Little Lins!

Our little Ava is now 67 weeks old. Yeah!

Ava had to keep her first secret this week. Secret? What secret?

She was going to surprise her Nona for her birthday. She did pretty well… until she accidentally told Darla about it. Oops.

We spent the night at Uncle David and Carrie’s place, and in the morning David drove us to Nona’s office and we yelled surprise! But she was across the hall. So we waited and waited and then yelled surprise again. Hehe. Then we were off to enjoy an early lunch at Ruby’s, where Ava polished off her entire meal and then tried to steal Nona’s potatoes.

After lunch, Nona went back to work and we surprised Nona Dinka with a visit. Here is Ava contemplating whether or not she should pet Rocky. We also dropped off a few dresses with her so she can shorten them for Ava. No, Ava doesn’t like mini skirts… she needs to wear size 2 dresses due to her belly and her legs have not caught up to it yet.

After her afternoon nap, Ava waited in the front yard for her Nona and Dida to come home from work. Check out her ponytail.

Ava ended up eating a quarter of this strawberry pie all by herself. No joke. She loves strawberries. When I was pregnant with her, I was obsessed with eating Häagen-Dazs strawberry ice cream with fresh strawberries on top. No wonder Ava loves them. And no wonder I gained 55 pounds during my pregnancy.

Since we were in celebration mode, Dida sang Itsy Bitsy Spider (don’t tell anyone) and Ava showed off her dance moves. Whenever she hears that song, her arms go up in the air and her hands twist. It’s the best.

Nathan also stopped by for a visit. Chicks dig him! He is catching up to Ava so quickly. They did okay sitting next to each other…

…until her duck toy showed up. Mine! Once he starts walking, these two are going to be trouble.

Here is Ava trying to get into her pool from behind the sliding door. Hehe. So, Ava added a handful of words to her vocabulary this week. First on the list, in no particular order, is pool.

She also started to say puž, which is snail in Croatian.

And here she is saying boo, for when she tries to scare us and when she plays peek-a-boo. In addition to those words, she is also trying say baby, barba (for uncle), teta (for aunt), mole (wierd, i know), choo-choo (for train), doo-doo (for cars) and cole (for Nicole).

Over the weekend, we drove up to San Jose to visit Dan’s family and got the chance to visit the zoo up there. Here she is practicing her animal sounds.

Ava decided to drop her afternoon nap during our long drive home. It was torture for all of us. So we decided to give some friends a call in Pismo Beach to say hello and grab a bite to eat. Ava got to meet Wyatt for the first time and they really hit it off. They played with puzzles and cars and Ava went up and down his slide. Oh, and at dinner, she decided to dip her french fry and pickle into ketchup for the first time. Not sure why… ummm, maybe to impress Wyatt??

She also got a few kisses from Magnum PI.

Dan was sick this week so I drove Ava to daycare in the morning. She decided that since Dada was in bed, she would wear his hat.

She really insisted on wearing it on the entire ride there and even through the building to her classroom. You can imagine the stares we got on this day. I finally convinced her to take it off once she was seated for breakfast since she knows that it’s rude to eat with a hat on your head. Ava and her manners.

In the afternoon, Dan and Ava took a self-portrait. Nice double-chins.

I sent YoBaby Yogurt a picture of Ava eating their product and a few days later we got coupons in the mail from them. Someone is really excited.

On Friday morning, we woke up and headed outside to the aviary. We opened the door and wished the hummingbirds well as they flew out into the sky for the very first time.

They both hung out in our yard for few minutes to check out of flowers and test our branches before saying good-bye.

I think Ava misses our daily feeding routine with them, so she decided to start to flapping her arms in hopes of flying with them one day. Wait for me!