6 months in 6 pictures

So...yeah...same old story. Pathetically late in updating the blog. What can I say, I was pregnant and chose to sleep instead of blog. Sue me. :) I will try to bring you all up to date in one paragraph and six pictures. Think it's possible?


We has a blessedly long summer/fall that enabled us to play outside - WITHOUT COATS! - until mid-november. Every day, Ava and I walked to the park, chased grasshoppers or went to the outdoor pool. We celebrated Ava's birthday at the end of summer and also made a quick trip to Glendive to see Sarah and Nora. Plus, we went to the fair which was a huge hit too. Mid fall, we got a horrible cold that kicked our butts for two straight weeks. Who knew a cold could knock you flat like that?! Ava got a solid foundation in Disney movies during that time and is now addicted to them...especially the princesses. Sigh... Anyway, before the princesses came about, her first love was Robin Hood. Halloween was just about to arrive so we all dressed up. Chris was Little John, I was Maid Marion and Ava was Robin Hood. We had a blast trick or treating. We also enjoyed some easy hiking, the farmers market, and pumpkin picking. Christmas season quickly approached and this year we cut our own tree in Red Lodge and had fun getting ready for Santa to come as well as Baby Josie. I will get to that in my next post. In the meantime, enjoy the pictures.

DISCLAIMER: These are obviously not in any particular order. That would take too much time.

Ava and Daddy making a ginger bread house. No kit for the Cancros!

Chris and Ava posing with our Charlie Brown Christmas tree

Making homemade pasta with Great Grandma Ruth

Posing in her new pretty dress.

Ava also spent two months in gymnastics. She loved it!

Posing with Mommy in front of the Christmas tree.

The Sherwood Forest Family: Maid Marion, Robin Hood and Little John

Helping Grammy Jenna with the leaves

Hiking with Daddy on Rock Creek

Pretty little angel

2 years!

People warn you about this...your kid growing so fast you can hardly believe it. It made sense to me on an intellectual level but I had to experience it first hand to truly appreciate what they were saying. Ava turned two on August 16th. Of course, she's looked like a two year old for about 9 months and started acting like a two year old about 5 months ago. :) Anyway, here is a year in review.

August 2009 - SLC Spray Park

September 2009 - Hamming it up at home.
October 2009 - Grammy's house.

November 2009 - with her best buddy, Bunny.

December 2009 - Checking out her singing penguin, Frank.

January 2010 - Sitting on her throne of blocks.

February 2010 - "Cheers! Ahhh!"

March 2010 - St. Patty's Day Parade

April 2010 - Eating Spaghetti.

May 2010 - Spring Chick

June 2010 - Party Girl.

July 2010 - Pretty in Pink.

August 2010 - Birthday Party!!

The Big News

Hey fun friends and family...

...as always, I have a lot to catch up on. I'll try to do this is chronological order. First and foremost, we are expecting baby #2 right after Christmas. Yeah, it's old news by now but some of you might not know. We are pretty excited about this. The first month was a little crazy with a scare or two but now I'm safely half way. 20 weeks to be exact. Despite some infrequent nausea, the only real symptom I had was fatigue. Holy cow, I was tired. All the time. No, seriously, ALL the time. Now, I'm past all the crushing fatigue and just kind of tired. Oh, yeah...we're having a girl, by the way. Very excited about this. I say we're not done yet (keep trying for a boy) but Chris only says, "We'll see."

20 weeks

Ava doesn't really get it yet. We keep telling her she's getting a baby for Christmas. I also point to my belly and tell her there is a baby there. She then points to my belly and says, "baby out! baby out!" I guess she thinks the poor little thing is uncomfortable. :) Very cute.

Next...we went to Boston and NY for a week in May. It was great. The weather was pretty decent and we saw a lot of friends. We stayed with Peter, Sarah and Nora. It was fun to see the girls together playing and tearing up Sarah's house. We spent a day in Boston and then went to church at CTK on Sunday. Ava could not get enough of all the fun kids. It was crazy and of course made me miss our old church more than ever. Probably the highlight of the trip for Ava was to ride a city bus back to Sarah's house. She was screaming at the top of her lungs, "BUS! BUS!" the entire 30 minutes we were on there. Cute...at first...

