pick at every tiny little thing? For instance, Jeff was "chasing" Ava around the kitchen tonight and she's laughing and crawling fast then all of a sudden, STOP! A piece of lint on the rug!!! It must go in the mouth!! Jeff and I could hardly see it yet Ava not only SEES the tiny speck of lint but she also must STOP EVERYTHING and put it in her mouth!

What a big girl!

I put Ava in a skirt she hadn't worn yet for church on Sunday. 12 months size, can you believe it? She looked like such a big girl, she's really growing out of the baby look. The skirt was fine by her because she could still crawl while wearing it. Mobility is a must! Yes, she's starting to walk but would rather crawl seeing as that cuts her travel time down by 50% or more! Five big steps is her largest achievement so far, all by herself. But she'll walk forever if you just hold her hand and give her that little bit of help that she needs with the balancing thing. Can you see the barrette in her hair? It's getting back down into her eyes but I don't want to cut it now, we'll just see how we can get by with clips.

Laundry Monster

"You found me! I was hiding in the laundry closet! Good job, Mom!" To me, hanging out with the dirty laundry doesn't seem exactly ideal but to Ava Reese this was the perfect spot. She sat in that closet with the laundry for ten minutes, just kicking her feet and chewing on my belt. Out she crawled for a minute then back in she went again. I guess she had a good view of me doing my hair and makeup (something yet to be accomplished today) so she was happy to just chill for a while.

Don't corner me in!

I had to mop the floors on Friday but had to find a way to confine Ava because she doesn't understand that she can't help with this project. Usually I try to mop when she's sleeping but that wasn't happening. I took our chairs from the dining room table and created a barricade to keep her in the living room on the carpet. Ava was NOT a fan of being confined in. She didn't care if she had all of her toys with her. She didn't care that she could still see me and talk to me. She wanted to be out and she wanted to get wet! Here's a few pictures of Ava's attempts to win this mopping battle. Tactic A: Cry loudly and look pitiful. Tactic B: Ignore Mom and look mad.

Is it bathtime yet?

Mom, if you could just hurry up, I'm ready to take my bath. Can I get in now? How about now? Ready? I'm just going to reach for my ducky floating in there... almost got him... oops, he's too far. Maybe I should take my sock and throw it in, would that hurry you up? How about if I toss my shirt in? Can I get in yet? Trying to get my duck again, pretty sure my feet are off the ground... Hey! Maybe I can get myself in! Bathtime, here I come!

Ava loves her babydoll

I caught Ava hugging her baby close and giving her kisses. I just don't know where she learns these things, it can't be from the millions of hugs and kisses showered her daily by everyone she meets. She's growing up so fast and doing so many grownup things! She loves to give kisses and we'll often catch her giving them to her little bunny or baby doll. Standing all by herself is something she works on daily and now has started taking a few steps at a time. What happened to our baby who didn't even roll over? Now we have to be so careful if she's on our bed because she doesn't understand that going head first over the side might not be a great idea. Yesterday we were at my sister Ellen's and Ava thought the stairs were awesome and could climb them in a flash! But once up, getting down was another thing entirely. She's fullspeed ahead and has no brakes, this girl.

And today, the lid.

Yesterday I showed you Ava playing with the bottom half of her toybox, today she's taken to the lid. I guess its sort of slippery because she likes to sit on it and swivel round and round. Plus it makes a good "thunk" noise when she pounds on it, if its flipped over the other way. When she first "discovered" the lid a month ago we could set her in it and she'd stay there for the longest time, I guess the two inch lip was a bit daunting to cross. Like her hair? It can go in a pony but because its so straight it almost looks like a little antennae. Our friend Julie called it her "Bam-Bam Hair".

A toy box and so much more!

Ava discovered that not only will her toybox hold her toys but it will also hold her! She has started pulling everything out and climbing right in. The lid is also a great toy that she'll climb onto and just sit in and play with it forever. In this picture she was sitting in the box and Jeff decided to pile all of her toys in onto her lap, no objections from our baby. Bring on the toys!

Oops! I meant to post this yesterday! The posts that went up today are out of order, sorry, folks! :)

Wait! Don't you need my help?

What ya working on, Mom? You need my help? I'm real good with computers!

Ava's First Sleepover

Two of Ava's cousin's stayed at our house overnight last week. Unfortunately, it was because our niece Bailey was in the hospital due to an infection complication from her December appendectomy. Bailey is better now and she's very, VERY happy to be out of the hospital. (We love you, Bailey!) Ava loves having company especially when it is in the form of other short people like herself. She watches and watches as the boys just run circles around her and play with all of her toys. Her cousin Peter is always trying to "protect" her from what he perceives as "dangers" in her environment and, for the most part, she doesn't seem to mind being tackled and constantly pulled in different directions. I don't have a very good picture of them playing but here's one that I did get.

Where do we begin??

It seems like so long ago since we last posted a note for ya'll! Ava's doing so much I don't know where to start to catch you up! She's extremely busy, as all nearly-toddling toddlers are, I'm sure. Tonight Jeff kept laughing at her and saying, "She's so busy!" This evening she kept moving (dancing? wiggling? jumping?) from toy to toy to piano to box to toy to shoe to sock to foot to OUCH!! She bit me!! (She thinks our toes and limbs are fair game, we object but sometimes are caught offguard.) Ava's quite the piano player and kept the music going on her toy grand piano while managing to play with all the toys around her. It seemed that her goal was to let us know that she was having so much fun and keeping so busy playing that she didn't need to sleep. But by 9:15 her movements had slowed enough that we decided to make our move and tuck her in with a bottle next to daddy on the couch. With half an ounce down and 7.5 to go, she was out like a light. :) Sleep tight, tomorrow's another busy day.

No Posts Yet

Sorry about the major lag in posts, folks. It's not for Ava's lack of trying to be super dooper adorable so I'll take her picture and write about her, that's for sure. We had some crazy fun holidays and now when things started settling down, our computer crashed. Crashed and died, dead, dead, DEAD. Lucky for us, we have a super dooper friend who is super dooper computer smart and he's positive he'll have us up and running again soon. Until then, we're sorry! Please check back with us next week.

Of course I can't write something on the blog without telling you about Ava's latest antics. She's playing lots of peek-a-boo, blowing kisses and even trying to jump up and down. Her hair's really getting long so we gave her the tiniest first haircut ever, just enough so the hair wasn't hanging directly in her eyes. She's was cool with that.