Grandma, come baaaaaack!!!

There really is no one else on earth like a Grandma. They cuddle you when you're sad, only feed you things that you think are yummy, and will do just about anything to see you smile. They don't even care when you throw up on them! Although I'm guessing Grandma Sally will pack fewer black items of clothing next time she visits. (Mom, Ava says to tell you she's sorry about those pants.)

Grandma was here for a whole week, and she and Ava had a ball. They played with every toy in the house...

Sent out a few prank emails. (Think you got one? We'll never tell.)

And had some deep, therapeutic conversations. ("Ava, how do you really feel about peas?")

Grandma was a cleaning machine while she was here, but we had to slow her down when she mistook Ava for some laundry. Don't worry, we stopped her before any folding happened.

She also became president of the "Teach Ava to Crawl" campaign, but was impeached when she didn't have any more luck than we did. We're currently accepting nominations for her replacement.

Thanks for everything, Grandma! We love you and can't wait to see you and Grandpa in April!

We all have to grow up some time.

Now before any of you are tempted to get your knickers in a twist and start shouting things at me like, "Grow up!?! She's only 6 months old!! What's wrong with you??", relax. I'm not talking about Ava, I'm talking about me. We reached another family milestone over the weekend, but this time it was all mine: I left home for an entire weekend all by myself. Thanks to the fact that Andy is an amazing father, and that Ava lights up like a Christmas tree every time he walks into a room, I honestly wasn't worried about them; I was concerned that I would spend Brandy's baby shower missing Ava so much that I'd be crying in a corner. You'll be happy to know that everyone made it to Sunday in one piece. This post is proof that I'm still kicking. I'm attaching a picture of Ava reading the latest People magazine so you know that she's no worse for the wear.

If you can believe it, our darling Ava is now 6 months old. She had her 6 month doctor's appointment, and is 15lbs, 13oz, and 27in long. That puts her in the 95th percentile for height (yep, you read that right). Our girl is tall and skinny. Big surprise. :)

Ava is reaching all her milestones right on time, so to keep things going Andy and I are trying to start coaxing her to crawl. The techniques I've been trying are as follows:

1) The Demo. I don't think this technique requires any description, but I'll bet you're wishing you had a camera hidden in our living room right about now.

2.) The Assist. This involves placing Baby's hands and knees in optimum crawling position. It's often followed by The Demo.

3.) The Dangling Carrot. Also known as The Tough Love. Basically, you put a favorite toy just out of reach and hope that's incentive enough for Baby to get moving.

So far, nothing. We'll keep you posted. Ava finds this whole process exhausting.

Hey Mom, I got this one.

Hey there! It's me, Ava! Mommy usually writes all my blog posts, but she's busy making my bottle so I thought I'd scoot over here and say hi to everyone. Typing sure is hard with these tiny fingers of mine, so I'll just send out some hugs and kisses to all of you: XOXOXOXO! Gotta go eat!