Ava's first real food

Ava has joined the world of spoon feeding--and loves it! It was a big mess at first, but she's really getting the hang of it. I think the bottle will soon be a thing of the past if she has her way.

Her first food?

If you can't guess from the pictures, I'll tell you....

green beans!

Our new home!

Here's a picture of our new house!




We sign the papers this week! It is 1962 sq. feet, 4 bedrooms (with 2 walk-in closets!), 2.5 baths and a finished basement. We are really gaining a lot more space than we have right now, and with Ava about to crawl, we'll need it! We'd love to host anyone if you need a place to stay when you're in the area.

Our new address is 630 Sutten, Canton, MI 48188
Our new home phone is 734 397-0280, although we'll still be using our cell phones to make our outgoing calls.

Almost got it!....

We've been offering and counter-offering on a house in Canton, and it looks as if we may finally be settled on everything. Our closing date is November 30 if all goes as planned. We've been packing things up bit by bit in the mean time, so there won't be quite so much to do at the end of things. Here's a picture of Ava trying to help mom pack up.

House Hunting

We are attempting to join the world of home ownership! It is an exciting time, as there are plenty of houses to choose from, but all the lingo and money make for a little more anxiety. We have put a bid on a house in Canton, Michigan. Christopher now works for Plymouth-Canton Schools, and with my job in Livonia, it brings us both a lot closer to our places of employment.
We'll give any updates about our house hunt once we get something more definitive.

Mom and Ava

Since everyone insists that Ava resembles Christopher much more than I (I happen to agree), I thought I'd try placing our two pictures at similar ages together to see if any kind of resemblence is emerging. Let me know what you think...

Little Miss Flexible!

I knew this day would come, seeing the acrobatics that happen daily on the changing table. Not only can Ava turn complete circles on the changing table, it offers her a wonderful opportunity to get a hold of something pretty exciting.




You guessed it--her big toe! She still hasn't got the gist of the fact it is attached to her leg, so she'll move her leg and not know why the foot she just had in her hand/ mouth is now gone. She is talking a lot now, and it really cracks us up! To some untrained ears, it may seem more like a squeal and noise with bubbles, but her expressions are so animated it just makes us laugh. There is new joy every day! Parenthood is an exhausting and yet exhilerating ride--no words can adequately describe it. It is something you have to experience first hand to understand what everyone else was talking about! Time has never flown by faster than since we became parents. It seems every day is over in a blink, and the weeks fly by too quickly.

Ava says "Go Blue!"

...in not so many words, but you can get the idea from her game day attire and prop.

Ava turns over

As of Thursday, September 7, Ava can now roll from her back to her stomach. She isn't quite able to reverse it to go onto her back again, but that time will soon come. Now all the safety harnesses and belts are getting put to good use!

Christopher has a birthday...

That's right! Almost exactly 2 weeks after my birthday, Christopher has his birthday on September 6. Where as I never had to be in school on my birthday (which is one of the reasons I thought it was so great as a kid), Christopher will probably always have to be unless it falls on a weekend. And the first week of school is always a bit crazy, so it is hard to actually plan to go anywhere and really celebrate his birthday until some time after. So how did we celebrate his birthday this year? He went to work, and I went to the dentist. But in the evening, I made him his favorite pork chop dish, and his birthday pie--strawberry rhubarb.
We bought some decaf coffee (unheard of here), because my grandmother taught me the best time to have coffee aside from first thing in the morning is with a good piece of pie. Since we both had to get up the next morning, it worked out okay. And it tasted so good with the pie! He opened his gifts, and we made a good time out of the short time we had to celebrate after he got home from work. He got a couple of CDs, an X-box game, a DVD series from the show 'Numb3rs', and other assorted gifts. Ava got Dad a Curious George cookie, which you can see sticking to the pillow in his birthday picture. It was a good birthday for Christopher.

Kristen Has a Birthday...

That's right--my favorite month of the year is August, and it is because we get to celebrate another year in the life of me! Sounds crazy, and as we get older, supposedly we don't want our birthdays to creep around again. But I know if I am having another birthday, God has given me 365 days of breath and too many heartbeats to count! It is amazing to see my life unfold in front of me, and yet I have such fond memories of where I've come from. Heidi took both her birthday and mine off this year, so it was a lot of fun to spend time with her. Our birthdays are back to back, the 21st (hers) and the 22nd (mine). We got our 'sister' pictures done this year, on her birthday--it had been a while since we had our last ones taken.

We got Ava's pictures done on my birthday, because pictures are fun, and I wanted fun on my birthday! Yikes--blissfully naive logic! I am learning that getting pictures done in a studio can be a circus, and some parents don't like keeping track of their kids very much. Anyway, after we got her pictures taken, we went into Ann Arbor for the second day in a row to get my free Stucchi's ice cream--my sister's birthday is the day before mine, so we went in the previous day too! We at lunch at Jerusalem Gardens (middle-eastern cuisine) and then had Stucchi's for dessert. I got a bunch of artsy stuff from Christopher, which was really cool. I got more stencils to do embossing and card making, and I have always wanted the jumbo pack of multi-colored Sharpies which I got this year. My parents gave me a Willowtree statuette, and from other members of my family I received some music and scrapbooking stuff. Alas, again, no I-Pod. I will now put it on my Christmas list. Anyway, it was a good day. I had fun.

