almost 2

I haven't updated in a while.  Ava turns 2 in a week.  I was just looking at some old pictures and she is getting so so big.  I am sure I won't do the Ava post around her birthday, so I will start now and hopefully do a big one around her birthday.  Ahhh the best intentions.  I suck at follow through. 

Anyway, Ava can tell emotions.  She always tells us if people are sad, excited, happy.  She thinks everything is funny.  She sees something and says, "That's funny."  Usually it isn't.  Sometimes she is checking with us to see if really is funny.  She can count to 14, and then starts over at 1.  Her favorite number is 6.  I think she just likes to say it.  She recognizes some letters.  A, H, N.  She knows all of her colors.  She pretty much can say just about anything.  Most days are full of regular conversation.  When she gets really excited it is hard to understand or when she thinks she is on the phone.  She just goes too fast.  She has started to mumble/whisper to tell me things that she wants when she thinks the answer will be no.  I think she just figures I will say ok, whatever, if I can't understand her.  She loves to read books and often sits there reading them outloud to herself.  She remembers what the stories are about and says some of the right words. 

Things she said today.

I was brushing her hair and said, "Oh! Your hair is so beautiful."  She said, "Yeah! I love it.  Daddy likes it too."

I asked her to bring me my phone because it was ringing.  She said, "No.  I no feel like talking."

Ok, hopefully I will do the sappy stuff next week.  I have often said that certain posts were just for me.  When I started my original blog (that I am really sad that I don't have, so if anyone knows anybody at blogger who would want to undelete a year of posts, let me know) my intention would be that Ava and future kids would have it to look back on when they were older.  They would be able to read about their day to day activities and my thoughts about them at each stage of the game.  I know that I often post because I know that people read it.  It is like having a paper due.  Knowing that others are out there reading it makes me stay on top of things.  On the other hand, I sometimes think that having others out there makes me censor myself.  I am not always one for putting my feelings out there.

rain and water

We did the relay for life on Friday.  I think last minute our team was beat out for first place for fund raising.  It doesn't mean anything, but it does motivate us when it comes to getting pledges.  It rained pretty much right after the walk started.  Not a little rain, a down pour.  It was fine because the tents were up, so most stuff stayed dry but everything did have that damp feeling.  At 3am it was raining again, and a thunderstorm with lightening was moving in, so they ended the walk early.  That wouldn't have been a good situation at all, tents flapping around, acting like little lightening rods.

We went to Lake Geneva for the weekend with friends.  It was a fun time.  There was a water park in our hotel.  Ava loved the lazy river.  She liked to just sit in the donuts.   I took her down without Justin on our first day there.  Everytime after that, she would ask if Daddy was going too.  He isn't a huge fan of water, but Ava is a huge fan of her Daddy, so he is going to have to get over that.  On our last day, Ava finally was willing to get in the regular pool with us (and it wasn't too crowded).   She definitely had fun but she definitely needs to take swimming lessons.  She couldn't get the concept of kicking her legs or not "eating the water."   Justin and I had a nice dinner out at a fancy schmancy chop house.  The food was amazing!  The dessert was super good.  We had a chocolate mousse cake thingy.  I don't even know what it was, but we dipped in a raspberry sauce.  We made breakfast in our room each morning, or really Bryan did.  Justin and Bryan did the shopping and Justin got cinnamon rolls for us to make on our morning.  We didn't have an oven.  We did have a lot of butter.  In two days we went through 4 sticks of butter.  I shouldn't say in 2 days, more like in 2 meals.  I fried up our cinnamon rolls in butter.  I chopped them up into little pieces first and then let them cook up in the butter.  I put the icing on top and mixed it up when it was all done.  It was so good.  Max had a panic while I was cooking because he thought I just couldn't read the directions and was making them wrong.  He didn't have a problem eating the end results of my illiteracy.  Needless to say, Justin has started back on spark people since getting back.  Justin brought the "new" camera and it had battery issues the whole time, so I don't know if we actually got any good pictures.  Anytime we wanted to use it, it would have no power.

I have figured out that I pretty much rotate my hobbies in streaks.  I haven't crocheted anything since finishing my yellow blanket, but I have been reading a lot.  I have read through all of my  books that I mooched, so now I am kind of wanting to crochet again.  I need to just get around to ordering my yarn that I want to use.  In the mean time, I just sent out 7 new book requests.  I went to the library with Justin and Ava and took the book discussion group lists and looked for books that might be interesting to me.  Ava gets so excited about the library.  All she wanted to do is read.  We said, "Do you want ice cream?"  She said, "I want books."  Not too shocking since we are both readers, but still.  I hope she continues with it.  It is so odd to me that some people really never read.  I guess that is what some people think about people who never work out....

