Ava & Mila

Hi.

Did you get my message? Ava is now 74 weeks old.

So, this week was Father’s day weekend. On Friday, Dan and Ava had a special breakfast at school together, where they ate grapes and eggs with veggies. Yumm. And she gave him a picture of herself in a purple sparkley frame. His favorite color. hehe.

Ava is now aware of our shadows. When we take walks, she loves pointing to our shadows and screaming Mama or Dada. Here is our family shot…. at the Target parking lot of all places.

We have been really busy trying to get ready for our trip so we have been out and about quite a bit. One of our stops this week was to gather some supplies from Babies R Us. Here is our sweetheart sitting next to Ernie, waving and telling him Byeeee as we enter the store..

Here is our not-so-sweet Ava leaving Babies R Us. When we asked her to put away the popper toy so we can leave, she refused. When we took it away from her, she proceeded to throw herself onto the middle of the floor. We should of been really embarrassed and picked her up… but being the photo bloggers that we are, we frantically tried to pull the camera out of its case and capture the moment instead…. giggling and yelling hurry.

Here is Ava’s ‘why isn’t this working?’ look. Well, my little firecracker… we are not falling for your tantrums. We officially welcome you to toddler-hood today… just in time for our 11+ hour flight overseas. Fun times are head, I’m sure. Fun times.

Our little toddler has stopped saying mine and now says my instead. She was in her room the other morning, standing next to her armoire, and was repeating my babeee over and over again. So, I opened the armoire door and Ava pulled out her baby, which she previously didn’t have much interest in. Here is Ava and my babeeee.

On Saturday, we did a little shopping with Nona Ester. Ava had a blast modeling hair accessories.

Strike a pose.

Ohoh. Who turned off the lights?!?

After our shopping expedition, Ava enjoyed some yummy food… up until this pesky fly got into the house and would not leave Ava alone. She was not too happy about it. I guess not all things with wings are her friends.

But winged birds are still her friends. Here is Ava trying to share a chip with Baby and Gretel.

Oops. Chip in the water. Sorry Carrie.

Ava was not the only one intrigued by these feathered visitors…. so was Little Buddy…. whom I can’t stop calling Uncle Buddy, by accident. I slip so many times, that David even said it once. He should consider filling out an official name change request soon.

Ava got to spend some time with Uncle David. He tested Ava by showing her a pictures of himself and she passed. She said Day when he pointed to himself in pictures. But when he pointed to himself, Ava didn’t let out a peep. Time for plan B.

While Ava was napping, Uncle David shaved in order to look more he did in those pictures. But Ava slept and slept. She slept so long that we had to wake her up from her nap so it wouldn’t interfere with bedtime. So, David insisted that he get her up to show off Plan B but it backfired. Ava was pissed off when he got her up. Pissed off at him. Pissed off at me. Pissed off at her milk. Pissed off at the world. So, to try to change her mood, we sat around as David played guitar and sang her songs. It took a lot of singing to turn that frown upside down. After an hour or so, David was gone and Ava finally was back to her old self. She walked up to the front door, pointed and repeated Day several times. In the morning, she woke up and the first word she said was Day. I told her that Day wasn’t here but I would let him know that Plan B worked. Big time.

On Saturday night, Ava and I drove back home so we can spend the day with her Dada. They had fun chatting about Dora and Boots.

Dada even gave her another surf lesson. Looking good Ava.

Also this week, Ava got a chance to join Dada in a video conference. Here she is chatting with Jeremy and his new laptop that allows you to throw bubbles over your image. Ava loved pointing and yelling bubbles. But when he changed his appearance so he would be wearing a cartoon werewolf mask, Ava screamed in horror. Nice one Jer. First the tag and now this. Geez.

Ava’s love of the puž muž game was replaced with the DoDo Da game. It involves placing Dora in her purse and walking around the room repeating DoDo Da. DoDo is her car sound and Da is for Dora. Makes sense. Dora is on the move. Oh, and I MUST be holding my purse too and walking around with her. Toddler rules.

