Ava is One Month Old!

Ava Grace is one month old today!

This has been the shortest and sometimes longest month. I actually took this picture on Saturday when you were at exactly four weeks old. We were having record high temps which is the reason for the summerish outfit, but believe me by today you were back in warm snugglies.

At three weeks, you were up to your birth weight of 7 pound and 5 ounces. I would imagine that you are close to 8 pounds now since you are such a good eater. In fact, you eat every three hours and sometimes 2 3/4 hours. You can usually make about 3-4 hour stretches at night.

However, sleeping is another issue. You sleep great in my arms, your bouncer, and even sometimes laying on your play mat. You are a champion sleeper in your car seat and have slept through a couple of church services so far without hardly a peep. However, you do not care for your cradle. You will fling your arms and rock yourself into a frenzy. I can manage to get you to sleep once maybe twice in there during the day. I do find that feeding you, then keeping you awake for a little while and then laying you down while you are awake works fairly well. I am also having you nap in your crib once a day. Seeing as though we typically sleep in the chair off and on during the night, I have to do lots of back and neck stretches.

You are still in newborn clothes and newborn diapers. You are long everywhere - long torso, long fingers, and long toes, but are starting to get little rolls on your legs and filling out quite a bit. You like to sleep on your side even though we lay you down on your back. One day you managed to roll yourself to your stomach.


Today, I heard the first few coos. Up until now, it had pretty much been all grunts. One night you sneezed so loud, you had your daddy and I cracking up laughing.

You perk up at the sound of Gavin's, or your daddy or mommy's voices. Since the day you were born, you seemed fixated on Gavin. That affection, he loves to give back. He even talks baby talk to you and will hold your hand. When we were praying one night recently, he whispered to you that you needed to close your eyes. I am sure he will be full of more brotherly advice as the years go on.

Although some days I don't think you are so sure of what to think of him.

You have the tiniest dimple on the right side of your mouth and a faint one appears on the left. Ava, you are holding your head up better now. And that head of hair is very brown with the slightest ting of red in the sunlight. It's cute how it spikes up in the back and garnered you the nickname Spunky Brewster. Daddy calls you Boot Scoot but I'm thinking we might need some girly nicknames.

You remind me so much of your brother as a baby in terms of your looks, but your personality seems vastly different at such a young age. Here are the two of you at approximately one month old.


I love you so much sweet girl and I'm looking forward to seeing all that God has in store for you.

Christmas Recap, Part One... Seriously?

As I have seen a few other bloggers state right after the arrival of their second child, we are in survival mode. Gavin is doing wonderful and is truly such a big helper. However, sister's temperament is not as easy-going as big brother's. I think a lot of her fussiness is going through a growth spurt. And this child can sleep in any position on someone, or on the floor or even in a room full of noise, but she does not like to sleep in her cradle. That being said, I could just eat her up. And whether it is a true sign of being content or if it's just gas, I melt when she smiles. Ava is already such an integral part of our family and I could not imagine her not being here.

As my husband pointed out, my last blog post sounded like some dramatic cliffhanger to the ending of a book's chapter. Christmas surprises did not end with the birth of Ava. We came home Christmas Day (late in the evening). The next morning, our new family of four celebrated Christmas together.


Later we headed over to my in-laws for Christmas. The boys are at such a fun age and were quite surprised by an appearance from Santa. One little boy (Gavin) would have been very happy to do without seeing Santa but we managed to get him next to him without balling his eyes out. Ava didn't seem to mind Santa.


The next day, we took Ava to her doctor's appointment where our doctor advised us to have her billirubin levels checked for jaundice. I could already tell she was somewhat jaundice after leaving the hospital and had tried to get her in the sunlight as much as possible. We did find out that she is probably going to be long and skinny. She is in the 18% percentile for weight (6 pounds, 13 ounces) and the 80% percentile for height (20 3/4 inches long). A few hours later, the doctor called telling us to head to the hospital downtown. Those are not words a parent wants to hear, but I am thankful to live in such a place to have award-winning hospitals within driving distance. You can see how yellow she was in this picture at the doctor's office.

When we arrived, Ava's levels were so high they admitted her to the highest NICU floor. At the time, everything seemed very surreal. I had to constantly remind myself that this was only temporary. While praying for Ava, I had to say a little prayer for those babies around her who had been there much longer. One man, with a smile on his face, told us that he was excited that his little boy would be going home in February. His child had already been there a year and was born weighing just over a pound. It put things into perspective.

