Dancing Queen

Ava has moved and grooved to music since she was very young, but she's developed some new dance moves lately!

Ava's (Relatively) Old Grooves:
* Swaying side to side from the waist
* Clapping

Ava's (Relatively) New Grooves:
* Shaking her booty side to side.
* Stomping her feet rapidly and repeatedly
* The Twist (Note: the dance VS the song I always sing)

So the plan was to show videos of Ava dancing at different ages... but it seems I only have ones of Ava at 10 months (June) and Ava at 14 months (October)...  so that will have to suffice!  And ignore the fact that in each of these videos she's watching a different TV show.... Trust me when I say it says nothing about my parenting skills.  (Shut up, Jason!)  Oh, and all the videos are sideways.  I tried rotating them, but they looked really stupid in YouTube, so just turn your head for a while.  Take a break if you feel a cramp coming on, but all 5 videos are between 0:15 and 1:07 long, and there's commentary in between.

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FIRST is a video of Ava at 10 months doing a kind of dance on all fours to the tune of the Good Luck Charlie theme song.  I LOVE Good Luck Charlie.  It rocks!!  Ava loves Charlie, the baby, and I love the whole family, especially Teddy and their mom...  Jason says (jokingly... I hope...) that I'm going to be that kind of mom, and I don't know whether to be flattered or offended............  I'll go with flattered.  She's cool.

Grooves featured: Swaying

SECOND, we have Ava the next day, dancing to a song from The Fresh Beat Band.  This show is okay.  It's definitely silly, but it encourages dancing, for sure!  :)  But their songs come on during "commercial" breaks, and that's all we really need.  (That's why this video is so short.)

Grooves featured: Swaying (or possibly capoeira, although I haven't done any Turbo Jam in a while...)

THIRD, we have Ava at 14 months dancing to that "hot dog" song at the end of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

*Cue rant*  This show bugs me... I realize that kids shows aren't always realistic, but at least by watching Team Umizoomi, she will realize that things are put together with screws and not held together with "sticky tape"...  And when a lock is star-shaped, the star on the key has to be facing the lock and not sideways, like the MMC episode we saw yesterday.  Every time I see it, it bugs me more.  What does "super cheers" even mean?  All the made-up words drive me crazy!  And, worst of all, if Pete were a real person, he'd have committed suicide by now.  He is forced to "play" the most RIDICULOUS roles for the show... I'm always so embarrassed for him... even though he's a cartoon.  *End rant*

But that "hot dog" song is really a hit with Ava, as you will see...

Grooves featured: Booty shaking, Stomping (+ Mommy-snuggling... Awwwww!!)

FOURTH, at almost 15 months, a sneak-peak at Halloween.  In honor of the holiday, the kids had the option of wearing costumes to story time at the library on Tuesday.  If possible, she is EVEN MORE CUTE dressed as a little Chinese girl!  Auntie Alice should appreciate that!  :)

Oooh... I should probably also note that Ava is standing up in the middle with the story time lady, facing the WHOLE GROUP (of probably 20-25 kids plus their mom or dad), doing a little performance... No stage fright for this girl!!

Grooves featured: Booty shaking, Stomping (+ Dolly hugging... Awwwww!)

FIFTH, but third in chronological order, at 14 months, is my favorite Ava-dancing video I've taken!  (Sorry about the shaking... my dog, Josie, was licking my arm...)  This time, Ava is dancing to a "I'm So Scared of You" from the Monster Party episode of The Backyardigans.

The Backyardigans is Ava's favorite kids show... I DVR it for her (it usually comes on during her nap) because I really really love it, too!  :)  The kids are so creative, going on all sorts of make-believe adventures in their backyards, and each episode has songs in a different musical style from country to rock to hip-hop, from school fight-songs to psychedelic soul music to the Viennese waltz.  Plus, they have real-life people do the dancing with those little motion-sensor tabs on them, then their dance moves are transferred to the animated characters via computer graphics special effects!  How cool is that?

Oooh... and can you keep a secret?  Don't tell Ava, okay?  Look what I got her for Christmas...

The Backyardigans Beanie Baby Set!

Anyway, back to the videos...  This really is the best one!  Ava doing the twist is the best thing EVER!

