First Beach Day of 2011

Sunday, June 5th was the perfect 25 degree beach day. We packed up and headed to Grand Bend for the day. Ava loved the sand and was content to play and crawl around a bit. We ended up staying for 4 hours. Everyone was happy and had fun! We left at 3:30, and both kids slept on the drive home.

Beach momma and beach baby!

Ava was quite the social butterfly. She was crawling to other people, and especially liked the university students laying in front of us. She crawled to their volleyball. They were nice and let her play with it.
It was also an extra special day, as our little Ava took her first steps (well more than 2 in a row). Daddy was there to see it this time! So, for the baby book she is almost 14 months old, and her brother was 14.5 months.

Ava's First Birthday!!!

Ava getting ready for her first birthday party!

On Friday we gave her a basketball net for her gift. She loves playing "ball".

Anthony thought it'd be a good idea to set her net up in front of his bigger net.

Anthony is giving his sister a hug here. He's come a long way since last year and now they are playing nicely most of the time.

Happy 1st Birthday Ava!

Our baby girl turned ONE year old on Friday! The first birthday is always extra special to me. There's so much change from the beginning of your life as a newborn to an almost walking 1 year old. Ed and I like to invite the whole family over for the celebration. Saturday around lunch time our place, which is 1300 sq feet was getting comfortably crowded - (thank God we like eachother) with 10 adults, 3 teenagers, 1 preschooler and 2 babies.

Unfortunately, my sister and her husband couldn't make it, because my niece was sick in the night. My parents couldn't either. They just left on vacation with two other couples to Florida. I'm sure we'll have another little celebration on my side of the family when they get back. My cousin Stacey came with her little guy Brody (18 mths), which was a nice playdate for my birthday girl. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I made a fruit and veggie tray and we ordered pizza. I decided to make cupcakes instead of cake. I know other years there is always so much cake leftover. Anthony finished off the last cupcake today! I'll post some pictures soon!

The Past 9 Months

December

November

October

September

August

July

June

May

April 8th







I was 37 weeks here....didn't know at the time but I would be holding my baby 3 days from then. Looking back at this picture, I am still shocked at how HUGE I got. I was pretty uncomfortable and my feet were swelling up a lot. I put them up and the swelling would go down, then they'd swell right back up as soon as I got up.