Ava is 7 months

It's been a while since we've had an Ava update, and she's already 7 months old!
 (All of these pictures and videos are mixed in time lines from the end of Dec until mid Feb.)

It seems we've spent a lot of time with Ava in her high chair lately, and that is a great place to take pictures.  She has recently refused to take much of anything on a spoon, but is doing a good job of feeding herself little chunks of things.  She's a bit pickier than her sister was at this age (Rachel ate EVERYTHING and wouldn't stop), but it's really fun to watch her check out new things.

7.5 months old!

Ava is a great sitter.  She can move to her tummy (not very gracefully, yet) from sitting.  On her tummy, she can roll around, get on to hands and knees, rock on all fours, and push herself around a little bit.  She's trying to crawl but usually just pushes herself backwards and gets frustrated at this point.  She loves to play in her exersaucer and bounce around, bat at things, bob her head up and down, suck her thumb, suck her Mommy's hair, pinch other people's skin/face.

She can click, squeal, squeak, say 'da da da da' and 'ga ga ga ga' and 'ba ba ba ba' and 'um-ga' and 'ma ma ma ma'.

The last two weeks, Ava has been a little fussier and hasn't stuck to her eating/napping/sleeping schedule quite the same. We keep wondering if that first tooth is going to make an appearance, but nothing just yet.

Her eyes are amazingly blue still and her sleep schedule is generally quite awesome still.  It's less motivating to leave the house these days for several factors.  One is that we've had lots of snow and cold weather.  Two is that Ava sleeps well in her crib.  Three is that Rachel is generally happy to play inside at home.  It's so different than when Rachel was little and wouldn't sleep in her crib, so I took her out all the time in a car seat/backpack/stroller and she slept en route and I got out.

On a good day, her sched looks like this:

6:45am - Rachel wakes her up. Nurse.
7:30am - high chair solid food breakfast.
9:00am - nap
10:30am - nurse
11:30am - high chair solids
12:30pm - nap
2:30pm - nurse, change
3pm - highchair solids
4pm - get fussy and tired, optional short third nap, optional nurse
5pm - highchair solids
6:30pm - nurse and go to sleep, usually sleeping through for 12 hours.

So she's nursing 4-5 times per day and eating solids 3-4 times per day.  It seems all we do is eat, clean up, eat again, sleep, wake up, eat again!  She must be an Oliver!

She's growing up very fast and it's tough.  I'm sad when she grows out of cute outfits and I put them in a box for someone else.  I see newborns now and they seem so tiny.  I'm sad sometimes when she only nurses for 10 minutes and she's done.

When Rachel was an infant, and I had to nurse her every night as part of the bedtime routine, I felt trapped.  Rachel also had inconsistent nights and I was up with her a lot more and she nursed a lot more often for a lot longer time frame.  With Ava, nursing seems like such a luxury.  I sit still and cuddle my sweetie.  I play on my phone.  I rock in the chair.  I don't have to get up and do other things.  Jason often goes through Rachel's hectic bedtime routine and tries to settle her down while I enjoy the peace and sweetness of nursing Ava.  I don't feel trapped at all.  I feel blessed and I don't want that to stop.  I don't even mind getting up at night to nurse when Ava is fussy in the night.

It's not that Rachel and Ava are so different.  It's probably just the normal differences between a first and second child.  I was so excited for Rachel to grow up and get to the next thing.  With Ava, I'm trying so hard to cherish these precious moments because life is so busy and they are disappearing so fast.

Our very verbal child

It's hard to believe that, when Rachel was 8-13 months old, I was concerned about her language development.  At 15 months she started talking and hasn't stopped since.

Many people comment on Rachel's creative and imaginative story telling.  Sometimes when people call her 'verbal', I wonder if it's their nice way of asking if she ever shuts up?!

She is a little bit hyperactive... and often a LOT hyperactive...  I find myself saying 'quiet voice' and 'be gentle with mamma/Ava' and 'take a breath' and 'Rachel...settle down'... all the time.

But the things that come out of her mouth are the most charming things about her.  Lately she's had some really good ones.