Grooves featured: Stomping, Clapping, The Twist (+ Dog-tail Pulling)

I think the videos speak for themselves, but if not, all of them are squealing, "SO FREAKING ADORABLE!!!!!"  (If I do say so myself... :)

Sara

Blowing Bubbles

I didn't have the camera in the bathtub with us, but tonight Ava discovered that if she lays on her tummy she can put her face in the water and blow bubbles!  She's going to be able to "swim like a pish" in no time!  :)

She sucked in some water a couple of times and coughed and coughed and coughed, but that didn't stop her from try-try-againing!  :)

UPDATE:  Suzi, I did better than pictures!  Here is a video.... :)

Look at that adorable nakey butt.... SO CUTE!!  :)  If you want to see a bigger version, click the "Watch on YouTube" button.  It's bigger over there.

August Adventures

Just some pictures that show all the "fun" things Ava did in August (8/7/2011 to 8/29/2011).  Clicking on the pictures will make them bigger!

8/7/2011 - Ava "helping" daddy play Xbox.

8/8/2011 - Daddy taking Ava out in the rain.

8/8/2011 - Adventures in the mini Poäng chair.

8/9/2011 - Mosquitoes think babies are sweet!

8/13/2011 - Ava's favorite puzzle.

8/15/2011 - Climbing, climbing, climbing...

8/16/2011 - Sitting in the baskets is half the fun!

8/19/2011 - Rings = bracelets. This is instinctual,
like boys with guns. I didn't teach her this!

8/19/2011 - (1) Too close to the TV; (2) Climbing on the shoe box;
(3) First time wearing shoes; (4) Drinking out of mom's water bottle!

8/21/2011 - Sleeping sideways with lots of toys
+ ineffective use of a blanket.

8/21/2011 - I spy something furry and asleep...

8/21/2011 - Giddy-up little doggie!

8/22/2011 - Helping mom do the dishes...

8/29/2011 - Playing in the dog water.........

It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To

Wow... 1965?  That's incredible!

So, computer crash = missing the first half of Ava's birthday.  She got a LOT of presents... Including books, clothes, toys, her mini Poäng chair from Ikea, etc.  But this is all I have of Ava's birthday presents, picture-wise...

Ava likes this alphabet quite a lot.  She usually takes the letters off the fridge and puts them in Josie's food bowl (which is right there), then dumps them all out.  The idea was that she could play with this while I'm cooking or doing dishes.  That works sometimes, but she still really likes to climb in the dishwasher and splash in the dog's water bowls, so I'm still dealing with that.  Three months later, we're down to 24 letters... I think Ava must have thrown them away without me noticing...  But who needs J or X, anyway (besides Jason)?

As for the rest of the day, here are the fun things we did for Ava's first birthday!

For dinner, I made mini bowtie (farfalle) pasta with *coughjarredcough* tomato sauce (plus ground beef) and peas, which I defrosted in the microwave.  Really fancy.  Ava LOVES peas though, so... *shrugs*  She must have gotten that from Grandma, because goodness knows she didn't get it from Jason or me!

"Mom!  What's this stuff all over my hand?"

 Ava dug right in!  We used her red bib to make cleanup easier.

After dinner, Jason and I took Ava on a walk.  Ignore the fact that Ava looks like she has a comb-over and a really large forehead.  Concentrate on the chubby thighs!  ;)

In order for me to get a picture of Ava in her princess hat, my mom had to hold it on her head.  She isn't used to having things on her head, so she kept trying to take it off!  Sad, but oh well...

Here's a look at Ava's first birthday cake!  I used what looks like a 5" diameter pie pan, so it basically make a really large cupcake, which was perfect.  I got two of those and an 8" square cake out of a box of strawberry cake mix.  My mom made the frosting.  Then sprinkles, a sparkly candle, and a pretty plate, and voilà!


Ava liked it, but before she even dug her hands it, she had a bit of drama...  Note to self (and others, if it helps)...  Don't put lit candles in front of your one-year-old, because he/she WILL want to touch them, then when you stop him/her, he/she WILL cry.  That's what happened....  Warning: This video is LONG and I couldn't stop laughing... so it's shaky.  HILARIOUS though.

