Ava: 1 Year, 5 months

17 months and she has a mind of her own.

Ava continues to love independence more than anything. We give her a little freedom in a public place and her face lights up with energy. She has things to explore and they are generally NOT where we are headed.

Her vocabulary continues to grow as do hints of tantrums. Help us! She has not had anything too terrible yet but we can see the beginnings. She can get frustrated if one of her animals doesn't cooperate with her or if her purse strap is stuck on her baby's stroller. The best solution in her mind is to yell, "Uh ohhhh, NO NO NO NO!" and then throw whatever is causing the issue. Seems reasonable.

She had a fun Christmas, wired for 2 days straight as we made the rounds to everyone's house. She still isn't as excited to open gifts as the older kids are, she is more into helping move them around. After all the toys she received we still found her in her 'fort' (closet) playing with an empty gallon milk jug.

She received 2 stuffed owls for Christmas and loves to bring them places. The larger owl seems to be incredibly dehydrated as he is constantly being fed out of a small bottle. Ava is very good about making sure all of her friends have enough to drink and eat.

We are starting to make plans to give Ava a 'big girl' room as we get going with the baby's nursery. He will acquire her crib. We are going straight for the twin size bed (with bed rails) and hope to make this a very comfortable bed that she wants to stay in ALL NIGHT.

Only 4 more months until Ava is a big sister!

Here we go again!

The entire reason I was able to keep my blog going in 2008 was because I was up the majority of the nights with back pain. Then Ava came and I couldn't afford to operate on less sleep so I forced myself to stay in bed.

Fast forward to the end of 2009 and I am up writing due to back pain! Baby Cookie v2.0 in house and I am back. Only problem is, Ava is here and isn't too in to me sleeping all day. Thankfully Brian is on vacation this week, so I figure he'll let me sleep in and I can putter around on the computer.

Marathon
Brian is at the end of his training for the Phoenix marathon. He has a strong chance at running fast enough to qualify for Boston. This would mean a huge improvement on his best time, but so far his training is proving this very possible. I am organizing a group to cheer him on, hopefully as many as possible will be able to see him on the course and push him to Boston. We are very proud little cheerleaders.

Lemonade
In my spare time I have been working on my first event outside of the corporate world. Leah and Josh's wedding is coming up fast and it has been a blast working on this. I truly love it. There are some fun ideas in place and it is coming together nicely. I hope I can continue this as it's the only job I've had that I love doing.

Ava
See update posting on January 1 about the latest and greatest developments of my little lovey.

Violet
Miss Violet has gotten a little crazier than she was. Hard to believe? I agree. Under normal circumstances I would think she needs more activity, exercise, attention, etc. Except for the part where she gets 2-3 walks a day. She spent the first part of her life living it up going to Doggy Daycare 3-4 times a week when I quit my job that had to stop. So now, I guess her life totally sucks compared to what it was. But what it was was a life fit for a princess! Violet doesn't bring in any money so she will be forced to get her walks from us. She no longer wants to give up the ball when we take her to the park or on the trails. Instead she obsesses over it and ends up in the backyard for hours waiting for us to come out and throw it. When we go out to throw it she quickly snatches it up and won't let us near it. She is meant to be a smart dog that can lead the blind and help handicapped people pay for their groceries. Oh, Violet!

Baby Cookie v2.0
I am mid-way through my 22nd week of pregnancy. How time flies. It is pretty scary. We are excited but also so scared of what is to come. Sometimes Most times Ava and Violet seem to be all we can take, then we imagine bringing a newborn into the mix. How do people do it?? Anyway, my pregnancy has been basically exactly the same as with Ava. This is great news because I felt I had it easy with her. Let's hope the delivery is also similar and we'll be in business. We are just about to get going on our boy's room, it looks like we are going with a Dr. Seuss theme.

