Park Day with Friends!

We spent Friday afternoon at the park with friends! It was a perfect day to play!

Our Visitor!

Andy came running in this afternoon to tell me about the visitor in our backyard! I went out with the camera and this guy just hung out for about 5 minutes and let me take a ton of pictures! Andy tried to offer him Zave as he thought it would be a really cool sight to see him in his talons. Sometimes he makes me so angry!

The Many Moods of Ava!

Zach's Favorite Things!

Two new hobbies that go great together, digital scrapbooking and photography! They say practice makes perfect, but I'm just hoping that practice makes decent :)

Some pix from the week

As many of you know, I got my new camera on Monday! The kids are generally willing subjects and I have taken quite a few pix! These are just a couple to start! I plan to scrap a few of them so I don't want to have to many of the same pictures up on the blog :) It's been a good week so far, minus Zach's new found aversion to bathing. He just screams through the whole tub time. It's the weirdest thing. He usually loves to take baths and swim like shamu! Ava is going for her 9/10 month pix on Sunday. She still has a bit of a mark from the bite, but my friend said she can photoshop it out. I don't want this memory to haunt us in her pictures too. Hope everyone enjoys their Superbowl weekend!

New Camera Pix!

I took these in my backyard early in the morning. I set the camera to macro and shot away. I can't wait until I actually know what I am doing! I sure am having fun playing around though!

New Camera!

Stay tuned! I got my new camera yesterday and I am picture happy! I just have to figure out how to get them onto my computer now :)

Mom Group Family Day!

Last Saturday we went to the park to play with some of our friends from our mom group. The kids really enjoyed the bubbles, swings and slides! The babies all enjoyed taking rides in Ava's convertible! (I just got the pix off of my camera, that's why this is such a late entry!)

Scrapping Challenge

This weeks challenge was about our furry family members. I think there is very little mention of my poor dogs here on the blog so I thought I woulf add my digital layout. It's titled "Furry Friends of Yesterday and Today." Animal lives are just not long enough! I keep telling Bella and Zave that they are never allowed to leave me :)

Ava's Neuro Appointment

I thank all of you for offering your support and kind words to me about Ava's situation. We finally went to the neurologist today and he too has concerns about her later developing motor skills and her soft muscle tone. He said it could be nothing, but it could also be a whole range of things that he wants to test for. We had to have blood drawn out of her little hand today and it was horrible. They are going to do genetic testing and various metabolic tests. He is not concerned about her cognitive ability because she is right on course with that. She just has very lose muscles for her age. We won't get results back for 3-4 weeks and if they are inconclusive then we will just watch her for the next 3 months. If she is pulling up by then then we will just move on. If she is not then we will do further testing. This poor little girl can't seem to catch a break!

Hello, Mr. President!

Zach loves Obama, or bama or bana or one of the other variations of his name that he says! We are all so excited to be able to witness this amazing day in history! I had to catch most of it on cnn.com, but I was able to get the gist and see the important things. It would have been great to be home with my family and watching it live, but work beckoned and 3 to 4 year olds have no interest in watching people just talk on TV! Welcome, President Obama! I hope they give you a few days to get situated before they start picking you apart.

A picture of me!

I got my hair done today! I put some blond back in and I love it! I worked so hard to get back to my natural color, but then I got bored. As I usually do. My favorite hair time in life was when I was a Vidal Sassoon hair model and had new hair every month! It was glorious!

Ava says no!

Ava has been saying Mama and Dada for a while now. She usually uses it in context to talk to me or her daddy. I consider these to be her first words, but I don't know which one came first. I do know that her third word is irrefutably NO! She got it from watching Zach. She will say it when he tries to take something from her and has even started with the matching head movements! Now, if only she had used it on the vampire child that ate her face!

Ava Update

Ava's face is looking worse, but she is doing really well considering. I think it will get worse before it gets better. Thank you for all of your thoughts and concern!

Eventful week

This week has been very interesting. This picture is of a bit mark on Ava's FACE from a toddler at daycare. It just happened so quickly. We brought her to the doctor and she was given an oral antibiotic and an antibiotic cream for the open wound. It is a big bruise right now and is so close to the eye that it is scary. Poor Ava! She is 9 months old today and I don't even have a cute picture to post :( She has been sick, had an ear infection and had a croupy cough the other night. Zach has been sick and had an ear infection and stomach bug. Andy has also had the stomach bug. We have not been sleeping much in this house! 2009 has not been our year so far!

Almost forgot to add, teeth numbers 5 and 6 busted through today! Add that to the all of the pain the poor little doll has been in :(

More ear infections!

We went to the doctors today, just in case! I didn't want to be heading to urgent care or the ER any time this weekend. I am sure glad we went! Zach and Ava both have ear infections! Zach's tubes are both out and have been for a couple of months now. Needless to say, I think I will be making the call to get them placed back in. The doctor wanted to wait for "well documented" ear infections. I think 3 in two months is plenty! Ava on the other hand, has not had an ear infection before this and I was praying she would be spared the Ommen ear infection curse! Her ears were so impacted with wax that they had to wrap her in a sheet and use the ear irrigation thing to get the wax out, just so the doctor could look in them! The nurse proceeded to swaddle her up in a sheet and thought she was going to freak out, but she was fine. After six months of swaddling, I think it felt very comforting to her. She was fine for the first ear and most of the second, but she started to scream at the end of the second. It lead the nurse to believe that that ear was infected. The doctor came in and looked, but it was the other ear that was infected! The ear that she screamed for was still so clogged with wax that he couldn't tell. He said he saw enough with the other ear and she would need antibiotics. Great! I just got done with the dogs antibiotics and now I have to remember to give them to the kids for 10 days. Can anyone really remember every single dose for 10 whole days? I'm just hoping that they are better before I have to go back to work on Monday. Wish us luck!