Visiting the Hovland's

 

Two weekends ago, we traveled to Newport News, VA to visit Tracy and Erik. Tracy's from Moorhead and Erik's from Duluth. Aside from wanting to visit before we left NC, we also got to see their 6 week old daughter Ava. If you want more pictures of her, you can visit the Hovland blog. This was one of our favorite pictures of the two of them. Avalon tried many tactics to get Ava's attention.

 

Dancing

Avalon has taken to dancing. She enjoys one particular series of songs on her activity table. The songs are activated by spinning a rattle, but will immediately stop when she touches anything else on the table. So doesn't understand this, but she does understand how to restart the song which she does immediately once a song stops playing (usually due to her own actions). The video below shows Avalon dancing for our friend Katie.

So big!

Avalon is so big now! She weighed in at 20 pounds and 28 inches at her 9 month doctor's appointment last week. She has just about grown out of her infant car seat, so Jarad and his dad just installed the new car seat this past weekend. Avalon also received a new stroller about a month ago and she loves it! She gets to face forward now and see everything that we pass. She is usually very content during our strolls, often times falling asleep.

Commencement

 
This past weekend was graduation weekend at Duke (and UNC-CH and NC State). We had many activities over the weekend including a brunch at my advisor's place, the hooding ceremony on Saturday night, and commencement exercises on Sunday. Oprah gave the commencement speach. She anecdottally recalled some of her favorite episodes and what lessons she took from them. As it was an outdoor ceremony, we were at the mercy of the weather, but fortunately mother nature cooperated. This picture was taken after the ceremony in the Duke Gardens.

First Trip to the Park

On April 4, Avalon took her first trip to the park. She was somewhat indifferent to the swing and slide; however, we did get one picture with the semi-smile!

She really enjoyed watching the other kids play. And her favorite ride was on Daddy's shoulders, as you can see in the picture below! She has been back to the park one time since then and Jarad said she did have more smiles in the swing on her second trip.

Avalon Month 4 pictures

I'm clearing the backlog and here are some pictures from Avalon in her fourth month of life.