Little Lins!

If you are bored and want to try to create a do-it-yourself dollhouse, this is the project for you!

It’s guaranteed to bring hours and hours of fun.

Promise.

Hello. Our little Mila is now 2 weeks old. Yeah!

So… you are probably wondering what a 2 week old does all day long. Well, here it goes. Mila is a big sleepyhead. Seriously. Sleep sleep sleep.

I have to beg her to wake up. Hello there Mila. Please play with me.

As soon as she wakes up, she gives me her feed me face.

And this is Mila after she gets milk. She gets a drunk smile…

… and then passes out again.

Mila sleeps in her stroller bassinet. It’s really convenient because I can wheel her from one room to the other. During the day I have her set up in the living room, behind what Ava calls the  ‘Mama couch‘.

She loves sleeping with her hands above her head. (Ignore the mattress pad cover please. I had her sheets in the wash.)

I don’t really put her anywhere else to sleep… like the couch.

For obvious safety issues… and for little attachment that shows up as soon as I put Mila down.

My sweet girls.

Time for a little summary of this week’s changes. Mila still has these fine, downy body hairs called lanugo on her face, back, limbs and ears. They will eventually fall off but they seem to be a lot lighter on Mila than I remember on Ava.

And last week I said that Mila wasn’t peeling. I take it back. Here are her peeling hands…

… and feet…

… and belly too.

Oh, did you notice? Her belly button stub fell off on her 10th day. In the middle of the night. During a diaper change. And yes, I was scared to touch it.

And her hair is already sticking up. She is going to have that famous ‘I stuck my finger in a light socket‘ look in no time at all! Hehe.

And now it’s time for Mila’s firsts. I’ve started to put her in the baby bouncer seat. She tolerates for a minute or two before she starts crying. It will probably be more useful once she can actually see  more clearly.

We also took Mila to her first restaurant in town. Snapper Jacks for fish tacos. The nice thing about taking Mila out is that she sleeps through our entire outing. No joke. I keep her covered with the blanket the entire time (except for photo ops, of course). She doesn’t even know that we’ve left the house.

And we took her out for her very first trip to Target. It takes a lot longer to get two kids in and out of the car. Luckily Dada is there to hold both girls so I can get ready for…

… my new baby carrier. I love it. So far so good. No back pain yet. We’ll see if that still holds true once Mila bulks up. And the other nice thing about baby carriers in public? It hides the excess weight that will take a while to shake off. I gained 55 pounds with this pregnancy again… Mila weighed 9 pounds 1 ounce. You do the math.

Ava and I also took Mila out for her very first walk around the block. Yup, she slept through the whole thing once again.

Mila is usually awake for two longer periods during the day. Once around noon. And once around nightfall. Which worked out perfect this week. She was up to catch Deets (aka Uncle David… aka Novi Split) have his song Hollow Notes premiere on One Tree Hill. Yeah Deets!!! Go buy his hit single on iTunes now.

Not sure why but my kids have strong necks from the get go. Go Mila go!

On Tuesday, Mila scared the crap out of us for a bit. She stopped eating well for almost 12 hours. She stopped dirtying her diapers. And she puked bright yellow stuff all over Dan. Poor thing. Mila, not Dan. So here I am with Mila. Up way too late. Just staring at each other. Waiting for her to get back to her normal self again. Which she did. Thank God.

The next day she was back to her old self… and Ava was there to hug her.

To thank Ava for all the hugs, Mila will occasionally try to latch onto Ava for some milk. What is Mila doing to my arm, Mama?!?!

At last but not least… here is a little something to bring a smile to your face today. This picture is AWESOME! Right? Right! Bye.

Hi. I’m Ava. Welcome to Gull Wings Children’s Museum.

Check me out in this cool kitchen. Who wants some coffee? Raise your hand.

Dada, you better eat everything off of your plate. I slaved in this kitchen all day making you plastic toast!

Oh oh. Time to go in the ambulance. I’ve been in these things… twice.

Everything sounds just fine, Grace.

Let me check you, okay?

Ummmm…. Uncle Buddy? What are you doing all the way in Oxnard?

Time to go on my very first climbing wall. Thanks for helping Dada. These rocks are slippery.

Oh oh. I’m now in a dark cave. And my dress is glowing! Spooky.

Luckily my Dada saved the day with a flashlight he pulled out of his purse bag.

Time to go shopping for some food. I wonder if I can sneak out of here without paying?

And one of my favorite things at the museum was playing the triangle. Who wants to start a band with me?

I had a blast at the museum. So did my Dada. All of a sudden, he was standing in front us with a fireman hat on…

… and then he came back with a mask…

… and then he had a jacket too! I guess this Children’s Museum is a Dada Museum too. Hehe.

Hello. In case you didn’t notice, we’ve switched website names. Although www.avalin.net still works, you will now be redirected to www.AvaAndMila.com. So update your links. Thanks.

Hi. I’m Ava and this is my little sister Mila.

Oh oh Mama!!

Mila has no eyebrows!!!!!!

She’s silly.

I have eyebrows… don’t I?

Hi. Big sister Ava is now 138 weeks old!

Ava’s week began with a trip to the hospital to pick up Mila and me. She had fun playing with the remote control bed, eating my leftover sweet potatoes, and playing the pretend piano that Dada drew for her. Piano, you ask? She is currently obsessed with a Deets’ song that has a piano solo in it.

