Memorial Day!

We had such a fun and relaxing Memorial Day weekend. It was much needed, since this was my first holiday from work since January. We spent it working around the house and mainly just hanging out. On Monday, my Mom, Alex, and Tiffany came over to grill out chicken and shrimp. We also made homemade strawberry ice cream. What a fun way to celebrate the beginning of summer! Avery loves being outside. She spends a lot of her time staring at the dogs or looking at our flowers. Thanks Jenny Sue for the cute outfit...we figured two of the three colors of the American flag wasn't bad. Don't you just love her sandals?

Our Little Helper

Avery has become quite the little helper around the house lately. She has been right there to help with loading the dryer, unloading the dishwasher, and helping me plan what to cook for dinner. Unbelievable for a little one her age you say...Well the proof is in the pictures!

Vintage

The outfit the Avester is sporting was actually my sister's when she was a baby. It is a 9 month, vintage Carter's! My mom took such great care of everything we had, which is one of the reasons I wanted a little girl so badly. Avery has several things in her room that were originally mine...we also have some treasures for later, including some basket weave red slip on shoes. I can't wait until we can pull them out! Last but not least, the turtle that she is playing with, went through me, Alex, and Beth Ann. I am going to try and do a post of all the vintage toys Avery has a little later.

Just To See You Smile!

I Love Sweet Potatos

Enough Said!

8 Months!

Avery was 8 months old on May 1st! She weighed in at 18.6 lbs. As you can see she is full of smiles and laughs a lot now. At eight months and three weeks, her first tooth peeked through. She has definitely been a little more irritable due to this fun stage of development. She is extremely ticklish and loves for us to blow on her belly. Getting her shot in the chair this month was a little harder, hence it being above her. Here a couple of the cute out takes from the photo session. She continues to bring so much joy and fun to our lives. Here are a few highlights from month eight:

• Started feeding herself puffs.
• Had her first fever of 101...one of those pesky throat viruses again!
• Now that she is mobile, she is a wiggle worm when trying to get a diaper on her. Oh how we took those first few months for granted!
• No longer will let just anyone hold her upon first sight. Has to warm up to them first.
  
• LOVES being with other children. She is with Noble everyday and they are becoming great buddies. This reminds me, I need to get a picture of the two of them. Alli says he asks for his Avry (pronounced with a short a sound) every morning :)

• Loves riding in the stroller and watching other people. She puts on a show for who ever comments on how cute she is.
  
• She loves being outside and whines whenever we come in.
• Although she has always loved taking a bath, she really started splashing her legs and arms this month. She also loves for us to pour water over her hand. Sometimes we still giver her a bath in the sink (after I have bleached it) and when we do this, she likes for us to squirt water in her mouth with the sprayer...are we terrible parents?

• In addition to the dishwasher, she loves to pull up on clothes baskets, the bath tub, any drawer, Huck and Ellie, her Momma, and unfortunately the toilet.
• Speaking of drawers, she loves pulling socks out of Levi's. We have a video to post of this.
  
• She HATES having her nose wiped or sucked. She had an incessant runny nose for much of month 8, due in part to teething. She can throw a fit like nobody's business when she sees the tissues come out!
• She of course wants to get into everything she doesn't need to, including the dog's food and water. Yes, we have caught her with a piece or two in her mouth :) Lesson learned. Now when the dogs are not eating, their food in not on the floor.
• Last but not least she has started making the cutest high pitched noises that just melt our heart. It is a true sign of the little girl she is turning into.
  

7 Months!

April 1, 2010, Avery turned seven months old! She was 17 lbs. 14 oz. Probably her biggest milestone during the month was learned to crawl. She had been getting up on all fours since the middle of her sixth month and took off at 7 1/2 months. She also started pulling up at the exact same time. It was incredible to watch her crawl toward me and pull up on my leg. Having a little one clenched to your calf takes feeling needed to a whole new level!

Here are the other headlines from Avery's 7th month:

• The first week of April, she learned to sit up from laying down. This chaged the whole dynamic of laying her in the crib. After we laid her down, she could just sit right back up and look at us like where are you guys going? You don't think you can just lay me down and leave do you? After a couple of nights though, she started to settle back down and fall asleep on her own.

Sleeping While I Was Getting Ready One Morning

• We celebrated our first Easter with Avery. As you can tell from my Easter post, she loved her basket. I can't wait until next year, when we do an Easter Egg Tree!

Easter Morning With Her Bunny

• She caught the stomach virus in the nursery on Easter Sunday :(. That Monday when I went to wake her up, she was laying in throw up and was as white as a sheet. I don't think I have been more scared as a mom that in that moment. I stripped both her and the crib and then she started throwing up again. Traumatizing I tell you. I remember asking the Dr. early on how I would know the difference in spit up and throw up and he said "Oh, you will know." He was right, I had no problem telling the difference. The throwing up lasted for two days and then the virus passed on to me, her daddy, and my mom. None of us ever remember being so sick! Levi nor I literally had the strength to pick Avery up, plus our go to person, my mom, was sick too. Thank the good Lord for my brother Alex who came over at 5 am with Powerade and Seven Up and took care of Avery and us for the rest of the day.
• She added Gerber sweet potato puffs, pickles, and banana pieces to her list of eats and treats.

Trying a Pickle For The First Time With Alex

• Continued saying Mama and Dada, but a little more clearly.
• Started to really recognize when someone familiar came in the room, particularly Momma, Daddy, or Mimi.
• Started reaching for the person or object she wanted.
• When sleeping in her seat or riding in her car seat, she crosses her feet. I think this is so sweet!

• Became really attached to the sock monkey.
• First time in Jordan Hare Stadium. We attended the A-Day game and also toured the new Auburn Arena. We look forward to many memories in both of these places!
  
