Oh-Bla-Di

One of my favorite things about my pregnancy with Ava were the photos taken (on my due date, I think) by my good friend, Carrie.  So, when I became pregnant with Doozy, I knew that I’d want pretty photos of this experience too.  Sadly, Carrie is in Florida, so it wasn’t possible for her to do this session.  We lucked out, though, and found a great local photographer to do both our maternity and newborn sessions.  We just got access to our gallery today and Angela said I could post a couple here to share.

Thanks, Angela, for the great work.  Looking forward to photos of our Doozy soon!  

We’re lucky enough to have a whole room for office space in this house and, believe me, we’ve filled it and it’s a busy room.  It’s actually a bedroom, so it’s a nice size and has a closet for stashing all the stuff we don’t really want out for public viewing.  Until this weekend, though, that room was just for Matt and I.  Ava really had nothing in there to occupy her and, for the most part, we spent every second we were all in there together telling her to stop touching stuff – not really fun or productive for anyone.

Last weekend, in a stroke of what I’ll just admit was pure genius (ha!), I decided that it was time that Ava had her own workstation in the office.  She needed a place to color or stamp, where she could reach some of her own art materials – in other words, something to do so that we could get stuff done too.  We have a beautiful secretary desk that was sitting upstairs in the hallway serving no function except to look pretty, so it became my desk – plenty big enough for the laptop and full of little cubbies & drawers to stash my stuff.  My old pine table became Ava’s workstation and she now has access to markers, crayons and coloring pages whenever she wants them.  All in all, it’s working out great!

I love that we’ve made space for our girl in a room that used to be so off limits.  And now, rather than nagging her to leave stuff alone, I get to look over from my desk and see something that’s a lot more happy.

Lest you think that we’ve gone and princess-ified  (I know, it’s not a word) everything in Ava’s life, she does occasionally go for a slightly less “ready for the ball” look.  We’ll enter these photos in the “toddler rebel-for-no-apparent-reason” category.

Must be the next evolution of her personal style after this.  Whatever it is, sure is cheap entertainment.  

Dressing up is still one of Ava’s favorite things to do.  And, just so we never forget what this looks like and how much she loves it, here’s some photo proof of one of her best get-ups.

Ava’s going through a wonderful toddler stage in which she really likes to help out around here.  She’s been helping with our daily chores (dusting, scrubbing bathrooms, etc) but she was super-excited to put on her swimsuit and help Matt wash the car a couple of weeks ago.  Given that it was well over 100 degrees when they tackled this task, it was a good thing there was water involved.

Here’s hoping that this helping phase last through the first few weeks of Doozy’s arrival at the house!