More of the same

Well, Scot didn't end up getting Lasik surgery after all. The Air Force apparently does not have all it's ducks in a row in regards to the process (not surprising in the least). They are now requiring Scot to complete additional paperwork and go through additional vision tests before they approve the surgery. Scot made an appointment on Friday to get more contacts and will just wait for more direction.

We've had a pretty decent weekend so far, although yesterday was a little bit sketchy. We actually skipped music class because Ava has a bit of a cold and was generally impossible to deal with in the morning. Putting on her pants was a 10 minute screaming and thrashing ordeal (she was doing the screaming and thrasing, but I kind of wanted to after awhile...). No idea what the problem was, but that pretty much sealed our decision to not take her out in public. Things improved after her nap. We went out to a pumpkin patch in Afton and had a lot of fun. They offered up a large playground, a petting zoo, tractor rides, pumpkin picking, and lots of apple-related treats. That night, Julie came over to babysit and Scot and I went out to dinner by ourselves. It was a very nice treat!

This morning we went to the Lake Elmo Park Preserve to watch Scot and my coworker Adam run a 5K (The Great Pumpkin Chase). It was a good time--Ava donned her monkey costume for the first time. When Ava wakes up from her nap, she and I are going to head over to my friend Angie's house and hang out with some of my other teacher friends. I'm looking forward to it.

Fun Words & Phrases...some of the things that come out of Ava's mouth are just so cute:
"Oats that?" = What's that?
"Tank YOU!" = Thank you (the inflection on this one is the cute part)
"I wu" = I love you. Aww....


I know there's more, I just can't think of them at the moment...

Same old, same old

Not much new to report these days...

Ava and I had a weekend to ourselves as Scot went to Atlanta for a Guard trip. We had a good time without him--went to music class, had a dinner out at McDonald's and did some birthday shopping at Toys R Us. Hard to believe her party is just a few weeks away now...we don't even have a theme! Her latest obsession is Thomas the Train. In fact, it is the ONLY show she has ever watched for more than 15 minutes at a time. Ever. We've never caught it on television, but I picked up a few DVDs on a whim last week. She loves anything to do with trains (or "tains!" as she would say) so I thought it might be a hit and I was right (for once). Maybe it isn't good for me to WANT her to watch tv, but sometimes Mommy needs a break! We've watched it together a few times now and it's the pretty much the first time in a long, long time she's been content to sit and snuggle with me. So, maybe we'll do a train theme for her birthday...

No more updates on potty training...and I'm OK with that.

Scot is getting Lasik eye surgery on Thursday! He's been wanting it for a long time, but it wasn't approved by the Air Force. The approval just went through a few months ago, so he's pretty happy. Hopefully it goes through as scheduled--they've given him some grief already about the logistics/process and whether or not they'll let him do it outside of an Air Force base. The rules seem to be geared towards Active Duty and not Guard members.

23 Months

I can't believe Ava turns two in one month. Here's a trip back down memory lane of her first year...


Ava's First Year

Edited to add: I just tried to watch the video, but it was loading really slowly on my computer--I never had that problem before. I wonder if that's happening to others?

Exciting Firsts!

Ava peed in her potty chair tonight for the first time! She has seemed to become a little more cognizant of her bathroom episodes over the last few days, although with it has come lots of false alarms. But tonight we had our first success--pretty exciting! We headed upstairs to take a bath and she kept saying "potty" before we went into the tub. I put her on the chair but she didn't do anything. So, then I put her in the bathtub and when she got out she said "potty" again. I put her back on the chair and she peed! I cheered and made a big deal out of it. She wanted to go on the potty chair again a lot after seeing how happy it made me :-)

I just checked my baby book over the weekend and I was potty trained at about 2 weeks after my 2nd birthday. So, maybe Ava will follow my lead. We'll see if the interest continues.

Ava also said "I love you" to me tonight! It sounded a little more like "I Wu", but I'm going to go ahead and say that she meant "I love you". She does have a little trouble with the letter v, as she calls herself "Awa". Anyway, it was awesome.

Oh, and this doesn't have anything to do with Ava, but we got new carpet in the family room today! I've been complaining about the carpet ever since we moved in--it was filthy. So, yay! But I'm not sure I like the color. It's still a thousand times better than what it was, but I think it's quite a bit darker than what I had envisioned.

Our jaunt to Wisconsin

Everyone survived the trip to Madison that Scot and I took a few weekends ago. We really had a great time catching up with my family, milling about the city, sleeping in, eating meals in peace, watching the Badgers beat Iowa, sleeping in, eating meals in peace, reading, sauntering around (when was the last time I sauntered?), etc, etc. Oh, did I mention sleeping in and eating meals in peace? My uncle Bill was able to get 4 seats in the alumni suite, so Bill, my mom, Lynn, and I sat up there. It was a pretty fantastic way to watch a football game! The rest of the crew had seats on about the 30 yard line and 25 rows or so up.

Of course, I still missed Ava a ton despite the positives mentioned above. Julie fared well herself, although her final report of extreme fatigue leads me to believe that she won't be saying yes to another weekend babysitting gig for quite some time. Law school? No problem. Taking care of an intense toddler? Not so much.

Here are some pics from game day:

Gus sporting all of his new Badger garb


The Gang at the beer garden before kickoff


Lynn and Mark


Greg and JoAnn


Big smiles from the temporarily childless (and somewhat drunk) couple