i love you day four

i love my husband for his zany sense of humor. i may be the only one who gets it at times, but there isn't a day that i don't laugh. (or roll my eyes at him.)

i love how my baby loves to wave at people. some days it may be a few waves here and there, others day she waves at everyone and everything.

these two know how to make my day!

happy thursday!

oh how i love thee

so...my reasons have turned into things. none-the-less, i love my family.

i love how my husband is willing to skip the gym every wednesday morning to stay home with the midge so i can go to my gym class.

i love how obsessed our baby is with kisses. when you lift her out of her crib every morning, she goes straight for the lips. she'll lean in for a kiss out of the blue and when you ask for one. when we read her favorite book Good Morning, Good Night!, she makes sure to kiss each animal goodnight. it is the best thing ever!

have a happy wednesday!

oh! and one more thing...

we have made reservations for avery's FIRST BIRTHDAY!!!

it will be on saturday march 27th at 2:30 pm.

please stay tuned for more information, as the invites are a ways away.

(with SO many babies this year, we had to plan way ahead!)

love day number dos

i love how my husband makes me coffee before he leaves for work.

(without this, i'd be a zombie! it's the littlest things that make me smile!)

i love how my baby "organizes" our bathroom while i'm in the shower.

(she tries to outdo herself each time!)

happy tuesday!

for some tips on "love" click here

February: Month of LOVE

i am one HAPPY girl.

i can honestly say, i have never felt this happy.

after a gloomy january, i am more than ready to begin a new month. and what a great month to start!

while i think VALENTINE'S DAY is SUPER commercial AND you should show your loved one EVERY DAYhow much you love them, my handsome husband has made me like this day.

sooooo....i am going to celebrate it ALL...MONTH...LONG! will you join me?

(everyday i will list a reason why i love my husband and my baby. they are truly the reasons why i am so happy!)

i love how dedicated my husband is. whether it be work, the gym or his family.....he is one dedicated man!

i love it when my baby gets tired. she rubs the corner of her woobie along her hand as if she is tracing it.

HAVE A HAPPY WEEK! CHEERS!

Our Little Monkey is 10 Months Old!

It's that time of the month again!

(Our baby girl is 10 months old today!!!)

This is definitely one of my favorite ages! The last two months have been trying, but now we are having so much fun with Avery. She definitely has both her dad and mom in her. She is very stubborn like both of us, she's a daredevil like her dad and is fiesty like her mom!

Here are some facts about our Midge:

* She is STILL nursing! THREE.TIMES.A.Day! We tried formula, to no avail. We fought and fought, cried, screamed and pulled our hair out. SO, we are going to try and stick to nursing until we can introduce whole milk. Please cross your fingers for us. I need it!

* Avery LOVES Stage 3 foods. She usually eats rice and yogurt in the morning, a fruit or veggie in the afternoon, an ENTIRE banana & 3 strawberries for a snack (or with one of the meals) and an entire jar of a dinner entree, some fruit and she still picks off our plate. This girl can eat. But she is so active, she never gains any weight. How would that be?

* She usually goes to bed at 7:30 and wakes between 7:20-8:20 the next morning. It is devine!

* We now let her sleep with her beloved baby. She will wake up and talk to her until we come and get her. (The other morning, she woke up at 3:30 AM and was telling stories to her baby. I went into her room and she was sitting straight up, hugging her baby and jibber jabbering!)

* She loves bathtime so much, we usually let her take two a day. She sits without any assistance and even tries to blow bubbles in the water, which usually ends with her choking on the water. She has no fear!

 

* Avery cannot go anywhere without her baby! I was taking her out of her carseat last week and dropped baby. (We don't have a proper name for her yet.) She was covered in dirty slush, so I put her back into the car. Ave freaked and wanted to hold her baby and even went as far as wanting her buckled next to her in the shopping cart. Sigh...such a drama queen! Melts my little heart though!

* We have had two Little Gym classes so far and are always on the lookout for more Mommy & Me classes!

* Avery has TWO teeth now! And they are big! They are the bottom middle. She is so dang cute with them. (And she has only bit me a few times...ahem...you know where!)

* Avery now stands for ten seconds unassisted. This morning she was waiving bye bye to daddy all while standing on her own. It...Was...Awesome!

* She still prefers crawling to walking. Which is just fine by me.

* Stairs are her favorite. Too bad we don't have any for her to climb. (Our Logan house is one level & our SLC house has too steep and narrow of stairs for her to climb.) Soooo.....thank you Sean and Erika for lending your stairs to us!