Ava and Nora playing...probably getting into trouble. Look at those faces!

Sarah, Me and Nicky. Two of my very dearest friends.

Next, we were home for about two weeks or so. We filled every weekend with trips to Powell. We planted an enormous garden at my parents and put a fence around it that resembles Fort Knox. We all had huge hopes...unfortunately, the weather and some errant chemical has dashed our hopes. Long gone are my dreams of a Hidden Valley Ranch garden.

Unfortunately, it's late August and it still looks a lot like this! :(

Next, we had Austin and Maia in for a week. These are Chris' cousins' kids. They are great. Ava loved having non-stop attention. We put about 750 miles on the car with trips to Chico Hot Springs, Yellowstone, East Rosebud Lake and Cody. Lots of fun but too much driving.

At the end of long hike in Yellowstone

As soon as we dropped the kids off at the airport, it was down to Powell - AGAIN - for a family reunion/Grandma's 80th birthday. Lots of fun and even more little crazy cousins running around. After 3 days I was completely worn out and had to escape to Billings to rest.

All but two of my Grandma Rich's great grandkids!

The female Rich cousins.

Finally, in Ava news...the little turkey has learned to escape her crib. I woke up about two months ago to her staring at me an inch away from my face. Needless to say, we bought a twin bed and bedding that morning. She got her birthday present early. She is VERY excited about her bed. She is so proud.

Ava's big girl bed. (Now we have bedding too)

...the same day she started climing out of her bed, I found a huge red angry bump in her groin area. It looked exactly like an inguinal hernia (courtesy of google images). I freaked and called Chris in the ER - ironically, it was his first night of his ER rotation. He talked to the main doc at St. Vincents and they said we should bring her in. Three consults and five hours later, they determined it was not a hernia but extreme cellulitis caused by an infection. Went on some hefty antibiotics and was sent home. I am just so relieved she didn't have to have emergency surgery because that is what it was looking like for a while there. We then followed up with her pediatrician who changed antibiotics and gave us the go-ahead for our annual trip to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. "It should be almost gone by then." Well, kids, it wasn't. It got bigger, redder and harder. Then it got a little squishy. We freaked, called out pediatrician in MT and he told us to take her to the Children's hospital in Norfolk, VA. We left a day early and took her to the Children's hospital ER and they said it was definitely an abcess, we would have to sedate and drain. Poor little Ava had to get an ultrasound which ultimately showed there wasn't any puss yet. So next day we were off to MT...we waited until Monday to go to the pediatrician and he decided to drain the abcess. Well, we held her down and he sliced her open (you think your child getting shots is bad, hold her down while they slice her with a scalpel!!) Nothing. Just fatty tissue. Next step was a surgery consult because there were too many "structures" underneath her lump: ovary, lymph node and a major artery. So, two days later, we see a surgeon who says that since it has started to go away, we wouldn't need surgery. Thankfully, the 3RD! antibiotic they put her on in Virginia started working. Fast-forward...it's all gone now and she has a small scar. Lots of worry but ultimately it's all good now.

(I'd post a picture of this thing but it was on her groin and I don't need nudie photos of Ava floating around the internet. Trust me, though, it was SCARY. It looked like an avocado was shoved underneath her skin.)

Next...our last vacation for a year. Our 9th year at the Outer Banks. Lots of Cancro craziness. Despite getting no sleep and being stressed out due to her bump, it was fun. We spent lots of good time with the Cancros and Ava received a lot of love from all the cousins.

Ava and Chris at Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

I'll post a new blog soon all about Ava's 2nd birthday and lots of pictures. Sorry this one is...oh...4 months late!

XOXO,

Kristy

And we're off!

So much has happened lately that I'm afraid this will be an annoyingly long post. I'll try to be succinct for once.

