Ride-em Cow-baby!

Ride-em Cow-baby!, originally uploaded by Ava's Antics.

Sunday night Ava got her first horse ride and already won't stop begging me for a pony! Can you believe it?!?! I told her that ponies only come so small. We would have to find a dwarf Shetland pony that had mated with a cat in order to find something her size! Seriously Ava, let's try rolling over first, then we can talk about a pony.

They refuse to acknowledge each other, originally uploaded by Ava's Antics.

Ava and the horse refused to acknowledge each other the whole time we rode. Ava was more fascinated by the leaves in the trees than by the 100% pure horsepower between her legs. She seemed to tolerate the jostling pretty well. For those of you that haven't ever ridden a horse, imagine riding one of those bicycles with the 6 ft front wheels over a parking lot with speed bumps every 2 feet. That's about what riding a horse is like, except that, despite the bumps, riding a horse is actually fun.

We were able to ride the horse thanks to our friends Denny and Sara, who are in our D-team. I enjoyed riding the horses, but the highlight of the night was when Sara let their dogs out of their kennel and one of them started eating horse poop! It's good to know that Sassy isn't the only one afflicted with this horrible addiction (Sassy eats her own poo instead, but if the opportunity presented itself I'm sure she wouldn't be able to pass up a fine horse-patty).

Ah-CHOO!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Things have been pretty crazy around here with Doni getting her new job. We went to Michigan to visit my family on Saturday because we had originally planned on going to Michigan for a wedding shower the weekend before, but we couldn't go then because we needed to finish setting up Doni's classroom. I think things are starting to slow down now though. You might say we've gone from a high heat to a slow simmer.

Ava has been doing several new things lately. First of all, she has started making noises like she's talking in some foreign dialect derived from Swahili. She does this pretty loudly, so I think it's a pretty good thing we had started putting her in the nursery at church from early on. We take advantage of these talkative times by putting words into her mouth. We'll say "I love you!" and she'll respond by saying "Ayeaeeiaoooiieeeeoaaooe Yaya" which, for you non-parents out there, is translated as "I love you".

Ava is continuing to sleep through the night, although she relapsed into her old routine for a few days because she got sick. She had a bit of a catch 22.... Her nose was stuffed up, so she had to breathe through her mouth. Of course she wanted her pacifier in her mouth, which, until they invent a better pacifier, blocks oral breathing. Should she breathe and be lonesome for her pacifier or get the pacifier at the expense of her life functions? She kept going back and forth on this one. Thankfully, she is feeling much better lately. She unselfishly gave me a bit of her cold so that we could have a little more father-daughter bonding. How sweet of her.....