Aven Visits a "Castle"

Lately Aven has been very interested in buildings that have castle-like characteristics such as steeply pitched roofs, towers, spires, and large windows. She even refers to rather small churches as castles as long as they have the right physical characteristics.

We drove past the Cathedral of the Madeline last week and she was very taken with it and has been wanting to visit ever since, so this afternoon we drove downtown and she got to visit her very first "castle".

She was very good at being quiet inside and loved the stained glass windows, the arches, the frescoes, and the candles. She also enjoyed sitting in the pews and kneeling on the kneelers. I have to say that I'm really glad there weren't any homeless people passed out in there since that really would have killed the whole magical-castle vibe we had going. For the record I have seen more than a few down-and-out people sleeping one off on the pews before.

Aven loved visiting a "castle", now we need to take her to visit some real castles in Europe. I'm sure we'll be on the next plane out.

Standing on the front steps.

Aven with the organ, rose window, and arches behind her.

1 Week

Our little Etta is officially one week old. She's doing typical baby stuff- eating, pooping, sleeping , and being cute . Big sister Aven is adjusting pretty well- just a little more whiny and prone to melt-downs than usual. Overall we're doing well and enjoying our new addition. Hopefully a new blog name will be coming soon!

'tatoes

My first trimester was rough. Aven watched a whole lot of movies on the laptop after we got home from school while I laid on the couch reeling with nausea and fatigue. Now that I'm feeling better I'm trying to wean her off of her screen dependency. When we get home the first thing she yells is "let's watch a movie!" to which my response is "no- let's play toys!". It usually takes a little convincing, but so far she has been happy to play toys with me.

Aven playing with one of her favorite toys. She either yells "Mom, let's play Mrs. Tato!", or  "Let's  play mash tatoes!". 

Finally!

 We FINALLY got some snow in the valley. 50 degrees and sunny for days at a time in January just feels so wrong. There is no more snow in the foreseeable forecast, but at least the temperatures are supposed to stay closer to the mid 30's.

Aven finally got to try out the snow shovel that Santa brought her. Up until now she's just been sitting on the shovel part, rocking back and forth and saying "yee haw!".

Grace is always a special sort of happy when she's laying in the snow. 

We even made our first snowman of the year!

December 2011

This has been the worst December, weather-wise, that I can remember. There has been no real snow to speak of and there has been a non-stop inversion that has kept us inside. So far December has been pretty blah. I'm looking forward to Christmas and getting to see Aven enjoy all her new toys, that will be a nice diversion.

Here are a couple pictures from our very uneventful December:

Aven willingly, although apprehensively, sat on Santa's lap this year.

Aven on stage at her daycare Christmas pageant performing "Where is Santa" to the tune of Frarajaka.

Smile

Got to love that smile.

Aven Einstein

Spring . . . is that you?

Yesterday we woke up to a little over an inch of snow on our front lawn, today we spent close to four hours playing outside even though the temperatures stayed around 55 degrees most of the day. Based on the number of people enjoying themselves at the park I would have to say that everyone is desperate for warm weather and would rather pretend that the weather is nice than stay inside another day. Since yet another storm is blowing in we took advantage of the wind and went to Sugarhouse Park to fly our kite.

We got out kite pretty high up there, but the wind was shifty, so the kite kept dipping down, threatening to get stuck in a tree.

Aven is not a fan of wind, but managed to enjoy kite flying for a few minutes.

I managed to capture the magical moment that Aven let go of the kite string, sending Ian scrambling across the hilltop, returning with many grass stains on his new pants.

After we finished flying our kite we took a few minutes to appreciate the forces of nature while trying to keep a very curious Aven at a safe distance.

Happy Spring! We're really hoping for warmer temperatures (and no flooding).

Aven Speaks

Just a quick video of Aven talking and her cute sound effects.

A Few New Favorites

A few of my favorite things that Aven has been doing lately:

• Dancing- Not in the traditional sense, but if I play OMG by Usher then she concentrates really hard, looks down, and stomps her feet as fast as she can.
• Talking- She chatters non-stop sometimes. A few words that I have been able to recognize are "dace daw" (Grace Dog), "shzzz" (shoes), and "fsh" (fish). She also says "ya ya ya!" if I ask her if she wants a snack or to go play outside.
• Playing with Grace- She is determined to get Grace Dog to play with her, but Grace is still a little nervous about getting too close, so Aven usually ends up chasing her around with a dog toy.

As frustrating as she can be sometimes, she is incredibly fun and always full of surprises.

Cute Aven Photos at the Cabin

I just wanted to post some more of the cute photos we took of Aven at the cabin over the 4th of July.

She looks like she's concentrating really hard on some deep philosophical problem, probably something to do with the nature of the rock she is holding in her hand.

It's okay she was fine, Cara caught her at the last minute, it was just perfect timing on the photo.

 She's taken off down the road looking for adventure or just another rock to pick up.

