Tantrums and a tummy

The title of this post is what's been going on in this house over the past week.  That is, a tummy for me and tantrums for Ava (ok, maybe I've had a couple of tantrums as well).  We'll start with the tummy...

No, I don't have any belly pictures to post.  I'll be honest, I think that I look better at this point in dim light rather than a bright flash drawing attention to my oddly proportioned body.  I had to break out the maternity clothes for the first time this past week.  Yes, I pulled on the ruched short sleeve shirt.  My mom and I went shopping a couple of weekends ago for maternity clothes while she was here.  I hate shopping for maternity clothes for so many reasons.  I must say that the top two reasons are
1. I hate spending money on clothes that I'm going to wear for only a few short months.
2. Why must everything have either ruching or the shirt ties in the back?!?  The ruching I have come to embrace because I have to.  The ties in the back, I just can't do it.  They scream "look at my belly  and let's accentuate my growing breasts while we're at it".  I don't need something to make me look more pregnant than I already am.  Granted, one would think that I would like to accentuate my growing breasts since I only have them for a few short months during my entire life.  However, I've also come to embrace the fact that I don't have boobs and am quite comfortable with it.  Still don't need the ties!

I feel as though the belly has expanded this weekend (I'm sure that the multiple cookie bars that I made and ate at work didn't help).  This means that I'm most likely going to have to bust out the maternity shorts.  Yep, the ones that don't have buttons or zippers, only a giant piece of stretchy fabric that goes up and over the belly.  Nothing makes you feel sexy like a pair or maternity pants. 

Now, on to the tantrums.  I have to say that today was tantrum free so I can't say that this is an everyday thing, but it has become quite frequent.  This is where I tell Ava that we have to go inside or do something that she obviously doesn't want to.  She'll bend over at the waist, squat down to the ground, and start yelling.  Now, I don't really acknowledge it much.  I just pick her up and go on, trying to explain why we must do something.  However, sometimes this is impossible.   For instance, the other night when she wanted to wear her clothes to bed rather than change her diaper and put her jammies on.  This was not just a tantrum, this was a full blown meltdown.  There was the kicking, screaming, pushing, and sobbing to point where I was fairly certain she was going to vomit.  After a mommy & daddy team effort we got the diaper changed, pjs on, and daddy got her calmed down.  I guess she did something similar to this at the cabin this past weekend for Mema & Boppa.  The thing is, the next minute she can be the sweetest little girl (the one that we are used to).  Perhaps it's because she senses a lot of change going on in our house.  I'm not sure, but the changes aren't going to stop anytime soon so I hope that she finds a better coping mechanism. 

The cabin

Last Friday we packed our bags and set out on our first trip to the cabin this summer.  We started out late in hopes of missing some of the traffic.  We were doing great until we hit the construction zone.  Unfortunately that set our total trip time back to 3 1/2 hours.  Fortunately, Ava slept for half that time.  She slept until about 9:30, when she opened her eyes she said, "look at all those lights".  Unfortunately, most of them were brake lights.  She got her second wind and was ready to rock and roll when we arrived to the cabin at 10:45.  She made sure to wake up Mema & Boppa so that they knew she was there.  After a few stories she went down for the night. 

Saturday morning Daddy headed out on the lake early to fish with our neighbor Jeremy.  He came home telling the tale of a big fish.  So, we all went over to see the "big fish" (that Jeremy caught, not Daddy).  After that, the rain began.  It rained  on and off throughout the day.  The boys did manage to get the pontoon lift in, and we then all headed over to the public access to put the pontoon in and take our first boat ride of the year.  Daddy had brought popcorn for the ride.  Ava now thinks that every time that we go on a boat ride, popcorn is a must.  That's ok, food is usually a must for us when we go out on the pontoon.

We woke up to thunderstorms on Sunday morning.  Daddy, Ava, and I made pancakes and sausage for breakfast.  That girl can house her pancakes!  We got a little play time in outside before we packed up to head home.  I had to work on Memorial Day so I had to come home early.  Daddy and Ava decided to join me since the weather was not very nice. 

Tuesday Nate and I went out in search for a house...no success.  It was a crappy day at work for the both of us, we did not find a house, but we came home with something...a "Sold" sign.  Good news, our appraisal came back at exactly what we needed it to.  Therefore, our house is officially sold!  The buyers wanted to close at the end of June, but since we're still homeless (Ava and I went and looked again today) we'll be closing at the end of July to give us a little more time.  I've got pictures of Ava and Daddy with the sign that I'll post next time. 

This is what Ava wanted to wear as we packed for the cabin.   I think she likes her new cabin hat.  She also loves to wear her backpack around.  I think that it makes her feel like Dora.

