High 5

High 5

Avery is working on something new,  his high 5. Thanks to a visit from my Aunt, if you ask Avery for a high 5, he now raises his hand for a high five, and some knuckles (or at least sometimes he does, he's still learning)
 

Snack Cup Thief

When it’s getting close to dinner time at our house I usually give Avery some puffs while he waits for me get things ready. Recently I started putting his puffs in a snack cup with a soft rubbery lid that keeps the puffs in, but allows for Avery to get them out easily. Avery seems to enjoy taking his puffs out of his cup, you can tell he is proud of what he can do. When the dog hears me filling the snack cup he seems to appear right beside Avery, ready to pick any small crumb he may drop. Nico doesn’t take anything from Avery, he waits for it to fall to the floor first but he is always at the ready. This past Monday I had given Avery his snack cup filled with Apple Cinnamon puffs while I got his dinner ready, when it was ready I scooped him up from where he was snacking, leaving the almost empty snack cup behind, and headed to the kitchen. Sitting at the table feeding Avery in his highchair I heard a noise, when I looked over to see what it was I saw Nico had stolen the snack cup and was trying to get the few remaining puffs. So funny, big dog, little snack cup with a few puffs left inside. 

Snack Cup Thief caught in the act!

Big Boy Bath

We’ve come along way from those first baths Jon and I gave him (wednesday-night-is-bath-night). Bath time has always been enjoyable for Avery. He has never minded the water, be it bath or shower, splashing around in water is something he likes. And the tub is something he recognizes. Every time he can, he goes to the tub to look in and see if there is any water waiting for him to play in. When it is bath night he loves to watch the tub fill with water, occasionally reaching over the side to try to splash in the rising water.

Can I get in now?

Once the water is ready, in he goes, then in go the toys, foam letters and numbers, a duck and frog and various other things.  He sits and plays and splashes and plays and splashes some more. He chases around the letters while I cover him head to toe in soap and rinse him off again, I usually let him play until he starts to try to stand or just before he turns into a prune.

Bath Time Fun

It’s fun to see how much bath time has changed, and how much his enjoyment with the activity has changed too.

Learning and Discovering

It seems every night Avery shows us some thing new, something he “picked up” somewhere, something someone taught him. When he climbs on things or in things and he wants down or out he goes feet/ butt first and backs safely out and and gets safely down (at least most of the time). He gives kisses (open mouth slobbers). He pushes his car and truck toys around like car and truck toys are meant to be pushed around.

Playing with his cars

He knows what words like, bottle, num num, ball, mama, dada, and no mean. He knows that there is a hole on his face that is the prefect size for his finger. 

Perfect fit!

It has been so fun to watch him as he discovers each new thing and have him share with us what he has learned, I say it all the time but I can't wait to see what he will do next.

Tooth Tally

A rare shot of all 4 teeth!

Avery is now up to four teeth, 2 top front and 2 bottom front. Guess it's a good thing his "Two Front Teeth" weren't  all he wanted for Christmas, because he's got them!

Look Under There

Last night we could not find one of Avery’s favorite things, his volleyball. We looked in every room under things, behind things, places there was no chance of it being, but we couldn’t find it. It wasn’t a big deal to Avery he had other things (balls) to play with but it bothered me only because I knew it was there, somewhere. I continued to search the same places I’d already searched, places I had seen it before. Undisturbed by my quest to find the ball Avery played on. Playing with a different smaller ball, Avery laid down on the floor and rolled his smaller ball under the ottoman we have in the living room, pressing his face closer to the floor and he watched the ball roll thru the small 2ish inch tall space and out the other side, it was so cute to watch him look under and watch the ball. 

Watching the ball roll under and out

He did this a few times before the ball got stuck, then he just looked at me with a smile. I went over to move the ottoman and get the ball back for him and discovered along side the smaller ball, the volleyball, it must have got stuck under there when I was moving the ottoman around. Clever kid, he knew where the volleyball was, he just couldn’t get it.

