It's JUNE!!

June is here... summer is here... it is HOT in Florida!!! I don't know how I got throught this summer last year being ginormously pregnant... I don't think I left the house! But the heat definitely keeps you inside a lot of the time, or in a pool!!

Memorial Day came and went... we had Diana, Nana, Papa Mac and Lindsay over for a bar-b-que... here's a little video of her "problem solving" as she got "stuck" under the coffee table..



Then it's June... wow.. already June. We took our friends, Stephanie and Donny Mason, dinner to help them out with their new little boy, Cannon. Thursday I introduced Broccoli to Avalyn, and she liked it!

Avalyn is also way more mobile now that she can pull to a stand. She has gotten very comfortable on her feet and is cruising the furniture with ease! Here's a video:



She is also really beginning to pick up the whole 'signing' thing, and meaningfully signs "more" spontaneously, and "all done". She is working on "milk", "eat", "drink", and "water"... Here's a video of her signing "more".



I just think that is sooo cool!!

Friday we got her new carseat!! We ended up going with the Safety First Complete Air LX - Ella style (grey with pink details & flowers!) It has that new side 'airbag' technology for side crashes and can go up to 40lbs rear-facing! Here's a blurry pic of her in it, just to get an idea of what it looks like.

Her new car seat!

It of course, came in a cool big box, which she loved to play in!! Here's some pics!

I see you!!

Hey blue eyes!!

Saturday was a busy day!! We headed out to the Pistor house for their annual crawfish/crab boil, but I also had Peyton's (Ashley's daughter) 3rd birthday party to go to! So since they were both in Altamonte, I dropped Brandon off at Shawn's and headed out to see Peyton with Avalyn to say hello. We headed back to the Pistor house and went swimming and watch Bran shove his face with tons of crawdads :)

Sunday Avalyn turned 10 months old!!!! I started the morning off with a "mommies only" brunch with some girlfriends at Dexter's in Lake Mary. It's always nice to have some girl time without the baby once in awhile. We started Avalyn on Cauliflower today, and she liked that as well!! She's such a good eater!!!  And of course, we had a photo shoot!! I'm planning her first birthday party already and decided it was going to be a Luau!! So, I wanted to take hawaiian themed pictures for her "save the date", but we ended up just using these for her '10 month photo shoot' as well.. Here are the good ones!!

She looks like she's doing the hula here!! (She was actually falling down from standing!)

Love this pic!!

Look at that gut hanging over!!

This one just cracks me up!!

Lei on the head!

She is quite the character these days!! She's much more imitative and is picking up little things like "uh-oh" and raising her hands at her sides with the "O" face... so funny!  Here's a video of her dancing at the gate taken today!



She's so darn funny!  Monday, the 7th, we made our usual "first Monday of the month" trip to Leu Gardens. None of my friends were there this time, and it was sooooo hot outside, so we just left after the storytime. That afternoon I dropped Avalyn off at the boathouse to be with Bran so I could head down to Leesburg to visit my grandparents in the hospital. My grandpa was in to have his gallbladder removed and while he was waiting for his surgery over the weekend, my grandma fell and fractured her wrist and her hip. So, she needed a pin placed in her hip with surgery too! How terrible!!! My parents were with them all weekend and my grandpa just got released today (Wednesday) - my mom was able to come home and go back to work today. So, I was glad I was able to get up there to visit with them and bring some videos of Avalyn to help cheer them up!

This is also the last week of school for us, so Tuesday I went to work as usual. Today I'm off and it's also my mom's birthday!! Avalyn and I met her at Chick-fil-a for a quick lunch since she only gets 30 mins. Avalyn had such a great time in there - they had balloons and the cow was walking around saying hello! She was waving at everyone and just checking it all out! Too cute! After lunch I went up to visit Bran at his school to say hello since we were sorta closeby... and now I'm blogging away while she's sleeping!

Milestones:  Well, here's the run-down: She still nurses 4x/day - 7, 11, 3, before bed. She eats 3 meals a day - breakfast (8ish), lunch (noonish), dinner (6:15). She takes 2 naps during the day - her first one is usually 1.5-2 hrs in length (9:30-11/11:30) and her second is usually an hour - 1.5 (2-3/3:30pm). If we're busy and out and about and she had a good first nap, she can hang out till the evening hours and be fine. She continues to love the water and goes under back and forth between us with a problem (just simple quick passes - not on her own!). She is really picking up on a lot of things. If we say, "Give the ____ a kiss", she'll do it! She knows "nose" and "eyes" on other people/things, but not on herself. She's picking up on the signs a lot now, as I mentioned earlier, and points and signs "more" for things. Surprisingly, she listens pretty well when we tell her "NO" or "yucky". I have semi baby-proofed the house because I want her to be safe from the obvious dangers (outlets, chemicals, etc.) but not so much that she won't know the meaning of "NO" and how to mind herself if we're at someone else's house. She talks a lot, sings, and says "dog" and "dada" meaningfully. She finally says "mamamama" at times and "nana" when prompted... approximations for "balloon" and "ball" = "ba". I even heard her say "daDA?" with inflexion the other day, which was cool. She is just a really good girl, I feel so blessed!! She sleeps fantastically through the night still - 11-12 hours depending on the day.. typically around 11.5 hours at night.

I'm working 6 additional days past this Friday, and then I'm off for the summer. That means that I'm trying to stay busy and have lots of activities planned! We'll be making lots of visits to people and places - let me know when I can visit you!!