Home Sweet Home

As promised a more timely blog post.

The move was very successful on Sunday to say the least. Mostly thanks to our families and of course Kate (Kate's Butt---reason coming soon) and Luke.

We weren't going to let a pesky 11 inches of snow stop us from moving! We got an early start and we sure needed it. You would think moving out of a condo would be simple as one should not have much stuff...however my genetics and 4 years of crap collecting left us with over 50 boxes, and way too much furniture.

I had 10 boxes marked Ava's clothes too small....hmmm perhaps Ava has a shopping problem.

The first truck was loading in next to record time, despite Brett's Anal retentiveness ( I am pretty sure I heard "TV GOES LAST!" 15 times...yes Brett we hear you...and what's that? we need a car seat for the xbox...lol)...and we were off the 15 min trip to the new house.

Upon arrival Brett had a great plan of "inside" people and "outside people"-defined as inside people will stay inside and meet outside people at the door to collect boxes and move to appropriate sharpie indicated places. Well this system worked for around 10 mins, and we decided to change it up....perhaps we shouldn't have. As poor Kate was coming in with a heavy box larger than her she tumbled down (the basement tile is apparently very slippery with snow on it---*rug purchased*) and needless to say I need to also thank Kate's butt for assisting.

Well it's now night 4 in the house and we are slowly unpacking. Poor Ava is not adjusting to sleeping well in her new room, so I have been camping in there on the floor to assist in the adjustment, basically she would just scream as loud as she could and cry the saddest tears anytime we laid her in the crib. So I literally tried every 15 mins from 9pm to 4am and finally I think due to pure exhaustion she would stay asleep in the crib from 4-7am. I am sure the different sounds (or lack there of) have something to do with it. Her trusty sleep sheep sound machine doesn't seem to make a difference.Same crib, same room wall color, what gives?

We did install her window coverings and hang her artwork on the walls yesterday and something worked because last night we will chalk up as a success as she only got up once screaming for me and was back sleeping in her crib within 45 mins, whew! Lets shoot for another good one!

Life is just full of adjustments and its good she go through this.

But man thank god for wine.

I will BLOG!

A giant apology extended to those of you who still wander across our blog every now and then....last post was Ava's hospital photos. Yikes, well I will not bombard you all with photos from the past 10 months, because there have been thousands. But this is a classic! (Her 6 Month Photo)

But most of all I wanted to use this post as a commitment to blog! As a lover of facebook...I am quite honestly close to "over it", so the blog is this years goal. Weekly posts to stay in touch with our loved ones close and far.

So let's see last 10 Months Highlights:

• The usual baby milestones: smiling, laughing, Trip to Chicago, first plane ride, grabbing toys, shots, first Easter, trip to Montana, first and last 14 hour car ride, daycare, making new friends, sitting, first modeling job, trips to the zoo, crawling, more shots, trip to Ely for 4th of July, first time in a lake, eating solids, learning sign language, babbling, pulling up on furniture, second modeling job first words (one of which is NO!), testing balance, dancing to the wiggles, walking with the help of her toys, playing fetch with the dogs, first Halloween, adorable unicorn costume and swimming lessons!
• Parenting is UNDERRATED, we LOVE it and never knew this part of our lives would be so very incredible :)
• We bought a new house (photos coming soon)
  Remodeling the new house Kitchen (Brett is doing all the grunt work, but I'm great at picking colors ;) )
  
• We "sold" our condo....paperwork pending.
• Kitchen is near completion final flooring went down this weekend!
  
• Big Move is Nov 14th!

We love you all and I'm really excited about keeping up with the blog!

XOXO
Christina

Happy New Year! It was a busy last couple weeks of 2009 :)

The last couple weeks of 2009 were quite extraordinary. We welcomed our daughter Ava Belle Fortier at 12:22 pm on 12/21. She weighed 6lbs 13 oz and measured 20 1/4 inches long. She is a beautiful bundle of joy and we couldn't be any happier to be called her parents. Ava had many visitors at the hospital. Grandma Fortier arrived glowing and very excited to see her granddaughter for the first time :) It was a beautiful moment to see her Brett and Ava together.
Ava's Godmother and my dearest friend and neighbor Melody and her husband Ben stopped by to share in the joy that Ava had finally arrived. We were watching the Vikings game Sunday evening with them when the contractions began. Who would have known that she'd be here less than 24 hours later. Perhaps she was ready to get out since it was quite a disappointment of a game!

The next morning Grandma and Grandpa Tholen and Uncle Matt arrived to meet Ava. Ava had a great first night and was bright eyed and ready to meet more of her wonderful family.

That afternoon and evening more visitors stopped by as the snow was beginning to fall. My great friend Juliann and her boyfriend Luke came to say hello. By this time I was ready to get out of the hospital so all visitors were much appreciated, daytime television was definitely something I had enough of by that point. My cousin Russ also popped by to hold the little bundle and offer some great advice on soothing techniques :) She looks pretty peaceful!

Wednesday morning we were discharged from the hospital, just in time for Christmas and the worst snow storm MN has seen in years! We were hosting Christmas this year so we were very worried our families would not be able to make it down with the weather as it was. But all went well and we had a houseful of Family to celebrate with for a very special first Christmas for Ava.

Things settled down after Christmas and we have just been enjoying the last week of parenthood. Ava has made great friends with her furry siblings. And we have discovered that the wiener dogs are quite protective of their baby Ava. The cats seem indifferent to her. She has had her first bath, she was not really a fan of the whole experience, however the wiener dogs were quite interested in helping out.

I can't believe she is 11 days old today. She's changing daily both her personality and physical features seem to change by the minute. She has a fantastic temperament and doesn't keep us up too much at night. We hope everyone has a fantastic new year!

Love,
Christina