Developing Every Day!

She really enjoyed her carrots on this particular evening! 
I love that smile! 
I think I am going to have to take her mobile down soon because she pulls on it so hard that she is going to break it! 
All smiles this morning before we left the house! 

Wow! It seems like Avi Grace is just developing overnight! Yesterday she was really babbling and talking to us. She also REALLY wants to stand on her own. When I am holding her hands and she is standing, she wants to let go! I guess she is trying to tell me that she wants to do it on her own. I'm not so sure she is ready for that yet...or maybe I'm not ready for that yet! She FINALLY rolled over from her back to her tummy last night on her own! We have been "practicing" this every night for several months now, but she just hadn't quite gotten it together. She was getting more frustrated than anything. Thankfully she made it all the way over last night! We clapped for her and she got very excited! I think we almost scared her because we were so excited! We are having so much fun with Avi Grace! I love going home in the afternoons and having outside time with her. She LOVES to be outside, so we usually stay outside until it is time for her to go to bed!

OHHH, and she has gotten her first tooth!! The bottom right tooth popped through on Saturday (or at least that was when I felt it for the first time!). I had noticed she had been sticking out her tongue a lot, but now I realize she has just been feeling her tooth with her tongue! I'm sure it was a new texture for her!

A lot going on...

Avi Grace seeing her first snow! 
Avi Grace, Jack & Emily at an MSU basketball game 

Avi Grace enjoying her swing 

And she sleeps... 

Love this picture of Avi Grace & Grandaddy! 

Avi Grace playing with her great grandparents
& Great Aunt Susan on the back porch! 

Sorry I have been a slacker blogger as of late. We have had a lot going on in our household! The last time I posted, I was sick. I ended up missing an entire week of work. I don't remember the last time I did that. Then Drew got sick...I guess it wasn't going to go away until we all had it! Then advising started at my work, and I have been swamped with paperwork and lots of appointments with students. I still have lots waiting on me right now on my desk! On Tuesday of this week, Avi Grace started a little stomach bug. She threw up 4 times on Tuesday, but then she was fine after that--slept all night and was fine on Wednesday. Then yesterday, she had a few not so fun diapers while she was with the babysitter and she threw up again yesterday evening. However, after that she slept fine all night. This morning she has thrown up again, so I am not really sure what is going on! Between her episodes she plays and seems to be fine. It is really strange. However, there has been a major stomach bug going around Starkville, and I guess it is going to just have to run its course. It is lasting a little longer than I would like for it to, though!

Anyway, I have had many pictures I needed to post, so i just posted them all today! Back at the beginning of March, we got a light dusting of snow one night. I was able to get a picture of Avi Grace in the snow before it all melted very quickly when the sun came out!! We also went to the MSU vs. LSU basketball game before spring break, and we managed to get a picture of the kids together--Avi Grace, Jack & Emily. We got Avi Grace a swing (actually a friend of ours--Kathy Parker--let us borrow the swing; thanks Kathy!). She LOVES it! She will sit and swing for 20-30 minutes and just look around and kick her feet and smile. She loves to be outside, and this just gives her a way to see everything!

Finally, great Grandmother and Granddaddy Elliott and Aunt Susan McAllister came to visit us last Saturday. We had lots of fun playing on the porch swing and being outside. We have 3 purple martin bird houses out in our yard, and we have about 12-16purple martins who live there. They are wonderful birds. Their singing is beautiful, AND they eat mosquitos!! Very nice! So, Avi Grace LOVES to look at the birds. When we walk over to the houses, the birds all fly out and swarm above us and she just looks at them and follows them as they fly around. It is fun to watch! She and Grandaddy walked out to see the birds together.

Well, hopefully this stomach bug will go away very soon. I just hope Drew and I don't get it! Y'all have a nice weekend.

What a Spring Break!

Avi Grace with Uncle Billy, Great Memaw and Uncle Bobby
 
Avi Grace playing with Nana on the porch swing 
Avi Katz, Avi Grace and Me 

Vickie and Greta 
Jack and Emily Playing in the bath tub! 

