Wonderful photos from Tina of the beach trip on Sunday

Ava and I have been trading overlapping colds the last few weeks.  Neither of us has had much appetite, which is worrisome in Ava's case.  On Friday the only thing besides nursing she expressed interest in was homemade ice cream (sweetened with honey).  She got some.

Ava perked up a bit on Saturday, so we went to the Arboretum.  She actually caught a butterfly.

We went to the Delaware Bay to look for migrating red knots and horseshoe crabs.  We found crabs, but it's weirdly too early for most red knots.  Lots of other shorebirds, though.  And some cool blue crab claws and shells on the beach.

Giant red knot statue at the nature center.

Lindy came to visit for Memorial Day.  We had a picnic at the Arboretum.

Trying out chairs and benches is still a recreational activity for Ava.

Ava helped Daddy plant beans.

Some wonderful photos that are a few weeks old from Tina

Neighbor's birthday on Saturday involved tiaras, helium balloons, large bubbles, novel toys, cars, and sugar.  And lovely people.  Massive success.

Identifying knees, elbows and shoulders this morning, and playing with the camera:

Birthday boy and his car:

Ava and Daddy celebrating garden success:

Pickle from the farmer's market.  These comprised most of her dinner.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy belated Mother's Day to mommies!  Ava and her mommy are still suffering from terrible colds that landed Mother's Day weekend.  Daddy took good care of us, though.

Ava helps Daddy whisk:

Ava stirs her (nonalcoholic) Bloody Mary:

First joke?  Ava loves identifying eyes.  This book has a giant closed clam with no visible eyes or eye-like structures.  Nonetheless, she smiles and points to it and says "Eyes!"  Then we say "The clam doesn't have eyes!  So silly!"  And she laughs.  Usually.  But not in the video that I tried to make of the phenomenon.  

Sometimes sitting on the potty (but not depositing anything into it) is fun.  Our hope was that giving her reading material would increase the probability of potty use.  She did sit there for a good long time, for a toddler.  To no avail.

more Virginia Beach photos

Many thanks to Tina for wonderful photos!

Virginia Beach

Swinging continues to be a favorite.

As is peekaboo.

We went to Virginia Beach for the weekend for Mike's girlfriend Heidi's graduation (clinical psych doctorate).  Many thanks to Clay and Phil for letting us stay at their beautiful house, which was filled with novel toys and home to a patient cat.  We arrived late Friday night, around midnight, which woke Ava up, and as soon as her bleary eyes focused on the toys and the cat, we knew that a semi-normal sleeping arrangement was not to be had this weekend.  Here's Ava at midnight:

 Daddy caught a striper

 Dumping sand with a clamshell, here with Tina:

 Dumping sand on Mommy:

 Sharing Daddy's sandwich:

 Photos on Dana's phone (babies! kitties!):