 Watering her flower that she and Mema planted

 Swinging on the big girl swing

Ava & Janna getting ready to get on the boat for the maiden voyage of the year

Ava checking out all the controls.  She takes her job as co-captain very seriously

Enjoying some popcorn and snuggle time

As you can see by the fact that Ava has on a sweatshirt and a raincoat, the weather left a bit to be desired

Enjoying a little story time.

Weekend with Grandma

This past weekend Daddy left for his "trip"  He left Thursday evening with "the guys" for his annual golf weekend to Giants Ridge.  It was just Ava and me until Friday evening when Grandma Becker showed up.  She met us in Apple Valley where Ava and I were checking out a model home.  She got there just in time...Ava was being a bit "busy" to put it nicely.  Grandma and Ava played so that I was able to discuss a few options with the lady working there.  Yes, we are still homeless come the end of July.  The buyers of our place have graciously offered us the option of closing at the end of July rather than June.  Considering we have no idea where we're going to be, we took them up on the offer.  I'm praying that we'll find something soon!

Saturday brought us beautiful weather so we headed out to the Como Zoo as soon as it opened.  Ava has not yet stopped talking about all the animals that she saw.  She had such a great time.  I think that her favorite was the polar bear, coming in just ahead of the giraffes.  We'll be going back there again soon.  We headed home for nap time, and then took a trip to the mall for the rest of the evening.  After dinner we all crashed.

Sunday morning we stayed in, had pancakes and smoothies for breakfast per Ava's request, and played.  We later went over to Plymouth to show Grandma a model home that we like (no, we're not moving to Plymouth).  We picked up some Chipotle for lunch and headed home.  The weather was rainy, cold, and windy so Daddy and the guys decided to forgo golfing that day and head home.  Ava was very excited to see him when he walked in the door.  Shortly after lunch Grandma had to head home.  We thank her for coming!  We had a lot of fun, and I really appreciated the extra help and company over the weekend.

This week has been filled with work and house hunting.  We'll be heading up to the cabin for the weekend (a short weekend for me since I work Monday).  Hopefully it will be a fun, relaxing weekend.  Wishing you all a fun and safe Memorial Day weekend!

Grandma & Ava getting ready to head into the zoo.  Ava is grinning ear to ear!

Sitting back and enjoying the ride

Checking out the buffalo

She was mesmerized by the polar bear who kept jumping in the water and swimming by

Shaking the penguins hand and saying "nice to meet you"

Ava, Mommy, & Grandma

Even though her face may not show it, she asked to ride on the giraffe.

What an exciting week

It has been a very busy and exciting week.  Two Fridays ago we met with our realtor and signed papers to put our house on the market.  Last weekend Mema & Boppa were nice enough to stay home from the cabin to help us actually get the house ready.  It's amazing how much crap you accumulate in your house that you never use.  Needless to say, there were two large garbage cans fulls and multiple boxes sent to Goodwill.  We took down lots of pictures and "depersonalized" the place as much as we felt comfortable.  I still wanted it to feel like our home.  After a long day of cleaning, packing, throwing away, and some take out chinese we were all exhausted.  We finished up a few things on Sunday, and the photographer came on Monday to take pictures.  It actually feels nice to be living in a very clean and organized house.  :) 

The house went on the market sometime Wednesday, and we had our first two showings on Friday afternoon.  By Friday evening we were told that an offer had been sent to our realtor, and that the other people would be submitting an offer on Saturday.  WOW...who would have thought?!?  We got both offers by yesterday afternoon, and signed an agreement last evening.  God is good!!!  Now we are just praying that the appraisal of our house comes back at the purchase price.  We will most likely not know anything until next week.  We would be closing at the end of June, but have the option to stay here until the end of July if we have not found something.  I'm hoping that the "perfect place" pops up on the market very soon.  We never expected things to move along this quickly, and are so grateful (and a little overwhelmed I have to admit).  I will breath a little easier and be even more excited once we get the appraisal done. 

We did find some time to have a little fun this past week between the house stuff and working.  Ava and I got to have a play date with Cora and Kristi.  Ava loves Miss Cora, and spends a lot of time calling her on her pretend phone.  We spent a gorgeous morning at the park and had some lunch before we went our separate ways for nap time.  It was so great to see them and catch up.  Thanks for a fabulous morning ladies!

This week will be pretty low key, as I'm working 4 out of 5 days (for some silly reason I picked up a Friday shift for somebody).  So, Ava will be spending some quality time with her friends at day care.  Uncle Wes & Janna will be coming over next Saturday for their first adventure in babysitting.  We have our friends Brian & Marissa's wedding, so they are on babysitting duty.  Say a little prayer for Ava.  :)

Helping Mommy do a little baking.  Ava has become quite the little helper

I would love just one picture where both girls are looking at the camera.  This is the best I could do.  Cora was such a lover and so full of hugs this day.  So sweet (and how cute are those pigtails of hers)!

