lewis and clark had a journal. you, beth-annie, have a diary.

Thursday, August 30, 2007
Time for your monthly batch of Ava photos.

She's been teething again (on whatever she can get her gums on), and with good reason: her two upper teeth broke through this past week (sorry, it's not as easy to get a picture of those as of the bottom ones).

She likes to pull the books out of the bookcase in the living room. Here she decided to page through the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. Pretty soon we should be able to get her to cook dinner for us. I mean, really, it's about time she started pulling her weight around here. ;-)

She started the month off getting up on her knees by everything, with the patio door being a favorite spot.

Now she pulls up to standing very easily (and has recently figured out how to get down again somewhat gracefully, though she doesn't seem to always remember that she knows how).

Recently she's seemed to favor the living room window more. (I like this photo a lot, despite the fact that you can't see her face. She looks so big and so little at the same time.)

The window ledge is the perfect height for her.

Yup. We're still looking out the window. :-)

She LOVES books right now.

Checking out her Ava-sized atlas. Maybe she'll love maps as much as her mommy and daddy do.

She still sleeps cute. She's just longer now. :-)

Climbing on Mommy and Daddy (and everything else) is another favorite pastime.

Oooooh... camera lens...

I'm sorry. She's just cute. :-)

The obligatory awesome close-up.

She also loves the air conditioner vents (especially when they're blowing), mirrors, looking at other babies (she likes looking through our parenting magazines since they have lots of pictures of babies), crawling up the stairs (um, a lot), crawling in general (she'll hardly sit still long enough to play with her toys right now), jabbering in her own little language, sitting in her little rocking chair (seen in the atlas photo) and taking clothes out of the laundry basket and throwing them on the floor. She's been trying out more "real" food, including pieces of nectarine, broccoli, carrots, chicken, pasta, grapes, bread, etc. It definitely takes longer to feed her when she's partially feeding herself and we have to wait for her to actually chew (such as she can), but she has to learn it, so we have to do it. We've also been having a few more nighttime issues than we did before -- if we try to put her to bed awake (when she doesn't fall asleep nursing), she'll usually stand up in her crib and cry when we leave the room, and she'll occasionally do that during the night, too, when before she would always sleep right through without a problem. We're figuring it out, though, I think, despite the conflicting advice we've read (we've tried different things and found out what works with her and what doesn't, at least right now).

Oh, and within the last week Ava's also figured out how to do this.
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Thursday, August 23, 2007
This is an Ava video post.
This is an Ava video.
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Wednesday, August 22, 2007
From dirt pile to... dirt plateau.
When we landscaped our front yard two years ago, we took all the grass/dirt we dug up (which was a lot) and dumped it in a pile in the back corner of our backyard -- because, well, we just didn't know what else to do with it. We always had plans of spreading it out and turning it into a garden, but it's just kind of sat there since then as we procrastinated. And, of course, the longer we procrastinated the more it became grown over with grass and weeds and so the more work it became to actually do anything about it. Earlier I mentioned in a post that we had bought some seeds and would be out a whopping $2 if we didn't get on the ball. Apparently that $2 was all the motivation we needed, because darn if we didn't actually do it. (Okay, in actuality there may have been other factors, but we can pretend.) We planted a little on the late side (mid-June), but not too bad. And we've started reaping the benefits, already having eaten cherry tomatoes, peas, basil and cilantro that we growed all by our bitty selves.

We planted: jalapenos, carrots, basil, cilantro, peas, cherry tomatoes, spinach, pumpkins and watermelon.

Pea pods! Giant pea pods!

Toddler watermelon.

School-age pumpkins.

Baby punkin. And just a picture I like a lot.
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Monday, August 20, 2007
The most impressive junk mail ever.

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Monday, August 13, 2007
12 of 12.
So there's this thing 'round the internets where a person with a blog posts twelve pictures from the twelfth of each month. Hey, I'm a person with a blog. And, hey, I have a twelfth of the month, too. That's just too much of a coincidence for me not to join in the fun. So here we go.

9:25 AM. "Town" of Paoli.
On our way to church, a group of horses and riders crossed
in front of us at the four-way stop. This is not typical.

10:28 AM. Good Shepherd Lutheran Church.
Purty flowers growing beside the steps outside.

11:22 AM. Pedro's Mexican Restaurante.
There was a nice painted mural by our booth.

12:06 PM. Frugal Muse bookstore.
We didn't buy anything, but there sure was a lot to buy.

1:15 PM. JC Penney Portrait Studio.
We had Ava's (roughly quarterly) pictures taken. After her session she seemed
a little hungry, so she ate some puffies while we waited to look at our proofs.

2:57 PM.  County Road PB.
On our way home.  The route between Belleville and Madison is one we've gotten
to know quite well.  Though the distance is far from ideal, at least it's a nice drive.

3:11 PM. Library Park, Belleville.
They were having a Classic Car Show as part of the Belleville Community Picnic weekend. Funky truck, no?

3:43 PM. Home.
Ava eats chicken for the first time. She ate about a third of the jar,
which I consider to be pretty good (especially since it wasn't warmed).

5:53 PM. Living room.
Tiger wins another major. Surprise!

6:48 PM. Patio.
The night before we had a strong line of storms roll through that blew a couple
of our chairs down. Funny how they blew down in opposite directions.

7:36 PM. Backyard.
Weed wacking. Someone's got to do it. And I guess that someone is me.

8:39 PM. Living room.
"Big Brother" watching. Someone's got to do it. And I guess that someone is me.

And a bonus picture, just because she's cute:

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Thursday, August 9, 2007
Answer:  Ava.
Question:  Who's growing up superfast?
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Wednesday, August 8, 2007
For those who complain about baby-less posts.

Has there ever been a more adorable Captain? (Sorry, Paul ;-).)
Thanks to our dear Patty for the picture (taken at the Ft. Riley Commissary in early July).
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Monday, August 6, 2007
And Beth-Annie's Spidey sense says...
Spidey 3  got a bad rap from critics (relatively speaking, anyhow: 61% on Rotten Tomatoes as opposed to 90% and 93% for the first two movies, respectively).  I finally saw it over the weekend (I wanted desperately to see it in the theater, and just managed to catch it at Madison's bargain theater before it went to DVD forever, though I had to see it by myself while Josh stayed with Ava).  My opinion?  Those poor critics must have been smoking something.  Now, I'll admit that it wasn't quite up to the level of the first two, but it was far from a poor film.  I have to think that it suffered from an unfortunate case of high expectation, and when it didn't live up to those lofty heights it was trashed for it more than it actually deserved.  Pity.

One of the complaints I heard were that it tried to cram too much in, what with three different villians and all.  I thought they actually did an good job of tying all the storylines together in a relatively organic way.  It did feel a little full, sure, but not in a terribly detrimental way.  My guess is that, as there was a very good likelihood this was the last Sam Raimi-Tobey Maguire-Kirsten Dunst Spidey film, there were certain things Mr. Raimi wanted to include (specific villians from the comic books, issues between Peter and Mary Jane and Peter and Harry, revisiting Uncle Ben's death), and so he found a way to include them all in what might be his last chance to do so.  Can't say as I necessarily blame him, even if the result was a bit much for a single film.

The action was intense, relationships realistic, and Black Spider-man/Peter had just the right amount of camp to it, since Peter Parker doesn't have much evil in him to draw from.  And the comic relief -- namely the Daily Bugle scenes (Ted Raimi included, once again, and yay) and obligatory Bruce Campbell Role of Hilarity -- was typically spot-on.  Overall there just wasn't much disappointment here.  Too bad some others don't agree.  Their loss.
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