The Veldmans: It's been awhile

I think back to how I used to try to blog every 2-3 days when Ava was first born. Now I see that it's been a week and half since I last updated. I don't know where the time goes. I suppose it could be that Ava has us constantly running around doing puzzles and reading books that there's not a lot of extra time until the end of the day when we're exhausted. Every day with Ava is exciting. She is like a sponge and is talking so much. I swear that she has a new word every day. It's the little things that she says that make my day though. The other day on the way home she told me that she was "done cup", I took it from her and she said, "thank you mommy". I hope that she'll always be that polite. I worked my 12 hour night shifts this weekend. I was tired when I got home Sunday morning at 8:00. I pulled into the garage and saw the door to the house open. There stood Ava proclaiming "Mommy's home" with a huge smile on her face. Life doesn't get much better than that! She's now singing "rock-a-bye baby" all the time, and loves to sing "L-M-N-O-P". For some reason she can't get the ABC down, but loves L-M-N-O-P. I'm still working on getting her to play by herself. That doesn't go over very well. She'll usually come up to me and say "hand, walk this way" as she takes me hand and leads me over to her puzzles or whatever she wants to play with.

Ava has had some quality time with Grandma the past week and half. A week and half ago I left the cities on Friday afternoon and headed south. I spent Friday evening in DeSoto at my sister's. I got to watch Zackery play in the band during half time of the football game. I had to laugh when we got to the game. It's a very small town outside of Des Moines. Football is obviously very popular there, as I felt like I was in the movie Friday Night Lights. Brent & Lisa's neighbors went and saved our seats at 3:30 that afternoon for a game that started at 7:30. It was a great time though, and the weather was fabulous.

Saturday morning I got to meet up with our friends Erin & Kevin for breakfast. It was great to see them and catch up, even it if was for only a short period of time. I then headed to Ames for a get together with my high school girlfriends. We've been doing these get togethers for the past couple of years, and decided that this year would be just us...no husbands or kids. I have been friends with these girls since we were freshmen in high school. They are an amazing group of women and I feel blessed to have them in my life. We had a great time laughing and catching up. I'll be looking forward to our get together next year. Before heading home Sunday I got to have lunch with my cousin Kristin who is getting married next Sept. It was great to see her, catch up on her wedding plans, as well as everything else that's going on in her life. She's a senior at IA State and has such an exciting year ahead of her. It was so nice to be able to see so many people while I was in IA.

While I was away Ava had plenty of people to love on her. Lauryn came over on Friday to watch Ava. Saturday she spent the day with Grandma while Daddy & Boppa went to the cabin to finish up the railing on the deck. Sunday it was back to Grandma & Boppa's after church.

This weekend Nate and Ava were kicked out of the house during the day so that I could try to sleep. Boppa, Nate, and Ava left for "Nana Day" as Ava called it on Saturday morning. She told me that she was going "with the boys" to see Nana in Hollandale. From what I hear it was a great time. She keeps telling me that she saw Aunt "Sue" and ate "cake". I have no doubt that she had a great time. I know that Daddy enjoyed getting to see everybody in Hollandale. Sunday morning they were off to church and then Ava hung with Grandma & Boppa while Daddy went golfing.

Ava was off to daycare today while I tried to get a little sleep. I hate working nights for many reasons, but one of them is because I have to pay for a day of daycare so that I can sleep. I guess it's just part of the job. I'm off tomorrow and am looking forward to tomorrow evening. Ava has her first "Musikgarten" class. The classes are once a week for 8 weeks. I'm doing it with a group of women and their kids from our church. I think that Ava will really enjoy it. It's dancing, singing, playing instruments, etc. I'm looking forward to spending that time with her doing something new. I'll keep you posted on how it goes. Maybe she'll hate it, just like she hated the camel and pony rides that we talked about for weeks. :)