I think that is the latest and greatest with us, I may be back with more regular updates, it all depends on my sleep schedule :)

Ava: 1 Year, 3 months

Where did the time go?? Our Ava is 15 months old now and quite her own little person. She makes us laugh out loud daily. She doesn't just walk, she runs. She is very curious and must always explore in drawers and cabinets. Her favorite area at the moment is Mama's make up drawer. There she finds soft brushes that she so kindly cleans the floor with or even adds a little blush to Violet's cheek.

Speaking of Violet, she is Ava's best friend. They are always in cohoots with each other. Ava has no issues with sharing and is always making sure that Violet is well fed. They chase each other, snuggle together and sometimes share Violet's bed.

Ava's second best friend is Dora the Explorer. She is a little obsessed. She hands us the remote and says, 'Dora??'. She has her own chair that must be in place when she is ready to watch her program.

Ava has a large vocabulary for her age and it also happens to be a mix of German and English. She'll get tongue-tied as she points out the 'blume' or flowers in German. She kindly says, 'hatsi' when any of us sneeze. Her most frequently used word is 'doggie'. She must say it 20 times a day. She knows when we are getting close to home and calls out 'doggie!' because if we are close to home, we are close to Vi.

We will need to start being careful because Ava is learning to copy us. I was calling out for Brian the other day, "Cookie?!" and two seconds later I get Ava calling out Cookie in the same tone. She is very sweet and washes her Dora doll's hair in the tub and cleans her Froggy's nails with the nail brush. All things she watches me to do to her.

She loves helping us with any chore, let's hope this lasts! She assists with the laundry by sorting the clothes, mainly taking the clothes out of the hamper and then putting them back in. She helps with the dishwasher, mainly taking the silverware out and sometimes even putting them in their correct drawer.

We have to be very careful when the refrigerator or pantry door opens because this is a sound Ava can hear from miles away. Out of no where she is running to see where her help may be needed. We often find things in odd places, like the shoe horn in the refrigerator door or Violet's food scoop at the bottom of the recycling bin.

We are so in love!!

gramercy r us?

So on Saturday we find ourselves at Babies R Us researching new carseats, you can actually try them out there, and then cheap me buys the same one online for much less. Babies R Us is the Bend Over Market of baby stuff.

Bend Over Market = Amish Market = very expensive grocery store that I shopped at when living in TriBeCa.

Ok so as we are shopping we pass this couple pushing a baby, I happen to glance down at the baby and notice the most stunning eyes I've ever seen. This tiny baby, whose eye color shouldn't even be fully obvious yet, had the most electric blue eyes. I had to do a double take. I then told his mother how beautiful they were. She said he had his father's eyes. Which he did, only his were brighter. The couple was so nice, we talked for about 15 minutes. In my head I thought, I could totally be friends with these people, they seem like us. Same ages, not a super young family, same dress, just the same. We finally go our separate ways.

We are at the car seats and the mom comes back over and tells us they don't live in Arizona and wondered if we knew anyone who would have use for a co-sleeper and bouncy chair as when they ended their vacation they would just be tossing them. They have 2 more weeks on their vacation, so the stuff will be brand new. As we looked for a pen and/or business card I asked where they lived. New York. Oh where in New York? Manhattan. Of course you do.

We exchanged info and then joked that we should do a house swap. The mom (Cheri) was totally into it as they just rented a house for a month in AZ (her parents live here) and her husband can work anywhere. She loved the idea of having a house already equipped with baby stuff. Our babies are 3 months apart. Then she casually mentions that they live in Gramercy Park and have a key to the park!! There are just a few dozen that have this key.

I have met people in stranger ways, you just never know how or when you might meet someone.

ooooh say can you tow?

hopefully i never hear another person talk about keeping money in the states and supporting our local car manufacturers again. there is a reason we buy more foreign. it's because we like to get to where we are going.

today marks the 5th time mr. cookie's crap company car has been towed to the shop in less than a year. he got his company car just as they changed the policy to keep the cars for 100,000 miles. it is pretty much impossible to ask such a miracle of an american car.

let's go down crap car memory lane, shall we?

