This and That...

I realized I never blogged my pictures from our weekend in Grafton over Labor Day weekend. For the 2nd year, the Bettis group (my mom's side) has met in Grafton, IL at Pere Marquette Lodge. On our way home, we stop in Kampsville, IL to eat at the Kampsville Inn (my great-grandparents lived in Kampsville before they passed away). We rode the ferry, an old tradition, and stopped off at the waterfall where my Grandpa Bettis was baptized as a child by his father, my great-grandfather--it has become a photo op for the family.

My Grandpa Bettis passed away 4 years ago after a long battle with cancer and we've all missed him so much. This tradition is in honor/memory of him. It makes me sad that he never got to meet Ava but I think it's so neat that our whole family is able to gather at this special place and feel close to him.

I don't know the exact year but I'm guessing around 1947!

2009

We aren't actually standing in the water like they were but I think we are right in front of the spot they were. Travis and I got in last year (along with my cousin Nathan and wife Megan---pre-babies). :) It's quite slippery and rocky!

Another shot...

"Super Ava" with her Daddy

Hanging out at the pavilion.

We cooked hot dogs, smores, and sat around while my Uncles played their guitars and sang. Reminds me of the good ol' days growing up. I grew up camping---"actual camping in tents" until my grandparents bought a 'cabin' as we called it near Shelbyville, IL and our whole family would go there for all of the summer holidays and stay all weekend. Everyone that had a camper would bring it and my Uncle Darren would usually get a campsite so we could go to Lake Shelbyville to swim. It was soooo fun! Brings back a lot of memories of sitting around the campfire singing songs. My family is very musical so we had tons of fun! Now we all stay at the lodge in the cabins there and we joked we saw more bugs there than if we had actually been camping. I guess I was a little preoccupied this year but last year I got pictures of the HUGE spiders that are lurking all over the place and not to mention the mosquitos. I think Travis' legs are still covered in red dots.

Shopping in Grafton

I thought the "Not a Shop" sign in someone's yard was pretty comical. Don't go knockin' on their door!

Well, I figured I might as well make this one Loooooooong post. It's been a B.U.S.Y. couple weekends for the Cunningham's. We left right after school on Friday to head back to Jacksonville for Trav's cousin Justin's wedding. Another chance for Ava to wear all those cute dresses she has! We stayed at Travis' brother Rob and Abby's. She's the other blonde holding Ava. Someone said we could be sisters and I guess I never really noticed how similar we looked until looking at these 2 pics. Must be the hair. :)


Far left--Proud Grandpa!

The next morning, we got up and headed to see Travis' Grandma in Winchester. She is very ill right now and we just pray that she isn't in too much pain. After hanging out there for about an hour or so we were back in the car heading to Decatur for a family get together with the Bettis fam in memory of Grandpa B. As I said earlier, my family is very musical and I think it all started with my Grandpa (and his parents). He produced records with various quartets and I have fond memories of him and my uncles playing guitar and singing at the Decatur Opry. The service Saturday evening was in honor of him. The money raised will hopefully help support a young person someday who is interested in pursuing a career in music ministry. (Thanks Megan, I couldn't have described it any better!)

Here are a few photos from the night. There are now FOUR great-grandbabies in the family all under the age of 1! From the left:

Macy/Landen (3 weeks old)

Steph/Ava (almost 4 months old)

Abi/Dasani (almost 6 months old--I THINK!)

Megan/Reddington (almost 7 months old)

and the babies with their Daddies!

Brock, Travis, Donovan, Nate

My Aunt sang, my Uncle sang and played guitar, niece Isabelle played piano, cousin Brock played piano and my great Uncle sang and also played saxophone (ok, not at the same time), and his wife, my great Aunt, played piano and sang and my cousin Megan B. also sang. Whew! I think I got it all!

After the celebration, Travis, Ava and I stopped to see my friend Casey who was in town at her parents. She now lives in Chicago area and it just so happened she was in town the same time we were. It made for a late few nights for us but was great to see her! I am very happy to say that after all of the traveling, we stayed home today and just chilled. Ava slept until after 9 (after only getting up once in the night, and then at 6am) and then took a nice morning and afternoon nap. I guess she was recovering!

She has been so much more alert and aware of her surroundings lately and I swear she watches me when I'm eating saying..."Give me some!" so we decided to give her rice cereal for the first time tonight (one week early...shhhh!). Not to mention, the tries to drink out of the cup I use to rinse her hair in the bath. :) Anyway, she seemed to really like it! Gotta love the SPAM bib--her Uncle Jeff works for Hormel in Austin, MN and we've visited the SPAM museum (yes, SPAM has a museum) on a few visits to see them.

Stephanie and Alex's Wedding

Travis was in our friends' Stephanie and Alex's wedding Labor Day weekend. I guess somehow I didn't get a picture of the bride and groom! Oops! Ava stayed all night with Grandma and Grandpa Cunningham while we stayed at the reception. It was a good time! I loved Ava's dress!

Trav and the bride.

Trav and his sister Genna. Her husband is Alex's brother.