I know, right?  Hilarious. Not as hilarious as this picture:

What is that look on her face?  You tell me, because I have NO idea!

Here's where the rest of the cake went!  Haha!  We put sprinkles in the cake batter, too!  Yummm...

And here's Ava's birthday bath, which she REALLY needed after that adventure.  I fuzzed it out for modesty... or so it would be harder for you to tell dirty my tub is.  Definitely one of the two...


It was a fun day!  I can't believe my tiny baby is already a year old!! In just one year she went from being barely able to keep her eyes open to walking around talking on her cell phone!  Unbelievable!!

August 3, 2010 vs August 3, 2011

Happy Birthday, Ava!  Mommy and Daddy love you!!

July, Part II

One more of these, and we can get back to the good stuff!  This will be July 20 - August 1...  I think the August 1st pictures are the ones I'm MOST saddened to have lost!  That's the day we went sightseeing in Chicago and went to Chinatown!  My mom has pictures of the trip though...... hopefully some of them turned out okay... ;)  Just kidding, mom!  :D

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FB - July 19 at 11:36pm: Great one from yesterday... Jason: "Look, Ava! Zombies!" - Jason and Ava were watching a preview for some video game... haha...


FB - July 21 at 12:15am: I am REALLY tempted to cut my own hair. Someone talk me out of it. Here are a couple points you can bring up:
(1) The haircut I gave myself (and IAN) when I was 4 1/2 ended with me having one of those hideous 80s bobs.  
(2) The time I tried to cut my own bangs in 7th grade, they ended up too short and totally crooked, and that was on the FRONT of my head...
GOOD NEWS!!  I was successfully talked out of what was bound to be a TERRIBLE idea!  My mom promised to take me to get my hair cut when she visited at the end of July/beginning of August.  More info on those stories: (1) Ian got a buzz using a #2, and you could STILL see where I cut his hair!  I'm kinda surprised I didn't make him bleed! (2) I'm not proud of this, but I told people my mom had cut my bangs.... 

Photo - July 21 at 12:45pm: On a walk with the dogs... Ava is helping me walk Lucy!  What a CUTIE!!

NOTE - *Some time around July 21st, I found MADE!  :)  Sometime in July, I started reading blogs.  I've got a whole bunch I follow these days, but this was the beginning!  Dana has the CUTEST sewing ideas for kids!  Plus, she blogs about other great things, like her thrift-store finds (and repurposing), Project Runway, and other fun things!

FB - July 22 at 1:03am: With only 12 days to go until Ava's 1st birthday, she FINALLY decided to learn how to give mommy kisses! YAY!!!

Comment (from my mom) - July 23 at 9:34pm: And don't forget...5 days til Grandma goes to visit Ava...

Yay!  If only the kisses hadn't been a one-time occurrence!  Yeah.  She totally doesn't do that... ever.  She does give great hugs though!

FB - July 23 at 2:56am: The thunder is loud... and I guess it scares Ava... So much for me going to bed early.... - Ava seems to like thunder as much as my sister, Suzi, did when she was little.  I still remember that picture of her asleep on the couch with her fingers in her ears... ;)


Photo - July 23 at 10:28am: Ummm.... this is a picture that shows that I'm seriously an engineer!  It rained a TON the night before (hence the thunder)... I couldn't believe how deep the water is in this open channel (errr... stream...) near our house!  The three rectangular culverts are REALLY BIG, but I can see why now!  Holy cow!  This really makes me want to break out Manning's Equation.  .... I wonder if I can even remember what it is off the top of my head... 


*NERDY TANGENT* Q=(a generic coefficient to make the eqn work... 1.49?)*(coefficient of friction)*slope^(1./2)*(wetted perimeter, Ro)^(2/3)... and I think you have to divide by something... or maybe it's the area divided by the wetted perimeter?  Wow... I obviously haven't done engineering in a while... Let's look that up.  ......  So close, yet so far.  I would have figured it out when the units didn't work.  Except for the coefficient, as it's unitless.  Actually, I take that back.  The units don't work out in this equation.  That's what the 1.49 is for.  Yay for empirical equations! :P


Q = (1.486/n)*Rh^(2/3)*s^(1/2)*A 
where n=coefficient of friction, Rh (hydraulic radius) = Area/Pw (wetted perimeter), s = slope, A = Area, and Q = flowrate, in cfs. *END NERDY TANGENT* 


Let's just look at the nerdy picture now.  Yep.  Not very exciting.  A lot of water...

