It's been longer than I wanted to take between updates, but Mark was sick for about 3 weeks with the nasty flu that's been going around and our laptop died. Mark's starting to feel better, and our laptop is running again, but we did lose everything on the hard drive. Thankfully, I don't delete the pictures off our camera until I've backed them up on CD, so I don't think we lost many. (I'd deleted some because my memory card was full - oops).
Carter is finally sitting up pretty well, now. His primary mode of moving is still rolling. He continues to be a happy, sweet baby.
A few weeks ago, while I was in the kitchen making dinner or some such thing, Ava was playing on the steps. This is not something I usually allow, but she was playing so nicely, I didn't make her stop. After a while, she called me over. I could hear the pride in her voice and she was beaming as she showed me how she had set up all her friends in a row. I cheered and asked if I could take a picture, which she readily agreed to. 
I went back to what I was doing and she called out to me a little while later to tell me everyone was sleeping. She wanted me to see, so I walked over to the steps and found even more friends... all sleeping. She was so pleased with herself, neither she nor I could stop smiling.
Later that same evening, she continued her adorable behavior by wanting to put on an apron and walk around with oven mitts. It was a fun evening, and I need those especially on the nights Mark works late and I'm putting the kids to bed by myself. We have a pretty good routine in place for when that happens, but it seems like if one of us falls apart, we all fall apart. Ava is talking up a storm. I love the way she says certain words or has her own words for things. I get a little sad when she starts using the "right" term for things. A diaper used to be a "d-dup," but lollipop is still "loppipop" and a slide is still a "wee-boom." I'm simply amazed at how much she has to say! (I think she takes after her daddy). She also loves her books and with most of them, you can leave out words or entire lines and she'll fill in where you left off. Several times, I've heard her "reading" to herself - she has more of the books memorized than I realized!
That's about all the excitement at our house. Hope all of you (if there are any!) reading this are doing well. We'd love to hear from you!