What I missed

Even though the trip was short it was sure nice to be home with Avery and Jon, and I swear Avery grew while I was gone. 
What I missed: Wednesday, bed time wasn’t until 11pm. Thursday, 5 minutes before Jon picked Avery from daycare he bumped his head on a bookcase got a bump/bruise. 

What remained of Avery's bookcase bruise

And Friday, I was home in time to pick up him! We spent all of Friday night playing, and by “all” I mean 3 hours because bed time was at 8 that night.

Avery and his new Texas friend - Rib Eye

Kisses

Playing ball over the gate with Daddy

Saturday we woke up early and continued where we left off the night before playing and just having a relaxing day. Saturday night is when we had “big” plans. Jon and I were going over to a friends house for a few hours and Avery was staying home with a babysitter. 

Avery and Wylie

It was the first time we had ever left Avery with a babysitter. At first I didn’t think I was ready to leave him with a babysitter but I adjusted to the idea. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust who we were leaving him with it was more that I wanted him to have a good night for her and not be fussy or anything, he is usually such a “good baby” and I just didn’t want him to not be when we leave him with someone new for the first time. It went great, he had a great time with her, hopefully she will be willing to watch him in the future.

Somedays It takes a village

Ready for some boys time

This morning I dropped Avery off at daycare but for the first time in a long time I wont be the one picking him up, and I wont be the one dropping him off tomorrow or Friday. I am for the second time since Avery has been born traveling for work, like last time it is a short trip, a day of travel, a day of work, and then another day of travel. So for the next few days it will be daddy and Avery time, with a little help from the grandparents. We are very lucky that we have family so close that are willing to help us out pick up, drop off and watch Avery, we really couldn’t do it without them some days.  I hope Avery and daddy both get some sleep and that these next few days go by fast. 

Watch Me Grow- Ten Months

I don't sit still too long take the picture!

Avery is ten months old today, and weighs in 22.4lbs or so. He crawls and climbs, he has three teeth, and a fourth on the way. He knows, ba, ball, mama, dada, ga and some many more. He loves to eat graham crackers and cheerios and is just stating to eat blended table foods. Some nights he sleeps thru the night some nights he doesn’t. He is growing and learning everyday. Soon he will get to meet his cousins who are now home from the hospital. Welcome Home Dylan & Freddie. Can’t wait to see what this month brings for new adventures.

TEN months

Happy Hunting

Our Young Buck

Good Luck to everyone out hunting this weekend. Be safe!

Fall Back

Having fun in a pile of leaves

This weekend daylight saving time ends so the clocks are going to fall back an hour.  Before Avery this would have meant an "extra" hour of sleep, but because Avery cant tell time I don't think that will be the case this year.

Happy Fall!

Like what I like

Avery & Super Grover what a lovable pair

As a parent I want Avery to go out and try new things, discover things that make him happy, but secretively I want him to like the things I remember liking, enjoy the things I enjoyed. A lot of parents have that, the hope their children will want to play the same sports or do the same activities that they liked they when they were kids. A lot of the discussion around our hopes for Avery’s future have centered around sports and activities. Of course Jon and I both hope that Avery will want to ski and enjoy skiing because it is something we both really enjoy. And I hope he prefers playing soccer to football and would rather he ski then wrestle, play hockey or swim.  Those are things farther in the future but there are things now that I want him to like because I liked them, or like because they were mine the first time around. It’s just little things, I want him to have a blanket that he loves and a stuffed animal that he loves because I had those things. I want him to like to color and create things and prefer to play make believe then play a video game. But even more specifically I want him to like Sesame Street and I want him to like Grover better then Elmo, because I love Grover. I might loose that battle, of the few toys & books Avery has with Elmo on them he really seems to like them, and maybe even prefer them over his Grover toys & books, Elmo’s red and fuzzy with a big smile, what’s not to like, but lovable fury old Grover is just as great, he is blue with a pink nose, some times has a cape and a helmet, so I am not giving up, Elmo can have some love too, I just want Avery to love Grover more. In the end whatever Sesame Street friend or activity or sport that he chooses, now or in the future it will be his choice, and we will be fine with whatever he chooses.