Jack and Emily kissing! 
Waiting out the carbon monoxide scare and visiting the fire department. 
Avi Grace playing in the cabin 

Well, I'm not really sure where to start. Our spring break was very eventful. On Sunday Nana Gayle came to visit from Texas. She kept Avi Grace for several days while I ran errands and tried to get us ready to leave on our trip. On that Monday, my grandmother and 2 uncles came to visit. Uncle Bobby had not seen Avi Grace yet, so it was fun to play with him. To start our trip off, on Tuesday afternoon, Avi Grace woke up with a slight fever. She didn't really have any other symptoms. We watched her and gave her tylenol for the fever. She slept well that night, so I wasn't too concerned about her. We got ready to leave for our trip on Wednesday morning. Avi Grace seemed to be feeling okay. So, we headed off to Birmingham to visit our friends at Children's Hospital and left our luggage with our friends to be packed in their vehicles. At Children's, we got to visit so many of the friends we made while Austin was in the hospital. We got to see Greta, Vickie, Jenny, and Angela--all nurses who took care of Austin in the NICU. We also visited with several dialysis nurses and Linda in the lactation center (we hate we missed Patty!). Avi Grace finally got to meet her namesake, Dr. Avi Katz, the nephrologist who took care of Austin. It was so great to see him and catch up. We've been wanting to make a trip to Children's for a while now, and this was the perfect time to be able to do it.

By mid afternoon on this day, Avi Grace wasn't feeling all that well. But, our friends the Adkersons and the Fountains picked us up at Children's to head on to Georgia. Avi Grace did okay on the trip...one melt down, but we made it. We got to our cabin at about 9:30 or 10 p.m. We were all tired! The cabin was very nice, though. On Thursday, the girls went to the grocery store and we spent the afternoon playing outside and wandering around downtown Blue Ridge. On Friday, the girls got to go to the outlet mall in Dawsonville, Georgia. Very nice mall, by the way! Drew kept Avi Grace all day by himself (and the other guys and kids) for the first time. He did a great job, and I was very proud of him.

On Friday night, we had some drama. About 30 minutes after dinner, the carbon monoxide detectors in the cabin started going off. It kind of freaked us out. We opened the windows to air things out, and they quit going off. However, right after we closed everything, they started going off again. We called the owners of the cabin, and they basically told us there was nothing they could do (they live in Atlanta), so we called 911, which is what the detectors said to do if they were flashing 4 times...and they were. The Fannin County Fire Chief, Chief Thomas, and several others from the fire department came to the cabin and when they first came in he detected a good bit of carbon monoxide, so we got the kids up and out in the sprinkling rain so they would not be exposed to the carbon monoxide any more than they already had been. Finally someone from the gas company came and realized that the gas tank outside was too low and that is why the gas from the stove and the furnace were not burning properly, thus producing carbon monoxide. So we really did have carbon monoxide in the cabin, but the gas company came back and filled the tank up, and we were okay again--AFTER we spent about 2 and a half hours with the fire department and the gas company!!!! It was MISERABLE! Thank goodness for the carbon monoxide detectors--if your house has any gas appliances or heat, you should definitely get one for your safety!

On Saturday most of us hung around the cabin and Blue Ridge, but Drew and Jonathan (Drew's brother who lives in Atlanta) hiked up to Springer Mountain on the Applachian Trail. I think that was probably the 2nd or 3rd time Drew had done that particular hike, but he was dying to hike. It was pouring down rain and hailing that day, but they went anyway! MEN! The rest of us went to the Blue Ridge Fire Department to let the kiddos see the fire trucks. Chief Thomas had invited us to come by when he was at the cabin the night before! Jack and Emily had a great time together on our trip! As you can see from the pictures, we might just have a litle romance budding!!

On Sunday, we headed back home. Avi Grace was a super girl on the way home, thankfully. She was very fussy while we were gone. I am sure she just didn't feel well and she was in an unfamiliar environment. She has developed a fairly bad cough since we got home, which is concerning. She has her 6 month checkup on Friday, so if she is not better by then, it will be a sick baby visit along with a well baby visit!

On top of everything, I started running fever on Saturday afternoon. I am still running fever now. I think I have the flu. I am VERY miserable. I wasn't looking forward to going back to work yesterday, but I would much rather be at work than feeling like I am feeling now. Please, I hope it goes away soon! I haven't felt this badly in a long time, in fact; I can't remember the last time I felt like this. I feel just well enough to sit up right now and type this blog post!

So, we had an eventful spring break. I think I have summed everything up in a not so short way. Sorry this is so long!

Loving some baby food...and my feet!

Chilling in my bathtub!
 

Loving some carrots! 

Eating my feet! 

