Pregnancy update and Baby Eli

I thought I would update you all first with a picture of how big I've gotten lately. This picture is actually a few weeks old. I'm 27 weeks pregnant here, and I'm almost 30 weeks now. But, I'm not so great at taking pictures 2nd time around. I'm getting to the uncomfortable stage, as I call it. That's when you know this baby is coming soon! We still have 10 weeks to go, but I'm really hoping we have this baby early because I'm not sure how much more I can grow. I had a check-up yesterday and everything is going really well. We still don't have a name picked out, which makes me a little nervous, mostly because we have to pick two names since we aren't finding out the gender. Any suggestions would be great!

Also, as most of you already know, my sister had her baby at the end of December. She did great and now has a precious baby boy, Eli Brock. He weighed 9 lbs. 5oz. HUGE! My sister was amazing and had him completely natural. I'm still not sure how she pulled that off. We went for a visit to meet our new nephew and Ava's new cousin a few weeks ago. I didn't get a chance to take as many pictures as I would've liked to, but here are a few.

We love you, Eli. You are precious and we can't wait to see you again soon!!

Ava's 2nd birthday

Ava turned two on New Years day. It's hard to believe my daughter is two now. The past two years has seem to fly by. Ava has brought so much joy and excitement into our home. And, if you know Jonathan, you wouldn't think we would've needed more excitement or enthusiasm in our home. She definitely has Jonathan's spunk. And she's becoming such a daddy's girl. She makes us laugh all the time with the new words she says, or the new things she'll do.

We had a little party for Ava and the theme was Curious George. Jonathan's parents bought her a monkey jacket, as Ava calls it, so we found it appropriate to put that on her for her birthday party. Also, Ava LOVES boots, so of course she had to wear her cowgirl boots on her birthday. She looked super cute and was really excited that some of her friends were coming over to play. Plus, she knew there was birthday cake!

Grandma Jo, me, Ava & Mama - this was a last minute trip for my family. We were so glad that they were able to make it!

Yummy food

Ava's monkey cake. Jonathan's mom made it. She did a great job. It was delish!!

Ava's friends: Sophie, Cate, Riley & Ava

Blowing out her birthday cake.

Ava opening up her presents. She was really excited and kept saying "Wow!".

She got a kitchen. She loves cooking with mommy now!

And all the kids loved the last gift - her puppy dog!

Cate, Sophie, Ava & Riley

I thought this was cute of Cate and Ava. A rare photo of two toddlers.

And already playing dress-up the next day.

Ava loved all of her gifts and had so much fun. We were so thankful to have friends and family to share Ava's special day with.

Christmas '09

Here are few Christmas pictures that I thought I would share. On Christmas Eve, once Ava woke up, we opened our presents with just the three of us. Ava woke up to this:

(Ava was dressed by her daddy really quick before opening presents. This is just a side note so you understand why she's not in her cute little pj's on Christmas morning!)
Opening one of her many gifts this year.
Here is Jonathan, still tired, but acting excited about his gift.

Once we opened presents and ate breakfast together, then we headed up to Indiana to Jonathan's family. Here are a few pictures that I took.

Ava was really into the gifts this year. It didn't matter what it was, she loved it all!

Concentrating on getting her present open!

Ava understood a little bit more about what was going on this year at Christmas. We all had a good time together.

I'm going to post some pictures of Ava's birthday party soon. My baby turned 2! I'm still in shock at how fast 2 years has gone by.