FB - July 23 at 11:21am: Uggggghhhhh! I HATE Huggies!!!! - Some friends of ours gave us a LOT of Huggies when their kid grew out of them, and they do NOT work on Ava.  I haven't cleaned up so many leaks and overloads since before Ava starting eating solids at 6 months!


Photo - July 23 at 2:09pm: This must have been the day we went to Panera, because this is one of Panera's AMAZING Toffee Nut Cookies!  They are buttery and toffee-y and nutty (in a Brazilian way) and delicious! I knew to order one, because they're a popular place to get catering from, and Jason brought me home one of these cookies once... :)  YUMMMMM.....   The rest of the food was good, too... but kind of expensive.  I think we spent like $20 for the two of us.  Next time I'll get McDonald's from across the street and just stop by for just a cookie!  :)  Mmmmm.... now I want McDonald's french fries.....

Photo - July 23 at 11:42pm: This was a random picture on Jason's phone.  A mama cat feeding her kittens...  I assume Jason helped the mommy cat give birth or something.  Otherwise, why would he have this picture?  Aren't they cute, clawing and biting each other to get some milk?  (Kidding...)  So tiny!!!

FB - July 24 at 12:15am: Arrrghhh... it's thundering really loudly again! I hope Ava sleeps through it this time!  I think she did....  Enough said.


Photo - July 24 at 6:33pm: This is a picture of Suzi I took with my phone from a Skype conversation we had with her on her 21st birthday!  (She wanted me to have a new picture to have pop up on my phone when she calls.  The one I have is of her at like 16 or something.)  Suzi loves to Skype with Ava, of course, even though Ava usually runs around the whole time!  :)

Isn't she cute?  She's married though, sorry!

FB - July 27 at 11:19pm: Sara Andersen Ferrell has been cooking thinly sliced potatoes (like 0.5 cm thick, in a milk/cream mushroom soup mix) in the crock pot for LITERALLY 14 hours on a combo of high and low temps, and they're still firmer than I'd like them.... Any advice? I swear I've made this recipe before without issue... - Yeah, I think my crock pot died.  My mommy bought me a new one!  :)

FB - July 29 at 2:31pm: Target... CHECK! Walmart... CHECK! Ikea... :) I'm off to Swedish-land! :) - Yay!!!  Shopping with my mom is the BEST!!!


Photo - July 30 at 7:14am: Ummmmm.... I think this is a photographic evidence that Jason can catch a fly between his fingers.  He may need to register his hands as weapons...

Photos - July 30 at 11:34pm: I got a haircut!  It's an angled bob, but since my hair is curly, it looks fairly crazy.  It's growing out well though!

FB - August 1 at 7:07pm: Had a great time in Chicago today! We saw the Chicago Bean ("Cloud Gate") and went to China Town for dim sum! - This was REALLY fun!  We only have 3 pictures... (I'd have thought with the amount of time Jason spent photographing the bean he'd have had more than that, but I guess not...)  The three pictures were only taken 28 seconds apart, too... not sure what happened there!  I need to get pictures from my mom.  When I do, I'll post some.


Photos - August 1 at 12:48pm: These are pictures of Jason and Ava reflected in the Bean, AND photographic evidence that my mom not only exists, but visited us in Chicago!  That's her walking behind Jason and Ava in the third picture!  

Anyway, that concludes our (boring) recap of June and July!  Stay tuned for (way) more exciting things, like Ava's birthday and Ava's interesting fashion preferences and ummm.... other stuff that I'm sure is thrilling.  Yeah... let's go with that. ;)

July, Part I

All right!  Let's dissect some more missing time...  Here is what I have from the first 18 days of July...

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FB - July 2 at 7:35pm: Ava walked! It was totally legit, too! She was holding onto the coffee table, turned toward me, let go and stood there, then took 3 steps over to me! :D - YAY!  It was AWESOME!  It took her a WHILE before she was steady, but now she's running around and I can barely keep up with her!