She loved playing on a new playground

Ava spends hours concocting new ice cream combinations and sharing them with everybody.  Great gift Janna!

What could be more comfy than enjoying a nice book in the laundry basket?

The truth

We've all noticed that the frequency of updates on here has decreased significantly in the past few months.  Part of it is that our life just isn't that exciting.  The other reason is that I have not been feeling well over the past few months.  The reason why...

We have another thumb sucker

That's right, Baby V #2 will be making his or her arrival sometime around Oct. 21st. 

Ava appears to be excited about this, and likes telling people that she's going to be a " big brother".  What she means is that she wants a baby brother.  Even before we found out we were expecting Ava told me one day that she wanted a baby brother.  I asked her if a baby sister would be ok.  She adamantly said, "no, a baby brother".  She has not changed her mind about this either.  We could be in trouble!!!  We are still undecided as to if we will find out the sex of the baby during our ultrasound.  We didn't with Ava.  I think that all of this will be a shock, and a bit of a blow to Ava's ego.  She is definitely used to being the center of attention no matter where we go.  Hopefully we can go from everything being "mine" to sharing.  This girl even dreams selfishly.  A few nights this past week she must have had the same dream.  She'll be sleeping and say, "no, no, stop, that's mind".  Sad but true!

The past few months have been a bit rough as far as sickness goes.  I believe that it's better than when I was pregnant with Ava, Nate disagrees.  Luckily I haven't had the extreme exhaustion that I had with Ava.  I don't get to come home from work and take naps this time around.  I do usually hit the couch after dinner though, and Nate takes over Daddy duty.

With another baby on the way we would really like to get a bigger place.  Our current place has three bedrooms, but we would really like a fourth for when we have family in town.  We would also like a better layout with a toy room and a bit more living space.  With that being said, we're planning on putting our place on the market next week.  I'm praying that it sells and that we find something that suits us a bit better as a growing family.  However, I'm going to try not to stress myself out about it.  We will fit in this house and we don't HAVE to move.  It would just be really nice.  So, say a few prayers for us as we start this journey as well. 

Next time I'll put more updated pictures of Ava on here.  I still have some to download to the computer.  Just  thought I'd share the big news, and explain the lack of updates.  Thanks for checking in with us!

Easter

We hope that you all had a wonderful Easter weekend. This year we spent Easter in De Soto at Aunt Lisa & Uncle Brent's house. We loaded up the Traverse Friday morning with Mema, Boppa, the three of us, and all our luggage. Poor Mema got stuck in the back. We made a few stops on the way down, which helped to break up the trip. We got to stop and see Nana in Hollandale. We hadn't seen her for quite some time. She of course had yummy homemade treats waiting for us when we arrived. We then stopped in Clear Lake for a quick lunch. Our next stop...Tom & Judy's. Unfortunately we didn't have a lot of time to visit with them, as we had to get to Aunt Lisa's to dye eggs. Ava had a great time playing at Tom & Judy's for the short time that we were there. She loved the kitty, and managed to drag out every single toy that they have. It was great to see them, even if it was for only a short bit. Mema & Boppa stayed there while we went on to De Soto.

Grandma Great, Aunt Lori, Zacky, and Reece greeted us at Aunt Lisa's. We were so happy to see everybody. Ava quickly put on some of Reece's "paint clothes" so that we could dye eggs. She was interested for about 5 minutes. Then she was off to play and read books.

Saturday morning Aunt Darlene, Great Grandma, and Grandma B surprised us and showed up at Aunt Lisa's. As soon as they arrived we left for a big Easter egg hunt that one of Aunt Lisa's friends put on in Des Moines. There were SO many eggs there!!! Unfortunately it was kind of cold and rainy. We left after collecting a ton of eggs and headed home for some lunch and a nap. That evening Aunt Darlene, Great Grandma, and Grandma headed back home and we went to church. Having Ava in church once again reminded me of how grateful I am for the nursery at our church on Sunday mornings! She is not a little girl who can sit quietly for an hour. She finally fell asleep about 3/4 into the service.