* Avery now says Up (again), Dad, Mom, Bubba (which is Monte's nickname) and Ow. She tries to repeat two syllable words in her own baby language.

* She also likes to try and feed herself. I let her take the spoon and she puts it right in her mouth. BUT, afterwards she likes to splatter whats left on me, the tray or the floor.

* She loves Loves LOVES to give kisses! (Which we LOVE even more!) She wants to give you one right when she wakes up, when you get home, when she goes night night and through out the day. We read Good Morning Good Night every night before bed. She first pets the animals, then gives each one a kiss. We have it recorded on our phone, so I'll have to upload it. It is adorable.

I could go on and on about our munchkin. She is blossoming into a very fun loving and independent girl. Have I mentioned I love this age? Happy 10 Month Baby Girl!

(****UGH! My pictures are all blurry! How do you fix this?)

Playing a bit of catch up

Whew...life has been SO busy! Well, atleast it feels like it!

This past weekend, we had a fun date night planned with our friends Sean and Erika. Due to unforseen instances (AKA: my child will NOT take a bottle), we cancelled our dinner plans & sitters, and headed over to their house instead. It was SO much fun. We picked up pizza from NYPD Pizza in Draper and just let the girls play. Both clothed AND naked! Coraline is only 10 weeks younger than Ave. It is so fun to watch these two. Coraline seems to always look at Avery and try to figure out how she gets from Point A to Point B. We let them sit in Coraline's play pen and for once, Avery didn't beat up Coraline too much. (Except that one time. Sorry Laybird!) Avery also spent about an hour and a half climbing up the stairs. She hasn't mastered going down yet. She would rather go head first. A big No No! We are working on it. We LOVED this date night & think it may become a regular thing. That way we do not have to juggle babies and diaper bags at a restaurant AND can still enjoy some grown up time! (I also drove through TWO snowstorms that day. A whiteout in Sardine Canyon and I almost slid off Bangerter on ramp that night. I am so tired of this weather!)

THANK YOU ERIKA FOR THE PICTURES!!!!

On Saturday night, we had Jazz tickets. We had the coveted COURTSIDE seats. I only get to sit in these seats once or twice a year, so I was STOKED! We took one of Nick's clients and his wife, Chris and Holly, to the game. It was such a nailbiting game. (We only won by 40 points! It was neck and neck!) Nick's dad and stepmom volunteered to watch Avery at their house. I was a bit worried since she usually cries and cries when around them. (Dang Stranger Anxiety!!) Well guess what? She cried for twenty minutes, then realized everything was okay and decided to play the rest of the time! We picked her up at 11 pm and she went right to sleep after one last feeding.

(Pictures taken from iPhone. I keep forgetting my little camera!)

On Sunday, we had Nick's mom Vickie come over to tend Ave while Nick and I had our own date day. We like to do this every once in a while, so we can reconnect with each other. We went and saw Blindside. If you have not seen this movie, YOU MUST! It...is...AMAZING! It was such a feel good movie & I think we need more of these movies around! Afterwards we went to sushi. Perfect date day!

We had our first Little Gym class of the semester on Monday. I was the excited one. When we got there, there were only 6 little girls in the class. A bit smaller than the trial class, but still not too small. We played sign language games, played with the parachute (Avery's favorite! She wouldn't get off the thing!), sang songs and taught the kiddo's how to do front somersaults. Avery loved them so much, she wants us to do it ALL THE TIME! (We love it too!) (I only had my iPhone for my camera. Doh!)

Avery kept dancing while holding onto these bars. Wish I had taken a video!

Our friend Holly, from the Jazz game, talked me into taking a Power Sculpting class with her at our gym in Logan. I thought I was in pretty good shape. Boy was I mistaken WAY WRONG! I had our first class this morning at 7 AM. I about passed out 15 minutes into it. I kept getting dizzy and couldn't catch my breath. You could tell I was the newbie! I kept falling off my resistance ball (they want us to do push ups off this thing!!!!) and had to stop to catch my dang breath. Needless to say, I was getting spanked by 40 year old women and was mortified! I am determined to keep taking this class. It is a challenge!

I also tried a new recipe this week. I made it twice because I was determined to perfect it. It is a chicken, mushroom artichoke dish with brown rice. SO GOOD! I just had it last night and kind of want it again. =) If any of you have fairly easy recipes, please do share. While I enjoy cooking, Avery starts to become flustered around 5 PM. SO, I try to do quick and yummy meals for my hard working hubby.