Happy Halloween

Avery's First Halloween

Even though Avery is too young to understand what Halloween is all about that hasn’t stopped him from enjoying all the fun of the season. His Halloween fun started last weekend when we made ghostly foot prints for Halloween cards, and yes painting and making foot prints with an almost 10 month old is a two person process that is followed by a bath. 

Avery Ghostly Greetings Halloween cards

The Halloween fun continued Thursday night when Jon and I got Avery dressed in is costume and headed off to his first daycare Halloween Party. Because he really didn’t understand what was going on we didn’t stay too long but we stayed long enough to play a game of pick the pumpkin where he won a new ball!

Our little puppy dog

Picking a pumpkin with daddy

Avery Halloween loot from the party

Tonight we will put on his costume again and head out to the grandparents houses for a little trick or treating. We didn’t carve any pumpkins this year but it is on the list for next year when he will be able to enjoy things a little more. 

I love my Mummy!

bubble bubble toil and trouble

Our little monster discovered a lot of new things this weekend.
Lesson One: If I stand on this I will become tall enough to reach the things mom and dad hide from me on top of the tv stand.

one foot up... 

oh.. this is not how it was supposed to be used

now  I can reach!

Lesson Two:
If I start at the bottom and go one at time I will get to the top!

Here I go...

on my way up....

king of the stairs....

6 Years

October 29, 2005

It’s hard to believe that 6 years today, on a sunny fall day Jon and I were married. Somedays it doesn't feel like it has been 6 years already.  Ask us what the best thing to happen in the past six years together is and the answer is simple....Avery. Happy Anniversary! 

And now we are 3

3 of 20

Wanna see my new tooth...too bad

Of the 20 baby teeth Avery will have, he now has three. The most recent addition is his left front tooth. When Avery is getting a tooth our usually non fussy, happy baby, whimpers and whines a little bit more, and seems to have some trouble sleeping. To help ease his pain/discomfort we have been using Baby Orajel and Tylenol/ ibuprofen and some nights we end up sleeping in his chair to keep him from waking himself up so often. Over all I don’t think teething has been too difficult on any of us, sure some mornings we are all a little more tired but  I think that comes with the teritiory when you have a 9 (almost 10) month old. 3 down 17 to go!

Little Helper

Last week was a busy week for Avery. He played with GG & GT at an MSU volleyball game on Tuesday while I went to a class. Wednesday we went out to eat with my parents to celebrate my dad’s birthday and we went out again on Friday to celebrate my mom’s birthday. So when the weekend rolled around we were just ready to relax and play which is exactly what we did for a good part of the weekend. One thing we had to get done, and  that we were long over due for was a trip to the grocery store, sure we had picked up a few things here and there and gotten food for Avery but our cabinets were in desperate need of restocking so our Sunday night adventure was to the grocery store. Avery road in the the cart while Jon and I filled it. Once we got home Jon started the grill, and I started the process of putting away the groceries and luckily for me I had unexpected help with the groceries. 

Our Little Helper

Because the fridge was open and it was unexplored territory Avery thought he should check things out. Later our little helper thought he should help the dog with his food too. NIco went over to eat so Avery went with, while the dog ate, Avery checked out the dog's water, he was splashing away like he was in the tub. 

Splashing - Dog Bowl Style

I couldn’t help but laugh as Avery splashed the dog while he ate. It is a “no-no” to play with the dog’s food and water so after snapping a few pictures and  washing our hands and we found something new to play with. I think I will look online to see if there is some place that sells “eyes in the back of my head” for Moms, cause I think I am going to need some :)

Favorite Things (Part 3)

As Avery grows, learns and changes so does the list of his favorite things. Looking back at Avery's past favorite things provides another perspective from which to gage how much he really has grown. He has a variety of things to play with and we try to change them out so that he doesn’t get bored with any one toy too soon but there are just some things that we need to take in every room where we are playing and those are things make the Favorites list. Avery favorite things are not only at our house,  when he is at the grandparents he has favorites there too. 
One thing that Avery can be found enjoying at home or the grandparents is a book, in the beginning he looked, then the tasted, now he really sees the pictures and turns the pages and picks books out to play with, one of his favorites is Brown Bear Brown Bear.

