Sittin' pretty

My mother seems to have a special effect on my children. Her visits always seem to coincide with important milestones in my babies' lives. Two days after she visited when Aiden was 7 months old, he took off crawling. This visit, Ava wasn't sitting on her own at all when my mom was here. Two days later she started sitting and now can sit pretty much as long as she wants to. Amazing, isn't it? Mom, we'll have to make sure you visit again sooner rather than later--Ava still isn't rolling over, lol.

Anyway, enjoy the new sitting pics of Ava! Isn't this outfit adorable? It's another hand-me-down from her cousin Alyssa--I love it!

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There she goes!

I apologize in advance because the quality of this clip is lacking (it's really choppy and I'm not sure why), but it's cute none-the-less:) Ava is learning how to sit up, and she's doing pretty well the past few days! Aiden has a new favorite game called "There she goes!" We sit Ava up, then watch her and say, "How long will she last? Nobody knows! Nobody knows!" and then when she falls over we yell, "Oh! There she goes!" Aiden thinks this is hilarious--as you can see in this clip!

Caution: objects in video are LOUDER than they appear!

When I tell people that Ava is a very LOUD baby, they usually don't believe me because in public she is very quiet and observant. At home, however, she doesn't like to be outdone by her big brother! First thing in the morning and especially in the evenings, Ava loves to SHRIEK for no apparent reason other than hearing herself talk, lol. Enjoy this clip, but I'll warn you to turn the volume on your computer down as low as it goes first!

I just don't get it

Well, it's official, I really just don't understand my son. I'm sure other moms of boys are with me a little bit on this one. I guess because I am so much a "girl" and Aiden is so much a "boy," well, we just don't see eye to eye on things very often.

This morning we went to Kohl's just to get out of the house for a bit without using half a tank of gas to drive all the way across town. Aiden loves to look at toys at any store we go to. Ava was her usual easy, happy self (thank goodness!), but Aiden, forget about it. He has so many cars at home that he couldn't play with all of them in a WEEK. He has cars coming out of his ears!! But anywhere we go, he NEEDS another car. When I told him that we already have a Lightning McQueen at home and we are NOT buying another one, he totally lost it. I haven't seen a tantrum like this in a while, and trust me, I've seen some good ones! Our outing ended with me carrying one kicking, screaming little boy out of Kohl's under my arm (Ava barely noticed, by the way). I've never seen so many strangers stare at me in horror and disgust as my shrieking little boy let the whole store know just how unhappy he was.

Outside Kohl's, on the sidewalk, I gave him some space to let him recover. I reminded him that we only went to the store to LOOK at toys and not to BUY any, and that he has a whole boatload of cars at home. My little man, in typical boy fashion, looked up at me through tear-stained eyes and said, "Mommy, let's go home and play CARS!"

So we did. Again.

Granny's visit

Aiden and Ava's Granny came to visit last weekend. We had a wonderful visit with her. Aiden had so much fun playing trains and cars with his Granny--and he loves his new Chinese Dragon train that she got him!

Here are some pictures at home yesterday morning and then some pics from the nearby nature center that we visited on Friday afternoon.

We miss you already Mom!