Singing the jungle book song:
"The bare necessities, the basic bare necessities, forget about your worries and your stripes.  I mean the bare necessities, old mother nature's..."

She loves to play a game where I tell one story and she tells another story and we take turns, sentence by sentence.  We've played this game a LOT!  Forgive me for looking so bored and tired in this video, but watching it you can get the idea that Rachel CANNOT sit still.

When playing picnic with her kids, she is experimenting with language:
"Please pass the grapes... Nunu hollered"
"Certainly.  Here you go... Mumbled parrot quietly"
"Yummy cookies... Cried pig"

Recently we got another chapter book from the library in the Mercy Watson series.  Mercy is a pig who has many adventures.  This one is called 'Mercy Watson fights crime'.  So we got it from the library and Rachel sat in the car, flipping through the pages, making up her own story to match the pictures.

"And Mercy Watson was asleep I her bed when Crime walked in the front door.  Crime woke Mery and scared her.  So Mercy fought Crime and battled him and Crime ran away..."

So we then discussed that crime was not a person!

She seems to think that the bumblebee in the movie Thumbelina has the following name:
first name: Bumble
second name: Buzz
third name: Coming Soon To Theatres

We love our little chatterbox.

She loves to 'be crazy' these days, which often involves making a mess.  Here's a little mess and her little sister watching her with delight:

Playing in the snow...

We are taking a parenting class right now called 'Positive Parenting'.  We've gone to a couple so far, and they really have helped us change our perspective on a few things.  We are trying hard to be patient and understand Rachel better so we don't get so frustrated with her.  We're trying not to control her and 'punish' her, but instead reward her for positive behaviour and have a teaching message behind each thing that we are really working on.  It's helped us to love her charming and hilarious things more, and to fight with her or get in power struggles less.

Sometimes we can hold her down long enough to snuggle or read a book... even if we have to catch her first

Point Breeze Hut, Take 2

You may have read our blog one month ago about our hut trip to the Point Breeze Hut near Leadville, CO.

We recently did it again!  This time we went with a different family: Dad "C", Mom "A", 5.5 year old "Joe", and 1.5 year old "Ella".  I apologize if some videos and/or pictures work better than others...

We got there ahead of the other crew and went in.  Rachel hiked in her regular snow boots the whole way (0.8 miles).  Sat afternoon we got settled, and then C&A went out for a ski while we watched the kids and made dinner.

We slept much better than we did on the previous trip.  The other family didn't sleep very well.  But they still made us a great pancake breakfast before J&I got to head out and ski.  It snowed another handful of inches overnight, so it was pretty amazing.   I learned that I'm a much better back-country skier when there's loads of snow.  We played in the snow briefly when we returned to the hut, then packed up and headed out at 1pm - right as the next family group was coming in.

It snowed overnight, trying to bury our chariot sled

It was pretty deep trying to take skins on/off as we practiced alpine touring stuff

Traffic coming home Sunday night was horrific... again.  This time we knew about it, expected it, and prepared accordingly.  Since the mountains are having one of the best snow years ever and it kept snowing all day Sunday, we went out for dinner Sunday evening in Frisco.  When the highway still was nuts, we went to hang out with friends in Breck and watched the Olympics for a while.  By 8pm we decided to head home, but even getting to Silverthorne took forever.  We were at a dead stop - Rachel even went potty (in her car potty) while we were stopped in the traffic.  I even removed Ava from her car seat, nursed her, and put her back in without going more than 10 feet at one point.

Then the girls slept in the car while we crawled our way home.  We got home at 1am and started work Monday morning without being very organized.  Our friends got a hotel Sunday night and came home Monday morning.

All in all this hut trip was much more of a success for us than the previous one.  We were better packed and knew what to expect.  We stayed at the hut longer.  We had way more snow, which was fun.  Most importantly, we got some sleep.

I think we've decided not to enter the hut lottery for next year and just see what happens more last minute with huts next winter.  I LOVE staying at log cabins in the woods... but we might have to put our pennies toward renting our own log cabin of sorts to avoid some of this crazy traffic next winter.

There are lots of pictures from this trip, so we've posted away from this blog.  Hope you can see them ok:
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