The Swearingen Family: December 2012

The week of Thanksgiving, Ava turned 14 months old and I still find myself counting the months to make sure that this is right. Someone asked me how she was the other day and saying 14 months seems so strange. It does not seem to me that she should already be this old!

Ava is on the verge of running and has three top teeth that just broke through. She points all of the time at things that she wants and she knows that we keep the "cookies" aka vanilla wafers in the pantry and soon as we get home from daycare she will run to the pantry and start pointing. She talks all of the time but most of what she says it not recognizable. She loves loves loves to sing and has the sweetest little voice. She also loves to dance and runs to the TV when Mickey Mouse's Hot Dog Dance comes on and she will stomp her feet and clap her hands. It is the cutest thing. Ava also started using a fork over Thanksgiving and she is doing really well with it. We rarely try to feed her anymore as she prefers to do everything by herself.

For Thanksgiving we finally made Ava's first trip to Little Rock to spend time with her Uncle Christopher, Aunt Emilie, and cousins Joseph and Jacob. We left after work on Tuesday night and drove while Ava slept. She did great and it was an easy drive to Little Rock. The next morning when Ava woke up, her cousins were already awake downstairs. When she came down she stood in the same spot for 10 minutes staring and smiling. After that she had a fun time playing with her cousins and all of their great toys! We went to the Zoo the first day and the rest of the week we spent eating and playing at the house. Ava loved her time with her cousins and they were so sweet together. Joseph kept giving her hugs and kisses and wanting to show her things. Jacob and Ava are a little too close in age to really get along and since Ava does not understand sharing, and Jacob does not always want to share, there was a lot of crying going on because of this.

Overall we had a great time with family. Aunt Alissa was able to come in and join us and it was nice to have all of the siblings and cousins together for this time.