Ava's First Wish

Last Saturday we celebrated Ava's 1st Birthday with the theme of Ava's First Wish and cupcakes.  There are too many great websites that show how creative people can be for children's birthday parties and combine this with looking at Pinterest was enough to overwhelm me.  I ended up having to take a step back and breathe and also realize that I did not need everything thing to be die-cut and monogrammed in order for it to be a great party.

I tried to keep my theme in mind along with colors of yellow, pink, and orange.  I wanted the feel to be rustic and I wanted to keep everything as simple as possible.  I had enlisted the help from a lot of family members and in the end the day ended up being so much better than I could have dreamed off.  I need to thank so many people for making this day as special as it was.  Aunt Alissa put together a soundtrack of classic oldies that played perfectly with the sunny September afternoon.  Aunt Mandy made several test batches of cupcakes until she came up with the perfect recipe for Strawberry with Strawberry butter cream icing and Sprinkle's vanilla with butter cream icing cupcakes!  Nana let us borrow her tea carts along with several of her serving pieces and drink ware.  Mimi made the burlap table cloths, kraft paper flags, and decorated the entire party.  Finally all of my out of town family who was staying with me helped by preparing food, running errands and dealing with me!

Back to the theme I tried to keep it in mind with all of my planning.  I had originally planned on just pink and yellow for the colors but when the yellow giraffe bounce house was already booked, I ended up getting an orange tiger and decided to pull some orange into the color theme. 

The drink table had yellow paper cups and yellow and white straws.  I had lemonade, Cupcake Pinot Grigio (which has a yellow top and label), Aunt' Alisa's homemade fruit sangria, and small water bottles with custom label's made by our friend, Kaitlin, that said "Ava's 1st Wish."  For the dessert table we made a cupcake toppings bar with yellow and orange mini M&M's, orange, pink, and yellow sprinkles, and crumbled up birthday oreo's.  For food we served nutella and homemade jelly sandwiches cut in the shape of cupcakes and birthday cakes.  We had Chick-Fil-A nuggets, a fresh fruit bowl, and finally a veggie plate with artichoke dip. 

We had white tablecloths that we tied up on the sides with brown twine and burlap table runners.  I wanted the flowers to feel like I had just picked them from a field and we used yellow, white, and orange flowers and finished the tables from a picture from each one of Ava's professional photo shoots.  We brought out our small kitchen drop leaf table for her gift table and used mason jars for all of the flower arrangements as well as for the cupcake toppings bar.

The children really enjoyed the bounce house as well as the adults and we also had crown and paper pinwheel favors for all of the children. 

This was not planned but I ended up wearing an orange dress, Travis had a yellow polo on, and Ava wore a smocked pink cupcake bubble so we all dressed with the color theme from her party.   I promise I had not planned this and it was not until a friend pointed this out that I noticed that we had done this. 

The party was All  About Ava , as my Aunt Ann put it, and it was true that we had a fantastic day celebrating her.  Ava loved all of the family and friends being over and went from one person to another and had a smile on her face the entire time.  When it came to the cake, Ava did not hesitate at all and dove right into it.  She did not make as big  as a mess as I would have thought and her cousin Joseph came over to her and told her that she had two hands and then her took her left hand and stuck it in the cake so that she could double fist the cake.  I never laughed so hard in my life watching Ava eat the cake and my face hurt from smiling so much. 

We opened up her presents and Ava really enjoyed ripping up the tissue paper.  There was a moment when Ava got upset when her cousin Jacob took away a gift that she was playing with but then she would love to watch her cousins as they helped show her how to play with her gifts.  Ava was loved on and I am so proud of her as a mother on the little girl that she is becoming.

After we put Ava to sleep that night, we stayed up to watch a video that Aunt Mandy has been working on for the last couple of months for Ava's gift.  It was a DVD of video's and pictures of Ava's1st  year. It was very emotional watching everything that has happened over the last year and this is something that I will cherish forever.

We took Ava to her Pediatrician the following Monday for her 1 year check up.  Dr. Long was really impressed at Ava's progress and how well she is walking!  As for her stats:

Height: 31 inches, 95% percentile

Weight: 22.8 lbs, 75th percentile

One Year Old!

Miss  Ava Marie Swearingen turned one today!  It has been an incredible year and I am so happy to be celebrating the first year of our daughters life!  This morning we took her to breakfast at the Pancake Pantry and we will be celebrating the next couple of days with family and friends.

