10 months Old!

WOW! Ava is 10 months old now...CRAZY!!! She is just such a wonderful baby, and I am enjoying her more now than ever before! She seriously smiles all day long...and I am not kidding. It's so nice to come home to her after work. I walk in and pop my head around the corner, and the biggest smile you can imagine looks back at me! She's just perfect, and I love her more than everything. :)

We started brushing her teeth in the last few weeks. She really likes it (especially with the berry flavored toothpaste), and she wants to be the one to hold it. So, I'll brush them really quick (since there are only 4!) and then give it to her to practice! :)
She is becoming such an independent little girl, and she's started to let us know what she wants! She'll now cry if you take something from her that she wants (although, she's still very easily distracted)! When she's waiting in her highchair for us to prepare her meal, we put puffs out for her to snack on (just out of her reach). We have to only put one at a time in front of her or else she'll keep shoving them in her mouth until she chokes! So, when she's ready for another one, she'll bang her hand on the tray until we scoot one close enough for her to reach! I guess it's her way of communicating with us!

Here she is sitting in front of her toys in the morning. They all start off nice and neat and are all over by the end of the day! She'll pick through until she gets the exact toy she wants!
So, last weekend, I spent most of my time preparing food for Ava! It took way longer than I thought it would! In the past, I usually just make 3 or 4 foods at once to freeze, but this time I made TWELVE foods! I have to go to a special store to get organic stuff, so I just wanted to get it all at once so I don't have to go back for a while. This is everything that I made...then I had to puree it and freeze it in individual containers! Took for freaking ever!
Patrick bought Ava a new toy! A red push car! He surprised her by pushing it through the front door while Ava and I were playing in the living room. When Patrick first rolled it into the living room...a few seconds later, Ava started to cry! It scared her at first, but them we got to know the red car, and she LOVES it! Now, if you walk her over to the car like you're going to put her in it, she smiles from ear to ear. We use it to walk around the house since she's got her cast on. It was a life saver when we were trying to keep her off her feet a little. Here, Patrick is showing her that the horn honks which tickled her to pieces!
She's been making two new faces lately. One is the picture at the beginning of this post...mouth is WIDE open! She sometimes does it in place of smiling...it's just so funny....cause you'd never know her mouth could open that much! It's very cute! The other face has come to be know as "the monkey face." She does it all the time, but somehow, I haven't been able to catch it perfectly with my camera. I've got it a few times on the regular video camera, but not my little one. So, this is another face she makes, but it's not the monkey face. She brings her lower jaw forward and looks hysterical! Before her surgery (and cast), she's been going to the pool pretty regularly. Aunt Sarah bought her this floaty crab, and she has come to love Mr. Crab. I wish you could all see her in person in this thing....the camera does not do her cuteness justice!
She's got the best seat in the house on the way home from the pool! I love how she's just hangin' out and chillin' like Patrick's arms are arm rests!
She continues to love to read. You can pretty much distract her from full out crying and she'll sit right down and let you read her a book! It's so cute because she's now starting to really react- she points to stuff, touches the pages, and also wants to turn the pages. Sometimes she talks so excitedly like she's trying to tell you something. She's just so sweet! Here she is with Bobbi.
The surgery didn't alter her love of reading at all. Here she is reading with her sweet little cast. Her sweet little teeth are still growing! Her top front teeth are growing in now! Look how cute! I can actually see another one starting to poke through on her upper right side and another one (a canine) on her lower left. So, we'll see what ends up coming next! Ava is doing great after her surgery! She is walking on the little peg leg like it's nothing! I love when she walks on the kitchen floor cause you can really hear her coming with that cast! Step-Clunk-Step-Clunk-Step-Clunk. Very sweet! There is one pretty big change for Ava. The day after her surgery, she started to refuse to nurse. At first, she would only take one side, then she didn't want to nurse at night, then the next day she didn't want to nurse at all. I tried a few times just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, but it wasn't and she has weaned herself. I'm a little sad about it...it seems like it happened so fast- over 3 days. I really wanted to nurse her through her surgery, which I guess I did-just barely. I really loved nursing her, and it will be something that I miss. But I still have my Mommy-Ava time in the mornings and at bedtime. We've (I've) adjusted and she's doing great. I'm glad it was on her terms and that I didn't have to wean her against her will.

Here's a little video of her walking so well with that cast! I think she'll adjust really quickly to no cast and then she'll be running! You can also see one of her new faces at the end!

Here are LOTS of pics of Ava at 10 months! Enjoy!