She was more than excited to help get Mila ready and take her home.

And immediately insisted to hold her new little sister.

When we got home, things didn’t go so smoothly. Even with the new big sister princess dress that Grace bought her. She started to melt. It was way past her ‘quiet time’ hour. There was just too much excitement. Melt. Down. Poor Grace. She has to listen to Ava say ‘No Grace… my sister‘ when she got too close to Mila. Thankfully, that only happened once. Only when we first brought Mila home.

Ava has been so loving with Mila right off the bat. She likes to say ‘Baby wants to sit by to me‘ a lot.

She’ll kiss and hug and stare at her for a bit and then will ask to hold her.

After a few seconds, she will announce ‘Okay, I’m all done‘.

Now that I don’t have a baby in my belly anymore, I can pick up Ava again. You would think she would want non-stop hugs and kisses now. But no. She saves most of her kisses and hugs for Mila now. Not us. And we were worried Ava would be the jealous one? Ha!

We do try to spend special time with Ava when we can. Like Dada and Ava bike rides. Or Mama and Ava reading time. It’s easy to do now because Mila is so small and sleeps all day long. I’m sure it will be harder to balance special time once Mila starts interacting more.

Everyone has been so thoughtful of Ava. She’s gotten a lot of big sister gifts. Like this magnetic art board from Barba Frank. When I asked her to give me a thumbs up if she likes it, I got this. Hehe. Ava has been a handful for the past few weeks now. The worst of it peaked the day before we left for the hospital. But during Barba Frank’s visit on the 3rd day of Mila’s life, Ava started to turn the corner. For a few hours that afternoon, our old Ava was back. It was so nice. And ever since that afternoon, her attitude has been changing for the better. Yeah.

Oh, and Ava now knows that visitors also equal chocolate. It’s a girl chocolate cigars to be exact.

Before Mila was born, Ava liked to say ‘I’m going to share my toys with baby‘… and after a few days, she did. Let’s see how long that lasts once Mila starts grabbing things. Hehe.

During my pregnancy, Ava insisted that we were having a girl. She kept saying that she had a little sister. I’m so glad that her wish (and ours) came true.

Now that Ava is starting to act like her old self again and is not in and out of time-outs all day long, she gets to play with new art supplies. Because new art supplies are for good girls… not bad girls. Here are Nona and Ava enjoying art and sunshine outside.

Later that day, Ava jumped into my bed and pulled up my comforter… and then announced that this was her wedding dress. Silly girl.

And then she told Nona and me that she was going to marry Dada. I then told Dada what she said and she got really embarrassed. Oh oh. Wrong move Mama.  But luckily Nona saved the day by saying it’s just girl talk. She was okay with that. Now you may kiss the bride.

Dada joined us later on the bed and told him her name was Miss Alice and that we have to listen to her. Oh boy.

And then Miss Alice went to the hallway and knocked on Tinkerbell’s door. But she wasn’t home. And speaking of Tinkerbell, that is what Ava wants to be for Halloween. She has never watched Tinkerbell on TV but she still loves her. So strange how that happens.

On Tuesday, we took Ava to school…

… and she came back home with a 102 degree fever. Ahhhhh!!!! Motrin time.

So then we had to figure out how to tell Ava not to touch Mila anymore. So we told her she could hug…

… and kiss… but not on lips. And to not scare Ava from Mila forever, we told her that Mila has a boo boo on her lip. That’s why she can’t kiss her on her lips. LIES! Shame on us! Well sorta. Mila does have a nursing blister on her lip. Does that count?

So if you read this blog often, you know how the rest of this story goes… no school, lots of pajama pictures, art time…

… and silly eating pictures. Here is Ava with her Mac ‘n Cheese choo choo train.

On Mila’s 5th day at home, Ava was finally a good girl for most of the day… and I got to finally give her my big sister present. A Snow White dress-up set.

And Dada gave her his. A big sister Dora play set for her dollhouse.

There was lots of princess time too. Here is Ava dancing with Prince Dada. Her words. Not mine.

And we watched Deets singing the Chicken song  a lot online… and she wanted to spin like the little girl in the video.

And later in the week, he showed up and she got to dance with him in person. How cute is this picture?!?!?!

And a visit from Deets meant that Nona was going home. After they left, she spent a couple days asking if Nona and Deets are coming back soon.

And then she had another fit. She started asking if Rudy was coming home soon. I told her that Rudy was up in the sky with the angels. But she didn’t like the answer I gave her. So she kept crying and crying for Rudy. It really sucked. My hormones didn’t like it one bit.

Eventually things quieted down. This is what our house looks like during the day. Mila sleeping in her bassinet. Ava trying to peek over couch and trying to convince me that Mila is awake… so she can hug and kiss her some more.

Oh. And BIG news. Deets (a.k.a Novi Split) has a song on the season premiere of One Tree Hill tonight. Channel 5 at 8 pm. Watch it. His song ‘Hollow Notes’ will appear during some flashback beach scene. YEAH DEETS!!!! Bye!!

Hi. I’m Princess Ava and this my little sister Mila.

Isn’t she cute?

I love to kiss her.

And hold her hand.

And watch TV with her.

And gaze into her gray eyes.

And whisper secrets into her ear.

Oh… and I love giving her Eskimo kisses.

Eskimo kisses make me giggle.