1. the first time the tow truck came was the day before i gave birth. it was july 31, 2008. the hottest day of the year. we were dropping our condo keys off, mr.cookie shut the car off to run inside, i turned it back on to get some air. it never went back on so i sat outside of the car having contractions with our puppy panting nearby. want more fun details? click here!

2. the second time was also the day before i gave birth. we got home from the condo incident, parked in the driveway. the car was shut off too far back and the garage door would not close. mr. cookie went to move it up a foot and the car wouldn't start. glorious.

3. the third time we didn't actually get towed at the time of distress. this time we were at a company event in california and made a weekend out of it. we had our newborn baby (hint: newborn baby = summer) with us all ready for the long drive back to phoenix. in the hottest and most desolate part of the drive the air went out. we proceeded to drive the rest of the 4 hour drive home with no air. joy!

4. the fourth time the tire went flat and a tow truck came to get it, you might think it was just a flat tire so why didn't we change it ourselves. because we shouldn't have to!!!! that's why. this car blows.

5. today, marks the 5th time. i was on the way to drop ava off at my mom's. half way there it sounds like i've put chopped glass in the gas tank instead of gas. it starts smoking like mad and rattling. it truly wouldn't surprise me if this car blows up. i am in the middle of a 6 lane road so i proceed to make a left across 3 lanes to get off the road. this is precisely when the power steering goes out and i can barely make it turn into a pet resort driveway. the girl at the pet resort saw the whole thing and knew right away that something was wrong with the way i was driving. ava and i spent a while at the resort, grandma picked her up and then i waited for mr. cookie to come as well as the tow truck. the shop knows mr. cookie now. let me tell you, i don't want to be on a first name basis with the mechanic.

he is getting a new car it looks like. still a giant american thing but new.

Should I get a Maternity test done?

On Tuesday Ava and I had to get passport photos. Ava was getting her first passport and I was getting a new one with my married name in it. Here they are. Do you think Mr. Cookie cheated on me? I think I need a maternity test. Meanwhile Ava and Mr. Cookie are twins. Not fair.

GO CARDINALS!!

Who would ever believe that Sunday's Superbowl festivities would actually involve our own team?? Year after year it has been a tradition to watch the Superbowl. Not because I love football so much, but it is such a comfortable tradition that is exclusive to the good old USA. The commercials were always my thing. I didn't really have a team to cheer for because the teams that go to the Superbowl are always those really good teams.

Not ours.

As a season ticket holders to the Arizona Cardinals I was able to watch my fair share of live games this year. Being the daughter to the Cardinals' biggest fan, I was able to watch my fair share of live games when they were HORRIBLE. My dad got tickets right when Arizona got the Cardinals. The poor team played in the ASU Sun Devil Stadium. No one knew why we would bother going to the games. Even my daughter is a fan. She took in her first game when she was just a month old. Here she is at her 2nd game.

This year when we were getting close to playoff time I asked Mr. Cookie if we had a chance at going to the Superbowl. I mean, if we made it to the playoffs, why not? He, along with others, shook their heads quickly saying something along the lines of...hmmm...what was it now...oh yeah, I think it was, "No f**king way!" AND I said..."I have a good feeling, they are going to the Superbowl. I can FEEL it."

Back off of my woman's intuition, slightly sprinkled with the new and improved intuition, mother's intuition.

This town is so excited. I was at the grocery store earlier and an announcement came on talking about how the butcher just put all this meat on major special. He ended his announcement with, "Let's Go Cardinals!" and after that from all over the store I hear people just shouting out, "Let's Do IT!", "Come On Cardinals!", "WooHooo!". I love it. As I walked out I bumped into the one guy in Arizona wearing full on Steelers gear. Jackass.

This team will not let themselves get to the Superbowl and lose. Just like they weren't going to get themselves within 1 game of going and not go.

SUPER CARDS!