Holiday Fun

Since we’ve “officially” kicked off summer with the start of Memorial Day weekend, we decided it was time to get Ava a new backyard toy. Ava’s love of water made the selection easy – a water table for her to splash in is perfect for having fun (and cooling off). She loves watching the waterfall and playing with the squirting penguin!

Chase however has decided that this is simply the world’s largest water bowl.

Ava has also decided that the curtains make fun toys.

All that playing makes you hungry. Thankfully Ava is a good eater – she even tries to smile with a mouthful of food.

After the long day, Ava needed to relax in her home made easy chair. Here she is catching up on the latest Baby Einstein video.

Happy Memorial Day to everyone!

Peach Festival

Ava continues to have fun with just about anything she can get her hands (and mouth) on. She’s discovered the only indoor plant that we have – yet another item to keep out of her reach.

Here’s she is playing with Chase’s toy box, with Chase anxiously watching her every move.

2 minutes and this is the wake of toys that Ava left behind her in the family room.

Luckily she found some other toys to chew on in the play room (the room formerly known as the living room).

While Dad was in Ohio for work, Ava and Mo(m) got a chance to visit Renee and baby Colin at the hospital. Here’s Mo, not quite believing that Ava was smaller than this not that long ago…

Colin fast asleep.

Ava having fun in her stroller and wondering why Mom is holding another baby.

Finally, this weekend we went to the Schnepf Farms peach festival. We got to experience our first train ride and hay ride with Ava. And our first time picking peaches!

Here’s the crew on the little train – Ava wants to reach out and grab the flowers.

Ava loved the peaches and it’s a good thing, because she can help us eat the 13 pounds that we picked!!

Ohio Trip

Mo and Ava joined Scott’s work trip to Ohio to visit the extended Ameduri family. We stayed with grandma and grandpa. Ava got to meet her great grandmother for the first time – it was fun to have 4 generations together!

Ava using grandpa’s high chair…and being impatient for her cottage cheese dinner…

Grabbing handfuls of dinner…

Ava and Great-Grandma

Trying to find Great-Grandma’s earrings.

Feeding Ava…

We were able to celebrate Grandma’s birthday on Friday. Here’s Ava getting ready to eat some cake…

Ava was an angel on the long flight back home.

The morning after we needed to do a hike to stretch our legs. Here she is getting a good view from the backpack.

And after hiking and travel, she was ready for a nap…

Ava has turned into quite the little traveler – she’s been to 6 states in her short 10 months…stay tuned for her next adventure!

A full week of celebrations

Its been a big week of mini-celebrations here in the Ameduri household.

We started it off on Wednesday, May 5th. Here in the desert southwest, Cinco de Mayo is a party day – often referred to as Drinko de Mayo. The day holds special meaning for us as it is our anniversary – which is definitely a reason to celebrate.

Thursday was the 1-year “anniversary” of when we were selected by Ava’s birthmom. That adds a new element of celebration to the week.

And of course today is Mother’s Day. Ava helped Mo to celebrate it with some tulips…

We met our friends Renee and John for breakfast on Saturday at the Farm at South Mountain --  Ava had fun watching everyone at breakfast and playing in the grass under the shade of the pecan trees. It sounds like Ava will have a little friend to play with soon – Renee isn’t due until June but could have their son any day now…

Ava’s crawling ability continues to improve – she is now getting to things faster than she used to. And pulling herself up on anything that she can. We’ve had to further babyproof by moving things further up the shelves to make sure she doesn’t use them as toys. And we had to move Chase’s dishes into the pantry so we could shut the door when she is

Here’s a video of Ava crawling across the family room into the kitchen:

From AvaHighlights

Ava discovers Chase’s water dish and decides to make it a splash toy.

Lunchtime with Ava.

And another lunchtime adventure video...

From AvaHighlights

Video of Ava and Chase playing in the bedroom.

From AvaHighlights

Crawling and Climbing

Its now definitely official that Ava is crawling and climbing. She’s getting even more proficient at getting herself around – it seems like she wants to immediately get to whatever we most want her NOT to (i.e., Chase’s bowl, the pantry, or out of whatever room we are in). To add to it, she is pulling herself up to standing more often – she likes to reach up to the second shelf to pull out her books and whatever else she can find. We’re definitely getting our exercise keeping up with her!

Finding the stove (nice and shiny!)

Trying to change the tunes on the CD changer.

Reminding Chase who is boss.

Helping Dad with a project

Finding her way over to the pantry.

Crawling into the kitchen…

The “head on” shot…

Maybe we’ll do video next time…