FB -  July 6 at 3:51pm: Ava's new trick: Blowing raspberries. Favorite time to do this: Mealtime. .... :P - Oh, THAT was fun!  Fortunately, she only did that for about 3 days.... but blowing raspberries has a completely different affect when you have food in your mouth... :P


Photo - July 10 at 10:54pm: Random picture of Josie.

FB - July 11 at 4:42pm: The downside to having a baby who sleeps 10.5 hrs at night: nap time is nearly nonexistent... - Oh, boy, Sara... you have no idea!

FB - July 11 at 11:38pm: FRIENDS WITH KIDS: How do you transition a kid from nursing/baby food to cow's milk/table food? Ava is nearly a year old now, and I'm wondering how this is supposed to work. I can't imagine you should just go, "BAM! No more of anything you're used to! Here's some whole milk and a sandwich! Good luck, considering you still only have 2 teeth!" Thoughts/ideas? What's worked for you? - I got a lot of great advice, and Ava did just fine with the transition.  She doesn't eat NEARLY enough grains, so I'm working on that.. But she's got 8 teeth now, and she's learning how to use them!  She LOVES fruit!  She'd eat nothing but fruit all day long if I let her!

Photo - July 12 at 10:14am: Ava at story time at the library!  The lady who runs story time (in the cropped pants there) blows bubbles for the kids at the end of each session, and Ava LOVES it!  She always ends up with dried bubble soap in her hair, but that's fine!

FB - Suzi Grant - July 12 at 3:10pm:  Holy 8 years of being married, Batman!! I can't believe it's been that long. Hope y'all are enjoying the ride! Talk to you soon. Can we do math? O:) - Jason and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary this year!  And I use the word "celebrated" VERY loosely!  I think I saw him for 20 minutes that day.  I'm trying to remember if we even celebrated later... I think we might have gotten Chinese or something.  *shrugs*  We'll do something nice for our 10-year. 


Photo - July 13 at 5:22pm: Random picture of Lucy.  Sometimes when we go on walks, she gets tired and just lays down... *eye roll*

Photo - July 13 at 7:58pm: Ava says, "Mamamamama... is it bath time?"

Photos - July 14 at 9:40pm: So, for about 3 months, we didn't have access to our little storage room attached to the building.  The people who lived here before us (who are related to the owners) still had their stuff in there.  So we had a bunch of broken-down boxes stacked against the wall in Ava's room..  Mr. Kiggerz was having fun with them, but then Ava came over to "get" him...  So he escaped and perched juuuust high enough that she couldn't reach.  Butt head... ;)

FB - July 15 at 12:54am: Am I the only one who feels like they can TOTALLY wait to see Harry Potter when it comes to redbox? I've been over it since before book 7 came out... -  Ha!  I was kinda surprised I didn't get lynched when I posted this!  I dunno...  I'm just so OVER Harry Potter... I wonder when it's coming to redbox though.  I wouldn't MIND seeing it.  And in my defense, I haven't been to the movies in MONTHS.  I didn't even get to go see The Help!  I AM going to go see Breaking Dawn, part 1 though.  It comes out ON my birthday, and I'm getting a sitter.  And I might go eat Chinese buffet by myself while I'm at it.  Yummmmmmmmmm....

FB - July 16 at 8:42pm: For dinner, we're doing grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup Mexican style: cheese quesadillas and black bean soup (which has a can of tomatoes in it). I used dried black beans, which I soaked and cooked earlier today.... First time using dry beans.... Wish us luck! - YUM!  So I have a ton of bags of dried beans, but I've never cooked with them before, so this was an experiment.  The soup turned out really yummy!I've made it once since then, too.  The cheese quesadillas go GREAT with it, too!  If you're interested in making the soup, HERE is the recipe.  I couldn't find veggie stock, so I used chicken stock, but the original recipe is vegetarian.  I subbed half a bag of dried black beans for the 2 cans.  A bag of beans really only makes about 3.5 cans of beans, but since it's a soup, exact measurements aren't so important... and I wanted to be able to make it twice!


