Santa! Ho, ho, ho!

We took Avynlee to see Santa this year.  At first, we couldn't decide if we were going to bother, but it turns out, she loves Santa and all this Christmas.  She can even say "Santa" "ho, ho, ho" and "Baby Jesus" (which sounds more like "beebee cheeses".  Avynlee was so happy while we waited in line.  She kept squealing "Santa!" and trying to cut in line.  Once it was our turn, I set her down and said, "Look, it's Santa!"  She didn't buy it.  I guess he wasn't the real Santa.  :)  She tried to be brave but she clearly wasn't that interested in sitting on his lap...and he pretty much told me not to let her (weird Santa).  Hopefully next year we find a Santa more to her liking.

In other news, we took Avynlee in for her 15 month check up and some shots.  She was a little champ for her shots and only cried for a second.  Her stats are:

Weight:  24.14 pounds (79%)

Height:  33.07 inches (99%)

Head Circumference:  18.1 inches (53%) - this one is only .1 inches more than 3 months ago, so it may be inaccurate.

I guess her brief stint being in the 92nd percentile in height was a fluke.  Our not so little nugget is off the charts again.  The doctor said she looks and acts like a 2 year old.  Our super tall baby wears anything between 9 month and 18 month clothes.  It mainly depends on the length. Her hair is getting so long and she'll actually sit still long enough for me to do it most of the time.

She is super verbal and can also tell us what a cow, snake, kitty, dog, bird, bee, sheep, monkey, owl, car, and Santa says.

She recently got a new baby to play with.  It came with a toy bottle and she is the cutest little momma to that doll.  She cuddles it and feeds it and tries really hard to be soft with it.  It's very sweet.

We are loving this stage during this time of year.  Gifts and lights and trees are so exciting to her.  She loves our Christmas decorations and can crawl under the tree and flip the switch turning the lights on and off (super safe, right).  As expected, the ornaments on the lower third of our tree haven't lasted long.  It's very top heavy now.  Avynlee loves all our decorations and our village and says "Wow!" often.  It is so fun watching her enjoy and discover everything.  She also has developed a love for the Barney: Night Before Christmas on Netflix.  There is one particular part she finds to be especially funny and she laughs every time.  It's really cute.

We love this little girl and are so excited to continue showing her all the magic Christmas has to offer!

Thankful

This guy is the champ.  He sacrifices so much for our little family.  He put his dreams on hold so I could pursue mine...and has been incredibly patient with the many delays and restructuring of said dreams.  He loves the crap out of me and our little wonder nugget.  He is such a cute dad.  Avynlee thinks he is so funny and cool.  I do too.  Adam is silly, sarcastic, and smart.  He has made me a kinder and more tolerant person.  He's also really nice to look at! ;)

(I know this picture kinda looks like she's lost in the woods but I love it so much)  This little girl has completely changed my world.  My priorities are so different now and I am a big ol' wuss.  Avynlee has become my whole life and is my best little friend.  We really do almost everything together already.  I love her so much and am extremely grateful to be her momma.  I am also so thankful for the chance to get to be home with her as often as I am.  I had no idea how important being home with her would be to me.  It means the world to me that I usually get to be there for her through her day.  I love teaching her, cleaning up her messes, cuddling her, and seeing how much she learns and grows from day to day.  This sweet baby has been such an amazing blessing in my life.

 Look at those goons.  My siblings have become my best friends.  I love how close we have all become.  We have so much fun together and tend to get a bit crazy.  We are so similar yet have strikingly unique personalities.  We compliment each other nicely.  I am so grateful my parents managed to raise us four crazies and I am even more grateful we have become so close.

 The parents.  These two have saved my bacon on countless occasions.  Both my parents are extremely giving.  They are always offering to do things for me...little things that are totally unnecessary just because they love me and my little family.  I appreciate all they have done for me and am so grateful they are willing to put up with me!

Adam is extremely close to his family and I am so glad.  They have accepted me as one of their own and they love Avs so much.  They are also a big bunch of crazies when they are all together which is super fun.

I am also thankful for our amazing friends, our house, our reliable vehicles, and our religious beliefs.

First Taste of Snow

Family Photos

Carlye took our family photos and we LOVE them.  Avs got a little sick of it near the end (see her sad face...so stinking cute!) but was a little champ most of the time.  I'm glad I have such a talented friend and such a cute family!

