I have the cutest daughter!

I haven't been doing the picture updates monthly since it was getting ridiculously hard to get a picture and then do everything. But I did keep track of all the things that Ava does that I love. 

My absolute favorite thing that she does right now is she'll randomly come up to my tummy and put her hand on it and say "Sis" over and over until you tell her yeah that's sister or you'll ask her where sister is and she'll put her hand on my stomach. Each time she'll have a big smile too!

-Loves purses, necklaces, and especially shoes and sunglasses.

-She loves having friends over. When we're watching any of her friends she feels it's her job to help watch them, so she'll try to feed them, change their diaper, or give them drinks, blankies or whatever they need especially if they are crying. She's very mother-y  and hopefully it means she'll be a helpful good sister!

-We have the opposite of a problem with brushing teeth, She doesn't want to stop brushing her teeth and gets upset when I don't let her brush them with her toothpaste

-She knows that when you go shopping you have to put things you want in the cart. Most of the stuff Mom has not approved or knew she put it in there(usually shoes or sunglasses or a toy). 

-Empty toilet paper rolls are now musical instruments

-Constantly singing, especially to Frozen. She sings "Love is an Open Door" but just says door over and over, and the same with "Do you want to Build a Snowman" but instead says Man or clicks like the clock.

-Loves leaves and in the pool thinks they belong there and makes it her mission to put them all back in the pool, same with mulch at the playground or rocks in the street.

putting rocks back in the hole in the street

- She will fight you to change her diaper unless you ask her where she wants to lay down. Sometimes it can take a few different spots for her to find the right place and she might roll around. Usually it's by a wall or someplace where she makes it hard for you to change her. When she's being ornery she will lay down then flip onto her stomach. 

-She loves swimming and now loves baths!

-She loves Bubbles, she mostly chases them though since they pop before she can get to them

-Loves going outside and if she gives you her shoes and then your shoes it means take me outside now!

-When I fix my hair she puts her hands up to her hair and acts like she is fixing it. When she finds booby pins she will put them in her hair herself.

-She has to have her own makeup brushes and puts on "makeup" with mom

-When she hears music she will look at you and smile, then wait for me to smile before she starts dancing. 

-Likes picking her own clothes out. They don't always match, and are sometimes two shirts or two pants but she wants to wear them both. Then there are the times where she wants to wear her too small pajamas bc they have princesses on them like in the picture. She also wants to change multiple times a day. 

-Loves going on walks, especially when she gets to push her toy stroller while we walk.

(It's blurry but she wouldn't stay till and it was dark)

- If she see's something that's mine or spencer's and she knows she's not allowed to touch it she rushes to give it to us. Even if I have spencer's phone or vise versa she takes it and gives it to the right person. She also loves rushing to give me my mouse. Especially if you close the door on her, she will knock and knock until you open the door so she can give it to you like the most important thing is for you to have it(when really she's just trying to get into the room)

-Loves playing ball with dad

This looks like she's heading the ball or whatever you call it

but it's actually her throwing the ball 

-Sleeps in a big girl bed and Loves it, even still. We haven't really had a problem with her transitioning from crib to bed. The first week or so she would ask to go to bed and now she knows at bed time we give dad a kiss and go straight to bed.

-LOVES coloring. She will color for hours if you sit with her. Unfortunately we're still teaching her that you can't color on the walls, something that is difficult since we have a white board on our wall that dad writes on a lot. (not pictured the many coloring marks on my walls)

-Sofia the First is one of her favorite things to watch. We have a lot of Sofia stuff. Like a Sofia the First Shower curtain. If you come visit us you have this to look forward to! :)

-Loves her Baby dolls and babies

There were times when we couldn't go anywhere without this baby doll

-She's getting better at speaking but a lot of words she says are the ending. Like Sofia is "aaaa" and she sings it,  goldfish are "ish" and Please is '"se"

-Words she can fully say are "Mom" "Dad" "Walk" "Watch" "Sock" "Shoe" "Bath" "Stair" "More" "No" Yes" "Sis" and more but I can't think of them. Her favorite is by far "NO"

-Knows what to do when she gets adjusted by dad. Other people not so much

-Loves having visitors/visiting and playing with Aunts and Uncles

-Loves her Mommy and Daddy, not as much as we love her though :)

Half Marathon #2 with Baby #2

I have been wanting to write about my second half marathon since I ran it but I couldn't write about it without everyone knowing I was pregnant since it was a big part of the race for me. We decided that we would tell people after we came back from Puerto Rico, and now I have free time since Ava is sleeping at the moment and we don't have guests here anymore.