• Mastered crawling and loved chasing the dogs.

• Mastered pulling up at the same time she started crawling. Her favorite thing to pull up on is the dishwasher.
  

• Always tugs at her ear when she is starting to get tired. When nursing her before bed, she holds on to it too.
• EVERYTHING goes in her mouth, but no teeth yet!
• Still loves looking at herself in the mirror.
• She learned to blow raspberries last month, but has now decided to do them while eating. She thinks the food going everywhere is hilarious ;)

I Just Can't Get Enough Of This Little Stinker!

Mother's Day...I knew I would eventually blog again!

Life lately has been so incredibly busy. To say I am behind on blogging in an understatement. I have lots of upcoming posts though, so stay tuned! I plan to use the blog as Avery's baby book...so I am playing major catch up. To start my updates, I will begin with May 9, 2010...My first Mother's Day with Avery!

The day began with Levi making us cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Next to my plate he had two cards waiting. I love cards. Levi always does an awesome job with finding just the right one, that says just the right words. While I love the one from him, the one that Avery picked out for her Mommy was just precious. She even signed it with her tiny little hand (Levi brought home his engineer stamp and put her hand print on the inside cover). How adorable is that? Lastly, he designed our upcoming picture wall. We have a pretty large blank wall on one side of our living room. He knew that I was wanting to put lots of different pictures of family up on it, so he designed the layout using his rad auto-cad skills! He wanted me to be a part of picking out the frames and pictures, so the actual completion of the wall will not be for several more weeks (probably after Camp War Eagle is over). But, I love the layout he did and think it is going to be beautiful once he hangs all of the pictures.
To finish this post, I thought is would be a good time to document the time surrounding the day I found out I was going to be a Mom. Back in 2008, Levi and I kept going back and forth on if we were ready to be parents. One of us would be ready one day, and then the next have a change of heart. We were praying for God's guidance and knew that he had a plan. So Christmas morning 2008, we were at Levi's parents house getting ready for breakfast. While I was drying my hair, I turned to Levi and said, "Wow, I feel really nauseated. Could I possibly be sick again?" You see I have had really bad luck with having the stomach virus on Christmas. It has happened to me three times in recent years. So I just assumed it was happening again. I laid down and tried not to inhale the smell of the bacon that was frying! The feeling finally passed and we went on to have a really great day with family and friends.
The next morning we left to spend the night with Levi's Uncle Keith, Aunt Johanna and cousins Kelly and Zach in Birmingham. We had a great time eating at Olive Garden and catching up. It wasn't until the 27th that I started to think...something isn't right...I think I might be late. This led to a sort of joking comment to Levi in which I said, "I'm not 100% sure, but I think I might be pregnant. In the rush of getting through Christmas, I just realized that I am now 2 days late" To which he responded with something like: no way...really? I say: "Really, but I am not going to worry too much right now. We can talk more on the way back to Auburn." So we packed up the car and started our drive.
Once back in Auburn we decided that the next morning, December 28th, we would take a pregnancy test. We just happened to have one from an early marriage scare to use. I woke up and had it waiting in the bathroom. Once I finished taking it, I laid it on the counter and walked back to the bedroom. We held hands and waited for the longest 3 minutes of our lives to pass. I wanted Levi to be the first to know, so he walked in to check. Two very faint lines were showing up...it was POSITIVE! He came out and said, "Well it is really faint, but I think we are pregnant." We read back over the instructions which said, if both lines show up at all, you are pregnant. There is no such thing as a false positive. It only picks up on the pregnancy hormone, which is only present when you are pregnant. We laughed and cried, thanked God for this new little miracle, and spent the rest of the morning cuddling. I am so glad it was during the holidays and that we were both off of work. Like I mentioned before, the test we had was a couple of years old and was actually out of date. So, just to be sure we took another one the next morning and it too was positive.
The next couple of days were spent thinking about how our life was about to change and how we would tell family. There is always that part of you that wants to be cautious, but at the same time you are so excited that you just have to tell someone. We chose to wait until New Year's Eve to tell our parents. We thought that would be a really neat way for them to start 2009. Since they are not here with us, we told Levi's parents first and his mother just couldn't believe it. Just a few days earlier, she had told me that Levi's Grandmother Christine had a dream that we were expecting. So Levi said to her, remember Grandmother's dream...and she said "Oh yeah, the one where you were expecting!" And he said yes, well it came true. She was speechless but so excited. We had already made dinner plans with my mom and when she got to our house, we hit her with "you will never guess who is expecting a baby in Levi's family." There had been three announcements made within just a couple of months from his first cousins. She did her best to deplete all of the possible candidates, when I finally said "It's US." She immediately started crying and gave us both a hug. Both of our Dads were really excited too. We had everyone convinced that it was going to be a couple of years before we started trying, so it was a bit of a surprise to everyone.
It definitely was a surprise to us too! Our plan, which is never as good as what God has planned, was to be pregnant by April. Looking back I longed so much for September to get here that I don't think I could have waited until December or January. We call her our little love bug! I praise God for Avery and all the joy she has brought to my life. I love being her mom and feel that there is no great calling in the world than that of raising children. I am so humbled that God has allowed me to experience the amazing journey of motherhood. I know that there will be trials, but the triumphs will be incredible and worth every minute.

In closing, I would like to say thank you to my Mom and Grandmothers who have so tremendously influenced the person I am today. Thank you for all of the time and countless hours you have invested in my life. I have realized over the past year with Avery just how wonderful you are! Also, thank you Patti, Christine and Ava Jean for being such a wonderful Mom and Grandmothers to Levi. He is one amazing man, who loves God, me, and Avery with all his heart. While there are many days that I am exhausted it is so wonderful to be a mom this Mother's Day!