And the Award for Best Supporting Baby Goes to...

...Ava Noel Furr for her role in Million Dollar Baby—the story of a baby who faced incredible odds when she stepped into the playpen with a rowdy bunch of stuffed animals.

Here Ava poses on the pink carpet with some of the cast and crew.

The Academy awarded Ava with the Oscar in recognition of the tremendous depth of character and emotion portrayed in her dramatic performance.

"I was deeply moved during the closing scene where she cries for her mommy," said director Clint Eastwood of Ava's Oscar-winning performance. "I left the theater blubbering like a two-year-old."

They like me, they really like me.

Elf Ears

Now that Ava is back to good health she's been much more smiley. She graced the camera with a few smiles today that we just had to share.

Note the pot-belly.

No she doesn't have elf ears (the headband is to blame). Although her Aunt Lauren wishes she were part elf, there is in fact no elven blood in the family tree... or so we think.

Ava is kicking back on the glider wishing she had hands.

Getting Better

Ava has been sick for the last week, but is finally getting better. In some ways, having her sick has been nice. She is much more snugly when she's sick, preferring to rest her head on your shoulder or against your chest, instead of wanting to look all around. However, it's very sad to see her not feeling well; and sucking snot out of her nose (while kind of fun for dad) is not well appreciated by baby. At any rate, we're glad she's getting better.

Since Ava hasn't been feeling well enough to pose for the camera, we thought we'd share a few pictures from before she got sick. The picture below was taken by Krista, who seems to enjoy using her hair products on Ava.

Here's Ava in an outfit from her Grandma Furr.

Elder Furr

Last Wednesday we saw Danny off at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, UT. He will be there for three weeks, departing February 27th to complete the remainder of his two-year mission in Canada. More specifically, he'll be serving in the Canada Halifax Mission, which covers the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, and part of northern Maine.

In this picture, Larry's mom is putting on Danny's missionary name tag (the little orange dot means he's a newbie). He'll be known as Elder Furr for the next two years.

Danny with his two older brothers Ryan and Larry. We're smiling because we've already completed our missions. Good luck little bro...

Ava came out to support her Uncle Danny as well. She dressed as the Canadian national animal.

Post-Blessing Family Photos

Ava was blessed during our church meeting last Sunday, after which we had a little family get-together at our house. Below are the men who participated in the blessing ordinance (Grandpa Furr was unable to make it out to Utah due to work conflicts).

Larry's brother Danny was sure to get in some quality time with his new niece before leaving on his two-year mission to Canada.

Aunt Maddie (Krista's youngest sister) demonstrated her skills at rocking babies to sleep. (Note to self: we really need to take advantage of this.)

These two strangers posed for the camera as well. Ava seems to have taken a real liking to them and has agreed to keeping them around.

Sneak Preview

Tomorrow is Ava's baby blessing, but for those looking for a sneak preview we thought we would post a few pictures of Ava in her dress.

Unfortunately, her face will likely not be as clear tomorrow as it was when these pictures were taken. As predicted by Granny O, Ava's face has broken out with the infamous "blessing rash" (i.e. baby acne).

Hopefully she'll be this happy during the actual blessing.

As you can see from the number of pictures, we had a hard time narrowing down which ones to post.