Lions, tigers and a bear...oh my!

We made our first trip to the Austin Zoo and I was pleasantly surprised at how nice it was. One of the first set of cages we wandered onto housed the mighty tigers. They were HUGE. I kept thinking about their huge teeth and wondered if they could jump the fence. Signs were posted everywhere to not taunt the animals...hmmmmmmm...wouldn't think of it! We quickly and nicely posed for a photo because it was our first trip to the zoo and we had to capture the moment. When we came across the lion cage one of them was roaring...and I mean he paced and roared (like Ava did when she was a lioness for Halloween) loudly. It was scary! The bear was small and cute although we couldn't get very close. The peacocks roam the grounds and are absolutely beautiful. We went into the petting cage to feed the goats, but Ava was napping by then. It was a good day! Can't wait to return when she is older and knows what is going on!

Rice cereal, bananas and apples...yummy!

Yep...Ava has been eating solid foods for over a week. She is now what we consider a professional. We started feeding her one meal a day, but by day three she was ready for two meals a day. And, after only a week of eating food she barely gets any on her bib or around her mouth. Most of it goes straight into the mouth. When we are done feeding her a bowl (approximately 4 oz) she cries. It is FUNNY and cute! She looks around to find more, but quickly forgets or gets over it. She loves eating...just as much as we do ;-)

Guess Who?

There was never a time that I don't remember my sisters and I receiving a Valentine gift on our front porch with a card that read "Guess Who?" It never failed...Valentine's Day morning there would be a knock on the door and when we opened it our secret Valentine was nowhere to be seen but always left a present for each of us. To this day we do not know who our secret Valentine is. My sister Kate has six children. Her oldest son is 18 and for all of these years a secret Valentine has never failed to leave a special gift for each child on Valentine's Day morning and has also managed to remain anonymous all these years. This year...to our surprise Chris and I heard a knock at the front door on Valentine's Day morning and when Chris and Ava opened it they found a special present for Ava with a note that read "Guess Who?" Chris quickly walked out onto the walkway to look for the person who left such a special gift, but nobody was around! The mystery continues. Next year we'll have to remember to be watching for our secret Valentine.

Baby Down Under

Ava has been sleeping in her big girl bed at night for an entire month now - and napping in her bed since mid December (before she napped in my arms and slept in bed with me and Chris). We have made huge progress in such a sort time! She is finally finding comfortable positions and sleeping for up to 9 1/2 hours at times between nursing. Yea for us...until she started pulling her blanket over her head to sleep. Just this past Friday I set up our TV monitor so that I wouldn't have to keep going in and out of her room to check on her. Last night I found myself up at 3:30 AM watching her sleep. She was stirring a little and I wondered if she could/would pull the blanket off of her face. She never woke up so after 30 minutes I ended up going in her room and pulling it down and put myself back to sleep! When I woke up about an hour later and looked at the monitor she had the blanket back over her face. What a stinker. I love that she is sleeping...but I need my sleep, too!