Photo - July 18 at 9:55pm:  The beginning of Ava's climbing phase.  It's getting worse and worse and worse the older she gets...  (Jason is JUST outside the picture to the left, in case you're wondering... or worried....) The color on this picture is TERRIBLE.  I don't even know which onesie she's wearing, because she doesn't have one THAT color!  And that's Jason's iPhone 4!  Just saying... My phone's camera may have worse resolution, but at least the color is okay!

Anyway, I'm not sure what all this tells you... That we're boring and don't really do anything?  Probably.  The bubbles are a highlight of MY week, too... ;)

No, Seriously!

I talk a lot about how I have a bad memory, but I get the feeling people think, "Yeah, yeah... so does everyone!"

But seriously.  I have a TERRIBLE memory.  Ask my husband.  It's awful.  

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..... our hard drive crashed some time in August or something, and we hadn't backed up the pictures we took between June 19th and midday August 2nd, Ava's birthday, plus all of Ava's birthday videos except the one I uploaded to YouTube.  The pictures we took after that, up until the computer crashed, were still on the camera.

Personally, I have no idea what happened between June 19th and August 2nd, other than my mom came to visit and we went to Chicago to see the bean and to Chinatown to get dim sum.  Yep.  So, if you'll bare with me, we can do some sleuthing à la Nancy Drew, only 21st-century-like.  

FIRST:  Facebook (FB) statuses.

SECOND:  Cell phone pictures.  Yep.  We actually DO have some pictures from the time in question.... they're just nowhere near as comprehensive, and most of them are pretty bad quality!  Sorry about that!

So if you'll ignore my apparent stupidity and the bad pictures, let's start with the end of June..... *cue flashback music*

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Photo - June 18 at 7:17pm:  Jason and I ordered a thin crust pizza from Papa's Pizza just down the road.  We got a family-sized Papa's Special.  I was SHOCKED at how much it cost.... but it WAS pretty huge!

Photo - June 20 at 11:16pm: Just hanging out on the bed.  Ava LOVES to be on our bed.

Ava and Josie

FB - June 22 at 11:17am: "There's a beautiful breeze coming in through the windows! Now if only our bedrooms had screens on them, so the kitties wouldn't escape..." - This is a reference to the fact that we didn't have screens on our windows for like 2 months after we moved in, so we couldn't open the windows on the bedroom windows to cool them off.  It got PRETTY HOT in our rooms.

FB - June 22 at 2:38pm: "CRAP. I just washed our light blue bathroom rugs with the new GREEN kitchen rugs, and now the bathroom rugs are a dirty pale greenish color. BLEGH...." - Self explanatory?  I tried rewashing.  I tried bleaching.  They're still just really dirty-looking now!

FB - June 23 at 6:48pm: "Making Yorkshire Pudding.... I think they look like the pictures.... :)" - I had a lot of eggs and milk I needed to use, so I made those!  I haven't made them since.  :P

FB - June 27 at 2:11pm: "Oh boy... Ava has started throwing food she doesn't want on the floor for the dogs. :P" - WOW!  I thought she'd been doing that since the beginning of time!  She still does this, for SURE!!!

Photo - June 27 at 7:13pm: Jason went out to some fancy dinner paid for by work.  Some kind of fish and rice, plus inedible garnish....

Photo - June 28 at 10:19pm: Ava having fun at story time!

Photo - June 29 at 2:38pm: My mom sent us this cute baby doll stroller.  Ava used it for about a week, then started walking and forgot about it.  Well, that's not TOTALLY true.  There's a little bear on top (her right hand is on it) that plays music, and she likes to push the button on its tummy and then dance to the music.

Photo - June 30 at 2:38pm: Ava and mommy shopping at Walmart.  She likes to sit in the front of shopping carts, but she usually ends up facing backward.  She's only sideways here!

FB - June 30 at 10:07pm: "Yay! Ava has FINALLY learned how to clap her hands! Next: walking." - How exciting!  See how fast she was growing up?  And she'll take her first steps in 2 days!

Wasn't that fun?  Stay tuned for the next couple of posts, where we figure out what happened in July! :P


Sara


PS - I found a picture of Ava at the aquarium on my phone.  I added it to the end of the last post.  Check it out!