Avi Grace is LOVING some baby food these days! She eats oatmeal every morning when she wakes up, and then she eats various vegetables throughout the day. So far she has eaten green beans, green peas, carrots and squash. The first few times we gave her green beans and green peas, she would shudder! It was SO funny. Then, we got them warm enough, and she finally started liking them! As for the carrots and the squash, she will eat them straight out of the jar. She really likes the carrots! She ate an entire jar of carrots and squash the first time we gave them to her! Next we will try sweet potatoes and then move on to the fruits! I think we have an eater on our hands!

She is also sitting up pretty well on her own. You still have to be sitting right next to her because she tends to fall over easily (and not catch herself at all!). She isn't rolling over yet, but she is sitting up great! She had her first experience in a high chair at a restaurant yesterday. She did very well until she got tired of her toys!

We are off to the mountains in Georgia for part of next week during spring break. We are going with our friends the Adkersons and the Fountains. We are getting very excited! Just hoping AG does okay with the time change this weekend and the time change we will experience in Georgia!

 

Avi Grace got her first haircut this morning! She has had some longer hair in the front that never fell out when everything else did, and it had gotten really long. Drew has been asking to cut it for a while now, and as we were getting ready for church this morning, we finally took the plunge and trimmed the longer pieces. It actually looks so much better! I am pleased with the outcome. You can weigh in with your opinion after looking at the before and after pictures above!

Our little girl is growing up. Last week I was just thinking that she was never going to start trying to sit up. Every time I would try to help her sit up, it seemed as if she wasn't limber enough to do it! However, this weekend she has really started doing much better with it! We got her floor nanny out that Nana gave her for Christmas, and she did very well sitting up in it, as you can see from the other pictures above! She really tried to eat Baby Tad (Austin's favorite), and she liked playing with her new Mr. Beeps bear (purple bear) that Wan and Granddaddy gave her.

Have a great week!

Some wild hair, first cereal & first V-day!

 

 

 

Well, as you can see we have been having lots of fun at our house lately! Avi Grace tried her first cereal 2 Saturdays ago. She didn't love it and she didn't hate it. She was kind of indifferent with it! She has since moved to oatmeal, which she is still trying to decide if she likes...the jury is still out on food in general, I think! Tonight I was "feeding" her some oatmeal, and she hit the spoon with her hand as I was trying to put it in her mouth. As you can see from the pictures, it ended up all over her face! She wasn't sure what to think about it, but she smiled when I got the camera out to take a picture of her!

She also enjoyed her first Valentine's day. She got to wear her adorable "Love Bug" shirt that her friend Emily Adkerson gave to her. Thanks, Emily, for the shirt. Avi Grace looked adorable in it! Too bad we didn't get a picture of the two of you in your shirts together!

I just couldn't resist taking pictures of her very wild hair one night after bath time! I always dry her hair with the towel, and I think I got a little carried away on this particular night! It was sticking straight up when I removed the towel...it was so funny looking that I had to take pictures!!

Avi Grace is doing great. She loves to grab her feet and put them in her mouth, especially if her feet are bare! That is one of my favorite things that babies do, and I love to see her grab them!

I want to give a shout out to Judy Coffey, the sweet, sweet lady that keeps Avi Grace on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Avi Grace loves her, and she is great with Avi Grace! So, I don't know if she reads our blog, but thanks to Mrs. Judy for being so sweet to my little girl!

Y'all have a great week!

Whirlwind of a Week!

 

Whew! Well, Avi Grace is doing just great. She is adjusting to her somewhat complex weekly routine very nicely! As you can see from the pictures, she has graduated to her bumbo seat and her exersaucer. She really likes both of them, but she gets mad sometimes when she is in her exersaucer because she can't get things in her mouth just as she wants to! She is definitely developing a mind of her own, and she lets us know when things aren't going her way! Don't get me wrong, she is still a sweetheart, but she is becoming a little more vocal about things these days!

As for me, my week has been quite eventful. Last Friday, I had some excruciating pain, and I went and had a CT scan done. It showed I had two 7 mm kidney stones on the right side. So, I had lithotripsy done on Wednesday to try to break up the stones. The procedure went well, but about an hour after the procedure, I started having VERY bad pain because the broken up stones were moving. I stayed at home in very bad pain all afternoon until we finally went to the emergency room Wednesday evening about 6. I got a lot of IV fluids and some pain medication, which helped me feel a lot better, thankfully. It was awful. Worse than any pain I have ever experienced (I've had 2 c-sections)! Anyway, I am still feeling better, but it has been a whirlwind of a week with all of this going on!

Drew's practice is going great. He is staying very busy and they are beginning to figure everything out. Things seem to be running smoothly now!