I took Ava for a check-up this week, just to make sure she is nice and healthy before our travels. Not only did she pass with flying colors, she also weighs 26 pounds 6 ounces now. Ava was busy babling when the doctor walked into the room and asked if Ava alway talks this much. I said yes and said she has a 40+ word vocabulary. Boy was she impressed. Ava has 7 new words this week. Ready? Here you go: milk, tree, gore (for up), caj (short for car), nani (for bedtime), hot, and kruh (for bread).

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Byeeeee.

As we mentioned in a previous post, Ava is obsessed with 3 of the 26 foam letters we got her in a bag of bath toys.

Q.I.D. That’s them. She wants nothing to do with the other 23 letters. Every night during bath time, she picks them out and more or less ignores the other letters. She probably doesn’t know what those letters mean but she certainly is taking a liking to the shape of them some how. Here is a little video of her picking them out of the crowd.

So, my friend Jeremy tagged me. What does that mean? I have no idea but Mama tells me that it is chain letter for bloggers like me. I should be really mad at him except I can’t be….because he did visit me on the day I came home from the hospital. Who can be mad at a nice guy like that? Even if he really should’ve shaved that day.

So, here is the list of questions I got from him. (And my answers too, duh.)

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
Hmmm, I wasn’t even born yet. But back in 1998, my Mama and Dada were a year out of college and enjoying the good life with their friends. Here is Mama, Mikey, Dan, Michelle and Rudy at Pismo Beach with a bunch of other honkies.

And they spent a lot of time at Sands Beach in Isla Vista with Rudy. Nice mop Dada.

2. Five things on my to do list today?
*Eat waffles and grapes
*Steal food from my friends at school
*Try to drop a load at school so Mama has less wiping to do
*Watch the trains go by our house and yell choo-choo
*Find the letters q, i and d in the bathtub
(In that exact order)

3. Five or so places I have traveled?
*Catalina Island… where I heard about a one-legged chicken
*Tuscon, Arizona… where I went bird watching and riding in ambulances (twice)
*San Felipe, Mexico… where I got black hands
*San Pedro, California… where I get kisses from my great grandparents
*Anthropologie… which my Mama says is her favorite destination

4. Five snacks/treats I enjoy
*Grapes… as I mentioned earlier
*Cheese… which I remember I want only after seeing a picture of it in my favorite book
*Puffs… because it drives Mama crazy that I like non-organic food
*Strawberries… because who doesn’t love strawberries
*QuaQua… which is my way of saying cracker

5. What would I do if I were a billionaire?
What?!? I’m not a billionaire. Oh snap. I guess if I was a billionaire, I would join my Dada on his sailing trip to Tahiti and I would help my Mama feed goats on Hvar.

6. Five bad habits.
*Biting my Mama when she tries to feel for new teeth… she asked for it
*Crying when I get my toenails trimmed… which I learned from watching Yoda
*Watching babies on youtube… I love laughing paper baby, Charlie bit my finger, and the Beside the Seaside song
*Popping bubbles with my mouth… soap tastes good, i swear
*Peeing in the bath tub… it makes Dada laugh and Mama scream

7. Places I have lived.
*In my bedroom
*In our spacious T@b trailer
*In my pack ‘n play, which mostly resides in Day’s old room

8. Jobs I’ve had (kind of in order)
*As a newborn… making tar poop
*As an infant… making poop soup
*As a toddler… making logs

9. People I think should answer these questions (you’ve been tagged!)
Gracie!!!!!!

Hi. I’m Ava and I have a picture crush on my friend Matheus. Every time I see his picture, I MUST kiss it.

So, I got to visit him the other day and we played with his blocks.

My picture crush got a bit more serious after we played because of all his great qualities. He was so patient and taught me how to build a block city…

… and he complemented me on my beautiful flower top.

He even knows magic. Check out his disappearing trick. Pretty cool, huh?

Our first ‘date’ was going fine…

…until his arm touched mine…

…and then he yawned and put his arm around my shoulder…

…and then he pulled me in tighter …

…and tighter…

…ahhh! Our first ‘date’ is O.V.E.R!

****
I knew that I should of stuck with my first real crush, Dada. HAPPY FATHER’S DAY DADA!! I love you mosh everyday.
****

Hey. Turn off the fan. The photo shoot is over. Oh and Ava is now 17 months old.

