It's her half birthday!!

This week Ava will be 6 months old! Its hard to believe we are half way through her first year! She is starting to sit up on her own more and reaches for us. She smiles, laughs and talks to us all the time. She is doing great with sleeping at night. She goes to sleep at 10:00 and sleeps till 7:00, we can lay her down now and she will put herself to sleep pretty easily, sometimes just needing a little patting on the back and the last two nights needing nothing at all, just quickly feel asleep on her own. My favorite things right now is the big smile she gives when I peek my head in her crib to get her out in the morning. She's just ready to greet the day with such a cheerful spirit. Here's some pics over the past few weeks:

Dog park first

So the weather has been just perfect here. It was good day today to take Ava for her first trip to the dog park. She was pretty unimpressed by it, playing mostly with her sun hat while we there but occasionally she would look on curiously at the other dogs there, she definitely knows her dog and gives a big smile when Rory comes by. It was a fun family outing.

In case you hadn't heard...

Ryan passed the CPA exam!! all 4 sections!! I am so proud of him and I know the amount of hours and hardwork it took and it reminds me one the things I admire about Ryan is is hard working nature and his ability to conquer any challenges before him. This was just wonderful news for our family!! No more studying!!

That now leaves room for some down time:

and Ryan and I went out to celebrate we went the historic Kyle's 1025 for dinner, followed by some pink swirl. (Thanks aunt Amy for watching Ava for us!) This was our 2nd date night since Ava's birth, we really enjoyed it!

Ponderings on Parenthood Vol. III

Goals. Well I love setting and acheiving goals, even if its a small as a to do list for the day or something that takes much longer to acheive. One of the goals I set for new years was to run a 5k and 10k this year. Well the 5K I signed up for is next saturday, I've only been getting in about 2 runs a week so I'm not building much endurance just yet past about a mile and half. Even though I plan to run more, life happens and being a parent life isn't on my schedule as it use to be. There's plenty of things as a mom we might feel guilty about falling short on, I decided this isn't worth any of those negative feelings, so I will just adjust my expectations. So my new goal, is simply to finish a 5K and 10K, that might involve some walking and interval running but I am still going to proud of finsihing both these races knowing I'm doing the best I can with them and proud to do them in the same year I gave birth to my baby girl. Another goal this year I set in mind was my initial goal for breast feeding would be 6 months, I decided I would re-evaluate then if its working for both Ava and I to continue from there. This was based on reading research on breastfeeding that seemed to state in the long term they really can't tell a big difference between breast feed and formula feed babies after the 6 month mark. Since this is going well I am extending this goal to the one year mark. So as a parent flexibility and adjusting expectations is more important than ever, sometimes I can do more than what I thought and sometimes I have to break it down to what is achievable.

Also speaking of goals, Ryan past his CPA Exams!!! This has been a four year process and I am so very proud of him, this will be its own post later as we are going out tomorrow to celebrate, it will be only our 2nd date since Ava's birth, we are excited to celebrate on the town! pics to come!

hair and hoodies

While summer is for sure my favorite time of year, I'm ready for the change to fall. It was cool enough today that Ava got to wear her first Hoodie!! Also I got my hair cut this weekend so here's pic to showcase both events!

Welcome to the World!!

Sweet Isabella was born!! Her parents are dear friends as we've shared so many life milestones together: college, weddings, starting careers, birthdays, vacations, international adventures and now babies! I couldn't think of much else while her mommy was in labor with her from 7 in the morning till she arrived at almost 11 that night. The morning after her birth I woke up at 6:00am and couldn't go back sleep because I was so excited to see her and her parents later that day!! We love you and your family Isabella and we welcome you to the world!

This is the whole family!

I get to meet her!

retro pic from when Ava was born!

Ava and Isabella are only about 5 months apart and destined to be great pals!

5 Months

Guess who's 5 months!?

Here's a short run down of the new things that 5 months brings. Everything goes in her mouth and if there's nothing available no worries she will use her own finger, fingers or her entire fist. She's also facinated by her recently discovered feet. So funny how long she can play contently with them. Some of the things that I'm real excited about she can now go 4 hour between feedings and after the last week I can say she sleeps 8 hours all the way through the night more nights than not. She laughs and smiles more and more all the time.

Common sight these days with the finger in the mouth.

Still those lovely bright eyes!

First pair of baby shoes that are now too small...