Put your hands up and step away from the Diet Coke

Ahhhh….the lessons you learn as a parent. I’m notorious for leaving half-full Diet Cokes around the house. It’s just what I do. I think some part of me is rebelling as my parents used to always yell at us kids for not finishing our sodas. Did anyone else’s parents do that? Anyhow…back to the story. So I went to bed last night and left a half full Diet Coke on the coffee table. I left for work this morning and Mike calls me a little while later. Here’s our conversation:

Mike: No more leaving your Diet Cokes around the house. (Note: That approach may not work. See above honey.)

Janice: Okay, why?

Mike: Your daughter just had Diet Coke for breakfast.

Janice: That’s nice.

Mike: Do you think I should send her to daycare with a Diet Coke just to see what they say.

Janice: That’d be funny.

We hang up. Around 2:30 today Mike goes to pick Ava up from daycare. I get a phone call shortly after that goes like this:

Mike: Seriously honey, you can’t leave your Diet Cokes laying around the house.

Janice: Seriously honey, I heard you the first time. Why…what happened?

Mike: Ava only slept for a 1/2 hour all day and she looks a little crazy.

Janice: Oh no…really?

Mike: Yeah. So you can’t leave your Diet Cokes laying around the house anymore.

Janice: Mike, I heard you the first 2 times. Seriously…I haven’t even been home yet to leave one laying around.

Mike: I’m just sayin’

So here are the lessons I’ve learned today:

1. You can’t leave Diet Cokes laying around the house when you have a 1 year old.
2. When your husband finally finds something that, for once, isn’t his fault (hee-hee), he’ll remind you of your mistake for the rest of the day.

Maybe it’s just me, but I find this whole thing so humorous.

Bonjourno!

Every child has to have their first spaghetti picture. Here’s Ava’s!

Videos of Ava

I finally got around to uploading random videos we’ve taken of Ava. Enjoy!

Conversations with Ava
My favorite video. I wish we knew what she was saying.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8838285485636731847&pr=goog-sl

Conversations with Ava: Part 2
This one picks up where the other left off.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3167903036303690507&pr=goog-sl

Cleaning House
She could sit and sort laundry for hours. With my luck as soon as she’s old enough to really help me, she’ll lose interest.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3240528949899053141&pr=goog-sl

Bubble
Ava says alot of words clearly, but my favorite word she says is “Bubble”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-753813882354400093&pr=goog-sl

Bathtime Conversations
This was taken about a month ago. She can identify most things in the tub…ducks, flowers, no-no’s (faucet), and of course, balls.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2628464669487940976&pr=goog-sl

An Ava Update

Ava continues to make us fall even more in love with her every day. She is an extremely charming little girl and so very smart. I have an perfect example to prove my previous statement:

She has begun hitting. I know…fun times. So the other day, I pick her up to change her diaper since she told me she went “poo-poo.” Well, I pick her up and she didn’t want to get her diaper changed…she wanted to continue playing. So she halls off and smacks me in the face. I grab her hand and firmly say, “No, no Ava. You don’t hit. That’s not nice.” Do you want to know what she does? She smiles at me, says “awwww” and gives me a hug. That’s smart. She already knows how to get out of trouble and she’s not even 14 months old. So if and when I get pulled over by a cop, I’m hoping I have her with me to get me out of the ticket. She’s good…really good.

She has two favorite games. The first one is where she hides under the blanket and then jumps out and says “Boo!” Pretty typical for her age, but the funniest part is that her hair is FINALLY starting to come in. So when she lifts the blanket off her head she looks like she’s been electrocuted and all her hair is standing on end. Here’s a picture of her playing the game with Daddy.

Her other favorite game is hide and seek. She could play this game all day. I’ll hide in the bathroom, she rounds the corner, I jump out and scare her and she goes completely stiff. It’s hysterical! Her arms go stiff, she freezes and then starts cracking up. How she doesn’t get sick of this after the second go round, I’ll never understand.

Here’s a link to all of her most recent pictures: share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AatXLFk1btmP-

Garth Brooks Rules…I suck!

So last weekend, Mike and I went to see Garth Brooks. It was the first time I had seen him live and boy is he awesome! He’s charming, funny and an amazing entertainer. He played five shows in two days and raised an astonishing $10,000,000 for the firefighters and wildfire victims of the 2007 California wildwires. $10,000,000 in TWO DAYS!!!!!!!! That’s a pretty amazing feat. I’m a diehard country music fan and what do I do??? I forget my flipping camera. I mean, how stupid can I be? The guy comes out of retirement to play these shows, I get great tickets by the grace of God and I forget my camera? Stupid, stupid, stupid. So I don’t have any pictures to show you, but I can tell you it was the best concert I’ve ever been to.