Sunday morning the kids woke up and found their Easter baskets. The girls (Jordan, Ali, and Ellen) came over later and we had another egg hunt outside. Uncle Brent and Daddy hid the eggs. They must have done a very good job because we are still missing one of Ava's eggs. They were supposed to be very easy to find so we're not sure if the dog took one of them or what happened to it. Ava had a great time finding all of her pink eggs though. After that we had lunch and it was then time for us to pack up, pick up Mema & Boppa, and head home. We ended up not getting home until about 6:30. The drive home seemed to last a bit longer than the drive down. About 30 minutes from home Ava decided that she "needed" to drive. She threw a fit, telling Nate that she needed to sit up front so she could drive. I have no idea when she learned to drive, but she was very adamant about it.

This week has been pretty low key. Ava spent Monday through Wednesday at daycare, and yesterday we ran errands in the morning and it was finally nice enough outside yesterday afternoon that we got to go for a walk to the park and play with some sidewalk chalk for a bit. Ava's bandage finally fell off of her belly a couple of days ago. Her incision looks great, I don't know if you'll even be able to tell it's there once it fully heals. We have her surgical follow-up appointment in a few weeks.

Other than that, it would be a fairly low key weekend. Nate is running his first 5K tomorrow. The weather should be nice, so hopefully he'll have a good time. Hope that you all have a great weekend!


Dying Easter eggs
Ava trying to get a good look at what's going on in that cup

Our rocker chick, who looks like a rocker dude in Reece's clothes

Reece & Ava ready for Easter service

Playing Peek-a-boo before church

Sadly enough, this is one of the better pictures of the three of them (the other ones Ava practically has her legs up over her head, she's so lady like)

One of the Easter egg hunts

Zacky helping Ava find some eggs

I found one!!!

Hunting with Daddy

This would be the giant bunny that Aunt Darlene brought for Ava. It is still at Aunt Lisa & Uncle Brent's house because we only had room in the car for the bunny or Mema...Mema won!

Reading her book that was in her Easter basket

Finding her first egg on Easter morning

Surgery

Ava had her surgery yesterday (an umbilical hernia repair) and recovery is going better than I could have ever anticipated. We were a little uncertain going into things on Monday morning. We received a phone call from our surgeons office at 2:30 Friday afternoon saying that his father was ill and he was leaving town, however one of his partners could do the surgery at the same time on Monday. We debated about this since I really fell in love with "Dr Steve" at Ava's pre-op appointment. We opted to go on with the surgery as planned since we had the day off and had been trying to prepare Ava for the day. We met Dr. Rich just prior to Ava's surgery. I must say that I was not impressed. He planned on intubating her rather than using an oral airway, planned on giving us no prescription pain meds like Dr. Steve had planned on doing, and was not going to do her surgical dressing how I had hoped. When all was said it done, she did fine with the intubation, she didn't need the oxycodone, and I got my surgical dressing.

Ava was a rockstar at the hospital. I have to say that Children's does such a great job catering to the kids, making things as not scary as possible. Everybody that we encountered was friendly and had a smile on their face. They have redone the surgical area since we were there last year. It is very nice. We got to stay in the same room pre and post op which was nice, and had the same nurse. The child life specialist came in and went over the "princess mask" with Ava before she went back to the OR. Nate went back with her again. He said that she did a great job and didn't seem scared or intimidated at all by all of the stuff in the OR. He held her until she was out, helped put her on the operating room table, and was then sent out. I then sent him out to get us lunch while we waited for Ava. If you're stuck in the hospital you might as well enjoy Cossetta's. :)

I think that Ava almost enjoyed yesterday. She woke up and had Jello and apple juice for breakfast. She had never had jello, and we don't allow her to have juice. She got to play with some new toys as we registered at the hospital. She got to smell lots of lipsmackers and spread them around for her "princess mask" (oxygen mask to put her out). She got more juice, and pretty much spent the afternoon watching Dora and Mickey Mouse before going for a walk.

I was worried that she would wake up in pain this morning since the local anesthetic was obviously gone and the Ibuprofen I gave her before bed had worn off. Then at 6 am I hear a little voice on the monitor singing "Five little monkeys jumping on the bed". I have to say that it was the cutest thing. She sat in her bed talking and singing to her animals for 45 minutes. She was then up and as active as ever. I didn't even have to give her any ibuprofen today. I would have never guessed that she had surgery yesterday. I am a little concerned about her incision. There was some bloody drainage on the steri-strips last night (which I wasn't surprised about), but her belly button looks a little odd. I'll take the tegaderm off tomorrow and will hopefully be able to better assess it. We don't want any problems with it over Easter weekend.

Wishing you a wonderful Easter weekend!

Ava REALLY wanted to wear her rain boots and "mambo skirt" the other day

Enjoying a nice drive while we waited to go back to the pre-op area yesterday morning

Storytime with Daddy before surgery.

Ava snuggled up with Mommy and her apple juice watching some cartoons right after surgery

She looks like she's ready to go home.