Poor Baby!

Our sweet baby woke up at 3:00 AM last night because she threw up. Yuck! Chris happened to be the one who went into her bedroom to put her back to sleep and discovered the yuck in her bed. We bathed her, changed the linens and her clothes and put her back to bed...only for round two 15 minutes later. Poor baby! She is a good thrower upper, though. She barely fussed and was ready to go right back to bed. She kept saying, "night-night". Ahhhh, angel! The only thing is that her little snuggle friends, Smelly Melly (monkey) and Schulman (piglet) stunk to high heaven! I gave her some other stuffed animals to snuggle with, but she wouldn't have it. Because it was 4AM by now, I gave in and let her sleep with her stinky friends. However, first thing this morning they both received the TLC they needed...a nice hot bath and a long (high heat) tumble in the dryer. Ahhhhhh, finally back to normal...everyone!

New Year...New Baby!

Ava is changing everyday. She is absolutely amazing. She has a vocabulary of about 25 words or more. I am not sure how many she should have at this age because it is just so fun hearing everything that she does know! She is a climber! She can climb on almost anything. It is scary to turn around to see your precious angel on top of the table reaching for the lamp! She is my little monkey. She quit drinking out of her bottle and never fussed about it. Sippy cups is all we use these days. She eats three meals a day and takes one nap in the afternoon. It makes scheduling activities much easier! She throws little fits. She arches her back so far that I have to help her to the ground. They are far and few inbetween but especially when she can't keep up with the neighborhood kids. She wants to do what they do...ride a bike, play in the street, etc. She is the love of our lives.

Happy New Year!

Growing up was especially exciting around the holidays at the Hoge house. Our mother established traditions for almost all of them! New Year's Eve was no exception. We watched the ball drop in Times Square in New York City at midnight then were allowed to run up and down our street banging pots and pans yelling "Happy New Year!" We had sparklers and PG fireworks (smoke bombs, etc). Last but not least we stripped the Christmas tree of all its needles, bagged them and then dumped them the Handon's front porch. They were our long time neighbors who lived across the street from us. I am not really sure how that part of the New Year festivities began, but for some reason it was a big secret who nicely dumped them as I am sure they knew it was the Hoge girls and just followed along. Anyway, I wanted to carry on the tradition of celebrating the New Year with Ava. We had party hats, sparklers, blow horns and lots of yummy food! We celebrated at 5:30 PM in the evening and never saw the ball drop - but we celebrated and kissed each other to ring in the New Year! Here's to 2010! May we be blessed with good health and happiness!