BUMBO!!!

For those of you who have never heard of a Bumbo chair - they are specially designed to help babies learn how to sit up. They are meant to be used when babies can hold their heads up. Ava's been doing this for awhile now. so we finally bought one and I am LOVING seeing Ava sitting up and looking around. She is so curious... always wanting to be held so she can sit up and see what's going on. Now we don't have to hold her for her to do this!

My favorite thing we have for Ava so far requires her to lay flat on her back; something she hasn't been very fond of lately. This is her "Baby Gym". I brought this home today and set her under it. She laughed, kicked and played for a half hour -- which for babies short attention spans is a long time!

Here are some other random pictures of Ava being super cute!

Bright Sunshine Day

After not having any family photo's for more than a dozen years -- we finally have some nice looking pictures! We had the same photographer that did our maternity and newborn pictures (Ashley Schrage Photography). The shoot was almost cancelled due to weather... but we are stubborn people who held out for a beautiful day! Thank goodness for that - we haven't had many nice days since! (You can click on the pictures to make them bigger to see us a little bit better.)

Unfortunately, pictures were taken during Ava's nap time. She pretty much slept through all of them. I tried everything I could, but those of you that have met her know this is no easy task!!  Maybe when Ashely comes back in a few more months we can plan better for some pictures of her beautiful smile! The ones we did get of her are wonderful, especially the one of her yawning. She's so adorable!

I cannot believe how great this picture turned out to be. I was a little skeptical, but glad we ended up trying it. By the way, Hera could eat all of our dogs easily!