Ava still only has her two bottom front teeth but is really getting good at walking and she will be running in no time.  She has adjusted well to her new 12-16 month daycare class and is doing well with keeping up with the big kids.  She is just taking one nap now which is great for mommy and daddy because it frees up our schedule when we are trying to run errands.  She is still taking some formula but her bottle now are 20% formula and 80% whole milk   Ava is still being a picky eater but I have found if she will not eat a food one way, I will try and cut it up differently and then she may try it.  She babbles all of the time and she loves to carry on conversations with Travis and I.  We can still only make out Momma, Dadda, and Katie but I know that she is going to be very talkative.  She has also started to want to hug more and she loves reaching out to touch anyone who is around her, even strangers.  Ava loves to people watch and will give anyone the biggest smile if they pay attention to her.

For only being one year old, she has managed to do some great traveling.  She has driven in the car up to Pennsylvania, flown to Florida, driven to East Tennessee, Birmingham, and Atlanta.  She attended her first wedding and has gone to two first Birthday parties.  We have gone to the Zoo, Cheekwood, and the swimming pool a lot.  She has had many sleepovers without us at both sets of grandparents and loves to be entertained by her cousins.

Ava has had RSV, hand, foot and mouth virus, a sinus infection, and multiple colds but overall she has remained in good health this year.  She was diagnosed with Mastocytosis in December which is caused by too many mast cells in her body.  This is a disease that we knew nothing about and so far we have been really blessed that other than red areas around body, it has not seemed to both her too much.  I was very upset when first learned about this but I know that it could be much worse and for that I am thankful.

Ava is a very happy little girl and at the end of the day that is all that matters.  She loves to play, smile, and laugh and each day with her is a blessing.  James 1:17 say's it best "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above."  Thank you God for Ava Marie.

10-11 month pictures

I can no longer put a bow in her and because she loves to find it and pull it out.

Her new walker

I love that she is starting to play with her baby doll

The sweetest thing ever

She is on the move!

Disney World!!!!!

Well we are those parents who took our 10 month old child to Disney and she will never remember it.  This was such a fun family trip that I felt that it deserved a post by itself.

The trip started when we wanted to spend a week's vacation with my father's side of the family.  My Aunt Karen and Uncle George live outside of Orlando and we felt that it would be a great time to visit them and spend a week in the Florida sunshine.

I was so excited about the trip but dreading the logistics of getting to Florida with a 10 month old.  Driving was out of the question as I knew she would scream in her car seat if she had to be in it for more than 4 hours so flying was our best option.  I know that people take babies on planes every day but I did not know how our wiggly worm would want to sit in our laps for the hour and a half flight and I did not want to be those parents with a screaming baby on the plane.  Travis and I booked our flights around her nap time and had a bottle ready for take off and landing along with some new apps that we downloaded on our iPad.  Our flight there could not have been better where the plane was only a fourth of the way filled and Ava watched outside while we took off and then fell asleep in my arms, which she has not done in months, and slept until we landed.  Travis and I were so proud of ourselves and enjoyed a cocktail on the flight while our sweet little girl slept.  After getting big heads that we had the best little flyer ever and that we had perfected traveling with our flight schedule planning, the complete opposite happened on our return flight home and Ava was that child that fussed, cried, and screamed on the full flight back.  Maybe next time she will enjoy it more.

Our week's vacation in Florida could not have been better.  We spent it with my aunt, uncle, father, stepmother, brother, and sister.  Ava was such a great girl all week and hammed it up for my aunt's friends and entertained our entire family each day.   Ava slept well and was the best little eater trying everything that we put in front of her.  The first night there Aunt Karen had homemade pickle beets on the table and after putting on in front of Ava it quickly became her favorite food along with Aunt Karen's homemade applesauce which has a little bit of sugar in it unlike mine. 

Our summer in Tennessee has been so hot that we have not been outside much and I had not taken Ava swimming since the start of June.  We took her swimming several times a day and she is a water baby.  You could tell that she felt like she could swim on her own and really wanted us to let go of her.  This did not happen but it showed me that she is ready for some swimming lesson's this fall.

Of course no trip to Florida would be complete without going to Disney World.  I know that Disney is not a place for a baby so I had everything planned out and all I wanted to do was to get Ava's picture in front of Cinderella's castle with a Mickey ear balloon and personalized Mickey ears on her head.  As you can see I achieved this in the pictures below but it was not easy and I do not think that Ava will be visiting Mickey Mouse again until she if much older.