Sweet Disposition

In honor of father's day, here's some recent video of Ian's favorite babe:

Memorial Day in Moab

We decided to take a long over-due trip to Moab over Memorial Day weekend. A pretty large portion of Ian's family lives in Moab and since we haven't been to Moab since before I was pregnant with Aven she has come to be known as "the phantom baby". Ian's parents spend a lot of time telling the family all about her but since she had never been seen in person they weren't too sure she actually existed. We showed Aven off to as many family members as we had time to visit and there are now no doubts about her existence. Along with family visits we made time for some mountain biking, sight seeing, and general touristy type activities.

We headed out to Dead Horse Point State Park and let our little rock-crawler loose.

While at Dead Horse we also gazed at majestic sights . . .

. . . tried to avoid the Paparazzi . . .

. . . blew raspberries at the camera . . .

. . . and went mountain biking. Aven LOVED it.

Aven got to meet her cousin, Trinity, who is only a couple months older, but is light-years ahead in the hair department. Trinity liked giving kisses- very cute.

I love this picture- a whole family cuddle. I'm holding Aven, Aunt Pam is holding Trinity and Grandpa Bailey is in the background.

On our trip we learned that Aven is a great little traveler. She loved every minute and we are looking forward to many more trips this summer and to returning to Moab maybe this fall.

Aven Singing and Getting around

Hi everyone,

I got around to playing with some more video we took of Aven.

Here's a new toy from Aven's late Great Grandpa Bob by way of Grandpa Craig



And here's a montage of Aven getting around.

Cara's 30th Birthday Party

Cara turned 30 on the 12th, I threw her a small birthday party to celebrate the occasion. We had a BBQ at Cara's Mom's house since, it has more space and isn't currently a disaster area thanks to Hurricane Aven.

Here's the Birthday girl and Aven

I didn't get too many photo's I was running around cooking or otherwise getting things done. but here is a good one featuring most of the people that attended.
Pictured above: Dustin, kissing his son Payton, being held by Amber. Rob and Jaxon in the background along with Grace's butt. 'Nique on the right with my parents Christine and Dennis in the background. Not pictured is Rob and 'Nique's daughter Gwen.

Cara's Mom Nancy holding Aven.

Videos of Aven

I finally got around to editing the video we took of Aven and Grace meeting for the first time. I thought it would be a good thing to use to test posting videos to the blog. Lucy is also seen in the background meeting Aven for the first time.

What's Up Cuz?

Today I took Aven to meet her new cousin, Dallas. Dallas was born on June 4th (or was it the 3rd?) to my cousin Marcy who is about 4 years younger than me. It will be fun to have two babies so close together. Hopefully they'll be good friends as they grow up together. I think it's incredible to look at these two babies side by side because it really shows how much babies change in such a short period of time. They were almost the same weight at birth and even though she is a mere three weeks older Aven looks so much bigger. As of Friday she was 9 lbs. 13 oz.- a gain of 2 lbs. 3 oz. in a month. It was fun to talk baby stuff with another new mom. We exchanged our delivery room stories and talked about the wacky nurses we dealt with at I.M.C. And of course we talked about poo, because it's almost impossible to have a conversation with another new mom without mentioning it at some point. Congratulations Marcy and Jason- he's a handsome boy!


Here's a sleeping Aven. She only woke up toward the end of the visit. I'm sure she has absolutely no idea she met her new cousin today.


Here's a sleeping Dallas. He slept through the whole visit. He looks just like his dad.

More photos

Hey everyone, I know I've been silent on the blog lately. Having a new baby has been hard on my free time. Anyway I finally got around to putting up the majority of the photos that we have taken of Aven on the web so feel free to browse through them if you want.
http://picasaweb.google.com/ian.k.bailey

I'll try to keep posting more up there as we take them, until we hit or storage limit that is.

What's new . . .

What's new this week, you ask? Well, our daughter is still adorable and we have discovered the magic of The Happiest Baby on the Block. A wonderful method for calming a fussy, crying baby. I would recommend this to anyone with an infant. We watched the DVD, which was great. There is also a book that goes into more detail, which I hope to be able to devote some time to reading this week. The Happiest Baby method totally saved my sanity yesterday.


In other exciting news, a squirrel has decided to take up residence in the tree right on the other side of our fence. This means hours of entertainment for the canine member of our family. Don't worry, the squirrel is not in any danger, Grace is much too lumbering and clumsy to ever catch a living thing. She sure does like to stand at the base of a tree containing any kind of small rodent and watch excitedly as said rodent obviously taunts her. Well, obvious to everyone but her.

Happy 2 Week Birthday!

Aven officially turned 2 weeks old yesterday and had her 2 week Dr. appointment today. What better way to celebrate than with more photos of our gorgeous girl. She has packed on a whopping 9 ounces since birth and has grown a whole half inch taller and is getting more wiggly by the day. This is a healthy baby.

Here she is concentrating really hard on her polka dot cow while enjoying her pacifier.

I would be remiss if I did not post a picture of my daughter's first obscene gesture. This pretty much sums up her thoughts on diaper changes and baths.

Aven in her first pair of jeans. She's already quite stylish.