We are off to Salty tomorrow. I'll report back if anything fun happens. ;)

Our week in review

Well, we survived....so far. Nick has been in sunny San Diego since Wednesday due to work conferences. While Ave and I have braved the cold, quiet nights and each other, Nick has braved being gone without his ladies. This is the longest we have been away from each other (in different states) since our Midge was born. Not a fan so far, but we truly appreciate how hard he works to provide for our family.

I made sure while Nick was gone, that we had things planned each day. This is so much easier to do in Salt Lake rather than Logan, so we have been at our Harvard house. (Plus, we enjoy it SO much better!)

Wednesday:
We had a play date with Erika and Coraline. We had so much fun and wish we lived closer so we could get together more often. Yay for our upcoming "date night" sans the babies.

Thursday:
We had our first trial run at The Little Gym. It was the last class for the winter semester, so most of the kiddies in the class were about 18 months old. I was the one that was intimidated, not Avery. We all sat in a circle and introduced ourselves while singing songs with movement of our bodies. (I did not know that camera's were allowed in class, so I didn't take it inside. I will for sure take some next time I took one after class though.)

The Little Gym is set up kind of like a gym for gymnasts. It has monkey bars, balance beams, wedge mats, etc. The teacher warned me in the beginning that it may be SENSORY OVERLOAD & to not feel bad if Avery cried or was scared at first. Ha! Avery did not cry once. She was SO excited and even played with ADULTS without crying!!!!

We played with a big parachute that the kids could run under while the parents flapped it in the air. Ave was a little shy on this one. Then, they had us put the kids in the middle, then lift the parachute up so they were airborn. Avery LOVED this. She laughed and smiled the whole time. (The little boys were the only one's who cries during this activity.Hee Hee!)

We taught the kids how to do front somersault, handstands, "wheelbarrows", donkey kicks and more. We had to sit on a mat that blew up 4 feet, then the kids were free to jump to their hearts contents. Since Ave can't stand more than a few seconds, she bounced while kneeling. AND, every time music was played....Avery stopped what she was doing and danced. She kept up with the older kids as much as she could. Two little girls, Claire and Anna, were jumping off wedge mats that were 3 feet high. Avery climbed up the mat and tried going headfirst. She is a daredevil. (Must get this from her mommy daddy!) They also had the kids do somersaults on the balance beam. Ave was too busy trying to conquer that mat with Claire and Anna to even try. We had SO much fun, we signed up for an entire semester! Thank you Erika for the suggestion! We go every Monday morning, so my plan on staying in Logan more just got nixed. (Sorry Nick!) When we got home, Avery passed out for almost 90 minutes! HEAVEN!

We then went to my moms and had lunch. My mom watched Avery for a bit so I could run some menial errands. Thanks mom!!!

Friday:
I had some leftover credit at Sanctuary Spa from my birthday, so I scheduled a massage. A much needed massage. I could get one every week. My therapist was an older lady who taught me how to do some stretches. She could tell I carried Avery on my left. I guess my right forearm is much larger and had more knots in it. Interesting! My mother-in-law, Vickie, came and watched Avery. Usually when she comes to watch her, it is Ave's bedtime and she only gets an hour at most of playtime. She said she would like more "awake" time with her, so this was perfect! Thanks Vickie!!! Avery also slept an hour for her. (Amazing, since Avery has not taken ONE NAP FOR ME THIS WEEK. What gives?)

We got in our jammies early, and vegged out together. I was able to paint my toes too! Woo!

Saturday:
We were pretty mellow today. We arranged a lunch date with my friend Tira. I have been friends with Tira for over 10 years. She was actually the one who introduced me to Nick! (Thanks Tir's!) We headed to Paradise Bakery, which is one of my favorites. Tira knows people & she got our meal for free. Excellent!

We walked to Home Again and bought some cute nik-naks for our homes, then called it a day. So much fun. I love consignment stores and would love to own one of my own one day. Wishful thinking? Yes.

WELL...Avery did not take ONE nap for me today and was so cranky! She wanted to go to bed at 6PM, but I made her stay up until 7:30PM. Now I am beat and am calling it a night!

Amidst all the temper tantrums, laughing, not sleeping and messes....we had a great week together. I'm a little burnt out, but WE are so excited for Nick to get home tomorrow! Sorry for the long post, but I'd like to reflect back in the future and remember what a fun time we had together. Hope y'all have a great rest of the weekend!