A favorite picture book

Another favorite that he has is balls, he enjoys looking at them, chasing them, throwing them but even among those he has favorites. 

The Volleyball is my favorite

The blue spike ball is my other favorite

Like most babies Avery loves lights, and music which make it easy to see why he loves the music table (at GG & GT house) and roll/rattle music thingy (at G&G H’s house). 

So many different things to play with in one spot

It has lights & plays music, what's not to love?

But when it comes down to favorite favorite things I would say he has three right now. His puppy (currently nameless), he loves to cuddle and wrestle with him. 

Avery & Puppy

A plastic penguin, it seems to always be in his hand when he is at G&G H’s house. 

My best friend,  Mr. Penguin

And the toy that we move upstairs and downstairs, the clear favorite, a play door, it has lights and music and things to open and close, buttons to push, things to spin, it’s great, and he loves it! 

Avery's Favorite Favorite

So besides Avery’s friends and family those are his favorite things now. Check out his Favorite Things (Part 2) and you can see how much out baby has grown!  

Non Toy Toys

It seems every room in our house now has a collection of Avery’s toys. He doesn’t have every toy under the sun by any means but he does have a few. With all the choices he has I love when he chooses none of them and instead chooses a non-toy toy. Some of Avery’s non-toy toy favorites are leftover containers and lids, plastic hangers, and ski straps. 

Toy shopping at GG & GTs

Ski Strap Snack 

Got to Love the Lid

Is Hanger another word for new toy?

It’s just so funny to see him sitting in the room surrounded by toys that were created, tested, marketed and sold specially to entertain a child his age and there he is playing with glad ware. I can"t wait for the phase when the box something comes in is more fun then the toy it’s self. 

Dad's Birthday Weekend

We started out our weekend with a fall photo shoot at Drummers, pumpkins, hay bales, fall flowers, leaves the whole works. This past Easter I had taken Avery to have his picture taken with live bunnies and they had gotten some  nice photos of Avery, so I thought we should go have some fall shots done too. When we did the bunny pictures we waited an hour and half, so this time we went a little earlier but there was no crowd and we only waited 20 minutes, the bunnies seem to have drawn a bigger crowd then the fall pictures. While we waited we checked out all the fun things in the greenhouse, pumpkins, cornstalks, hay bales and scarecrows.

Scarecrow Avery

 Avery wasn’t as comfortable with these photographers as he is with his usual photographers (me, the grandmas and Lori Marie) so he was a little guarded looking in his photos but I am sure I’ll find one I like, he is never as cute in pictures as he is in real life :)

Our little pumpkin 

Pumpkins are fun!

 After that mission was complete and it was such a nice fall day we got the stroller out and took a walk down the trail, it was such a relaxing walk Avery even took a little time out to nap. 

It was a nice day to nap

After our walk we got Avery packed up and headed out the door to Grandma & Grandpa H’s house, for Avery’s first sleep over. Saturday night we had plans with some of Jon’s friends to go to the cities and ride the Peddle Pub (http://www.pedalpub.com/twincities/index.htm) for Jon’s 30th Birthday and knew we wouldn’t be back until real late so we decided that rather then pick him up in the middle of the night he would just stay over and we could pick him up in the morning. We had a great time on the Peddle Pub  and Avery had a great sleep over and he even slept (so did Grandma & Grandpa).

Our Peddle Pub crew

Our Sunday was a little more low key, Jon worked on the garage, while Avery and I napped and played, and then we headed over to Grandma & Grandpa B’s house to have dinner and celebrate Jon’s birthday with family. Dinner was great, Jon always does a great job with his birthday dinner request. With full tummies we headed home to put our tried little guy to bed and make sure things ready for the week ahead.

***Tooth Alert**** while we were waiting to have Avery's picture taken Jon noticed that right next to his first tooth was Avery’s second tooth! Avery now has his two lower front teeth!