pop art ava

so this is what the easter bunny is bringing keegan on a canvas but since he never checks the blog ever it is safe to put it up. so dont tell him but i was excited and wanted to share it.

excited and dancing waving ava

just call me grace

so the alarm on my phone was going off the other morning at 4am. It would stop but start going again.... i had to go turn it off if i wanted more sleep and of course it was in the dinning room. So I went to grab it reluctant to get out of bed, hit it off and ran to jump back in our dreamy bed. A little too fast cause i caught my toes on one of the heavy heavy chairs. Never stubbed it that badly, sure hurt but headed back into bed... then it kept hurting and kept me up. I finally got Keegan up who anyone who knows him is no easy task. He proceeded to get up and get me ice and then roll over and sleep talk about ripped checks and chew his cud. sexy. Well I could not fall back asleep it hurt so bad and then when Ava woke up i tried to go get her and could not walk on my foot. This time i got Keegan up for real and we decided he would stay home with ava and i would go to the er and see if i had broken anything. well a quick trip later yes i had broken two toes and sprained my foot i hit it so hard... our bed is really dreamy and i wanted back in badly. so a boot and crutches which i hate and wont use later i am mending. I took the day easy as i could but i don't like to sit around so i had the neighborhood kids over and we played a bit but yesterday i was a bit more mobile. And well we had to enjoy keegans new car. so it should get better pretty quickly the doctor said but i am itching to run already.

tutus and daddy's hat

Colorado round two

koli and the two girls
Koli and Ryan at the top
watching at the bottom
the house

So Ava and I headed back to Colorado last week. We went with some good friends to Steamboat. It was beautiful and I have never seen so much snow in my life. We flew in their private plane which Ava loved that she could crawl while in the air and stayed in their beautiful house there. Ava is about three weeks older then kiaya so she had a fun play mate.
Ava was especially clingy so I never really got to do much of anything without her. But that is okay cause she is my little buddy. I tried the snow mobile and loved the thrill and seeing the sun set... while Ava wailed back at home with Koli's sisters and mom. However, we had a great time snow showing with Ava in the backpack... and taking the gondola to the top and looking all around. The sleeping thing was tricky but back home we are settling back into a rhythm.

okay so i have been mia but here is the deal

I lied in bed 2 Monday nights ago writing a blog entry in my head and decided against it as it would have been so angry and frustrated and sad but now a week and a half later I write this so very happy, more comfortable and extremely relieved. Keegan and I have been struggling on how to get Ava out of our bed and into her crib and in her own room. We had tried all the approaches that we knew of or could read about and we getting very discouraged. The first night we tried to be tough and go in every so often and check on her we gave up after 5 1/2 hours of crying and brought her to our bed... we thought it was insane and felt awful and I cried the majority of the time too. I also really missed her sleeping next to me. Well at the her nine month check up the doctor said it was really time and that she no longer needed to nurse during the night and we had to just lay down the law and be tough. It was awful. We came back from visiting Arwen and jumped right in. It was miserable really really the worst but the doctor was right.... and after a few bad nights... like awful no sleep nights..... 8-9 hours of screaming and a little baby without a voice in the morning she realized that she can sleep in her crib and that we always come. It was an adjustment for all of us and it is still a work in progress. Sometimes she still wakes up in the middle of the night and crys but she goes to bed in her own crib and complains but then goes to sleep relativly quickly... like under 10 mins.
Ahhhhh relief. My life has changed. Ava is now on a schedule which makes it possible for me to plan my day a bit better and we all get a much better nights sleep. I no longer wake up grumpy and exausted from sleeping on the very edge of the bed with a foot in my face. Honestly Ava is so small but she can take up a lot of the king bed.
I miss snuggiling her to sleep and occasionally napping with her in the day..... but someday we will get it so it works both ways. Keegan and I actually get to spend some time together now and bedtime is when we decide and it is not nearly the fight or games that it used to be. Hopefully this keeps up and involves less and less and no tears but this time last week I never thought that this would really happen. I am really so much happier and i think Ava is starting to be happier to and no longer mad at me.
After this we will tackle weening from nursing. But we will give the sleeping thing a bit more time first.