Warning it is pretty long, but this is pretty much all that I have been doing (besides working and watching Ava) in the past  6 months plus.

Right after I had Ava a few friends and I decided to run a half marathon. There were 4 of us and at the time we had all had babies in the past year. Well one friend had to drop out after a few weeks when she found out she was pregnant! Well in November after she had her cute boy she said she was wanting to run half and I decided that I should join her since I was getting back into running and it was a nice to actually be motivated to run. Also, my memory of the last half didn't seem as bad as I remembered. 

We didn't start running as a group until January after all the holidays and I had decided to push myself kinda hard and I would run a little farther than the schedule that Alissa put together. Not gonna lie I was baby hungry so if I was going to run anything I wanted to be ready. I hadn't fully committed to doing the half because I wanted another one, I just had to convince Spencer that it would be okay to have another kid while he was still in school with everything he had going on. 

Because of my want to have another baby I was putting off signing up for it. I had until Feb 28th to sign up and then the price would go up. About a week before I had decided that what the heck, I was just going to sign up. Well just before that we had decided we would try but what were the chances that we were going to get pregnant on the first time. Plus I thought that even if I did get pregnant I was running 9 miles and I could totally handle it. So no turning back now no matter what happened. 

Well that next week after I signed up I started getting sick and was super tired and it somewhat reminded me of what it felt like with Ava, except I wasn't throwing up. I just felt like I needed to. So a few days after this sick feeling I had I took a test and guess what... I was pregnant! I was still able to run and the best part about running was that I didn't feel sick whenever I was running. I was just going at a much slower pace than I was doing before I was pregnant. Before I was running about  10.5-11 min mile which was really good for me, remember I didn't really run before having Ava. Don't believe me, ask anyone in my family.But honestly please don't because it's actually kinda embarrassing. After I was running a 12 min mile which to me was still pretty good. And of course I had told my running group the good news.

A few weeks before the race we ran the 10 mile on the trail that they were going to use, and there were times when I was starting to hurt so I had to walk. Shout out to Alissa for supporting me and walking with me. Sorry to Melissa who was keeping up the 10.5 min mile pace and had to wait for us while we took what seemed like forever! It was at this point that I was getting more and more nervous and questioning my sanity for decided to still do the half. 

It was the next week that I did the 11 miles that I gained a little more confidence as I was able to run it. Also I wasn't as sick as I had been earlier when I found out I was pregnant. I totally had this. Well the few weeks before the were a roller-coaster ride of emotions. It seemed as though when I felt confident that I could do this, something would happen that made me worry and scared and then something else would happen that made me feel like I could do it again and the process started all over.

Well, it seemed that right after I ran the 11 I started getting sick and throwing up. I didn't run at all the next week except to do the last 4 or so miles the saturday before the race and then I didn't run at all the entire week of. But I did find out the cause of the nauseousness. The culprit: Fruits and Vegetables. The one thing I could eat with Ava, that I constantly craved with her, was making me sick with this baby. Needless to say Spencer was not happy. So I was avoiding them and it was making me somewhat better but I still felt sick. 

In between all this I had my first doctors appointment 3 days before the race and the baby was healthy and had a strong heartbeat and since I could run 11 what was 2 more miles. So technically I was good to go. I just didn't feel like it.  

Then a little Miracle happened. I didn't feel sick  the Thursday evening and all of the Friday before the race. It was the first time in a few weeks that that had happened. We had a group dinner that Friday night, I avoided eating any of the fruit and veggies that were made. I woke up Saturday morning and I still felt normal! So I snacked on some pecans we had and got ready for the race. I also made sure to fill out the medical information on the back of my running bib just in case something did happen.

It was cold and windy but I felt amazing(read not sick) and I knew I could finish I just had to push the negative thoughts out. That was my goal. To finish, and preferably under 3 hours since Spencer was convinced that I wouldn't be able to finish in that time. My second goal was to only walk a little, like only a mile or two. It was also a goal to not use the port-a-potties but I wasn't going to dehydrate myself and I was going to take water at every chance so just in case I  had to use it I brought my hand sanitizer. 