With the Fishes

Our first adventure into Chicago was to go to the Shedd Aquarium with some other ladies and babies/toddlers from church.  (Jason was working...)  It's usually quite expensive to visit the aquarium, but most of the museums, zoos, etc. here have a few free days each month.  Those are VERY busy days, because so many people take advantage of them!  During the school year, I think they make field trip days free days so that people with memberships can avoid the huge crowds.

It didn't take as long to get downtown as I thought it might, but traffic gets heavy pretty quick when you're heading that way!  It was surprisingly easy to get there, too.  You just drive down I-55, until it tees into Lake Shore Drive... You go left and drive down 2 or 3 blocks, and the aquarium, museum, planetarium, and Soldier Field are all over on the right. Parking costs $16 for under 4 hours, $19 for longer!  OUCH!  Carpooling is recommended!

On the way from the parking garage to the aquarium, we passed the Field Museum of Natural History, and the very first legit hot dog stand I've ever seen!  :)  I didn't get one.  In fact, I haven't had a Chicago dog in the 4+ months I've been here.  Here, they're all about mustard, which I d-e-s-p-i-s-e.  A lot.  Blegh!  In fact, the only topping on a standard Chicago-style hot dog I LIKE is tomato.  So yeah, I'm sticking to the pizza.

Left: Field Museum — Right: Shedd Aquarium

Look!  A hot dog cart!  Like in While You Were Sleeping!

The line was QUITE long, so I had time to snap some pictures.  The Sears Tower has been the tallest building in the United States, at 1451 feet, since it was built in 1973, surpassing the World Trade Center towers.  It was the tallest building in the world until 1998.  And YES.  That includes those two white antennas.  (And yes, I think that's cheating.  Sorry, Chicago!)

Bottom Left: Former Sears Tower (now "Willis" Tower...dumb!)
Bottom Right: That's a great lake—Lake Michigan!

Ava was having a lot of fun being admired... :)  The kids we were with thought she was really cute... and I tend to agree with them... :)

Left: Ava was very popular with the kids we were with.
Top Right: Ava and Mom in front of a fish fountain.
Bottom Right: The only picture mom took of Ava "with" a fish... Oops!

We finally got in, and I took quite a few (mostly bad) pictures before my battery died.  I left the spare in the car for some stupid reason.  Grrr!  I didn't even take a picture of Ava INSIDE the aquarium!  The best I got was a picture of her in the reflection of one of the exhibits (above, bottom right).

There were a LOT of fish and other critters.  Some were huge, some tiny, some uglier than sin, some beautiful, some harmless, some deadly.  Some weren't even aquatic creatures.  There were monkeys!  !!!  I was like, "Ummmmmmm.... guys?"  No, but seriously, there were parts of the aquarium that showed different ecosystems, and one showed everything from the treetops to the lake bottom.  Make sense?  Yeah... I thought they were stretching...  Oooh... I LOVED the blue frogs!  SOOOO pretty, but seriously poisonous!

Top Left: Some kind of very large lobster; Top Right: Big Turtles
Bottom Left: A monkey............ at the aquarium..............
Bottom Middle: Very pretty and very poisonous frog.  Do not touch.
Bottom Right: "Morning Sunstar"... My dog has that toy in green.  :P

There were pretty things, like this.... ummmm...  errrrr.... *googles* Okay, help me out!  I'm spacing on what this stuff is called!  Apparently googling "pretty underwater stuff" isn't specific enough!  :P

Pretty... stuff....!

And there were CREEPY things....

Can you say ANACONDA?  Scary!

Overall, we had a fun day!  Ava didn't really "get it," but she likes riding in her stroller, so that worked!  I wish I'd had that extra camera battery though!  I didn't get any picture of the beluga whales, the dolphins, or the sea lions!  And I would have LOVED to take a video of the jelly fish!  They were beautiful and totally transfixing...  We'll have to go back soon for more pictures... The jellies exhibit goes through May 28, 2012!

For more info on the museum:  http://www.sheddaquarium.org/

Free day schedule:  http://www.sheddaquarium.org/discounts.html

EDIT:  Found this picture of Ava on my cell phone!  See?  I DID take a picture of Ava at the museum!  (Please excuse the TERRIBLE quality.  I hadn't gotten my new phone yet...)

This is the first time Ava ever
fell asleep in her stroller!  CUTE!