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

Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Uno!
Ava's first birthday was on Sunday (um, how did that happen, anyway?), and we just had a low-key family celebration with my parents, my sister Sarah, and my grandfather coming up for it (we got together with Josh's family a week earlier -- I'll post pictures of that soon).

I was all ambitiouslike and made her a six-layer alphabet block cake that spelled
her name. It was a lot of work, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

And of course a "1" on the top, because she's that many.

At this age you try to open the presents as quickly as possible before the birthday girl loses interest and crawls off.

This was one of the few bites of cake she cared to eat. We should probably enjoy that while it lasts.

Ava liked her Swedish balloons (as Daddy called them).

By the end of the day we were really lucky to get a family picture
this good (trust me, you don't want to see the other attempts).
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Thursday, October 18, 2007
As promised: the next one.
In September we visited Matthew, Kim and Benji at their new house. It's so nice having them less than three hours away now instead of half the country away.

9 holes of disc golf is really the perfect amount with a stroller/toddling toddler.

It'll be nice once Ava can walk like Benji can. I think. :-P

Uncle Matthew hadn't held a kid this light in a while.

Ava wasn't very interested in staying at home plate.

Next stop: driver's license.

Ava had a whole new exciting set of toys to play with at Benji's.

Of course, Benji wasn't always so sure about someone new playing with his things,
and often became very interested in a toy as soon as Ava started playing with it.
They mostly played nice, though (and by the end of the weekend Benji was calling
Ava by her name, which was so cute!).

Aunt Kim is such a pro at holding babies she can even do it with her eyes closed!

Benji reverted back to crawling a bit when he saw Ava crawling up
the stairs. It was so funny to watch them sort of race each other.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Ava's travels.
We took several trips over the summer that I never posted photos from because... well, just because I didn't (that, or because I'm lazy -- remember, this is the person who still hasn't finished her Tripologue from 2004). So here are some Ava photos from our wanderings.

Like grandfather, like granddaughter. (Memorial Day weekend, Kansas)

There's nothing like a nice serenade... (Memorial Day weekend, Kansas)

We went to the drive-in in Monroe quite a few times over the summer. (June)

Ava loves the straws.

"I was just finding Grandma's tealights for her, Mommy." (July, Ames)

When you gotta nap, you gotta nap. (July, family reunion in western Iowa)

Grandma W. got such a kick out of how Ava used to balance on her butt with her feet up in the air.
I don't think she really does that anymore. (July, family reunion in western Iowa)

We bought an inflatable pool for the backyard (one small enough for Ava but big
enough for at least one of us to fit in there with her). She seemed to like it. (July)

She loved putting her hands under the water I would pour from a glass. Hopefully
that will translate to always wanting to wash her hands after we potty train her. ;-)

This is another one of those pictures where she looks kind of grown up to me.

Separate posts coming up for our September visit to Matthew, Kim and Benji's, and our July 4th weekend in Kansas with Kaly, Paul and Patty -- there were too many pictures to not split this up a little.
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Friday, October 12, 2007
It's back, it's back!
Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash! And the villagers rejoiced!
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Wednesday, October 10, 2007
We haven't had an Ava video in a while.
Last month out of nowhere Ava started singing -- just two notes back and forth. We tried to figure out which of the songs we sing to her she could have gotten it from, but we couldn't come up with an obvious source. At any rate, it's pretty amusing. Enjoy.
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Thursday, October 4, 2007
You knew this was coming eventually.
I have a tendency to agree with television critics more often that I agree with, say, movie critics.   (The English Patient?  BORING.)  As a result, many of my favorite shows of recent years have also been some of the most critically acclaimed ("Arrested Development," "Lost," Veronica Mars," "The Office," etc.).  But there are exceptions.  I've mentioned before that I think "Heroes" and "Ugly Betty" are overrated (and I do watch both, so I know that of which I speak), and with this season's crop of new shows come a couple of additional examples.

"Chuck" (nbc mondays) was reviewed favorably by critics, but after the first two episodes I have to say I'm not quite sold on it.  It's nice to see a lighter action-comedy as an alternative to the sometimes very heavy and serious action-dramas out there ("24," anyone?), and the lead (Zachary Levi) is adorable and likable, but it just seems to be missing something.  I'm going to give it another episode or two because I definitely see potential there for a really fun, entertaining show -- it just hasn't lived up to that potential yet.  Meanwhile, "Journeyman" (also nbc mondays), which hasn't exactly been critically lauded, I actually found engaging and am really looking forward to future installments (this is why I don't automatically discount a show before I've even seen it just because critics didn't care for it -- you just never know).  And from the File of Embarrassment, I've kind of inexplicably been enjoying "The Big Bang Theory" (cbs mondays), a sitcom that's been panned by critics.  I have no excuses for liking it -- I can only call it the "Good Morning, Miami" Effect.