The race started and Melissa took off! She did amazing and kept her 10.5 mile pace the entire race! I was slow and steady with Alissa. She was amazing and it was my goal to keep up with her! I knew if I had a friend with me for most of the time I could finish and hopefully under my goal. I was also jealous to run and then see people turn around point for the 5k mark and the 10k mark. But it was actually not bad at all. I talked with Alissa most of the time and only listened to my music for a few minutes. I wasn't hurting and we met a lot of people. That is one thing I love about running, everyone seems to be so nice and you can talk to anyone!

For most of the way we stayed slightly ahead of the 2:45 pacer. There was a small hill at about 9 or 10 and he went ahead of us, but we managed to catch up to him and started talking. Side note, we talked about the Patriot Half I did and he said that he thinks that that course is one of the hardest in the area to run. I felt good about that. 

When I realized that I would make my goal of under 3 hours, I made the new goal to beat the pacer. It wasn't until the last mile that started to somewhat hurt but I still ran with him until the last quarter mile when I had a surge of energy and started booking it and sprinted to the finish line. Honestly I just wanted to be done. I thought Alissa was right behind me and was a little confused when I didn't see her but she had a previous knee injury that started hurting and slowed down. 

But I accomplished all my goals. I didn't walk, I finished before the pacer(even though he was a little slow so my time was 2:45 and some odd seconds) and I didn't use the port-a-potties, I beat my last time by 10 minutes and I was a couple days shy of being 9 weeks pregnant!

Unfortunately Spencer and Ava were not there to see me cross the finish line as they were looking for parking. But I had my medal and I didn't feel guilty for getting a pedicure with the girls a week or so after the race since he missed it. 

I have tried to keep up with running. Some weeks are better than others. I didn't run the entire week we were in Puerto Rico or this week after. But I did run 3.5 on Saturday. Okay well ran 3 walked the other half. But I guess that's good for being out of shape and not running for 2 weeks. Hopefully I can get back up to 4 or 5 but I'm not going to push it. I really do think running has helped my sickness somewhat so I think I will stick to it as long as I'm okay and nothing happens. I just have to stay motivated.

Finally, for your viewing pleasure: Ava wearing "her medal" (aka the medal that I got after the half I did after having her which she believes is hers and wants to wear every now and then.)

Mommy-Daughter Day!

So it has been a while and I felt like before I could write more I needed update everything but between work and Ava I have not had energy to update anything or everything that happened! So I have just decided that I'm just not going to feel bad and do it. Plus I have been writing my 3 little siblings (1 brother, 1 sister and 1 brother-in-law) and I feel like I write them a novel every week so I have that. But anyways....

Today Spencer had a seminar and yesterday we watched frozen 5 times. The night before Ava woke up at 3:30 and didn't really sleep until 5. I took her for a while and then told Spencer it was his turn, but I also wasn't able to go back to sleep for a while. I'm hoping it was Ava teething as she still only has 4. So between no sleep, work, and I have been feeling not well since the half I felt like we watched too much t.v. yesterday. So today we went on about an hour walk. Then we came home and ate then Ava napped and Spencer came home for lunch and it was my turn to get the car.

So after we dropped off Spencer we ran some errands for mom(although I got Ava a present for being good), got something to eat, and then went to the park We were there for over an hour.

Ava LOVES the park. The park we went to is just a couple blocks away from our apartment. It has 2 play areas one for the older kids and one for the younger ones and then it has an open field to play sports, a pavilion and a basketball court. Well Ava would go up the stairs, down the slide and then go to the other play area, go up the stairs down the slide then walk to the field until I turned her around and then go back the the first play area and do it all over again. There was a birthday party going on in the pavilion and she tried to crash it a couple times, and when I tried to take her away she would throw a fit. There was a little girl there that was a month and a half older than Ava and her mom didn't want her daughter to go down by herself, but when the little girl saw Ava she wanted to try. So the mom finally let her. She was saying how adventurous Ava is. My little girl does love to explore and try everything! When I put Ava in the car she was so mad that we were leaving that she screamed the entire way home and then gave me a look while we were getting out and realized that we were not going back to the park today.

She had that same smile every time she went down the slide and at the end she would clap and go yay!

We got Ava changed, fed and then we went to pick up Dad from his seminar. There is a water fountain where they have the seminar and it was running a little late, so Ava played around there for like 5 minutes. She then came up to me and passed out on my shoulder. We stayed like that for 40 minutes. There was one time that we had to move because people sat right next to us and then started smoking so we went inside. But other than that it was a perfect rare 40 minutes that Ava cuddle with me! I LOVED it!

It was a perfect end to our Mommy-Ava day! 