And what was she doing just as she was turning 17 months? Sleeping at daycare while we were working. So, you have to settle for this after pick-up shot that is a couple hours old… but at least it’s silly.

So, the three of us have fallen for Dora even though we haven’t watched a real episode of it yet. We bought Ava this Dora Magna Doodle board. She loves when Dada draws anything so she can erase it while saying bye-bye to it.

Ava’s new words of the week are: sir (pronounced seer, for cheese), day (for Uncle David ), ssssss (for a snake hissing), cookie (for those things that make our love handles jiggle as we walk), and mosh (which is a combination of more and još; yes, it’s her first merged English-Croatian word and I’m sure it will eventually unmerge but for now it makes Dan and I giggle and we secretly like it even though we probably shouldn’t). And Ava’s new trick of the week is imitating a helicopter blade spin in circles with her hand when she sees one flying overhead.

And if you don’t know, Dora has a monkey friend called Boots. And what was another one of Ava’s new words this week? Boots! It started as ‘Ah Boots’ and after a couple days, she dropped the ‘Ah’ and now only says ‘Boots’.

Why are Ava and her Dada so happy here?

Because Croatia just scored a GOAL! and they kicked Austria and Germany’s butts. Ava really should of been wearing her soccer uniform dress but it’s no longer a dress on her and more like a midriff. Wonder where I can get her a bigger size? Hmmmm. Maybe I will find out in 11 DAYS!!!!

Speaking of vacations, we pretended we were on one this weekend when we ended up at the beach, not once, but twice. The beach is thata way.

The waves at Surfer’s Cove were not as pretty as Dada likes so he left his longboard on the sand and decided that making funny under bite faces was much more fun.

Ava wasn’t stingy with her kisses at the beach. I got plenty of them.

And so did Dan. Ava now puckers up when she gives kisses. No more open mouth frenchies.

Ava is still tolerating the sand pretty well but occasionally likes to wipe the grains off of her feet.

And remove those tiny grains between her toes. Check out that stretch!

And check out my little smartypants. There’s no sand on her feet now but she can still play with it.

Hehe.

But the ocean is still another story. Even though it has ‘bubbles’, Ava still doesn’t like the water to touch her feet. Our Pacific Ocean is not as warm as it might appear.

On Sunday, it was a beach day again. The waves were radical brah so Dan hung ten and did a gnarly barrel or whatever, and Ava and I played in the sand at C-Street. Some random lady walked up to us and asked if she could take a picture with my camera because we looked so darn cute. Thanks weird lady.

A mysterious fog rolled in out of nowhere, so Ava and I retreated to the car where she had a blast listening to Novi Split and pretending she was driving.

And when dinner time rolled around, Ava gladly hoped in the trunk and ate her pasta with peas.

And no Sunday is complete without the comics…

… and a scoop of gelato, which Ava refused to eat. I’m sure that won’t be the case for long. Ummm, more for me. Yeah.

Ava rediscovered her house slippers this week. They were so fun to wear for some reason.

And we also gave in and bought her a pair of princess shoes.

Ava and I have a silly game we play that we call ‘Puž muž’. I walk and drag her snail, she follows me holding her bird cage and we walk around the house as I try to remember the words to the Puž muž song. At the end of the song, I turn around and try to catch her, which ends in tickles. Ava runs pretty fast when I try to catch her. But now with these new princess shoes, she slowly strolls during the running portion. It’s going to take her some time to be able to run in these, I think.

In the bath tub the other night, I brought out our new bath bubbles which had a wand it in. Ava had a blast popping the bubbles I blew. When I asked Ava to give blowing bubbles a try, she blew bubbles. The three of us were so surprised, we all started giggling and yelling ‘mosh’. Hehe. We tried to recreate the moment outside the next day but the wind foiled our plan.

So Dan and I took turns blowing bubbles so Ava can pop them. Oh, did I forget to mention how Ava likes to pop bubbles? With her mouth. Yum.

We also bought Ava some stick-on letters for the tub. For the past two days, out of all 26 letters, Ava holds on to the same three. Q. I. D. She doesn’t let go of them once she finds them. And if another letter sticks to those three, she freaks out trying to get them to unstick from her favorite three letters. Q.I.D. Notice that I didn’t spell it as D.I.Q?