Tonight we had the Italian herb crusted pork tenderloin that we got from Simply Homemade.  SO GOOD!!!!!!!!  It was the perfect amount for us too.  I feel very odd that it is already going to be Friday tomorrow.

Simply Homemade

So this past weekend I went and prepared my meals at Simply Homemade.  The gist of the thing is, you pick out your meals ahead of time from their menu.  You go in, they have all the prep work done, you follow the recipes and get everything all set.  Nothing is cooked yet.  It is all food you are essentially preparing to prepare.  Then you take it home and freeze it.  They give you directions on cooking it after you defrost it.  I was done in an hour to an hour and a half.  I am not sure what time I exactly started.  We now have meals for dinner for the next month.  (if you have more people in your family than we do, it would be the next two to three weeks.)  So tonight I made our first meal.    It was really good.  Thumbs up all around, even from Ava.  It was kind of like one of those skillet meals in a bag, but the food all seemed fresh and home made, vs preserved.  We had: 

Chicken, Broccoli and Mushroom Crepes - NEW











Ooh, la, la. A French classic, perfect for a light summer dinner.
Chicken, broccoli, and mushrooms in a creamy white sauce accented with
Swiss cheese are wrapped in your own homemade crepes.
Foil Pan




Nutrition Info : Calories- 290, Fat- 8g, Protein- 29g, Carbohydrates- 24g, Fiber- 2mg, Cholesterol- 113mg, Sodium- 527mg


I did have to make the crepes, but they gave me the batter.  I don't know why this is in bold and I can't fix it right now.  Oh well. 

In other news, I did finish reading Vanishing Acts.  I don't think it was anything to review.  Good beach reading I guess.  Didn't require a lot of focus. 

It has legs!

I had my ultrasound today.  We did not find out the gender.  The opportunity has now passed us and we will be waiting until December to find out if this baby is a boy or girl. 

I haven't felt the baby move as much as I did at this point with Ava, but the doctor still said that I am feeling more movement than he would expect at this stage of the game.  That would probably be because this baby apparently doesn't stop moving.  Every time the nurse tries to get a heartbeat, it moves away, trying to escape.  I felt it move around a lot after she was all done.  It did not appreciate getting poked at I guess.  During the ultrasound, the tech kept saying the baby is definitely a big mover.  I think he had to time it just right to get some measurements because the baby wouldn't stop moving around.  It did wave to us at one point.  I saw the hand come up and the fingers close.  So, here are the pictures.  I labeled them.  Yay me and photoshop.

Here is the normal ultrasound picture, standard head and body.

The straight on view of the face.  Usually known as the "alien"

The hand up by the face.

Here is my favorite.  You can see a good profile of the face, and it actually looks like a baby, not an alien or blob.  You can see the little nose and cheeks.  That is one cute 2D black and white baby.

Weeds

I really like the show Weeds which is on Showtime.  I don't get Showtime so I watch it on DVD when it comes out.  I just got disc 2 and 3 of Season 3.  I already watched disc 2, or so I thought I did.  There were two more episodes on there!  I totally missed them.  This show builds on each episode.  Now I am reading the plot lines of the two episodes on Wikipedia.  I was watching the "previously on" and I was like when the heck did all this happen.  I thought I had the wrong disc.  Nope, didn't watch episodes 4 and 5.   

Definitely, Maybe

I will never, ever, watch a rented romantic comedy, drama, etc. that Justin doesn't want to watch on the couch again.  Watching movies in bed on my computer with headphones on is a much better movie viewing experience.  I highly recommend it.  It is comfortable and cozy.  Justin can't mock the cheesy dialog because he can't hear it.  It all works out.

I just watched Definitely, Maybe.  It was good enough to deserve a rental.  It provoked a tear, not like that is hard to do lately, but still.

Now I am tired, and I am already in bed, so I just have to shut the computer and I am good to go.

I can grow food!

So this bright sun and lack of rain has been killing my flowers.  I got quite a few to bloom, but it had been raining so frequently that I hadn't need to water them.  Now I have to remember to water every day and it doesn't happen.  Ava has been helping out in the back yard with our plants.  She dumps water on them from her water table.  It also helps that the hose is out back, when it comes to me watering them.  I now have quite a few little green tomatoes, tons of blossoms for my cucumber plant and a bunch for my one pepper plant that hasn't been eaten by rabbits or destroyed in storms.  I have set up little trellises for the cucumber plant, but it doesn't want to grow up them.  It wants to hang off the side of the pot, which means it wants to be eaten by rabbits.  I wonder if it knows that I question the trellis's ability to support the cucumbers....

Ava had fun yesterday for the 4th.  I think watching a drive way light show helped her not be afraid of the fireworks, since a few weeks ago at the Cougar's game, she decided she didn't like them at all.  She did fall asleep during the main show and slept through the finale.  We are heading out today to a water park with my brother and his wife.  We will see if she likes it.