9 months old

Ava turned 9 months yesterday. It's crazy how time is just flying by. She has grown up so much over the past few months. Ava loves to crawl wherever mommy goes. Ava will play by herself, but she has to keep at least one eye on mommy. As soon as I leave the room, Ava is right behind me. It's adorable, but not so much fun when we drop her off in the nursery at church. Or, if someone wants to play with her - she doesn't like stangers AT ALL! (which will be nice when she's older!) Ava loves to feed herself now. We started her on table foods, and since then, she hasn't wanted me to feed her baby food. She is definitely growing up too fast. Lately she has been able to stand by herself for a few seconds. She hasn't started walking yet, but I know that will be coming very soon. She has taken a few steps on her own recently, but not all the time. The first couple pictures are of Ava standing by herself. She went to the doctor yesterday and she weighs 16 lbs. 10 oz. (25th percentile) and she is 28" long (50th percentile). She hasn't really gained that much weight and it's probably because she is on the go ALL the time!

Ava is waiting on her daddy to come home from work. She loves to spend time with her daddy after a long day with mommy.

Out & About

Today we enjoyed a free museum day at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Here is a picture of us standing in front of gold records. Ava and I enjoyed it, but I think Jonathan enjoyed it a little more than we did.

I also wanted to share with everyone some photos of Ava and her friend Sophie. We got together this past Wednesday and took a few pictures at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens. Here is a link to check out the rest of their photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/ambernewell/AvaSophie#

Father Daughter Bonding Time

I thought I would share with everyone what Jonathan does with Ava when I'm not around...

We're back...

We have been missing in action lately. Sorry I haven't posted pictures in awhile. Ava has decided she doesn't want to take naps anymore, so as most of you know, babies can be a lot of work, especially if they aren't sleeping well, which means they are generally cranky. She has been having some better days now, so we're hoping we are past the bad napping phase. Besides the naps, we have been really enjoying our daughter and watching her grow. I've just posted some pictures that we've taken the past week or so. ENJOY!!

Ava expanding her variety of foods - GRASS!!

Grandma Jo came to visit this past week from Indiana. We really enjoyed her company and can't wait to see her again soon!

Prayer request

I just wanted to take a minute to share with everyone what's been on my heart lately. I am by no means a writer, so bear with me. Last night, a dear friend of ours came over to visit. We hadn't seen him in a few months so it was nice being able to catch up a little. He was sharing with us about things that have been going on in his life recently. One of the things that he shared was about his family and what they've been going through. His sister gave birth to a little girl, Ellianna, on August 1st. She was diagnosed with Trisomy 13. He then proceded to tell us that Ellianna went home to be the with the Lord on August 27th. As he was telling us what happened, I had tears running down my face and looked up at Jonathan with tears filling his eyes. (Now that we are parents, it is definitely different when you hear stories like this.) I know that Jonathan and I were both thinking about our little Ava and how we would have survived if we were in their position. I don't know these people, but just by reading their blog, and listening to our friend speak about them, you can tell they love the Lord and know that the Lord has complete control of our lives. Knowing that, gave them hope and comfort. Even though sometimes we don't understand why God allows horrible things to happen, we know He does it for a reason. And after talking to our friend, we know that the reason for this tragedy in their family, was to bring glory to Christ. Many peoples lives were changed just because of this one little baby that was only here on earth for 27 days. This has changed my heart and mind through the testimony of this family. It made me realize how thankful I should be for Ava. And even though I am, I haven't really stopped to thank the Lord like I should for a beautiful healthy baby girl. Last night, as Jonathan and I prayed for this family, we thanked God abunduntly for Ava. We prayed that if something ever did happen to Ava that we would uphold a great testimony for the gospel of Christ and give Him the glory NO MATTER WHAT! If anyone thinks about it, please pray for this family. If you are interested, check out their blog.

Thank you Lord for my sweet little Ava!

Family reunion

A couple weeks ago we took a trip to Jonathan's hometown. His two older brothers and their families came home too. We hadn't seen them in almost 3 years. It was a great time to have a little family reunion. We also met our nephew for the first time, Carson. And they all met Ava for the first time too.

Jonathan and his two brothers.

Here is a picture of Ava and her three cousins. (Carson didn't make the picture.)

Jonathan's brother Josh, his wife Holly, and the boys, Jordan, Jack and Elias.

Jonathan's other brother, Daniel, and his wife Ashley, and son Carson.

Me and my sweet sister-in-law Ashley.

Jonathan really missed his brothers, as you can see in the above picture!



All the grandkids with great- grandma Newell and great- grandma Densten. (Ava was already in her jammies and ready for bed. As you can tell, she's not too happy here.)

The next two pictures are of Ava and Carson(4months).

Ava is going for the paci...

...and takes it away from Carson. Sorry buddy!

And Lastly, the family photo - the Newell gang.

We had a great time seeing everyone. We miss you!!

Have some fun!