Halloween

I still haven't gotten Av's birthday pictures.  Soon I hope.  Here's a belated Halloween though!  Avynlee LOVED Halloween this year.  We took her to get a square pumpkin and pumpkin shake a couple weeks before.  She loved them both.  She thought the little ghost flashlight was the greatest thing ever and quickly learned to turn it on and off by herself.  She also really loved wearing her costume around before and on Halloween.  We gutted and carved pumpkins.  She loved this too.  She would grab the guts in her chubby little hands and say "skishy".  We teamed up with some of AK's family and went to Gardner Village.  Avynlee petted all the animals in the petting zoo, had a hayride, and learned how fun trampolines can be in the hay maze.  We may have to get her one.  She really really loved playing and bouncing, running and falling.  It was adorable.  We also went to the annual Wilson Halloween party.

On Halloween, we got dressed up in our Neverland costumes.  Adam was Peter Pan, I was Tiger Lily, and Avs was Tinkerbell.  I made all our costumes.  I plan to make our costumes and keep them in a theme for as long as possible.  I already know what we'll be next year!

We went to Adam's work after lunch and Avynlee trick or treated up and down the cubicles.  It did not take long at all for her to catch on.  She really enjoyed it.  She got a little greedy and possessive of her newly acquired treats and she even remembered who had the suckers (the only treat she recognized) and kept going back to them for more.

After we left Adam's work, we went to Brighton High to visit my mom.  Av's trick or treated around to the ladies there and got some attention, which she loves.  Then we headed to my parents' house.  My mom makes chilli, clam chowder, and pumpkin pie every year.  After dinner we took Avynlee to some of the closer houses in the neighborhood.  My mom (who made her amazing Mary Poppins costume) and Natalie (dressed as a nurse) came with us.  I used to kind of judge the pile of adults who would accompany an infant trick or treating but now I'm a big hypocrite.  We loved seeing how excited she got.  It was so adorable.

After some Chipman fun, we headed to the Howards'.  We just missed Katie and Max (happens every time) but Lyv and Bree got there a bit after we did and we decided to do some more trick or treating.  This time we had Me, Adam, Avynlee, Mary Jo, Kim, Taylor, Bree, and Alyvia.  Two kids.  But we still went and we had fun.  Mary Jo, Kim, and Taylor only stuck around for 5 or 6 houses but Alyvia was determined to hit as many as possible so we joined them.  It was a really long day and we got way too much candy but Avynlee had so much fun.  We are so excited to do it all again next year!

Christmas Cards

So, I'm hoping to actually get our Christmas cards out before New Years this year.  Wish me luck...and then email me with your addresses so I can send you one!  My email is jefanga@hotmail.com.  Thanks guys!

My Baby is 1!

*This post ended up being crazy long...if you only feel like skimming, I've bolded for your convenience!

Avynlee's birthday is September 14th.  I can't believe my sweet, tiny baby is one!  I need to get pictures from her party uploaded.  We had a Hawaiian themed party at a park.  It was so much fun.  Avs got a bunch of wonderful gifts, we had a whole bunch of food, and the greatest pinata ever.  Avynlee loved the attention, pizza, endless cake, messiness, and all the kids.

My super friend, Carlye, took these adorable pictures of Avs.  They're brilliant.  She's brilliant.  Ask her to take pictures of your babies.

I am completely smitten with this little nugget.  She is beautiful.  All moms think their babies are cute, but seriously, this baby lucked out.  Look at those amazing eyes!  I just love her.

Our funny girl is learning so fast and picking up on so much.  She is currently in the habit of calling most animals she sees "dog" and will say it and look around when she hears barking.  She seems to love dogs and gets so excited to look through windows them or see them at a distance in momma's arms.  In fact, she is a bit petrified of them.

This brings me to Av's scared face.  I LOVE it.  I might have AK scare her one day while I have a camera handy.  I'm not mean enough to do it yet but the face is worth capturing.  She gets very wide eyed and concerned looking and quickly brings her little hand to her mouth...picture damsels in silent movies.  So far, the two guarantees are those seriously giant stuffed animals (Adam hid behind one and said "rawr"...seemed like a good idea at the time...now she hates them), and this little frog toy her great grandparents Robert got her (it opens it's mouth, shifts it's eyes, and croaks).

Avynlee loves being outside.  She loves playing in and picking grass.  She especially loves rocks.  They are one of her all time most favorite things ever.  We have tons of the small landscaping rocks in our front and back yard.  She loves to sit in the rocks, clap them together, and attempt to consume them.

