17 months old…
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!
