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!