At daycare, Ava seems to split her time between the older kid side and the younger kid side. On the younger kid side, Ava likes hanging out with her friend, Ava R, who is actually older than her by a couple months.

And Ava R likes hanging out with us when we show up at pick-up time. Here she is hanging out on my lap. We have been buddies since our Ava was 3 months old.

Ok. Enough chit chat. Here is Ava’s new trick. Ready?

TADA!

Hi Grace. Thanks so much for having me over for a spot of tea. Can you fill up my pink tea cup please? I sure am parched.

Gulp gulp gulp.

WOW. That’s what I am taking about. My turn.

Can believe our little Ava is now 72 weeks old? The idea of it is making me cross-eyed too.

So, our worst nightmare has come true. Ava started to say mine. Ahhhh. Dan and I purposely avoid saying that word around Ava but at the end, it didn’t matter. We are so careful of saying that word, that I think we drop the ‘s’ and ‘f’ bomb around her way more than that dreaded ‘m’ word. I blame daycare for all of this . The weird thing is… she says it instead of saying more. Here is Ava asking for mine cartoons… instead of more cartoons. Ahhh.

Ava started to cross her index and middle finger. She is very impressed with her new found ability. I hope this doesn’t mean she is going to start lying to us… and when we catch her in a lie, she will say ‘but I had my fingers crossed’. Someone grab a brown paper bag quick… I’m hyperventilating.

Here is Ava looking at a picture of her Dida Slavo in her horsey picture book. She loves pointing and asking ‘what’s that?’ even though she knows exactly who it is. She went through a little phase of looking for Nicole’s pictures and so she can say Cole. But that phase disappeared once she developed her first picture crush. That’s right. She has a picture crush on Matheus. Every time she sees his photo, she kisses him. It never fails. Someone grab a brown paper bag quick… Dan’s hyperventilating.

Most of the time when we ask Ava to kiss us she says no. So sad. But when I ask her to kiss anything else, she doesn’t protest.

Sometimes the air in our house gets more kisses. So sad. So so sad. I think it is part of her new phase of saying no. When we used to asked Ava a question, she would always nod yes. And now that has been replaced with a firm no. Even when I know she wants to answer yes, like if she wants to eat cheese, she still says no. I have to ask her several times until she eventually stops answering no and just gives us a blank stare. Ok, now you can have cheese. And give it a kiss too while you are at it.

Continuing with more new tricks, Ava’s itsy bitsy spider is getting better. She is trying to make the sun sign now too, in addition to the spider sign. And when you ask her what a lion says, she roars and scratches the air with her hand. She picked that up at daycare. And her new obsession (besides trains and airplanes) is motorcycles. When Ava sees one on the road or on tv, she says vroom and reeves up the engine using her fake handlebars. I taught her that one. And I hate motorcycles. Go figure.

As I mentioned in an earlier post this week, Ava started to say another new word too. Rudy. It is so funny when she says it because she shakes her bottom jaw when she says it. She also started to say poo instead of kaka. And when she says poo, she proceeds to grab the front of her diaper. How ladylike. Hehe. But Ava’s biggest milestone of the week is her new ability to put two words together. Do two words make a sentence? I think so. Ava nows says sentences. Ha! The first time she did it, Dan and I were in the kitchen with her watching videos of babies on YouTube (her new obsession). Through the open window, we heard the neighbor start his truck and Ava said ByeBye DooDoo. We both started cracking up. DooDoo in Ava talk means car. As the week progressed she started putting together more words, like Shoes Dada, Hi Nona and Hi Dida.

And if Ava doesn’t know how to say a word, she nods her head and tells you who it belongs to. Like if ask her say boat, she will nod and say Dada. And my favorite? If you point to wine, Ava nods and says Dada. I taught her that one and it makes us giggle. And when I say us, I mean Ava and me. Not Dan. Dan doesn’t think it’s funny one bit. Weird.