June & July

June wasn't very eventful, we had father's day where dad was gone at a seminar. Ava also learned how to crawl and started pulling herself up and walking across the furniture. Spencer started interning at Carrick Brain Centers

After Spencer's first day interning!

We also went down to Port Neches to Visit Grandma and Grandpa Zimmerman for the 4th of July! I made a special tutu dress for Ava. I made it because I wanted a dress for Ava wear not just on the 4th but she hasn't worn it again since the only blue tulle I could find was the glittery one and it makes a HUGE mess! I made it on Spencer's adjustment table and I was cleaning glitter out of it months later! I still love it though!

June and July wasn't too busy, I think it just seemed like it did since Spencer was gone a lot more with interning and seminars!

April & May

So I have decided to update and fill in the months that we haven't put up on the blog. Hopefully I can keep up with everything.

So Grandma Zimmerman came to visit us!

During Dad's break from school we went to Phoenix to visit my sister and her family for a week. Ava meet her cousins Norah and RyJ.

We went to the Koi Pond and fed the fishes!

And the science museum!

We can't escape Neurology where ever we go!

This is suppose to let you see whose genes you received...Luckily Ava doesn't look like that!

Yes, I might have spent a while designing a floor plan!

Spencer rode a bike in the air!

And we went to an art museum. They had this candy as an art piece. I wanted to take a picture with me grabbing a lot of it and pretending to eat by my sister wouldn't let me. Something about it being a real art museum and being embarrassed. But it was the best art I have ever eaten!

We also spent 2 weeks in Nebraska with Nana and Grandpa. Ava met her Great Grandpa Zendejas, They both didn't stay still for a picture and the one where they are both looking down was the best one of them that I got!

She also met her second cousin who's like 4 months older than her Nico. They were both twinners with fingers in their mouth. Man is Ava white!

Nana and Grandpa were teaching her early to love cookies!

We also went to the zoo. Ava loved the fishes and the penguins and didn't really care for the birds like I thought she would since she loved watching Rio.

While we were at the zoo we took a mini trip to Madagascar!

Oh and it snowed while we were there... in May. So we had to dig through some of baby clothes from when I was a baby for something warm for Ava to wear.

My amazingly talented Aunt Chrisy was nice enough to take pictures of this little one! We had to get her first pictures in the red dress! Each Zendejas girl has had her first picture taken in this dress!

Go Huskers!

That was pretty much our April and May in a nut shell, I think. Well besides my half marathon and Birthday! I turned 21 again.

Father's Day

Ava loves her daddy so much! It's a little bit ridiculous, and I probably only say that because I'm a little bit jealous. It was so cute, the other day Spencer comes home from school and Ava and I were laying down. She hears the door open, lifts her head, gasps, and starts looking for her daddy. I knew as soon as she saw him because she had the biggest smile on her face. She also listens to dad. I will tell her something in a stern voice and she will either laugh or ignore me. Spencer does it(usually when she's playing with cords or pulling my hair) and she stops what she's doing and listens. 

Since we love dad so much we wanted to make his first father's day special. I tried making him breakfast(but Ava decided to wake up and be hungry in the middle of it), then Spencer went to his seminar. Then after he was done we opened presents!

Ava was really excited to help Dad open his presents! First we got him some gummy bears which mom will probably help him eat and the movie The Avengers. She wasn't too happy that we wouldn't let her eat either of those. 

Then dad opened the present that I have been planning and working on for the past couple months. In March when Grandma Zimmerman came up to visit she brought binders of pictures and things that Spencer had done when he was little. One was a little book called "how to be a dad" that he made when he was in elementary school. We recreated it word for word and then Ava added to it with pictures and her own words(with the help of mom). I was pretty excited to give it to him!

Reading his old book with Ava

The entire book!

 All of Ava's comments are in parentheses.

There is one part missing. The get a job get money was suppose to be a picture of Spencer and Ava after his first day interning at Carrick Clinic with Ava, but that doesn't start for a little while so when we get that picture we will add that.

We ate dinner. I made salmon and couscous with vegetables and a salad. We then skyped Nana and Grandpa Zendejas and then Grandma and Grandpa Zimmerman! While we were doing that I was also making homemade apple cobbler! It smelled really good and looked really good, and actually tasted really good, but it was a little soupy.  Well I know better for next time now!

Aren't you jealous!

To top it off we ate ice cream after. Not with since it was peppermint and didn't go with the cobbler. I just really wanted ice cream, but I let Spencer pick the kind we got!

We hope everyone else had a great Father's Day too!