Ava's 3 Month Pics by Lori

We just got back from Pere Marquette State Park yesterday after a fun-filled Labor Day weekend with the Bettis Family. My 'Aunt' Lori was gracious enough to take Ava's 3 month photos, as well as TONS (500+ to be exact) of family photos of the Bettis fam. Here's a sneak peek of some of our photos. There are tons more--how will I ever decide???

3 months!

Ava is 3 months old today! It's hard to believe. We have had an interesting couple of weeks with me going back to work. A wonderful woman, Jeanne, is watching her in her home, along with Lauren, (my friend Kim's daughter), Natalie (another teacher friend's daughter), and a few other kids. Ava is doing great and I'm slooooooooowly adjusting. I do enjoy teaching but I will say at Ava's age right now, I'd LOVE to stay home with her. I got very spoiled having all summer but am very thankful I had practically 3 months home AND I GOT PAID and I hardly had to take any sick days. Very lucky!!!!!

She continues to be a great baby, which of course, Jeanne agrees. Her sleep schedule has changed a bit, but I swear she must sense something is different because as she was getting up once a night before, since I've been back to school, it is now usually 2 times. I still can't complain. She is up to eat and back in her crib within about 20 minutes. One more month and the dr. says she can start having rice cereal. MAYBE that will fill her belly so she sleeps longer????

Hopefully I'll get back into the habit of blogging (I have tons of pics...) and facebooking but I want to spend every single second with her when I get home and I feel guilty if I'm not paying attention to her. :)

Here are her monthly chair pics. Enjoy. :) She kept falling over so I thought---might as well go with it! :)

Rolling Over!

Not only have we been busy (don't miss my previous post) but miss Ava has also been busy continuing to do new things. DESPITE the fact that I'm horrible at giving her tummy time (hardly ever do it actually), I noticed that she has really been holding her head up pretty well. Since she isn't usually a fan of lying flat on her tummy, we hold her a lot so she's on her tummy but propped up a little bit--as you can see in the photos with her daddy. Anyway, like I said, I totally noticed she was holding her head up very nicely and even looking around so I just out of the blue decided to put her on her belly last night when we were just hanging out and lo' and behold, SHE ROLLED OVER! I about died because I was not expecting it at all. Good job Ava! I joked it was only because she does NOT want to be on her belly so she figured out how to get out of that situation. She then did it several times and I was able to get some action shots and a few video clips.

I got her in action!

Busy Busy...

With school approaching, I guess I've gotten a little behind with my blogs. :) A lot has happened in the last week or so. Ava and I went to the Bettis/Jenkins family reunion on August 1st. Travis had to work that day. It was fun to see everyone even though it was a little rainy.

Love this pic :)

My mom and Aunt Sheri in their "matching outfits"

Belle and Liv--getting too big! Isabelle is entering 4th grade (how?) and Liv will be in Kindergarten

Megan and Reddington

My Grandma and Bridgett playing with Ava

Wisconsin Dells

Ava and I took a girls trip to the Wisconsin Dells with the girls in my family the first week of August. It was tons of fun! We (Mom; Bridgett, Isabelle, and Olivia; and Tammy and Ella), meet every summer for a girls trip! We stayed at Chula Vista resort in the Dells. The girls had a blast at the water parks right there on the resort. Tammy packs all of the food and drinks we need and we just pay her so we don't have to go out to eat. We had tacos, sandwiches, fruit, pasta salad, chips, etc. It was all yummy! Ava did great! She slept most of the time in the car with a few pit stops of course. Ella's birthday is August 17 so we also gave her birthday gifts while we were there. We played mini-golf at the resort as well. Ava enjoyed it by sleeping the entire time in her stroller. :) I, of course, found many photo ops and Bridgett and I took some 'Senior' photos. haha!

Ava got to meet cousin Ella for the first time. She was cracking me up. My favorite comment of the week from Ella was "Does your baby want a chip?" She also asked if my baby could wear a necklace. She was very interested in lil Ava. :)

State Fair

Yesterday Ava and I went to the State Fair with Megan and Reddington. We had a blast. The babies were awesome. Why would we think any different right? It was a little hotter than we thought it was going to be but both Ava and Reddington were lil angels. :)




Thought this sign was appropriate...

The Butter Cow

Happy Babies :)

We got ice cream in the Dairy Building (of course) and went to sit down in a nearby pavilion just in time to see a show put on by The Bucket Boys. Somehow Ava slept through the entire show of them BANGING and I mean BANGING on barrels, parking signs, smashing garbage can lids together, etc. She only woke up when they started talking on the microphone (see the top left photo). We had some fun taking photos of the 2 cousins together. Love em!

Videos

Ava is almost 11 weeks old and each day she does something new and cute. Here are a few videos of her. She has found her voice!!!! :-) She squeals all day long, sometimes when playing with toys, sometimes just for fun and ALWAYS when I rub my hair on her face. It is sooo cute. Usually she coos really softly but today she was wound up! If she sees me with the camera, she usually stops, which is why I might have some odd camera angles. hehe!