18 months

Ava is so old! She is totally not a baby anymore and acts more and more grown-up every day.

If you were to spend the day with Ava from morning until night here are a few things you would notice...

She usually wakes up around 8:30 or 9. She doesn't usually wake up super happy and is a bit grumpy all morning. She likes to eat eggs for breakfast and will also eat grapes or oranges. Other than that she is not a fan of most food items in the morning.

As soon as she wakes up she will start pointing things out to you and naming them. And boy Ava knows a LOT of words. I tried counting and there were way too many to even count. She will say and point out all of the main colors (red,orange,yellow,green,blue,purple,pink,black,white,and brown), a few shapes, 7 out of the 1st ten numbers (she gets 6 and nine mixed up and doesn't really say one usually), a few letters, most animals, all the sesame street characters names, all the family names, most articles of clothing, a lot of different foods, a ton of things around the house, things around the playground like slide, swing, and she is getting to say quite a few verbs as well, like dancing, run, hug,kiss, i like it, i am, i will, i don't, i do, yes, no, and my PERSONAL FAVORITE thing she has started to say about things that are very cool to her is WOW BEAUTIFUL. It is so cute!

I know I just wrote a ton of words, but that is the NUMBER ONE thing you would notice about Ava if you spent the day with her. She knows a lot of them and is almost constantly talking. She is great company these days :)

Getting Ava ready for the day is quite challenging especially if I try to do her hair in the morning. She doesn't like it one bit. BUT it is getting so stinkin long that something HAS to be done about it or else it is in her eyes all day. Sometimes she also hates getting dressed and will throw tantrums.

These days you would notice that Ava throws about 10-20 tantrums a day where she throws herself on the floor usually to her knees. Then she will sometimes throw herself even further onto her back. Then she cries because it hurts. Duh. :) These uaully happen right before naptime. She also has this terribly loud screechy squeal thing that has recently started. She likes to do that in stores if I don't let her run around freely and she is ready to go. (So it happens everytime we go to the store becasue OF COURSE I don't let her run freely around a store, no matter how much she would LOVE it)

Ava is constantly on the move. Loves to climb and "jump" and be thrown in the air, and spun, and any other adventerous type movement you can think of.

When we take her to the gym with us she will point out GYM as we get closer to it. She cries when we leave her for about 1 minute. Then she happily plays with the toys and other kids. (We also have taken her to nursery for about a month and she loves it! For some reason she doesn't cry at all when we leave her in there)

Ava "watches" sesame street most days at 11. That is a great time for me to get things done. She will play and be entertained by herself when elmo is on for some reason. Ava watching tv is more like her walking around and glancing at the tv for maybe one minute and then doing something else. But if it is turned off she says, "uh oh, fix it".

After a snack and elmo you would notice that Ava goes down for a nap at Noon every day. She will sleep for 2 hours give or take half an hour. When she wakes up from that nap she is finally a really happy girl.

Ava loves to eat rice, noodles, oranges, really any fruit except bananas, green beans, peas, most veggies also. Other than that Ava has a hard time eating. She refuses bread most of the time, gags on mac and cheese, won't eat potatoes, sometimes likes yogurt other times will not eat it. I guess I am glad that the foods ava does like are very healthy. The other day after taking V-day pictures with her I put her in her bumbo and asked if she wanted green beans. She get excited and put down her sucker that she had been licking. She didn't care about it one bit once the green beans came out! Crazy right??

If you take Ava outside in the afternoon (which we have been doing the past week quite a bit since it has FINALLY been getting somewhat nice), you will notice that she loves to explore and walks around constantly the whole time she is out there. She likes to find small inclines, and small steps, and places where it is a bit tricky for her to walk. She is my little adventurer. She is not so great at going down slides unless they are way not steep. She loves swings and can swing on a "big kid" one. When you try to bring her in you should expect to deal with a major tantrum once she realizes you are coming back inside the boring house. I am looking forward to spring when we can be outside without coats.

If Ava is being super grumpy you can ALWAYS make her happy by going up to her room and reading books with her. I sit on the rocking chair and she brings me book after book. That is the main reason she knows so many words. She knows most words in all 50 of her books. The pictures, not how to read them obviously. We have a book about presidents and it has all the presidents in it. On the cover are George Washington, Lincoln and Obama. She looks at the cover and names all three. It is so cute hearing her say Washington, Lincoln and Obama haha. We will spend about an hour up there a lot of days just reading books. It takes her a long time to get bored. She usually brings me every book on her shelf.

Another thing that makes Ava happy is dancing, and she has a favorite song that she requests and says NO NO if it is not the right one. It is PROUD MARY Glee version. She calls is "rollin" and it is the cutest thing ever to see her dance to it! I will put a video up here soon with her dancing. She struts around and moves her shoulders. She also sings to it and knows the part where they yell "YEAH".

Around 5pm I ask Ava, Guess what is on Ava!? and she will say "GEORGE!" and we turn on curious george her FAVORITE show. She usually eats dinner and watches curious george while I get dinner going or clean the kitchen or other things.

When daddy gets home from work Ava hears the garage and says, "home!" and then runs to Jared when he walks inside. Then she starts pointing out everything to him that she is excited about. Ava loves playing with Jared!

Oh another random thing. Ask her what her name is and she says Aisa, ask her what her last name is and she will say Downing. It is so cute. She loves her last name!

Before bed or sometimes in the late morning I usually have her sit on the potty and a lot of times she will go poop! :) haha. We are definately not hard core training though, just getting used to it.

Bedtime is at 8:30. Her routine is this: Brush teeth, drink water, pick blanket, rock on mom or dad's shoulder while we say prayers and while the lullaby cd is on, rock for about a minute more and into crib. It is awesome how easy she is to put down these days. I love it! I also love having alone time with Jared for a couple hours at night!!

Thats a day at home in the life of Ava.