avablog

It began well enough. Ava was excited to go to her new school, and her mom went to the extra effort in the morning to put braids in Ava’s hair, complete with tiny bows at the end. The day seemed full of hope and promise.

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This blog sucks! Eh. It was a busy July. I took the photo below yesterday afternoon after Ava had dressed herself to go play outside. Pay special note to the orange ribbon in her hair, which she specifically wanted to be visible from under her sunbonnet.

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G.G. is in town this week to spend some time with Ava, who has a week off camp. Yesterday, the two of them put together a nice picnic lunch and met L and me in the park next to our office, where we dined on sandwiches, chips and fruit under a cloudy sky. It was […]

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Ava just had her third horseback riding lesson this past Sunday morning. She seems to enjoy the riding, and she’s good at it, but I think her true passion lies in brushing the horse before and after the lesson and feeding him carrots. For crying out loud, I never thought I’d be the dad who […]

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Ava’s trip to her grandmother’s out of town is providing a most unwelcome look into our future. A future in which her parents’ faces aren’t the last things she sees at night nor the first things she sees in the morning. I’m discovering I really don’t like not having her near. I just keep looking […]

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We miss our little girl! Yesterday I took her to lovely Quasqueton, IA, and dropped her off with G.G., who then took Ava the rest of the way to Decorah for a two-day visit, just the two of them. Ava did experience some trepidation about the whole thing, but the prospect of today’s trip to […]

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I did all the cutting and sewing but got A LOT of help from the owner of Home Ec in Iowa City, who’s great. Go there. Spend money. In other news, it appears Flickr has changed the way its users can access their photos, so clicking on the image above will take you to the […]

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I know, I know: This is too little, too late, since Father’s Day has come and gone. However, it must be said, in spite of its tardiness: My husband is a GREAT dad! And I owe the divine bearded one BIG PROPS for what he’s done today. In fact, he moved up my estimation ladder […]

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“They grow up so darn fast.” It’s going to be fun to someday look back on Ava’s “horse period.”

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There may be hope for Ava’s videographer career yet.

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Dear Ava, I’m sorry for every second you’ve felt set aside by me in favor of your little brother. I love you so much.

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For your consideration. Ava at her dance class dress rehearsal on Monday: And ECP giving me a smile on a walk we took yesterday while I was home with him: Crazy kids….

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There was no plan to get this shot annually, but now I’m thinking it might not be a bad idea. The 2010 version: And from 2009:

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It’s lilac season. But a B&W photo of lilacs? Wha…? I’m just that crazy, I guess.

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Leah and I noticed lately that Emmett’s started making this…well, weird face sometimes. I don’t know if it’s because he’s not used to having teeth in his mouth, or what, but the expression is very much like one his big sis used to make when she was his age. Familial genetics, or a much, much […]

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Had a really nice weekend, starting off with a dinner party for our friends Dawn and Ben. Then G.G. and Poom Poom rolled into town Saturday morning to do the Easter thing with us. The whole group took a walk to a nearby park yesterday afternoon, where we got some pictures I’m really fond of. […]

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Ava’s best friend is Mac, a boy who lives one yard (and not the 36″ kind) away from us and is about six months older than she is. When not at school, they spend a lot of time together. They have these great phone conversations when one or the other calls to check on availability […]

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Ava’s kindergarten teacher, Ms. Michelle, warned us at the beginning of the year that we’d be surprised by how quickly Ava’s reading and writing took off after a short period of hesitation (a period we took, naturally, as a sure sign of some failure on our part to instill in our daughter a love of […]

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Has hotel room service ever lived up to expectations?

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Does it ever go away? That passing feeling that the incredible little person standing in front of you couldn’t possibly have arisen out of your life? I get it a lot with Ava, and it’s not even so much upon hearing some particularly bright or funny thing she’s said. Mostly it’s just seeing her. The […]

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