We are still enjoying our afternoon walks together. She loves exploring and pointing. She never complains. But this week, we had a complaint. She freaked out when she noticed that there was dirt on the sidewalk. She didn’t want to walk on top of it. I had to whisk my little princess up and place her back down when the sidewalk was clean once again. Oh boy.

I have some sad news. Ava’s favorite neighbor cat has passed away. Her name was Rosie and she passed mysteriously on Thursday morning. All day yesterday, Yoda was peeking through all the windows of the house looking for her. I kept looking for her on our back porch. She used to sleep on our back porch chair cushions when the sun warmed them up enough for a nap. On the last day we saw her, Rosie was sitting under a palm in our neighbor’s yard. Like usual, Ava and I called out ‘meow meow’ to get her attention. On this day, Rosie got up right away and ran to us. It was like she was skipping. I thought to myself in that moment, how lucky we were to have such a great friend that is always tolerant of Ava’s petting and meowing.

Goodbye Rosie. Thanks for your kindness. We’ll truly miss you.

And to continue with the sadness, we lost seven of the eight house finch babies in the past couple weeks. There is some strange thing going on with all the rehabbed house finches in Southern California and we were not immune to its strike. We did get some new babies. A goldfinch and a mystery baby, which we are betting is a Hermit Thrush. We also got a nest full of just born babies, which are most likely finches too based on their never-ending appetites. I placed them on a drug protocol and will hopefully survive the strike. All 5 of them.

To get our minds off our losses, we hit up the Olive Garden because “When you are here, you’re family”. And ‘our’ family makes pretty good bread sticks. Very authentic, I’m sure.

After stuffing our faces with bolognese and bottomless salad, we stopped by Babies R Us to pick up a new travel stroller. I had researched the perfect stroller. It was small, compact, sturdy, and perfect for cobblestones. But once we got there, Dan picked one that he liked better, based on his zero minutes of research, and placed Ava in it. Then he showed her how it reclined, where to put her sippy cup and how fun it was to peek at each other through the tiny window built into the shade. After he was done with his stroller Disneyland demonstration, I placed her in my stroller and she slide out of it so fast and didn’t want to get in it because Dada’s was so much more fun. You win this time, Dan. You win THIS time.

On Friday night, the boys ‘volunteered’ to babysit so Michelle and I could go to the movie premiere of Sex and the City. As soon as we got to their house, Grace pulled out all of her dress up accessories. Ava looked a bit overwhelmed.

But Grace showed her the ropes. Princess shoes? Check.

Another pair of princess shoes because Grace changed her mind? Check. Princess purse? Check check.

Princess bracelet? Check. Then, they started walking around the ottoman. Every time they got to where we were sitting, we could say ‘Hey Ladies’ and Grace would repeat it back to us. Ava didn’t say one word back to us or even try too. She was too busy trying to perfect her high heel walking skills. Ummm, good luck with that Ava. I still haven’t perfected mine. Can you say flats?

On Saturday, we had a few good friends come up to visit and to get ready for Rodrigo’s surprise party. Ava had fun pointing at Mikey and asking me to say his name. Every time she heard me say Mikey, Ava danced like a monkey. Lol. She thought I said monkey each time I said his name. Close enough, Ava. Close enough.

Ava also had a blast hanging out with Carrie. Ava loved her locket and spent a lot of time asking her to open it so she could see pictures of Darla and Susan. After lots of woofs and meows, Ava walked over to Carrie and gave her a huge hug. I think that might of been her first thank you hug.

On Saturday night, Michelle and her 8 month pregnant belly was kind enough to volunteer for babysitting duty. Ava had no complaints. She was a dress up pro now. I tried to pose the ladies with Molly for a cute picture. This is as close as I got.

Hmmm. These might be just one size too big. Ok, maybe two or twelve sizes too big.

On Saturday night, I made sure that Grace and Ava took a bath together before bedtime. Because on Friday night, Dan put her to bed without a bath as planned. But as soon as Ava heard the water run for Grace’s bath, she stood up in her pack and play, outstretched her arms and cried bubbles bubbles.

As soon as Ava was fast asleep, I joined Dan and our friends for the celebration. Happy Birthday Rodrigo! Look what you missed out on.

Alright. It’s never-ending dress up time at home again. Bye!