When you're smiling, when you're smiling...

...the whole world smiles with you!

Up until recently when we'd take a picture of Ava she'd go from smiling or playing to looking straight at the camera with a blank face. At one point my Mom even asked if Ava smiled much since in all the pictures she was seeing, Ava wasn't smiling. We knew Ava didn't like the red eye reduction light on the camera and so we even tried covering that up some, but it didn't help. Then one day...

Can you say Cheese?

And since then she hasn't stopped smiling at the camera. Its wonderful to be able to capture her smile, she has so much personality and it really shines through when she smiles.





In the past few weeks we've gotten quite a bit of snow, and I thought it was about time that Ava got to see it up close. So we bundled her up and took her out for a few minutes... its been in the single digits here and so we didn't want her outside for long!

all ready to go outside, our pink puff


I think she really looks like Nathan here!


what a personality...."Its cold out here, and I'm not too sure I like this snow stuff"


our smilin' girl

super Ava

(this one is just for fun)

Ava is changing so much every day. She has rolling over down pat, although she hasn't figured out how to get back over on her back once she gets on her stomach. And she finally can raise up some on her stomach so she gets a little more tummy time these days, although it still isn't her favorite thing and she only lasts a couple of minutes. We've been trying to teach her to push herself up a little on her arms, and hopefully she'll get that before too long, that would probably help so she isn't relying so much on her back to lift her up.

Ava is also laughing outloud now and it is the sweetest thing we've ever heard. She did it one morning for me and I tried and tried to get her to do it again for Nathan that evening, but she wasn't ready. But by that weekend she was laughing for Nathan more easily than she does for me....apparently he is funnier. Last Sunday Nathan stayed home with Ava while I was out at a meeting and when I came home he had a video for me, it was of Ava hysterically laughing while he tickled her. I'd post it but I know he'd kill me, so we'll try to get another one and I'll get it up soon.

I hope you enjoy the pictures of our smilin' girl. When she smiles, its contagious, and reminds me of the song "when you're smiling." So remember:

"When your smiling, when your smiling, the whole world smiles with you..."