When it is exactly naptime and exactly bedtime and we are home and she is in her crib, Avynlee sleeps like a champ.  She goes to sleep and wakes up like clockwork.  She has her bedtime routine down to a science and gets bugged if we try to drag it out or skip something.  "Bah" or "Juice" will start the evening.  Then we brush teeth.  I sing a little diddy of my own making.  When I'm done, she gets a turn to practice.  After I rinse of the toothbrush, she sucks of the water.  Twice.  Then it's on to story time.  We switch up the stories.  If we read a short one and try to read it twice, she gets inpatient, but she will sit through the entiretly of one reading of any book.  Weirdy.  As soon as the book closes she flops over on to Adam to give him hugs and kisses and immediately starts waving and saying "Bye" to him in her best Southern accent (I don't know how it happened but I'm glad it did, it's adorable).  If he wants more kisses, she blows him off.  If I try to get her to say "bye" again, she ignores me.  In her room, I rock her and sing to her.  She used to sit through several songs.  Now she can tolerate about 30 seconds before she squirms and tries to get in her crib.  She goes right to sleep 98% of the time and sleeps all throught the night.  On the road, not so much.  She does okay at my parents house and is getting better at sleeping at the cabin.

Avynlee is still an amazing climber and it's sometimes a bit of a problem.  She can pretty much get into anything and still really loves to summit Jacob's piano.

Avynlee can walk.  She's maxed out at around 20 feet.  Although she is definitely capable of walking, she still crawls plenty.  I don't mind one bit...although she is a bit heavy.  I can't remember her exact stats but she's a bit more than 21 lbs (roughly 50th percentile) and 31 ish inches tall (92 percentile...she's finally on the charts for height!).  She is super tall and pretty slender.  She looks solid but a lot of her 12 month pants are still too big around for her.

Avynlee loves being read to and being sung to.  The same songs and books are often repeated many, many times before she feels like moving on to something else.  When she wants to be read to, she grabs a book and climbs up on one of us.  When she wants us to sing, she tells us...she even picks the song.  She'll say "bitsy!" and make the little hand motions when she wants Itsy Bitsy Spider (her current favorite).  She will has say "Pat" and clap for Pat-a-cake, make popcorns for Popcorn Popping, and hold her hands in a little ball for Ball for Baby.

Her current most used words are bitsy, dog, cheese, and juice.  She really is getting great at communicating with us which I love because she has also discovered screaming.  It's awesome.  She does it to express many emotions.  She's mad, she'll ball up her little fists, tense up her neck, and scream.  When she happy, she'll giggle and merge that into a nice little scream.  I'm not going to be totally bummed when the screaming stops.

She listens/obeys fairly well.  I tell her to turn around when she's trying to get down the stairs of off the bed or couch.  She promptly does it.  If I tell her it's time to do insert some task here, now come with Momma, she usually does.  It's very sweet.

I can (obviously) go on and on about how amazing our baby girl is.  She is the light of our lives.  I sincerely enjoy every single second I get to spend with her...even if she is a wake of distaster following being every chore I attempt to complete.  We love our little Avynlee more than we can ever describe.

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl! 

11 Months!

Avynlee is 11 months old!

Our sweet baby seems to be growing up so fast!  Here are some tidbits about this stage of her life:

• This little lady loves going on bike rides (obviously). 
• She loves splashing and swimming.
• She loves getting into and emptying cupboards/drawers/purses.
• Avs likes being outside, she loves to sit in dirt/grass and play with rocks, plants, sticks, etc.
• She has 9 teeth, her first 2 year old molar cut over the 24th of July weekend while we were at the cabin.
• Avs took her first step on August 9th and has maxed out at three independent steps before falling/giving up. She can stand up from a crawling position without pulling herself up on anything but rarely does.  
• Pypy is still a champ sleeper and is even getting a little better at sleeping in pack and plays when we're not home. 
• Avs still loves music and playing the piano.  She bounces her little body to the beat of whatever is playing.  She likes to "sing" along a lot. 
• She waves and claps.  She often claps for herself when she's proud of a particular achievement.  She claps when she hears the opening theme song of her favorite show, Backyardigans.  And she claps when she things someone else is doing something really cool.  At the cabin, she clapped for Adam while he was fly fishing and she clapped for Eric while he was cutting wood.  She's very supportive.
• Her newest word is glasses which she pronounces without the "g".  She loves playing with "lasses" and has already broken both ear pieces of one pair of my sunglasses.
• Pyah is still a really good eater and will still eat baby food but definitely prefers taking bites of whatever we're eating...even cut up pieces of what we are having is not as good as a bite off of the real deal.  She seems to be an especially big fan of grapes, chicken, and corn on the cob (we actually just give her the whole cob and she crushes it). 
• Avynlee has been boating and tubing.  She loved it! 
• The other day, she was playing with our friends' yorkie and was far more brave than I anticipated.  She crawled right up to the dog and stole it's dog toys right out of its mouth.  She even held strong in that growly tug of war thing dogs do. 
• For the most part, Py is really happy and friendly.  She'll go to almost anyone and is so giggly and happy.  Unfortunately, she is scared of two of her biggest fans (my uncle Eric, and her uncle Tay).  Hopefully she grows out of this soon because she's missing out on a lot of fun with those two. 
• Avynlee loves to go shopping, especially at the fabric store.  She holds her hand out and touches the bolts of fabric and Adam runs her up and down the aisles.  It's sensory heaven.  She likes sitting in the shopping cart but always turns herself around and sits crosslegged facing forward rather than backward with her legs through the holes like she's supposed to.

