It's been 2 years, time for a new post

Soooo, Ava is 4 years old now (almost 4 and 5 months) and I figured it's about time I post an update.  I'll have to find a way to consistently write something, somehow.  I managed to not post anything in 2015 which I'm very disappointed in myself for.  I did manage to take more pictures than ever in 2015, around 20,000 so I didn't totally neglect to document my child's life.  Ava is so much fun and is developing a great personality.  She is really wild at nights, jumping all over the place and almost always in a very good mood (at night).  I think she takes after daddy in that she's more of a night owl than a morning person. 

You could say she's a bit of a tomboy regarding her interests.  Of course I get blamed for that but she really seems to gravitate towards action oriented stuff.  In 2015 she was all about the Power Rangers and had a Power Ranger themed birthday party.  Now that the new Star Wars has come out she's really into that also.  Her favorite dolls to play with are her 3 storm troopers, Kylo Ren and Darth Varder.  She loves sword fighting, riding on my shoulders and running from Shelby in the house and playing hide and seek.  As of fairly recently she's really into the show PJ Mask's on the Disney channel and also Peppa Pig.  She got a HUGE dollhouse for Christmas and plays with that quite a bit.  The winter months are very blah, so no one's out in the neighborhood and we spend a lot of time indoors, unfortunately.  Ava doesn't seem to mind though, there's always something on Netflicks to watch or games or dolls to play with.  Oh, she loves to set up a lunch or dinner set with plates, cups of water and utensils.  Another favorite of hers is drawing pictures.  We must have over 200 pictures she's drawn so far.  (I've managed to laminate about half of them)  She draws the cutest little square figures of our family and often times puts them in envelops for us.  As she gets older, Ava has seemed to get more affectionate and absolutely adores her mommy. 

School is going well, she is in Ms. Drinkard's class at Summit and goes Tuesday through Thursday.  I played the piano for the class one day last week, was a lot of fun and the kids liked Star Wars, the Peanuts song and Jerry Lee the best.  Ms. Drinkard even busted a move a few times.  I have the whole thing on video, set up a Gopro camera in the corner. (of course)  Overall she's doing well and the class does a lot of activities which she likes.  She seems social and happy which makes me very happy.

Big news also is that Keren is pregnant!  We've had some bad luck the past couple years trying for another baby but (knock on wood) this time seems to be going better.  Due to improvements in genetic testing we've found out it's going to be a boy and currently Keren is about 15 weeks along.  Due date is end of July.  Ava initially really wanted a sister but after a few minutes came around and was very happy to be having a little brother.  She kisses mommy's belly every day and says bye to baby brother when Keren leaves, it's very sweet.  She loves the names "James" for some reason and that's her choice for her brothers name.  At the moment we are considering it for a middle name, maybe. 

That's it for now, hopefully I'll stick to a more regular schedule and keep this going.  Here's a pic of Ava at school during her Valentines Day party a couple weeks ago. 

Funny Ava Moment

Sometimes I wonder how in the world Ava picks up on the smallest things, she must be watching our every move.  Yesterday, Keren and I had such a great laugh at what she did.  Ava does this funny thing where she will sniff our shirts occassionally.  Normally Keren smells good and I stink, according to Ava.  Well, yesterday was no different.  (for the record I had showered and just washed my favorite drab grey sweatshirt I wear 24/7 in the house)  Ava comes up to me while I'm chillin' on the couch and does her patented sniff test.  She promptly says "NO" then "EWWWWW."  It's really funny actually and is probably the reason she gives that response because we always laugh.  Well yesterday she added a twist.  After handing down the verdict that I stink, she disappears into the bathroom and comes back out with my stick of Old Spice "sport" deodorant, then proceeds to lift up my shirt and rub it all over me.  Keren and I were almost in tears, it was too funny.  She's seen me put on deodorant but how she knows it's purpose is to combat stink is beyond me.  Kids must be sponges at this age, no action or detail goes unnoticed.

As I write this, (Sunday night), it's snowing again.  It's snowed another 2-3 inches and we've had snow on the ground for at least a week straight.  It's really nice actually and I'm glad Ava has been out in it a few times.  The weekend was fairly relaxing (except for my mid-term exam Saturday morning) and Ava seems to be singing more than ever.  Her "mean ol' mama" song is a favorite as is the ABC song.  She talked and sang in her crib this afternoon before finally falling asleep for her nap for almost an hour.  Overall she seems really happy most of the time but her emotions can be a roller coaster ride also.  She's super active (as always) and sometimes grumpy, especially after waking up from a short nap.  At nights she's usually always happy and playful but is highly resistant to going to bed.  She LOVES her Georgie snacks (Curious George gummy fruit snacks) and also loves "pop".  Which means popsicle.  Despite these highly un-nutritional snacks we feed her plenty of veggies and fruit which she loves also.  She really loves sliced cucumbers and tomatoes.  Saturday night we took her to Buy Buy baby to look at a new car seat.  I made the mistake of taking her out of the shopping car and she was WILD.  I had to keep tabs on her constantly as she was taking these playground balls out of a display, then running down the isle to the toys, then to mama, then back to the balls etc.  She was good, just extremely active.  After extensively researching the car seats we found a better deal online and decided to leave.   We then walked down to Half Priced Books and let Ava have free reign of the book store.  She stayed in the kids section but must have taken 6,498 books off the shelves which I had to go behind and pick up.  We ended up buying 2 Elmo books, a book about bears and The Happiest Toddler on the Block. (how to eliminate tantrums and raise a patient, respectful and cooperative one to four year old)   ummmmm, yeah right.   

