Thanksgiving 2011

This is the greatest time of the year!  I love Thanksgiving day and all the days that lead up to Christmas.  It is so exciting!

One of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving is to watch the parade and look at all the deals in the newspaper for Black Friday, not that I am crazy enough to lose sleep to get any of the deals :).  Thursday morning, we woke up, had some tasty cinnamon rolls, and had a lazy morning watching the parade.  Avery would watch for two seconds and then go on her merry way to do something else.

She LOVED cinnamon rolls!  Who doesn't, it's like dessert for breakfast!

Aunt Laura requested for Avery to come by and get a sneak peak of her Christmas present, a pink A&M jersey.  Bill got some shots of them posing just in time for the big game later that day.

Twinkies...in more ways than just their shirts!

After a good nap, we headed to my parents for some Thanksgiving dinner.  This year was way different than last year considering Ave still couldn't do much!  Samantha had a much better playmate this year.  They went around creating chaos together!

I took an excessive amount of pictures-

Ave LOVED riding our old rocking horse.  She spent quite a bit of time rocking and neighing that night!

Cousins!

Dinner time.  More, more, more!

Sophia hanging out at the table

Ave was fascinated by Samantha

The broken glass count for the night was 2.  Thankfully, none were Ave's fault :).  The girls really wanted to help clean up!

Huyo...

Aunt Kel and soon to be Uncle Andrew

We decided it would be sweet if we could get a picture of the cousins.

It started out okay until I took the lotion away and freed up Ave's hands.

She decided to use them to poke poor Sophia in the eye.

Post eye poke.  I guess I may have overreacted a tad!

Grammy, Grandpa, and the girls

As with any gathering with multiple little ones, things were a little crazy but lots of fun!

I have so much to be thankful for this year...

-I have been thinking so much lately about how much of a blessing and miracle Avery is.  I know that tons of children are born all over the world every day and that it is such an ordinary thing but yet there are also so many people who struggle to have children.  I am so thankful to have our little one, even on the especially fussy days or the rough teething nights.  The fact that God formed her so perfectly and gave her to us is amazing to me.  

-I am so grateful to have Bill as my partner in crime.  He is such a great daddy to Ave and such a great hubby to me.  When the going gets tough, it's nice to know that he's got my back always.  I can't believe 5 years have already gone by...I can't wait to see what the next 50 have in store for us!

-I have said this so many times but I love having friends who are also moms to go through this crazy journey with.  I literally don't know if I could do this without them!

-I am so thankful for family that I can count on no matter what time of day or night.  Over the past year, there have been times that I could not have gotten through without them!  I also can't forget the new family members that have been added or will be added soon! So exciting!

-And, on a lighter note, I'm also thankful for Spring Creek BBQ, Christmas decorations, Christmas specials on tv, Bill's Fridays off, coupons or great deals,  Modern Family, Reeses McFlurries, 70 degree weather, mornings that I get to sleep in, ridiculous reality tv shows that I know make me a little dumber but that I love anyway, girls nights, date nights, my Keurig for helping to wake me up in the morning, and lots lots more (not necessarily in that order!).

 Now it's the countdown to Christmas!

Just another day in paradise

Since Bill can't stay home every day with our girlie, I send him pictures from my phone all the time.  My phone is the old school, flip phone type so the quality is not so great but it does the job.  Here are some pics that I took over the last few months...

There's nothing cuter than a jammie pic

She loves all the old diaper boxes

On this particular day, the sprinklers were on and Ave loved getting sprayed

Poor Grace- Ave likes to bring her things to sleep with all the time

Helping "unload" the dishwasher

Stephanie and I went to Orange Leaf, a frozen yogurt place, one day.  This is the bottom of the chair that she thought was her personal playground.

A trip to Petco- the rats were her favorite.

Playing post diaper change

Balancing a Cheerio on her finger

Every once in a while we have one of these "special" days where I can't seem to get anything done!

This was taken at Old Navy.  She thought this plastic dog was the best!

Lemon juice

 Here are some pictures taken from Daddy's phone.  Notice the difference in quality.  Hmm, must be nice.  I think it's finally time to upgrade!

Pigtails!

Helping Daddy clean his tires

Playing at the park while I was on my most wonderful, relaxing girls weekend.  I love getting pictures of Ave since usually it's the other way around.

Some of the best days are just those hanging around the house.  I am so thankful that I get to spend each day with my girl!

Halloween

Since Avery is a little older this year and did fairly well trunk or treating at the Fall Festival, we decided to take her to a couple of houses nearby to trick or treat.  

Ready to go!

 She did great at the first house.  She loved the attention from the woman and actually wanted to go inside the house and play.  From then on, things went a little downhill. :)  We started walking up to the next house and Avery tripped.  This brought on lots of tears.

We left that house to try to take her mind off the fall. The poor people at that house were probably wondering what the heck was going on-lots of screaming and then no doorbell. The next house had a sweet couple sitting out in front of the house.  We thought that this would be perfect but it actually ended up freaking her out even more.  She got the candy (while I was holding her) and then I ask her to wave bye bye to them and she shook her head no.  The lady yelled out, "I saw that!"  Oops!

We decided that she had had enough so we headed back to our house to pass out candy.  This is where Avery's real fun began.  She LOVED trick or treating from me after kids would ring the doorbell.  She would bring her bucket to get a piece of candy after each child.

Avery's 1st m&m

That led to her face looking like this! 

She became a MAJOR candy lover after that night! 

Notice anything wrong with this picture?

She got a bath to remove all remnants of candy and had to read a few books before bedtime!

She is so proud that she can climb up her all on her own now!

I love making memories with my family of three!

Halloween Play Date

The Wednesday before Halloween, Ashley hosted a Halloween playdate.  Lots of Avery's friends were in attendance, so she had a ton of fun!  I wish that I had taken many more pictures but unfortunately, I didn't. Ash had everything so cutely decorated and had amazing food including mummy dogs for the babies and pumpkin shaped rice crispy treats- my favorite!  The babies played at the beginning, attempted a craft, and ate some lunch.  Here are some shots of the kiddos playing-

Ave carried around this toy for the majority of the time and even took a bite  out of it- sorry Luke!

Garrett having the time of his life

You want to take a picture of ME?

Ave loves spending time with Ash

 We played outside also and I realized that Avery has a love for chalk.  She would not put it down.  She like to take it out of the bucket, draw a little, put it back in the bucket, and repeat.  After some playtime, Ash had prepared a craft that involved sticking cotton balls on a ghost.  Ave liked to stick them down and then pick them right back up so I had to do some major assisting but it turned out really cute.  Ash had even gotten the kids a Halloween plate and a little book for them to read.  Avery was in heaven!

Before we left, we wanted to get a shot of all the kiddos.  Avery is not looking but I was amazed that they were still enough to capture this.  

Avery, Luke, Jack, Jackson, and Garrett

I say this all the time, but I am so thankful for great friends that have kids around Avery's age.  It's great to be going through this phase in life with amazing people in the exact same place as me!