This little nugget is our whole world and we absolutely love watching her grow up.  We can hardly believe she'll be one in a month!

Summer Fun

Finally a picture post!  We went to my grandparents' cabin, Jacob came home (so so excited about this!), and I made a magnificent wedding cake.  Take a looksie!

10 Months

Little Avynlee is 10 months old.  She is getting so big!  Our sweet girl is so spunky and fun and is the highlight of our lives.

Here are some tidbits about our tenth month old girl:

• Avs has 8 teeth.
• She crawls really fast, especially if the fridge or a cabinet is open.
• She loves opening drawers/cabinets and emptying the contents.
• Avynlee is a climber.  She's been able to race up the stairs for months and can climb in and our of her walker.  She can climb onto couches and chairs.  We recently discovered that she can climb from our basket of sheet music, onto the piano bench, and up onto the piano (we of course supervised it).  She's done this at my house and at my sister's house.
• Avs is really strong.  When she has something she shouldn't it takes real effort to pry it from her grip.
• She is obsessed with the bathroom.  She like to climb the toilet, flush the toilet, open the lid (way gross), unroll the toilet paper, and play with the noisey door stop.  Not surprisingly, our bathroom doors are pretty much always closed.
• Avynlee likes to chase and be chased.  We play "get you" games a lot.
• Avs still really loves water.  She crawled through the sprinklers with the neighbor baby the other day.
• Py is a champ sleeper and sleeps like clockwork as long as we're home.  Getting her to sleep or nap anywhere else is a chore though.
• Avs has started whining when she doesn't get her way and when we take things (cell phones, glasses, etc.) from her.
• Py sometimes waves "hi" and "bye" and will sometimes gives hugs and kisses.  She will rarely do these things on command though.
• Avee is getting really good at standing and balancing.  She still hasn't taken any steps independently.
• Avs loves music and singing.  She likes to sing, dance, and clap along.
• She likes rough housing and tickling.
• She has started saying "tickle tickle" while trying to tickle Adam and I.
• She mimics a lot but words she seems to really say are: Momma, Dadda, Papa, Stairs, Bottle, Up, Kiss, Yay, Baby, Shapes, Tickle, Yes, Get it, Did it, and Like it.  Some are more clear than others.
• Avynlee thinks other kids are so hilarious and loves playing with friends.

 This girl LOVED the zoo.

 Cute piggy tails.

 She loves her singing storybook.

Playing peekaboo with her foam star and giggling.

We love you so much baby girl!

Pretty glad our house didn't burn down

There was a fire in Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs.  Here's the story (and the source of the picture).
Our house was less than a mile from the evacuation zone and we were fairly confident our home would be fine.  However, the air was terrible. The fact that is was burning waste wasn't super appealing either.  We could smell the fire in Draper and West Jordan and Adam left work to discover ash had blown through his barely rolled down windows and onto his seats and dashboard.  My champ husband gathered some stuff and took his baby and asthmatic wife to WJ and we spent the weekend with my family.  Not exactly how we intended to spend the weekend but we had fun and are really grateful for our families who are always there for us...and super grateful to be back in our house again.

Over the weekend we also went to Steven and Nicole's wedding (pictures to come) and took advantage of our living situation to get some babysitting and hang out with some friends.

9 Months

This little girl is growing up so fast!

We went to the doctor today for her 9 month check up.  She is still super tall at 29.92 inches (99%).  She weighs 19.95 pounds (71%).  Her head circumference is 17.6 inches (73%).