On the other side of things, I had to watch the first episode of "Cavemen" (abc tuesdays) out of morbid curiosity, and it was actually worse than awful: it was downright boring and unfunny.  At least if it had been BAD bad it would have been a little bit of fun to watch just for the cringe factor, but it didn't even have that.  You'd think a show about cavemen living in modern times would at the very least not be completely uninteresting, just due to the premise.  You would be wrong.  Also bad?  Unfortunately, "Back to You" (fox wednesdays).  Fred Willard, you deserve better.  And "Big Shots" (abc thursdays) was so awful it has the fine distinction of being the only pilot in recent years that I've ever given up on without even watching the entire episode.  Just, yuck, yuck, yuck.  In a happier corner of the TV-verse, I've had more-favorable-than-I-expected first impressions of "Gossip Girl" (cw wednesdays) and "Dirty Sexy Money" (abc wednesdays), and am curious to see second episodes of both.  And last night's premiere of "Pushing Daisies" (abc wednesdays)?  Loved it.  Lee Pace is completely charming, and Anna Friel is kind of Rebecca-Pidgeon-esque.  It's funny, it's cute, it has a gorgeous look.  I'll take another episode -- now, please.  (If you missed it you can catch it Friday at 7c or watch it on abc.com's handy-dandy full episode player.)

Everything else I either haven't seen yet or don't have enough of a handle on to form an opinion one way or the other yet.  So I guess you can expect another entry on the subject in the near future.
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Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Eleven.

After several months of not using her baby swing, Ava's rediscovered it. She'll go stand by it and start swinging it with her hand when she wants to swing. And while she didn't much notice the mobile above it when she was little, now she grabs at the animals.

Tastes like... disc.

Also tastes like... disc.

We still like climbing the stairs.

This one's so funny. (She's climbing stairs again here.)

There's a little bit of bed-head going on here, but it's also a good illustration of how I'm torn about when to get her hair cut.  When it's down like this it's really starting to look like it needs a trim, just to even things out and make it look a little less unkempt, but even with just a trim I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be able to do the pigtails or ponytails for a while, which are so cute.  So, yeah.  Torn.

As far as other stuff that's new, I actually can't think of a whole lot.  The sleeping issues I mentioned last month haven't really continued, so that's good (though I should really stop relying as much as I do on nursing to get her to sleep, both at bedtime and for naps).  We are, however, having some issues with her not wanting to stay on her back for diaper changes (Which used to happen on occasion but is now becoming more and more of a problem).  Sometimes giving her a toy to play with distracts her enough that she doesn't try to roll over anymore, but it doesn't always work.  She's becoming better at cruising, though she doesn't do it constantly (unlike just plain standing which she does anywhere and everywhere she can).  She loves "This Little Gospel Light of Mine," which I've recently started singing to her, and dancing around the room with me while I sing "Jump, Jive and Wail."  And she loves the refrigerator and wants to investigate inside it every time she's in the kitchen and we open it.

On another note, we've all three been sick with bad colds (myself and Ava starting last week and Josh starting this week), and I actually took Ava to the doctor yesterday because she had a rash on her torso, neck and part of her head.  No worries, though, the doctor said the rash was from her viral infection, something that can happen when babies get colds, and it should clear up in a few days (it already seems to be much better -- and luckily it hasn't seemed to be bothering her at all in the way of itching or anything).  And the worst of it seems to be over for her; the doctor said her breathing sounded good and she had no fever or signs of ear infection.  She hasn't been sick since late winter, so I suppose we were about due for something like this.
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Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Sometimes I love my inbox.
Like when it holds a lovely message about the second season of seaQuest finally being released on DVD. :-)
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Monday, October 1, 2007
Why I probably weigh more now than I did a month ago.
It's called The Bucky Book. It's a massive book of coupons that is sold each year in the Madison area for $35, with most of the coupons being of the buy-one-get-one-free (or just plain get-one-free) variety, and an awful lot of them for eating establishments. We would never pay that much for one of these things, but at the end of August, just over a month before all the coupons in the book expired, we picked one up for the highly-highly discounted price of $1. And then proceeded to try to get way way more than our money's worth out of it by getting free food at places such as: Taco Bell, Arby's, Little Caesars, Pizza Hut, Subway, Pizzeria Uno, Noodles & Company, Orange Julius, Auntie Anne's Pretzels, Dippin' Dots, Steak Escape (eh), Hardee's, Cousins Subs, Soup Factory and LMNO'Pies. All in about five or six weeks.

I never said we were smart.
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