First picture that I got off her bottom teeth!

 

11 Months!!!

Oh my goodness, it is almost here!  In 15 short days, Ava Marie Swearingen will be 1 years old!  This sweet little girl has been  our ray of sunshine for the last 11 months and I could not imagine my life without her!

Each day I think of things to blog about but then time gets away from me and I am already forgetting special moments that we have each day.  I try to take a lot of videos and pictures because already each day is something new and exciting with Ava.

The most exciting news in Ava's world is the she is officially a walker!  I am not sure how most kids are but for Ava she work up one morning and decided that she was going to walk and that was it.  It started on the Saturday before we left for vacation on August 4th.  She had perfected her standing on her own and was cruising along the couch.  While standing in the middle of the floor I held my arms out and she took one little step towards me unassisted.  After that she was not interested for another two and a half weeks when I got her to take three steps in a row one day and eight steps the following.  She took a day off and then woke up on Saturday the 25th and decided that she was ready to walk. Ava must have taken over one hundred steps in one day and did it was grace and ease.  She is really good at balancing herself and immediately was able to go from walking to crouching and back up to standing and walking by herself.  Although she has had several short falls on her bum, we have not had a major wipe out yet.  This last week we have introduced her to walking in shoes and they do not seem to bother her and she is continuing to walk well with them on.

We have been working on transitioning from the bottle to a sippy cup and on Monday she drank and entire glass of juice (mostly water) with her straw sippy cup.  She was having issues tipping her head back far enough with a regular sippy cup so we found a winner with the straw cup.  Travis and I are excited because we are about to save a small fortune on our grocery bill because Ava is on her last can of formula and will be starting on whole milk after this!  In bad news our once good eater is fast becoming a fussy eater.  Her once favorite foods she will not touch and she no longer likes pureed foods.  I have tried taking her old favorites and steaming, baking, or boiling them instead of pureeing them and she will not even touch them.  Currently all she will eat are grapes, yogurt, toast, cottage cheese, turkey, puffs, and cheese.  While she is eating healthy foods I want her to have more variety and Travis and I are continuing to patiently try to feed her something different each night.

Ava now has two bottom teeth but there is no sign of any other teeth coming in.  Her favorite word that she would save over and over again each day was dadada but she rarely says this anymore.  She has picked up on momma which is  fine by me.  She also can make out ball, katie, and hi.  Ava loves to dance and wave her arms.  She will still clamp if something excites her and she has the sweetest laugh. 

Another big  change in her life is she moved up to the 12 to 16 month classroom at her school.  She also started a new school this week and will go to this school on Tuesday and Thursday's and her old school Monday, Wednesday, and Friday's.  We have been on a waiting list with this new school since April 2011 and when a part time spot came open we changed her schedule with her old school.  We feel like this new school has more to offer as she grows so now that we have our foot in the door, we will be next on the list when a full time position becomes available.  Now that she is in the 12 month classroom, there is more push for all of the kids to be on one schedule so everyone eats, plays, and sleeps at the same time.  She is going to one nap a day on a mat, sitting at a small table for her meals, playing outside, and playing with kids almost 7 months older than her.  The teachers say that she is adjusting well in the classroom but the last two nights she has been tired and extremely cranky.  I know it is because she is playing harder than she did in her Nursery classroom and she will adjust to this new schedule and hopefully start taking longer naps during nap time to help with her evening fussiness. 

Tonight during her small meltdown that she was having I took her out to the front porch to let her watch it rain.  She put her arm out to feel the rain and wanted down.  I let her down and she stepped out into the rain and let the water fall on her.  She looked up and smiled and started clapping.  I only let her do this for about a minute, but I never tire of experiencing life through Ava's eyes.

First Step

Just wanted to post that Miss Ava took her first step this morning!  She has been pulling herself up for the last six weeks and this past week and a half she was working on standing up and letting go.  This morning she pulled herself up in the middle of the floor using my body and then I stepped away as she stood in the middle of the floor.  I held my hands out and she took one step with her right foot without any support and she did it without loosing her balance.  One step was enough for her and then she wanted to be held.  Travis was in the room but did not see it so I tried getting her to do it again but she was ready for her morning nap and did not want to perform.  Although Travis did not see it, I yelled enough for him to know that it happened and I could not be more proud of my little girl!