We were truly thankful to be able to stay in the Ronald McDonald House the four days we were there. What an incredible blessing that was to have a place to rest and get a shower all while on the same floor of the hospital as your child. I also can't say enough about the nurses, especially those in the NICU level 2 where Ava was moved after she had improved. She was pretty content to just chill out with her sunglasses on under that blue light. Thankfully on New Year's Eve, we were given the green light to go home. Gavin had been with my parents and we were completely overjoyed to see him. He still says he misses us when we were at the hospital with Ava, although he keeps telling us it happened last night. This is like take number 20 to get a New Year's family picture.


And for the risk of being too wordy, we also celebrated Christmas with my family on New Years Day, but..... I'll save that for next time.

Ava's Birth Story

Today is the day, er, was the day, Ava Grace was projected to arrive on. I was so right and so wrong in the statement I made in the blog post before last when I said, "I'm not so sure her 38 weeks post will make it up this weekend, but it looks like we will probably have a New Year's baby and not a Christmas baby." I'm thinking her Christmas Eve birth will be the first of many surprises. So much has happened in the two weeks since then including the download of approximately one thousand pictures, give or take a few.

I'll try to sprinkle a few of those pictures through a quick run down on her birth story, because quite frankly, both kiddos are napping and I want in on a few zzzzz. (I stopped blogging midway and managed to get in a 15 minute rest time before the littlest one was awake.)

Christmas vacation had started for D and we took advantage by staying up late to watch a movie. Around 1:30 a.m. the morning of Christmas Eve, I went to sleep while he stayed up to finish a few last minute Christmas surprises. At 3:15 a.m. I woke up with the pretty certain feeling that my water had broken. After calling the doctor and confirming that it indeed had and we should go in to the hospital, we called our parents. Within twenty minutes both of our dads were at our house. When we woke Gavin up so he could go to my parent's house, he started jumping in his bed with excitement that his little sister was coming.

I'm pretty sure that D filled up his coffee mug since he had not gone to sleep and after a quick stop at the gas station, we arrived at the hospital. Needless to say, not many people were on the roads that early in the morning but D still felt it was his only chance for a good excuse to speed there. I distinctly remember how extraordinarily beautiful the Christmas lights were.

I won't go into the details, but let's just say that my water had broken and that's about all of the progress I had made when we arrived at the3 hospital. The three nurses I had were all very sweet, but I am so glad that the Maria, the nurse I had the majority of the time, was not only sweet but so knowledgeable.


We had been praying for the nurses and doctors. And even though my doctor was not able to be there, the doctor we had did a fine job with the exception of yelling at someone on the phone while I was laboring.

Fast forward about 12 hours from when my water broke to 3 p.m. I am alone in the room with just the nurse because our family had stepped out to let D and I get some rest. He had also stepped out to get something to eat. The nurse checks me again and says it's time to push. Since D had my cell phone, I used the hospital phone to try to call him and our family. I however, kept getting the answering machine for the chaplain. After I stopped panicking, I realized I had to dial 9 first.

This labor was so much easier than Gavin's. After a few rounds of pushing, Miss Ava Grace Moore made her way into the world. No other Christmas present could top her. My first thoughts when seeing Gavin were about how big he was, but little sister was so much more petite. That was until I got a good look at her arms, fingers and legs. If her four day check up is any indication of her future, she is going to be one tall and skinny girl (80% percentile for height and 18% for weight).


We were so blessed to have most of our family there even on a day like Christmas Eve. The next two pictures look like girls verses guys.


Gavin is over the moon about his little sister. Here's our first family picture together.


With Gavin I was nearly begging to stay an extra day in the hospital, but this time around, I was determined we were going to be home the next day for Christmas. My dad brought Gavin up on Christmas Day to partake in his sibling congratulations cake and to take the Moore family Christmas picture. Gavin also thought it was hilarious to have his daddy swaddle him like a baby.


A few hours later, Ava and I received the ok to go home. We took a few pictures in her going home outfit which was a dress and slip I wore as a baby. You can't see from the picture, but on the slip, I had both of our initials monogrammed.


This post is long enough but hopefully I will get to document Christmas and the rest of the week, although the events that incurred are not something I will likely ever forget.

Introducing...

Ava Grace Moore

Born: December 24, 2011



Weighed: 7 pounds, 5 ounces



Height: 19 3/4 inches long



Pictures and stories to come!