Ava moves out....

Of Mom and Dad's room!

Out of the Pack 'n Play in our room, and into the real crib in the nursery. She loves her U of M teddy bear mobile that plays "The Victors" as a lullabye. It's been weird to not hear every little noise she makes, and for a couple of nights, I had to just go and make sure she wasn't smushed up against the side of the crib or something crazy we moms think up when we don't hear the baby's usual noises! It's such a wonderful start to my day to get up in the morning and see her happy, smiling face. She loves morning! She always gets my day off to a good start!

Who does she look like?

...That is the question everyone is asking us. We aren't really sure when we look at her yet! Here are a couple of different comparisons done with pictures of Ava and us when we were about the age she is now. ( I think she has my eyes!)

Cast your vote!

The Zirks go to Lake Michigan, continued

Here is a picture of the sunset we saw over Lake Michigan at Rocky Gap Park, just north of St. Joseph, Michigan.

The Zirks go to Lake Michigan

This last weekend we decided to take a trip to the west side of the state. We have friends who just recently moved to St. Joseph, Michigan, which is right on Lake Michigan. So we spent some of our time catching up and laughing with our friends, and we spent some of it just driving up the coast and visiting places we loved before we had Ava to share the experience with. So we visited South Haven, which is just about 20 minutes north of where we were staying. Christopher and I went there to celebrate our 2nd anniversary, and had such a great time--we knew we would be making a return visit. We sat on towels in the channel which leads out to the lake and watched boats going out to sea and coming back. Finally, before we left, we walked out to the end of the pier and saw the South Haven Lighthouse. It is always very calming to go and sit at the end of the pier and just look out into the horizon. Ava was zonked out at that point, but rest assured, she had a good time prior to that!















We then continued up the coast to Holland, and had a picnic lunch with my parents (the Goedge's). They can't get enough of Ava, and always make jokes about taking her home and letting her do what she wants for a night. I always tell them that part of the deal is listening to her cry in her carseat for the 1.5 hours it takes to get home--somehow I don't think they'd mind! We had a good time with them grilling hotdogs and eating dinner at Kollen Park in Holland, on Lake Macatawa.

On our way home, I couldn't help myself as I kept seeing the sun drop further and further down in the sky. I am a sucker for sunsets, and I knew that night was going to be a good one. We stopped just outside of St. Joseph at Rocky Gap Park and watched the sun set over Lake Michigan. It was beautiful. I took Ava down to the water, and she seemed to like it. Man, did it feel good to dip my feet into Lake Michigan--the water was actually fairly warm. Unfortunately, I was getting attacked left and right by massive deerflies, so we watched the rest of the sunset from the inside of the car!

beautiful Ava goes to the doctor

Today, we went to the doctor's office for Ava's 2 month physical examination. Because of insurance 'issues', she was almost 3 months before she got in for her appointment. I know I should be a lot more grateful for having affordable health insurance, and yet sometimes the hoops I have to jump through are just rediculous. Anyway, here are her new statistics at 11 weeks old:

weight- 10 lbs, 13 oz
height- 24 1/4 inches
head circumference-40cm

Her weight was in the 25-50 percentile range on the growth chart
Her height was in the 75-90 percentile range on the growth chart
Her head circumference was in the 50-75 percentile range on the growth chart

She also got her first group of immunizations, which I was really nervous about. I did actually tear up a bit, but was okay once I got to hold her. Seems kind of crazy, since I used to be 'that mean nurse' for 2 years! It was hard then, but it is a lot harder now that it is my own baby. It absolutely infuriated me when moms would say, "oh, here comes the mean nurse to give the shots" or "oh, she's the one who made him/her cry the last time." But funny, although I would never say something like that to the nurse because of my past experience in her shoes, I did find myself feeling some sort of contempt toward her--and I don't even know her! "You're the one who is going to make my baby cry!" I thought. As a mother, it's hard to rationalize how inflicting pain is actually going to benefit and protect your baby in the long run, but as a nurse, I know it does. And thankfully, she won't remember the shots that she gets as a baby when she gets older.

...This is us now

This is us just recently with Ava, the newest member of our family. We are just so in love with her--you can never really put it adequately into words. So now we are three...

This is us then...

Hi everyone! I'm kind of new to this blogging thing, but I am hoping it will be something I can keep up with. I don't have much spare time, but when I do, I am usually trying to do something around the house, or on the computer. I'd rather be doing the latter, so here I am.

This is a picture of Christopher and I before I got to be the lovely 'maternal' shape I am now. We love to get our picture taken in the autumn, our favorite season because of the colors. This was us last fall in Grand Rapids--with little Ava in tow, but indeed very little (I was about 2 months pregnant).