The Swearingen Family: 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.

Ava loves going down slides!


Ava's first poptart, she is a fan!


Cousin Joseph was so good with Ava and was always wanting to give her hugs and kisses!

Enjoying Aunt Emilie's Thanksgiving Meal

Everyone wanted to help put together Joseph's new toy.

Well Ava's 1st Birthday came and went and now I feel like we have a toddler on our hands complete with tantrums and all!

We have had a busy, busy fall and have been on the move since Ava's Birthday! We had a weekend off after Ava's Birthday and then Travis and I took a much needed vacation for a week in California driving up the Pacific Coast with our best friends. We flew into LA and spent the first night in Santa Barbara. We then drove to Monterey and spent two nights there. After that we drove through San Fransisco and had dinner with our cousin, Chloe, and spent the night on the other side of the bay in Sausalito. We then spent our last three nights in Sonoma finishing up a wonderful week in the wine country. I could go on and on about our week but I will just leave it at that we had fun, relaxed, and it was one of our favorite trips that we have taken. My Dad and Step Mom were gracious enough to fly in and watch Ava for the week along with some help from Nana. As much as we missed Ava every day, it was so great to get away and also for Ava to spend some quality time with Grandpa, Grandma K, and Nana.

We arrived home late Saturday night and we received a call first thing Sunday morning from Papa that we needed to come and get Ava and take her to the hospital. When we got to Nana and Papa's poor baby girl was covered from head to toe in hives. We took her to Centennial ER and received excellent care. After a steroid and some anti-histamine, Ava's hives started to go down and we were released after three hours. They took a urine sample to check her protein and unfortunately we were not able to determine the cause of her outbreak. She was on a three day steroid that had her cleared up and we have not had any problems since. We did decide to start carrying an EpiPen after this incident in case it happens again and she goes into respiratory distress which I pray will never happen.

The weekend after we returned home, Chris, Emilie, Joseph, and Jacob came in for the weekend and we also did Ava's one year photo's. The following weekend we went to Kingsport to visit Mimi and Uncle Chace and then we celebrated Halloween the follow week. Ava was lucky enough to have two Halloween parties at school but unfortunately she injured herself at school on the first day of parties and I had to pick her up 30 minutes after being dropped off. She fell and cut up her top gum but she was in good enough spirits to go to school on Halloween and go Trick or Treating that evening. Ava was a little lamb for her second Halloween and did pretty well in her costume. We only went to a handful of houses in our neighborhood but each door we went to she gave the owners a hug and the last house she walked right in and started petting the dog. We finished up our Halloween night with a trip to Aunt Alissa's house to visit with her as well as Molly and Nelson.

Staying busy the following weekend we had a full house with company and went and visited the Thompson girls. This past weekend Trav and I had our first alone date night since March and Ava stayed overnight at Nana and Papa's. We picked her up Saturday morning and enjoyed the beautiful weekend by working in the yard and visiting the zoo. Ava gets really excited when she notices any of the animals and will stand and point at them while also shaking with excitement.

As I had said earlier, Ava is now a toddler and I feel like she is experiencing the terrible two's early. She will sometimes throw herself on the floor and cry when she does not get her way and she is becoming very independent. She no longer likes when we help feed her with the spoon but instead insist on doing it by herself even though she is lucky to get half of it in her mouth. She finally has some top teeth coming and and she has two little chicklette's on top that have just cut through. We have started brushing her teeth twice a day and she loves it! She has moved daycare's so now she is full time at Calvary Young Children's School and I get the biggest laugh on what their goals are for the week. One week it was learning to walk in a straight line and this week is learning to pull out their lunch chair. They also have theme's for the week along with words that they are working on for the week that I just love. I had a parent teacher conference with them a couple of weeks ago and they are really pleased with Ava's development. They had been working with her on dumping and filling which she has mastered and loves to empty and fill anything she can find around the house. We are working with her on her shape sorting at home and this seems to frustrate her if she does not get it on the first try.

Ava loves to sing, dance, and still enjoys reading books as much as possible. We are introducing her some to the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and she is enjoying this as well. She loves to take walks in her wagon and anything to do with being outside. She was great at transitioning from her bottle to her sippy cup and next we are hoping to get rid of her paci in the next couple of months. We are going to decorate for Christmas so we will see how she does with the ornaments. Ava can try our patience but I think that we are doing a good job at remaining calm during these times. As frustrated as we get, I would not trade being Ava's mother for anything in the world. Her presence brightens our day and I am so in love with our little girl.