Not much actual jumping happening yet...

...but she does like to bop around and make the battery operated part light up and make sound. Andy and I enjoyed a quiet Christmas last year and realized it would probably be our last for a very long time.

Well, this was my first attempt at editing video and then posting it. Even though it views the right way up on our computer, it loaded sideways for the blog. This time, tilt your head to the left and I'll remember to not turn the camera when I'm shooting video next time. :)

New photos and a house update.

A few new photos on our flickr site. Ava's first Annie & Mary Day, bouncy swing and hanging out with Grandma.

The house update is this: tomorrow morning Art & Ann sign the deed for Parcel 2 over to Andy. Then we take that new deed to the County Recorder's office to be re-recorded in Andy's name rather than Art & Ann's. Hopefully, that will only take a few days, and we can take the new deed to the bank next week and get a loan. Who knows how long it will take to get a loan approved, but as soon as it is, we should be able to pull our building permits and start construction. That's right! It's going to happen this year! After FIVE AND A HALF YEARS of just trying to split the lot, it's finally coming to completion. We could be living in beautiful Blue Lake by this time next year! (There's still a part of me that doesn't want to get excited about this yet, after having been through so many ups and downs already. We're SO close, I don't want to get crushed again.)

R.I.P. Toof

He wasn't the one we expected to go belly up first, but oh well. He was a good fish, even if he was mean. He was a big fish in a little fish's body and beat up on the bigger fish in the tank. We're not sure what killed him. (Don't tell the other two fish, but we're kind of waiting for them all to die so we won't have to deal with the tanks anymore.) There's just not much time for fish care when you're changing diapers, feeding and getting spat up on all the time.
(BTW, that's not Toof in the picture, but it looks just like him. I don't know who the guy in the background is.)

I think she's part cat.

Ava DOES NOT like the water. Last night we took a dip in the Dronks' warm hot tub, and you can see the result above. I bought that adorable swimsuit while I was still pregnant, and had to make sure Ava wore it before outgrowing it. Unfortunately, I don't think she'll be wearing it again.

P.S.- Bath time at our house is usually just as unpleasant. She is fine as soon as she isn't touching the water anymore. Poor girl. She'll grow out of it.

AUUUGGGH!

It has been two weeks since Art & Ann have been home from vacation, and the deed is still in the same place: sitting in the county recorder's office. As soon as the parcel is recorded, the deed can be written up, then we can take it to the bank, get our loan and start building. The county recorder's office seemed to be a well organized place when Andy and I went there to get our marriage license 3 years ago... I think what has happened with our project is that it has been red-flagged and each county employee knows that it has to sit on their desk for a few weeks before they process it. (There aren't enough curse words available to express how frustrated I am right now.) Every day that passes by is another day that we don't have available to build this year. At some point, our contractor will say that there aren't enough days left in the non-rainy season to get the house to a weather tight stage, and we're screwed again, having to wait until next April to start construction.

3 months old!

Yep, Ava hits the 3 month mark tomorrow. We can hardly believe how much she's transformed from the helpless little grub we brought home from the hospital! She's babbling quite a bit, is enamored with our ceiling fan and loves standing up with a little balancing help. She's still the spit-up queen and has started drooling a lot. She's fighting sleep these days, which should be interesting when I go back to work in a week and she has to stay with Grandma and Grandpa on Mondays and Tuesdays. Overall, she's just the greatest thing ever, and it gets better everyday.

Another thing I love: GoogleReader. (Thanks, Mike, for telling me about it!) If there's something you want the internet to do, there's a good chance that Google is working on it. And it could be my friend, Brian doing all the nutso programming stuff behind it, but he's sworn to secrecy, so who knows. Anyway, I like to read my friends' blogs. However, I don't like to check each of them everyday on the off chance that they've posted something new. That's where GoogleReader comes in. It tell it which blogs to check, and it lets me know when there's something new to read. I love it! Thank you GoogleReader for saving me precious time.

Art & Ann got back from their month-long vacation yesterday, and I ran into Art in the grocery store parking lot today. He said something along the lines of: the deed is at the title company today or early next week. I'm pretty sure that means that our deed, for our 1 acre, will be written at the title company in the immediate future. That means that next week we may have a lot to take to the bank. Things may be moving forward after all! (But I'm still not holding my breath.)