Swinging Into Spring!

Today was a gorgeous first day of Spring, and as such, we welcomed it with a trip to the park. Not wanting Jack to feel left out, I let him take a little swing on the…well, swings! He loved it! He was very uncertain when I set him in it initially, but once I made it move, he was hooked. The cutest part was that every time he'd come back towards me, he'd get the biggest grin on his face and reach his hands towards me. Aww!

His initial reaction:

  Then he warmed up to the idea :)

Happy first day of Spring!

Spring Has (Kind of) Arrived!

It's been an unseasonably bipolar weather here in Austin, with more ice days (aka: school cancellations) than in several decades, and warmer than normal days mixed in between (it's already broken 90 here a couple of times in February alone!). So, though I can't say anything about spring being here to stay, I can say that it was here for a matter of hours this past Friday, and we took full advantage of the opportunity to hit a local park post-ballet!

Though it was cold and rainy again this past weekend (so much so we skipped both the rodeo and Kite Festival, which was canceled after two weekends of inclement weather), it was gorgeous again yesterday, so hopefully spring is at least a wee bit *closer* to being here to stay!

Sno Cones.

Don't hate me, but the weather here is fabulous. God, I love living in Austin. I'm so in love with this city, it's insane!

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

Zilker Park Kite Festival!

It was a GORGEOUS day for Kite Festival, with Austin topping out at 87 degrees!!! Combine that with some beautiful sunshine and a nice, cool occasional breeze, and you've got the makings of a perfect day at Zilker Park!

Check it out:

With mommy (and getting a very rare bottle of precious breastmilk!):


Loungin' with dad:


That bottle was entirely worth using, since at brunch at Z Tejas I had two (yes, I said TWO!) drinks - a mimosa and a screwdriver. That's the first time I've had two drinks since this time last year!!! Delicious :)

I Heart Friday.

Lots to tell today!

First off, today has been a great day :) I got a TON done -

*First, my car hadn't been washed since before Ava was born. Actually it was significantly before, if we're being honest, so S, Ava and I ran over to Arbor Car Wash, a local place that does a great job and offers $2 off their already cheap hand wash service ($13 before the discount!) if you're a frequent customer, aka if you've been there EVER. My car is now vacuumed out, squeaky clean, sweet-smelling as the day we bought it. I LOVE that feeling! If you're a fellow Austinite, click here for coupons!

*Second, I took Ava and S to the fountains up at the Arboretum where you can feed the ducks/geese and have a picnic, so that was really nice. It's been hitting 80 for the past three days straight, so we've been taking full advantage and getting to do all sorts of fun stuff. More on that later.


*Third, I paid all the bills I had due through mid-April, with the exception of our April mortgage, which always puts me in a good mood. When I was young I liked nothing more than spending. Now, I like nothing more than remaining debt-free and SAVING!!

*Did I mention it's been 80 degrees for three days? And mid-to-low 70's prior? By all accounts, the weather's here to stay during the next week, which brings me to:

SPRING BREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I graduated from UT, I thought my days of observing Spring Break were long gone. I spent my last college Spring Break in NYC, living it up like the wild child I once was, half celebrating my upcoming graduation and half mourning the loss of what is one of my favorite weeks of the year.

Luckily for me, when I took my job with the D's, I quickly realized I would be getting that precious, sun-filled week back! This is the second year in a row I've been off for the entire week while the D's go away to Florida, and I can think of absolutely nothing I could enjoy more than having a week to spend just me and little A. On the agenda?

*Spring cleaning (I know it's sick, but this is something I actually enjoy!)
*Long walks/runs on Town Lake & Lake Pflugerville in the gorgeous sunshine
*Ava's three-month pictures (a couple weeks early, but I'm a busy working mom most weeks!)
*Planting spring flowers in the front flower beds and pulling weeds (not looking forward to that second part, but it'll look so much better!)
*A trip to SA to introduce Ava to our "family"
*Zilker Park Kite Festival this Sunday
*SXSW!!!! (As much of it as I can with a baby strapped to me!)
*Visiting daddy at the office!
*Laying around the house, cooing and staring at each other and just generally enjoying being a mommy!

I cannot wait! It's such a nice feeling to not have anywhere to be until the 22nd! Believe it or not, there are actually even MORE reasons why I'm in such a good mood. First off, I stumbled into Babies R Us earlier realizing I needed to nurse and hadn't planned very well around that, and so in we went to the Mother's Lounge. Clearly their design team is genius, since as I walked to the back of the store to the lounge, I passed by many, many, MANY great sales, and ended up picking A up a few cutie patooty outfits! Two are 3-6 months, and boy they look huge! I can't believe she'll be wearing them soon!



What's that you say? I have a spoiled little bebe? I know, but how can you not spoil this:


In case that surprise sale wasn't good enough, I came home to two packages:

Ava's Easter basket:



(any clue how to get the wrinkles out?!?)

and...

HER BOOK!!!! Yay!

(Sorry, Ashlie - I stole your catchphrase for my subtitle. Hope you don't mind!!!)



I think I'm still a bit high from the endorphins of taking two separate three-mile walks yesterday - one around Town Lake, and the other around Lake Pflugerville with one of my mommy blogger friends! So exciting :)

Hope everyone else's Friday has gone as fantastically :)!!

She's Sleeping!

Ava's started to sleep way better at night, both going down easier, and sleeping for longer stretches. I've gotten a few 5 to 5.5 hour stretches in the past few days, which is great for us! I know she can go longer than that without eating (7.5 hours one night, just not all of it while asleep!), so I'm trying to make a push towards getting her to do so. Baby steps...

She also really, really enjoys sleeping in. If you attempted to get her up for the day at 7am, she's look at you with her bleary little eyes like you were nuts. She's much more of a 8:45-9:30 type of gal. We're definitely not a family of early risers, so this works great for me! Thankfully I have a schedule where this is possible most days, and since I've been getting better sleep, have even been up and showered before she's awake. That's a miracle!

Today I'm taking her and S over to Ramsey Park, a really wonderful playground in Central Austin. It'll be Ava's first park experience, which is exciting, though I'm betting she'll sleep through it! I cannot wait until she's big enough to go in the baby swings - I bet she'll love them! Being a mommy is so great :)

This weekend, as I mentioned before, is Ava's great-grandfather's 100th birthday, so we'll be heading to that tomorrow, and then back to Austin with his parents to have dinner and hang out before they head back Sunday afternoon. I'm hoping to sneak another walk around Town Lake in, especially since their hotel is right on the trail, but we'll see - the forecast is calling for rain.

What I'm most looking forward to, however, is this time next week. As of next Friday at 4:30pm, I'm off for 9 straight days while the D's go to Florida for Spring Break. Ava and I are hoping to sneak in a day trip to San Antonio to see our Texas "family", as well as some places around Austin, perhaps a mommy and baby movie at the Alamo, and hopefully some SXSW time! We also have plans to do our spring cleaning and plant spring flowers! I'm so excited!!

This is looking to be the best Spring Break ever!