Merry Christmas!

We are having a fabulous day and hope you are too! My younger brother and mom were able to come over and we have been having lots of fun. Santa was very good to us, Avery got lots of fun stuff, as did mom and dad. Of course the best present of the year came in May, we are having a great first Christmas as a family of 3 (10 counting all the animals) :).

She makes my heart sing.

Christmas card photo shoot

I wanted a picture of Avery with all the dogs for our Christmas card this year so we got everyone dressed up and started snapping away. We didn't have much luck since no one would hold still but oh well. Here are a few cute ones! The dogs hate being dressed up...

After

Here is Michaels back now-

7 Months

Another month gone by way too fast! I think things have really sped up due to the holidays. I am excited that Avery will finally get to meet her Uncle Bud! Here are the things I want to remember about Avery right now:
-Wearing 6 month pants and 3 and 6 month shirts
-Hates getting her nose wiped
-Loves to eat bananas, applesauce, carrots and squash. Hates peas. We can't eat much anymore without her wanting to try a bite!
-Size 2 diapers
-She is starting to move around, a lot! She kind of army crawls/inch worms all over but gets up on all fours and rocks, too. We're pretty sure she'll be crawling by the end of the year.
-Still no teeth!
-She bit me the other day when she was eating so I said NO kinda loud (it hurt!) and she stuck out her bottom lip so far and cried like I had really hurt her feelings. It was sad.
-She is still sleeping 12 hours a night.
-She knows what 'cute' means. Anytime someone calls her cute she gets the biggest smile.
We are very excited for Christmas next week and for Avery to see all her toys! Here are some pictures- it's getting harder to get good pictures, she's always moving!

Love this shirt...

And LOVE this girl!

Wordless Wednesday- Booger face

Before...

Michael has had back problems off and on since we met. About two weeks ago he hurt it again but it didn't eventually get better like it did in the past. He went in for an MRI and it showed a pretty bad herniated disc. He was referred to a neurosurgeon who recommended surgery. That was a week ago- and today here we are getting surgery. So here is the 'before' picture of his back, we'll take an 'after' picture later today!

Why I bought shatterproof ornaments

Because who can resist sparkles?

Food!

We've started feeding Avery baby food on a more regular basis. Usually in the evening I'll set her on the counter in her bumbo and feed her. It worked pretty well but the last week or so she has been more interested in trying to twist around and grab whatever is on the counter (knives, the blender, toaster, other kid-friendly stuff) instead of eating. So tonight we pulled out the high chair and she did great! Here she is with her apple-blueberry mustache.

Christmas Parade

Today was the Bend Christmas Parade in downtown. Avery and I went down and met up with Chad, Kayte, Paige and Rory. It was a beautiful day! A little chilly but sunny and clear skies. The parade was really long, I think at one point they said the longest Christmas parade in Oregon but it was fun.
Avery didn't seem too impressed- but probably because it was her nap time. We saw the polar express, old cars, lots of horses and of course Santa! The funniest (or saddest, however you look at it) was probably the Bend high school alumni float- I'll include a picture of it so you can see what I mean.
Overall it was a fun day- we got home and took a nap since we're both a little sick and then our new freezer got delivered. So excited to have a bigger freezer in the garage! Our old one just decided to quit working about a week and a half ago- I lost all of the breast milk I had been pumping and freezing for the last SIX MONTHS. So sad, it made me sick to have to throw all of that away. Anyways, we got a good deal on a new one so I guess it's time to start filling it up! I see a trip to Costco in the near future.

Getting in the spirit!

Our tree is up and decorated and it's only December 1st! I'm pretty sure that's a record for me. I actually put it up and decorated it last night but I thought it could use more so I went to Target today and bought more ornaments. I think it looks awesome! II think it would still be cool to put even more on but I'll give it a few days.

We are going to buy Avery a new ornament every year- this year we found one at the holiday show we went to a couple weeks ago. It has 3 bears on it, a mom, a dad and a baby and we had them write her name and the year on it. We thought it was perfect because our name for her is 'tiny bear'.

We are getting really excited for Christmas this year. Even though Avery won't really know what's going on its going to be fun!