CHEERS!

(Please take a closer look at the bottom right picture. Avery was GUMBY! I do not know how she got into this position, but she didn't seem to notice.)

After The Little Gym. She was trying to get into her shark snacks. (Still a little too young for these Midge!)

Tira and Ave. Avery did not cry while she held her. Phew! I think this stage is lifting. Finger are crossed!

1st Play Date of 2010!

Today we had a great time meeting up with Erika and her sweet baby Coraline. We first headed to Ikea, then McDonald's, then to Erika's house. My little Avery is quite the aggressive player. =( She does not know how to be gentle to dogs, babies or adults. Earlier this week she hit me so hard it broke skin. I walked around with a big old welt under my eye and had no idea. No wonder I was getting some crazy looks at breakfast. I know she does not fully understand what she is doing or how strong she is, but man it hurt!

She kept beating up on Erika's two dogs. They put up with it, thankfully, but I was quite embarrassed! Then, she started beating up on Coraline. Sigh! We decided we need a bigger kid in her Little Gym class to hit her back just once so she knows it is not fun, funny or fascinating. (I know that sounds horrible, but I'm not sure how else she will learn. She thinks the word NO does not apply to her in any way.) I also need to get her to understand the concept of sharing. Thank you sweet Lady Bird for graciously sharing ALL of your toys!

Thank you Erika and Coraline for having us over. We hope to do it more often!

Cuties! I absolutely LOVE this picture!

Future Besties!

Happy Girl.

I know this is blurry and cut off, but Ave makes this face all the time. It is hilarious!

Erika pulling the girls in the COOLEST wagon ever! (Notice Ave winding up to hit Coraline. Sorry again Coraline. We really do love you!!!)

Our child is a GOOF!

Sorry for the lack of blogging. I've been in the dumps lately and have been trying to focus more attention on my daughter rather than the internet. Ha! Who am I kidding? I check Facebook from my phone like it is going out of style. I think I do this to see what other's in the world are doing and to have "pretend" grown up conversations. Being a stay-at-home mom enables me to raise my baby the way I want to, but it also defers me from relating to the grown up world. I am not complaining (most days).

Anywho, things have been relatively quiet in our household. (Except for the rash of temper tantrums Avery has discovered to throw.) Seriously, she has found a new octave in her vocal chords I never knew or ever wanted to exist. It is scary!!! She is such a handful and wants to explore and discover everything around her. (All while making sure I am right next to her. Sigh!) OH!!!!! And Avery has TWO teeth now! So this has made our household not so quiet as well. It has made nursing and sleeping a little tricky!

I have been having a hard time, but today Avery did something that made me smile and laugh so hard! We were walking from TJ Maxx to Kohls through the parking lot at Brickyard Plaza. I was carrying Ave in my arms and all of a sudden she started screaming and whailing like you wouldn't believe. I kept walking and she got louder and louder. I looked behind me to try and figure out why she was screaming (or to see who was watching this manic episode go down) when I saw her pink woobie 20 feet behind me. That little stinker was trying to tell me I had dropped her precious blanket! What a SMARTY PANTS!!! Seriously, it made me giggle because I knew she KNEW what was going on and she was trying to tell me in her own language. Usually she just screams at me for no apparent reason, but this time she had all the right in the world to scream at me!

Avery also likes to intimidate the dogs. Monte and Grace love to give your feet kisses and now so does AVERY! It is yucky but SOOOO funny! I promise I won't post a video of this, but believe me...it is hilarious.

I will try to be more upbeat and keep blogging, but in the mean time, Ave and I are trying to do the "Your Baby Can Read" program. The only problem, Avery does not pay attention to the TV. She heard the DVD say wave and she started waving, but I had taught her this about a month ago. SO, wish me luck!

Also, I need some fingers crossed this week. Nick is off to California for a week for a conference. I had the opportunity to join him with Avery, but I would be alone from 7am-9pm. In a hotel. Alone. So, I decided to stay behind this time. Next year I will join him, sans baby, in sunny Palm Springs! That's something to look forward to. I am trying ever so diligently to wean Avery to formula. We got the thumbs down to start whole milk due to Nick's allergies & I am starting to produce close to nothing. Avery WILL NOT drink formula. So to those mothers who read my blog (which is maybe 5, including myself) if you have ANY advice on weaning....I need all you got!

We are off to The Little Gym this week to see of this will help socialize Ave & mommy! We will report back later with the results! Hope y'all have a great week!