Ava’s little family

Ava is such a little mommy.  You can see here, she has lots of “kids” to keep her hands full.

That is one giant dog, one ABC Elmo, one Baby Elmo, one tiny Elmo a blanket and a sippy of milk.  It is not uncommon to see her offer her Elmo’s a bit of milk.  Those dolls get thirsty too!  ( I think I also see a snowflake ornament, and a toy cell phone in the mix too.)  Jon has joked that we need a rocking love seat at times.  She likes to snuggle with ALL of them…at the same time.)

On a different day, different chair, same scene.  I think Baby Elmo was down for a nap, though.  He isnt to be found here!

She REALLY loves that dog though.  Shh, don’t tell Elmo, but I think the dog might be her favorite!

Good Morning Sunshine

Nearly every morning you will find this scene in our house.  Sure, the bagel might be a different flavor.  The pjs might be a different pattern.  The blanket will always be there, along with that giant dog.  After she gets up she asks us for a bagel, prounounced “bogel”, and her milk.  She will sit in the chair with her blanket, dog, milk and bogel watching cartoons while Jon and I get ready for work.  She is just too cute for words sometimes!

(A big thanks to Grandma Miller for the dog.  She LOVES that thing!  It now sleeps with her, and sometimes goes on car rides.  Yep, that dog, bigger than her, sits in her seat with her in the car!  This won’t be the last you see if it!)

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

The tree is up and Ava loves it!

She has been SO good with the tree.  We really thought we were in for a solid month of “no ava, no ava, no ava.” but she has done so well with it.  She love the ornaments and the lights, and she hasn’t tried to pull it down….yet.

No really….Spike

Our little baldie has REALLY sprouted hair.  As you saw in another post, Jon likes to make it go a little wild after her bath.  I think this is the ultimate in a bad hair day:

Not too crazy you say?  Just wait…

THAT is a lot of hair!

USS Jason Dunham Comissioning

Saturday, November 13th we had the opportunity attend the comissioning of the Navy’s newest ship, the Jason Dunham.  My parents came in to town for the weekends festivities.  We took tons of pictures (read:300+) but I won’t share all of them here.  The pictures with the good camera are not on our computer yet (oops!) but I have some from our camera I will share for now. 

With Papa M, the night before the ceremony.  This was just before we left the hotel to tour the ship.

With Mema, sticking her tongue out at her Papa!

Running the halls of the hotel.  She stopped to say “cheese”….just before she did an about face and ran from me as fast as she could.

On the deck of the ship.  It was night, so not much to see!

In the Captain’s seat.  She wanted to take charge of the boat, thankfully Uncle Michael was there to guide her!  If you look at the monitor above her head you can see the helicopter deck!

The morning of the comissioning ceremony.  This picture melts my heart!

With me before we left!

The mast of the ship.  To say this was an amazing experience would not do it justice.  It was emotional, inspirational, historic, and a once in a life time experience.  The story behind the ship’s name added some extra emotion.  I will probably leave some details out, but to sum it up.  Jason Dunham was a young Marine who, during routine work in Iraq, had a grenade thrown at his group.  He took off his helmet and threw it on top of the grenade, along with himself.  The injuries he sustained in the blast took his life a few days later.  As a result of his heroic actions he saved the other Marines that were with him.  Jason Dunham’s parents were at the ceremony, his mom even called all the sailors to “man the ship”.  It was truly awesome to watch.  It helped that Ava was AWESOME throughout the entire thing!  Whew!

When the announcement was made to “man this ship” the sailors all run (they were lined up behind the spectators until this point) up each of the bridges (pictured above) and line the ships edges.  Here you can see part of them.  Michael is on the top there to the right.  We got a better picture with the other camera.  It was pretty cool to see the entire crew all lined up and down the ship.

We all enjoyed the ceremony.  There are many more pictures.  We will share more another day!

Massages by Uncle Michael

My brother came to visit for a quick weekend at the beginning of November.  His ship was ported in Fort Lauderdale for the comissioning ceremony the following weekend.  He didn’t have to work, so he rented a car and made the 2ish hour drive our way.  He was excited to have a normal bed to sleep in and a hot shower that he didn’t have to wear flip flops in!  This visit was the second time he has seen Ava.  The first time she was just 6ish weeks old.  Needless to say, she had made some changes since then.  I remember Michael wondering what “else” Ava did when she was 6 weeks old.  Apparently, lots of pooping, eating and sleeping are not entertaining enough for him.  After he saw her in November, he was pleased.  I believe the quote he gave me was “Megan, you guys have done a great job of taking my advice and teaching her to do other things.  She is amazing!” 

Ava was a little unsure of her Uncle Michael, but they made the most of the weekend.  Sadly these are the only two pictures that I got while Michael was here….

Michael offered up a nice little shoulder rub, Ava liked it! 

Ava says “A little to the right…”

It was a great visit.  Ava showed off all of her tricks, and I think Michael enjoyed himself.

A cheese and a smile.

There is a big difference here.  Anytime Ava sees a camera, or something she thinks could possibly be a camera, she shouts “eeeeeeeese”.  The other day she actually kept a bow in for a few minutes (gasp!) and I had to grab a picture.  Here is her cheese:

She looks incredibly unhappy.  I assure you she wasn’t.  Here is her smile to prove it:

See, I told you! 

Tomorrow is a big day here.  It is Grandma R’s birthday (Happy Birthday Grandma!), and Grandma and Grandpa M come in town for a long weekend.  Horray!

My little “green” girl!

Making a statement with her shirt, swinging, and playing in the garden. 

Underneath the Earth it says “mine”. 

“Helping” in the garden.  Her favorite thing to do is grab the leaves of things and pull.  She learned it from me because I

pick the blooms off the basil plants, however, she doesn’t stop at the blooms—she pulls HANDFULLS of leaves off.  They aren’t wasted though, she likes to get lots of good sniffs of them before she throws them down.

Finally, laughing REALLY hard.  She loves to swing, ahem, “weng” as she says.  I guess this was a great birthday gift for her.  She is laughing because we were passing the football back and forth as she was swinging and she just dropped it so I couldn’t get it.  Stinker!

All by myself….

Ava thinks she is big.  The other day she swiped an apple out of the fruit bowl and just went to town.  She was gnawing away on the apple so much I had to take it away from her.  When I got the apple away she had a HUGE mouth full of apple.  It seems she needs to learn to stop and chew once she gets some in her mouth. Instead, she was just going all around the apple and keeping it in her chipmunk cheeks!

(this is her smiling while not wanting to stop eating the apple. )

(Another cute outfit provided by:  Aunt Michelle!)

She is cute

No real reason for the pictures (does there have to be?), just thought she was cute! 

It is really hard to get good pictures of her these days.  She is really never sitting still.  She also makes a really great “cheese” face, cute when you hear her say it, but the picture never really turns out that well.  Don’t worry, I have one of those pictures to share with you, too…..Just not today!  🙂