Mid-march...Chris' grandfather, Coachie, passed away. We made made an immediate trip to NY for the funeral. It was great to see all the family again despite the sad circumstances. We met a lot of the extended Cancro family and many family friends. Coachie was an incredible person - a true example of how to live your life. Although we'll miss him terribly, he is with Marion now.

Ava, Georgie Z, Violet and me.

All the Cancro Cousins (this was the serious pose)

Rest in Peace, Coachie

When we got back, Easter was right around the corner. Chris had 5 days off so we went down to my parents' house for the holidays. It was fun to just relax and not do too much. Ava went nuts down there. My parents have a huge yard. She spent hours going for walks around their yard, throwing rocks, dragging around pieces of rope, watching the cows and chasing the cats and dog. We did do an Easter egg hunt with a couple of cousins and it was fun.

Pointing out some eggs.

Showing off their candy.

Feeding cows with Daddy.

Then, about two weeks later, Ava and I went down to Denver to help my Aunt watch her 3 grandchildren (ages 7, 5, and 3). Their parents ran a marathon in Austria and have spent the last two weeks traveling around Europe. Fortunately, these kids are incredibly sweet and well-behaved. They loved playing with Ava and she loved having "siblings" for two weeks. I'm afraid that she will be bored now that we are home. Chris was able to find a super cheap ticket and flew down one weekend. Plus, Aunt January came down from the mountains each weekend we were there. It was a fun trip filled with trips to the park, zoo, mall, and playgrounds. Not to mention lots of homework, reading, cooking, laundry and peacemaking (they are kids after all...) We just got home yesterday. It's nice to be home. But I do miss those little rugrats already.

Snuggling with Aunt January right before bedtime.

At the zoo.

Playing at the pool when Daddy visited.

Watching cartoons with Nick.

Playing on the slide.

We're going to lay low this weekend and then we're off to Boston/NY next week. This is a trip that was planned a while ago. SOMEBODY forgot to get his vacation request in on time so we cannot go to our 10th college reunion over Memorial Day. (I'm not bitter about this...can you tell?) Anyway, to make up for it, we are going this coming week. It should be fun to see a lot of friends that we haven't seen in several years.

Well, that's it for now.

Spring time!

Sorry it's been so long; the Cancro family has been busy basking in all the beautiful spring weather. If the weather allows, we are outside most of the time. We have been frequenting all the parks, figuring out which ones have the most dogs and slides as those are Ava's two favorite things. In fact, the first and last words of the day are "dog dog woof?" Not to mention all day long too. She is obsessed with dogs. And Dora. And shoes. And rocks. And Goldfish crackers. And stickers...


Her vocabulary is really growing rapidly. I stopped writing down all the words she knows. I can only understand a very small portion of what she actually says, but I know she's actually saying something. In fact, the other day we put a new dress on her and she looked in the mirror while stroking the dress and said, "Pretty. Pretty." Now it didn't necessarily sound like the word but it finally clicked as to what she was saying. She had been saying that word for about three weeks. So, I'm sure I'm missing all sorts of things she's trying to say.

As for Chris, he's busy as usual. He finished up a month of in-patient service which always wears him down. Now he's finishing up a month of surgery which might sound intense, but really, all he's doing is holding retractors and sewing up the skin. It's actually been a pretty good schedule as sometimes he gets home as early as 2:00 pm.

Me...well...I've been chasing Ava around and toting her all over Billings to different parks and playgroups. For the past two months I've also decided to stop being a total lazy bones and started to swim three days a week. It's been fun because I have a bunch of masters workouts so I don't get bored. Plus they are challenging. I'm trying to swim 1.5-2 miles every workout. I used to swim TWICE that much, every day. Geez...I'm getting old. It about killed me in the beginning. Also, I've been doing some light consulting work for my old boss in Buffalo. It fits in great with my schedule and it's a chance to make some extra cash. Plus, it helps assuage my guilt when I indulge in a little online shopping that Chris doesn't know about.

Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

St. Patty's Day. She loved waving at everyone.

Ava and Chris had to cross the streets to check out the dogs.

Yeah, it's random pic but we find her in the STRANGEST sleeping positions. This is one of the more normal ones.

Ava has the best pouty face I've ever seen. This is an okay attempt at catching it.

My Little Rascal

One way we avoid the 5:00 meltdowns is to let her help me cook.

A little daddy love.

We were having a texting contest.

One of my favorite pics.

Getting ready for some sunshine.

Videos

So here are some videos I meant to publish yesterday. Let's just say I was having some technical difficulties. Hopefully this will help. (Thanks Cass!)

Ava's Hat Trick.

Ava's new words

Cheers!

And she's talking...sort of...

...but before I get to that, let me give you a quick update on what Chris and I have been doing. (Cuz we all know this is really the Ava blog.) Chris has had a pretty good beginning to 2010. He finished up his rural rotation and then started a month of ER at St. Vincents. He loved it. The docs were great, the hours very good and lots of fantastic learning. Plus, he became some what of a hero when a laboring woman didn't make it to the Labor and Delivery floor fast enough so Chris - who decided he needed to follow her for a ways - had a dramatic delivery in the hallway. Everyone was fine, happy and healthy. Talk about a precipitous labor! After a quick weekend in Whitefish, MT, we are now back in Billings and he's started Inpatient Service again. Blech.


As for me...I have been trying to get into shape. I have been swimming religiously 3-4 times a week. Unfortunately, I haven't really seen the scale move and my back is still bothering me. What the hell. Probably doesn't help that my appetite has increased at an exponential rate relative to the number of laps I'm swimming. But, I'm sure it will all even out. I might have to throw in some cross-training too. I did take a pilates class but it was really a geriatric pilates. ("Okay, lift your leg and hold. Good. Now let's rest.") I'm not THAT out of shape. I know what some of you are thinking...what happened to P90X? Well, as soon as I know my back won't blow out again, I will ease back into it. But for now, it's mainly pool time.

On a different front, I have also eased back into working. My old boss in Buffalo approached me to do some research for him on a part-time basis. The particulars were never right before but this is a great project and it fits into my schedule. It's been nice to use my brain again. Although, I must say, it has atrophied a bit. A lot of dust has collected on those shelves.

And now for Miss Ava. Well, where to begin, really? She's been continuing to grow at an alarming rate. We are at the end of our handmedowns and it may start to get expensive. She is well into a 2T, weighs 30 pounds and is around 34 inches. She looks like a 2-3 year old but acts like, I hope, a 17 month old. For a while, I was a bit worried that her speech was delayed but she's really picking up new words every day. Her reliable vocabulary consists of mama, dada, more, dog, book, bite, ball, milk and sit. Or maybe it's shit. I don't know. I do cuss a lot when I drive. (Jeez people, I'm just kidding!)

She's been really fun but harder to entertain. Ava still loves to watch her Little People DVDs and play with her toys. Some new things she is doing...

...loves to help us empty the dishwasher. She gets pissed if we grab a plate before she has a chance to hand it to us.

...starting to tease more and more. She mainly does it by "pouting". She'll jut out her bottom lip, lower her chin, cross her arms, look at you through the corner of her eyes. Then, you have to say, "Oh, poor Ava" or something to that affect. She will then bust out laughing and start running.

...infatuated with the computer. She realizes that if she moves the little roller dial thingy on the mouse the screen moves. ...has a strange compulsion to stuff things. Really, it can be anything. Toys, TV remotes, food, shoes, dirty laundry, magnets. Usually it's in between the couch cushions but I did find a cup of her milk in Chris' underwear drawer.

...loves to crawl onto chairs, couches and tables.

...asserting her Independence. SHE has to put on her socks, brush her teeth, spoon up her applesauce, wipe her hiney, etc. If I try, man, is it a instant fit. Overall it's been lots of fun. I'll keep you posted. Enjoy the pics and videos.