So I saw this on a blog that I like to read and had to share it with everyone. If you want to give yourself a laugh, go to this site and upload a picture of your head. It gave me a few laughs. (okay, maybe more than just a few laughs.) Have fun!

Here is a little preview of what you'll find:

1974 pics of me and Jonathan. (don't make too much fun of us...okay, you can make fun of Jonathan because it is a pretty funny picture!)

Here are a few pictures of Ava this past week:

Ava on her new cool riding toy!
She's already excited to start riding roller coasters with mommy and daddy!

Ava and I visited Grandma Joan for a few days!
While we were there, we were able to go swimming. (Ava's first time in a big pool.)
And Ava was excited to get back home to see her daddy again.

Baby proofing now begins!

So it's been a long time since I've posted pictures of Ava. We have been getting complaints from people saying they are sick of looking at the cracker, which I'm really tired of looking at it too. And for the record, I put my peanut butter on the TOP of the cracker. Why would you put on the bottom and eat it upside down? (That's just weird!) Ava has definitely had lot of changes since I've last posted. For now, I have posted two videos of Ava. The first is of Ava crawling!! Yes, Ava is crawling now. She's slow at it (for now), but she can definitely crawl to get to where she wants to go. The videos that you will see have no sound, due to our camera without a mic. I tried uploading a video from our video camera so you can hear her, but it didn't work out so well. This first video is of Ava when she first found out she could crawl, which was a few days ago. (Now she crawls a lot faster. It's only a matter of days until she's crawling so fast that I won't be able to keep up with her!) The second video is Ava clapping. She has recently learned to clap her hands together. (It's just so darn cute!) I hope you enjoy and hopefully soon my electronically savvy husband will try to upload some videos with sound soon!

Butter me up!

Ok, so while sitting in my house yesterday I witnessed what can only be called, "A flagrant foul of the buttery kind"

In order to remain impartial in this story and the results of the above poll, the real names and events have been changed.

While enjoying a delightful lunch with my wife and child of Ritz crackers and Peanut Butter I glanced over to see my life partner enjoying a cracker with peanut butter carefully placed on the (inappropriate side of the cracker). I exclaimed, "whoa now, you can't be puttin that p-butter all up on that side, it is unnatural" the person in question responded to me with, "whatever are you speaking of, I can butter whatever side of the cracker that I please."

A ten minute conversation ensued on the correct placement of the butter on a singular Ritz cracker, it got a little heated and some yelling was done, but after some time we decided to agree to disagree, until now.

I am putting it before you, the loyal masses to put this issue to rest. Please voice your opinion on the above poll about where the Peanut Butter should be placed in order to have correct consumption. The results will be available when the truth is known.

Pulling up

Tonight, while I was starting Ava's bath, I put Ava in her crib to play until I was finished running the water. When I went to get Ava, I came in to find her standing up in her crib as you see in the pictures below. This is the first time she's done this all by herself. I couldn't believe it so I ran to get my camera, thinking that by the time I find my camera, run back upstairs to take the picture, she will have already sat back down. But, she was still standing by the time I got back in her room. It was pretty funny too, because you could tell she didn't know what to do with herself. She couldn't figure out how to sit back down apparently. We probably don't have long until she's mobile, so we are going to savor the moments of her sitting still.

Cousins & Relaxation

This weekend my sister and her family came to visit. On Saturday, my sister and I had the idea to take the girls to a park and take pictures of the three cousins together, especially now that Ava is a little older. Once you see the pictures you will soon see what a disaster it was. No one wanted to cooperate, so we left after we were there for only about 5 minutes. The first two pictures are as good as it gets. The third picture depicts the "fun" day at the park. Fortunately, Ava wasn't fussy, but she had no interest in looking at the camera, she just wanted to play with the grass.

We did capture this picture below of Ava while we there. It's one of me and Jonathan's new favorite picture. (I'm sure next week we'll have a new favorite though!)

So, while our husbands were gone for the morning having "guy time", and my sister and I had a stressfull time with the three girls, we thought it was necessary to pamper ourselves that afternoon. Here are a few pics of our time together.

The last time I've had a pedicure was for my wedding, so I felt like I new woman!

Happy Fourth of July

We hope everyone had a great fourth of July. Ava celebrated by wearing red, white and blue. (Don't mind the green bean stains!)

Happy Birthday to Grandma Newell whose birthday was on the fourth.
We hope you had a great celebration!!

6 months old

Ava had her 6 month check-up yesterday. She had a really hard time at her check-up. She wasn't sure what to think of the nurse and the doctor. They were pretty sure they knew what she thought of them though by her screaming the whole time. She's becoming very scared of new people - or she's always been like that. Ava was doing fine until the doctor came in the room and wanted to check her. Then it went down hill pretty quickly. She weighs 15lbs 12oz (50%) and 26 1/2" (75%). Here are a few of my new favorite pictures of Ava...

Don't worry...I was right behind her. She's not doing this all by herself yet, but she sure wants to.

Ava is showing off her new tooth in these last two pictures. We have always loved when Ava smiles, but now we love it even more.

Just when you think your daughter can't get any cuter.