She can still wear some 6 month stuff but is mostly in 9-12 month tops.  12 month bottoms are still too baggy on her.  Avynlee is still a huge momma's girl but she is completely smitten with Adam. She gets excited and says "papa" or "dadda" when she seems him. She sleeps through the night 95% of the time. Avs is a champ eater and is always willing to try new things. She is really good and feeding herself finger foods and is trying really hard to spoon feed herself but it usually results in a mess. She seems to prefer a sippy cup to a bottle and tries to drink out of cups. Avynlee still loves baths and swimming. She likes to wash her hands and have her teeth brushed. Py loves reading stories and will often flip though books and babble to herself. She loves playing her toy piano as well as real ones. Avynlee bounces to music and loves to sing (really loudly). She loves watching and playing with other kids. She loves playing patty cake and having songs with actions sung to her. Her favorite is "ball for baby" and she tries to do the actions too. Avs has been pulling herself up and cruising for a while and is getting better at standing unassisted. She can climb our flight of 15 stairs in under a minute. She recently discovered she is able to flush the toilet and she often tries to practice he new skill. She loves to empty laundry baskets and throw clothes around the room. If we open the fridge or cabinet door she races over and tries to snatch prizes out before we close it again. She is a really good climber and can climb on overturned laundry baskets (really one of her favorite toys), my parents couch, and from the floor of the car to the seat. She is a noisey baby and is constantly babbling, singing, squeeling, and laughing. She doesn't cry very often. She has recently started to growl and talk in her "villain voice" as we call it. It isn't because she's upset or anything...just a voice she likes to use I guess. She also is a big fan of babbling in a really really high pitched voice. It's adorable. She mimics us a lot and seems to be correctly using certain words. She definitely says momma/mom and papa/dad/dadda in reference to me and Adam. She still says "I get it" (in reference to obtaining and object) and "I did it!" in context. She also seems to know/say up, bottle (baba sometimes batoe), treat, stairs, etc. Obviously, we could be wrong but it seems like she is really saying thing intentionally. She sometimes waves hi/goodbye. She claps for herself or if she likes something.

She is an observant, happy, wiggly baby and we love her so much.

Here are some cell phone pictures I've taken the past couple weeks:

And some adorable pictures my amazing friend Carlye took of her 3 months ago...these are just a few of the long promised 6 Month photos.

Alesha's Wedding Cake

Check out my cake blog JACKed Cakes: Alesha's Wedding Cake.  I made this cake for a wedding last weekend.  It's really similar to one I made last summer.  I think it's lovely.

Breastpump

The title is your warning. Feel free to not read this. 

Breastpumping is weird.  Especially at work.  I'm glad it exists, don't me wrong.  And I'm grateful a certain friend lent me a certain device so I didn't have to spend 70 gazillion dollars to feel awkward at work.

I was discussing pumping with AK about 5 minutes ago.  He likes to tease me.  There was a cow reference.  I laughed.  Then I told him he should have to experience the wonder that is breast pumping...for empathy, ya know.  Obviously I knew he would refuse.  I don't really know what I would have done if he would have been like, "ok, hook me up!"  But, really, he couldn't handle it.  I know it.  And it made me think of this...

(obviously both images are not my own, they came from google somewhere)

AK scared the Feds

I know I have a ton of adorable baby pictures to post.  Soon.  I mean it.

But for now, a story.

Today, Adam got a flat tire near Camp Williams while driving to work today.  He called me and I retrieved him.  His car mishap made him late for work so he just locked his car, left it there, and I took him to work on my way to work.

When his coworker returned him to his car, a federal agent was there and wouldn't let AK do anything without ID, which he left at work.  And Adam wasn't allowed to leave to go get it...you know, because he is super suspicious looking.  His coworker had to drive back and retreive Adam's ID.  Apparently, leaving a vehicle parked just outside Camp Williams and just ditching is a major red flag and the nice FBI man thought AK might be some kind of terrorist.  Nutso!

Several hours later, my sweet, innocent, non-terrorist husband was allowed to return to work.  Poor fellow.  It never even crossed my mind how shady leaving his car there would appear to those inside.

Some stolen catch up

My blogging skills are obviously lacking lately...so I'll just steal some pics directly from my sister's blog.

The Saturday before Mother's Day, we went swimming at the Gene pool (so weird to pay to swim where I used to work) with my family.  It was so fun.  Avynlee is obsessed with swimming.  We take her every week or two.  She's a big fan.

 

 Here are some pics from our venture to SG over Easter.  I have more somewhere but I bet they never get posted.

And I turned 26.  Aliese and Darrin were here and took us to Cheesecake Factory.  It was way fun.

I have Avynlee's 6 month pictures.  They are amazing and adorable and I love them.  And now that she is almost 9 months old, I should probably post some.  Next time.