Blessing Avery

Since most everyone was in town for Thanksgiving we decided it would be a good time to give Avery her baby blessing. My mom made her dress and it was absolutely beautiful. Bishop Wilcox gave her a very sweet blessing and then Michael got to hold her up so everyone could see how cute she was. Colleen was awesome and took some pictures afterwards so hopefully we got a good one that we can use for Christmas cards! After the pictures I changed her out of the dress so it wouldn't get dirty/ruined and it's a good thing I did because about ten minutes later one of the kids said 'uh Avery pooped her pants and holy poop did she- it was EVERYWHERE, I had to give her a bath at Kaytes house. Then everyone went home :( and Avery and I came home and took a nice long nap! We had a very fun weekend with everyone and can't wait to see them again!

What a trooper!

There is no way I'd stay up all night or get up at 2 or 3 in the morning to go shopping on black Friday, no thanks! Avery and I got up about 930 and headed to Old Navy to see if they had anything we couldn't live without. We found some good stuff! After we were done there we called to see what everyone else was doing and ended up heading to Kohls with mom, Kayte and Colleen. I think we spent about two hours in there... Avery was a trooper and took naps at both stores. She is such a good baby when we're out and about!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am a terrible mom and didn't take any pictures of Avery at her first Thanksgiving dinner- I hate it when I forget to take pictures! We had a great dinner, though, with lots of family to celebrate with. Thanksgiving morning Kayte, Chad, Colleen, Paige and Ashley all ran in the Turkey Trot 5k so mom and I took the rest of the kids down to see the end of the race. It was a nice sunny day but the wind was blowing which made it really cold! Avery did really well until we were leaving and she decided she was hungry.
This year I am thankful for a warm house, good food and the fun/love of family. While they're simple things, they are things that a lot of people don't have. I'm so grateful for all the blessings I have!

First Santa Picture

I know, it's not even Thanksgiving yet. We went to a craft fair this weekend, yes, I got Michael to go! And Santa was there and pictures were only $5 so what are you gonna do? It was fun and we got some Christmas presents marked off the list. Michael also got a 'magic' bracelet that is supposed to help with his balance- we'll see how it goes. :) Oh and Avery has a blanket wrapped around her because she had a huge poop that went up her back and 'mother of the year' here didn't have any extra clothes with me. Oops.

Six Months!

Our baby is already halfway to one, we can hardly believe it. She gets more and more fun every day. We have started feeding her a little bit of food every now and then. She really likes bananas, squash and carrots. She does NOT like peas at all but sometimes I feed them to her anyways just to see the face she makes. She's a really good eater though and the majority of it stays in her mouth!
She is also starting to move around a lot more. I put her on a blanket the other day and started some laundry- when I came back to the living room she had scooted off the blanket and was headed for the couch. She slides around really easily on the wood floors! She is also getting up on all fours every now and again but I hope we're still a ways away from crawling!

Here are her stats:
-size two diapers
-size 3 and 6 month tops, 6 month bottoms
-loves splashing in the bath
-will smile at anyone to get their attention
-still thinks her puppies are the greatest things ever
-HATES having her nose sucked out or wiped
-still sleeping 12+ hours a night
-likes to play in her bouncer
-trying to sit up and can sort of sit on her own if we put her in a sitting position
-when she's tired or going to sleep on her own she will 'yell' herself to sleep, very funny!
-saw snow for the first time today!

I will have to update her height/weight after we go see the doctor.

We took some pictures outside today and Avery got to make her first snow angel! She wasn't too impressed with being in the snow. :)

We sure love you, tiny bear!

Hint, hint

Happy birthday!

Our Petree is 4 years old today, we can hardly believe it. We sure do love him! Here is a picture of him as a puppy and one of him today- we love his ears. :)

Pumpkin Patch 2011

We picked the perfect day to go to the pumpkin patch! It was sunny and warm and not a ton of people. Michaels brother Rob came down so he and Michael could go to a movie so he stayed the night and was able to go with us. Kayte, Paige and Rory met us there and we had lots of fun! We looked at the animals, Rory shot pumpkins out of the pumpkin cannon, we did the corn maze, ate and picked out some ginormous pumpkins and some squash. This years corn maze theme was Star Wars- Michael was in nerd heaven. Then we got home and took a much needed nap, it was a very fun day. Avery did really good, too. She loved looking at the animals and laughing at her cousins! The patch was right next to Smith Rock which is an amazing place to hike and rock climb.I wanted a family picture but didn't get one. :( Avery is going to think I was never around! :)