Ava's Birthday

Ava's Birthday was on the 2nd and mine was yesterday on the 18th. Both of those weekends James had to work so we split the difference and had a b-day party together on the 9th. It was mostly for Ava of course since it was her first and boy was it fun. We invited our friends from church that also live in the neighborhood and all of them have kids of different ages including one who is only 3 weeks older than Ava, so the house was full. We ate and ate and then sang to Ava and gave her the cake. A tradition I sort of kept from growing up that my mom did was a strawberry cake with whipcream instead of icing. I did this for Evan on his first birthday too. So we sang and Evan blew out the candle, which she was completely mesmerized by and the she dove into the cake. At first, it was just the whipcream hand over fist. Then she realized there was something underneath that white stuff and went crazy devouring that cake. She was totally opposite of Evan. He wouldn't touch the cake at first. He was scared of it. After I pushed his hand into the whipcream and put it to his mouth, then he went crazy. She also got a few gifts including a hand made bracelet from Sabrina and Reagan. It was great.

Evan and his stars

Evan is in Kindergarten and he loves it there.

They use a card turning system for discipline. You start on green and if you stay there, then you never got in trouble. 1 time in trouble you turn your card to yellow, 2 is blue, and 3 is red. Then the teacher marks whetever color you got in your folder for that day as a star and writes next to it what you did wrong. So everyday when he gets off the bus we ask or he tells us what color star he got. Yes, he has come home with red stars before. I have no quams about my son not being perfect. Trust me, I know he isn't. But lately, he has been coming home with an array of colored stars, except green and it has all been becuase he was talking. His folder basically looks like this for a week:

Monday-yellow, talking

Tuesday-red, Talking x 3

Wednesday-yellow, talking

Thursday-yellow, talking

Friday-blue, talking x 2

and so on. Needless to say his folder looks like a rainbow.

He would get in trouble at home if he had to turn his card for talking back to the teacher or not playing nice and such. One time he got in trouble for yelling at someone, so he got in trouble for that too. We haven't been too hard on him in the past if he had to turn his card only for talking, but now we are tired of him not getting any green stars, So today was the first day that he is getting disciplined at home for stars other than green even if it is just for talking.

Yellow Star-no TV

Blue Star-no TV and no X-box

Red Star-no TV, no X-box, no computer and he has to talk to his dad.

He got a yellow star today for talking and he hasn't watched TV all day. He did want to watch a movie, but we told him that's watching TV and he got upset so maybe he will get the hang of it. We are going to have to keep up this kind of discipline over the summer because I will not have a crazy kid running around all summer long.

Ava learns

So Ava is going t0 be ONE year old tomorrow. Actually, she was born at 12:03 am, so I guess she will officially be one in a little less then 2 hours.

I can't believe a year has gone by that fast. It was just last February that we got up here to Alaska and now Ava is one!!!!

She is getting her first two teeth right now-the two front bottom ones. She is cruising and crawling all over the place. She is still very weary about walking, even when we hold her hands but, if she learns how to walk the way she learned how to crawl, it won't take very much.

The other thing is that she doesn't sleep through the night yet. She has never slept through the night on a regular basis and therefore, I have not either. She has been waking up about every 4 hours. But, lastnight, we started letting her cry it out or using the ferber method. this is when you put them down and give them their comfort item and them let them soothe themselves to sleep, they sleep longer and understand that they don't need to eat, or rock or cuddle, etc. to get back to sleep. As long as they are crying, you go back in every 5, 10, 15, lay them down, no talking and so on, until they fall asleep. Then on night 2, you start with 10 minutes and so on. When she woke up at midnight lastnight, I only had to go in at the 5 and 10 minute intervals. When she woke up at 4am I had to go in at 5, 10, and 15 minute intervals.

Tonight so far, she doesn't like being in there at all. Since 10pm I have been in there twice and boy was she not happy when I didn't pick her up and hold her.

It's hard on me. I never thought I would be one of those mom's that got all sentimental and stuff when my child cries. But boy do I. I did the same thing with Evan when he was a baby too. Almost time to go in again...Ahhhhhhh!!!!