July 26th - Week 15 - Wrigley, Sox game, laughing

I'm starting out with my own comments this week. I think this might be one of the best weeks we've had since Ava has arrived. Not only has the weather been amazing, but Ava continues to become more and more interactive with family and friends. We started the week off with some mother daughter time down by the lake. It was 80 degrees and sunny and the perfect day for a walk by the lake. Ava loves being down by the water and feeling the breeze while we're in the shade. She must have watched the leaves blowing in the wind for 20 minutes, breaking into the occasional smile as if she was trying to get their attention. It was one of those moments when you look around and truly appreciate how great life is right now. The only thing that could have made the day better would have been if Andy was there with us. With my time off of work growing short, I'm doing my best to take advantage of every moment with Ava and savior all the memories! While I know she is too young to remember these early days, I'll have plenty of stories to share with her when she's older.

On Tuesday we went to our weekly movies for moms and on Wednesday we had a playdate with the ladies from my prenatel aerobics classes. I think the moms had more fun with the kids all being together than they did, but it was cute to see all the other little ones. Ava is the oldest of the group by 2 days. Denise's twins, Gavin and Alexandria, were born on April 20th and Riley was born on June 26th.

I had told everyone how fun it was when Ava went to her first Cub's game on father's day so we attempted to purchase some walk up tickets to the game that afternoon. Unfortunately, we couldn't get enough seats together so we ended up just taking pictures out front of the ballpark and watched the rest of the game from Goose Island. Ava had already been to her first Cub's game but I felt bad for Riley and Ben for missing the true Wrigley experience.

On Thursday, we were lucky enough to be able to join daddy at his second work outing at Cellular field. It is hard to admit that Ava's been to 2 White Sox's games and only 1 Cubs game but we'll fix that soon enough. Daddy thought he was funny taking pictures of Ava as a White Sox, but she must be good luck as the home team has won every game she's been to!

On Friday, my college friends, Megan and Jill came over to visit in the morning and then we met Riley and her mom over at the Bucktown baby pool for a little swim. Ava likes the water a little more each time and is now splashing everyone as she kicks her feet in the water.

Our weekend was filled with family activities. On Saturday, Grandpa Etcheson came up to celebrate his 60th birthday. Great Grandma Etcheson came along as well to check out our condo and to see how close we live to Aunt Beth.

Ava put on quite a show while they were here. Aunt Beth got her laughing out loud for the first time. We told Grandma and Grandpa Hadank all about it when they came to visit on Sunday but Ava wouldn't do a repeat performance for them since Aunt Beth wasn't there. She did stop by later in the evening and got her laughing again...Ava sure does love her Aunt Beth!