Thanksgiving In Las Vegas

This year we went to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving. Amy and her family came down as well, and it was so nice to see everyone! Ava got to meet her Utah cousins and pretty much spent the whole time playing, sleeping, and eating.

Ava and London checking out Scooby

That's Maddie on the left. These girls were so nice to Ava and so much fun for her to play with

Here's one with all of them. Brooklyn's on the far left. 

Love girl cousins!

And this is what was going on behind the camera :)

Our family on Thanksgiving

Ava was able to spend a lot of time with Grandma :)

such cute girls

Jeff's mom was wonderful and spent so much time playing and watching Ava so Jeff and I had time to sleep in, nap, and one day we went out to lunch just the two of us (rare). Thank you!!!

crashed

Caroline and I went and did some shopping for Ava and got her this little coat. 

She looked adorable in it.

Staring down Maddie's Mac and Cheese

Such a nice cousin

Ava loved her Uncle Matt! He was so good with her- and she was always pretty happy to sit and play with him.

I have more pictures to post but I'll have to add them later when I get them from Jeff- I just needed to blog this since it's already halfway through December :) 

Thanks to Jeff's parents for having us! It was a great little trip :)

How We Feel About Solids....

 Ava tried solids for the first time about a week ago....

I think these pictures sum up perfectly exactly how she felt about that!

she.

did.

not.

like.

 them!

Jeff took some great action shots while I tried to get Ava to warm up to the idea of mushy baby food. She gagged, spit up, coughed, and swiveled her head so far back I thought she was going to fall out of her chair. Dramatic baby much? I tried again the next day and then gave it a rest for a couple days after that since she still hated it. Today we tried bananas and she hated that too. 

This girl who-hates-bottles- really does not want anyone else to feed her I guess!

*Ava Rees* 6 Months

Can't believe my girl is 6 months! Time really does go by so quickly. 

So far this age has been so much fun. She's developing more of her personality, and she really is a very sweet girl. She loves her toys. Her mirror is her favorite, followed by her rubber giraffe. 

She sits up, rolls everywhere, and gets up on all fours and will just rock back and forth. She's been rocking for a few weeks now- she just rocks and smiles and then crashes to her stomach and rolls to wherever she wants to go. I think she's teasing me since I thought once she started rocking she'd be crawling soon... but I guess not. 

These pictures were taken just a couple days ago- on her actual 6 month birthday she was still recovering from a nasty stomach bug. Jeff was in Florida for five days and while he was gone the poor girl got really sick. Thankfully she's feeling much better, but it was rough for a while.

 Ava still has no teeth, but does have lots of drool. She has no interest in eating solids, and actually really hates eating them. Ava is still super cuddly and affectionate- she must get that from her daddy :) She recently started laying her head on my chest when I go to pick her up from a nap or in the morning. She just likes to nestle in. She's started to show a preference for me and can get upset if she sees me come into a room without picking her up to give her some love. She also gets upset now if I take away a toy or something she's playing with. She gets very upset when I don't let her play with my water bottle. 

Ava has gotten a lot better with her sleeping- but only because I made her cry-it-out the first night Jeff went out of town. It was something we both thought needed to be done, but I decided it would be easiest with him gone- he's kind of a softie :) I've tried every other sleep method out there- but this girl just does not like sleeping. Hates it. Crying-it-out sucks and it's hard, but Ava's been waking up 7 times a night every. single. night. since she was born. I did a lot of research on it and decided that 6 months was best for us. The first night was awful and I felt like it didn't even work, but then the next day she went down with ZERO crying for all of her naps and went to sleep at night without a peep- and stayed asleep for most of the night. It was awesome. She was happier and I was happier, so it was a  win-win. However, she got sick a couple days later and so that of course messed up her sleep, but I'm waiting until I'm 100% sure she's back to feeling like her old self before having her cry-it-out again. 

on all fours rocking......

.....and now she's about to roll away

Ava also likes to roll under our table and chairs and hang out. She scoots backwards and then looks out at me and Jeff. This cracks us up because it feels like she's keeping an eye on us to make sure we behave ourselves. 

gosh, we just love that girl. Ava's just my favorite. 

Love you girlie <3 p="">

iphone dump

what we've been up to according to my phone

Ava helping dad study 

posing for the camera.... 

.....while cuddling with her daddy

looking cute while we grocery shop

stretching it out in the morning 

her favorite spot in the apartment-packed away in the corner of the couch

Jeff discovered this. She is very happy whenever we hide her in there lol

seriously, she just zones out and relaxes haha

Halloween Fun

Halloween this year was so fun!

I got a serious kick out of dressing up Ava as an elephant.

Cutest elephant. ever.

There was a cute pink and white striped body suit to go underneath the costume, but it didn't fit :)

* funny story- my best cousin friend Erin and I dressed up our little girls in the exact same elephant costume, without either of us knowing, and then we both dressed up as a cheetah cat. Again- all without either of us knowing. We have a cousin connection I guess. I love it! Once when we were teenagers, we bought the exact same super awesome swimsuit in different states and then showed up at the family reunion wearing them without consulting each other. I just love her- and wish we lived closer!!!

At our ward party

babies in costumes are the cutest babies

Ava and Jane were elephant friends

Over all of the Halloweens that Jeff and I have had together- we've never carved pumpkins. We both think that pumpkin guts are gross and smell bad. However, this year, we decided we had to so we could stick Ava between some carved pumpkins and take a picture. So, after Ava went to bed we covered our noses and held our breath and got carving.

Carving pumpkins is harder than I remembered- so they're not great. However, we did it! And Ava makes them look cute. 

mine's on the right :)

I took Ava to a little Halloween party for the cute kiddos

Ava's friend Ellie was there.... Ava loves her. Sometimes a little too much. 

Ava would not stop trying to eat her.

We had a lot of fun at the party- Thanks for throwing it, Jen! 

And I spent Halloween night at home alone not handing out candy because for the third year in a row- we got NO trick-or-treaters (and Jeff's in Florida). I wasn't going to buy candy this year, but then I thought how the one year I'm not prepared is when we'll get trick-or-treaters, so I bought a bag of candy....and yup, no trick-or-treaters. Dang. Guess I'll have to eat all the candy :)- 

Hope everyone had a great Halloween! 

Old Man Baby PJs

These pajamas are cute and girly but....they come with a matching hat and for some reason she reminds me of an old man in pjs from a book I read as a little kid. 

She still looks really cute though.

haha, love the hat! I now want a hat to match my pjs.