This blog seems to be jumping all over the place, so many reflections and thoughts to cover since I've slacked on this for a while.  I did get Ava an Etch a Sketch tonight at Wally World, she loves artsy stuff so I thought she would play with it for hours.  She kept twisting the knobs in the same direction so the line always ended up in the lower right hand corner.   She really loved shaking it to clear the screen the best.  Whatever makes her happy.  

My Sweetie

Well, last blog I said I was back on track and here it is 3 months later and I'm just getting around to updating this again.  Keren and I are extremely busy these days, we have both gone back to school to become teachers.  We both attended Midway (via online classes) last semester and I am not lying when I say it was a tremendous amount of work.  I have since found out that I can complete my masters and still teach elementary education so I have transferred to University of the Cumberlands.  Keren is sticking with Midway since she thinks she will have a better chance of getting hired having gone through the undergraduate process and getting that degree.

Christmas was a blast, I think Ava sort of had a grasp on the whole concept, she was keenly aware of "Ho Ho" and really got into opening her presents on Christmas day.  As always I took tons of video and pictures, they will all be uploaded soon to my Flickr account and I'll post a link here. (someday)  Christmas was fairly laid back, not as much rushing around this year.  We went to Keren's sister's house for Christmas Eve, that was a lot of fun and Ava had a great time.  On Christmas day, my mom and dad came over to watch Ava open her presents, it was very relaxing and enjoyable.  Ava's big present was a kitchen set which she still plays with all the time.  She also got a Hello Kitty sleeping bag, Abby Cadabby doll, Mickey books with computer, a slot car track (guess who got her that :) a kids cordless drill and tool kit (me again)  a broom and dust pan (she always steals the broom when I'm trying to sweep the garage so why not?  She got a few other things but since I'm writing this a month after Christmas they escape me.  She got plenty, lets put it that way.

This winter has been awesome for snow and we've taken advantage of it.  Oh, she got two sleds for Christmas also so we've been sledding a couple times.  The first time I took her down a huge hill and we hit a tree so that scared her a little.  (we barely tapped the tree actually)  Second time was a lot more snow and she had a lot of fun.  Her boots were too big so they kept coming off which didn't prevent her from walking around in the snow, in her socks, with great delight.  Ava is talking up a storm now, it's so much fun to hear her babble on and on.  I been told a hundred times that we will regret when she starts talking because they never shut up but I absolutely love to hear her talk.  It's so cute and every word seems to have a tremendous amount of meaning to it.  I'm sure I'm biased though.  We were coming back from our last sledding excursion and I had taken off her wet socks in the car.  I was really concerned that her feet might be cold so I asked Ava how her feet were.  Her response was "Happy."  Being a dad is awesome.

Here's a little video of us sledding.
https://vimeo.com/83415336

Back on track

I haven't updated this in 8 months, time to get back on track.  Much has happened and Ava is growing like a weed.  She is sweet, funny, happy, grumpy sometimes and talking up a storm.  Keren texted me yesterday and said that Ava said "Mean ol' mamma".  I almost fell out of my chair at work when I read that.  It actually prompted me to start updating this blog again.  It's little moments like this that I want to write about so we don't forget.  Later that evening Ava was talking again and I'm not quite sure she was saying the word "mean" but nevertheless it was hilarious.  Some other favorite words are "Pizza Pie", (no clue where that came from), doggie, booo (for blue), geeeen (for green) oh  and apple!  She also started saying Abbie (friend across the street) and constantly orders us around saying MOM and DAD. 

Aunt Roshi had her wedding last week and Ava had a blast at the reception.  She was on the dance floor almost the entire time, it was too funny.  She was too wiggly to sit through the actual ceremony so we had her babysitter, Brittany, stay with her in another room at the church.  As usual I've been taking pics and video all along and created a Flickr account for those.  I'll start posting links on here to the pics and video.  That's it for now!

New Blog for Ava

Wow, it's almost been six months since I've posted on here.  The reason is due to running out of storage space so I'm continuing her blog at wordpress.com  Ava's new blog address is:

www.avasalehi.wordpress.com

Here's a recent pic of Ava taken a couple weeks ago.  She's growing up quickly.

Visits from Papa, Grammy and Grampy

I can barely keep up with all these grandparent nicknames, I don't know how my 11 month old daughter keeps them straight.  Anyways, the weather is getting cooler and fall is around the corner.  Ava had a good week and also had several visitors.  Keren's parents (Papa and Grammy) stopped by on Wednesday for a little bit and my dad (Grampy) stopped by on Sunday.  Ava helped us put out some new mulch and took great interest in our newly acquired pumpkins.  Only one more week till her very first birthday!  Here are pics from this past week:

Better week for little miss Ava

Wow how times flies, Ava is only 16 days away from turning one year old.  She had a much better week this week, her teeth must have really been bothering her.  Nothing spectacular happened, just the same routine, going to Nona's Monday through Wednesday, hanging out with daddy on Thursday and Friday and then mommy and daddy time on the weekends.  Mommy usually does the bedtime routine through the week (bath, dress, read books then rock to sleep).  I sometimes read her books too, Ava is really showing a lot of interest in books lately!  She will drag them out into the family room and always gravitates towards them when she trots off to her room.  She continues to improve with the walking but we're still a nervous wreck when she gets close to a sharp edge of a corner wall or anything that will hurt if she falls into it.  I may have to end up putting bumpers on literally everything so we can relax.

Here are the pics from this past week.  First are of a little dog (Zoe) she met, then a pic with mommy at Applebees then the rest are from a visit to my mom's house today.