Avery's 2 Months Old!

I was trying to capture how long and thick her eye lashes are in this picture, but it didn't do them justice :(

Time is flying!  Little Aves is already two months old!

• Eats like a champ (although still a bit of a snacker)!  Will eat 6 oz in one sitting and around 8 over the course of an hour.  I think she's going to be a porker!
• Love watching tv (makes me feel like such a bad mom).  Will sit for contently  in her bouncer and watch shows with Chloe.
• Loves to stretch.  Will stretch for atleast 3 minutes straight after waking up.
• Still goes to bed around midnight and wakes up around 5, but goes back down with binky until around 7.
• Loves watching things over her head, like the fan or a mobile.  We put her in her pack n' play with the mobile for the first time yesterday and as long as the music was going and the birds were spinning, she was cooing and kicking.
• Kicks her legs like crazy while she's awake....also does this weird thing where her leg will shudder and twitch for a second...is that normal?
• Is smiling a lot more, but still mostly for Daddy!
• Loves bath time in the big bath.
• Still swaddled and sleeping in the bouncer.
• Wears size 2 diapers
• Still in 0-3 months
• Weighs 12 lbs, 23 inches long

Avery is such a happy and relaxed baby and a joy to have around.  She's pretty content as long as she's been fed and is changed.  She's getting all sorts of nic names already-Baby Gabes (from Chloe), Baby Aves or Avey, Avey-Cakes, Avey-Baby and of course Little Sister :)  She is getting so animated and fun !  We love having our little miss Avery with us!

January Happenings

 We've had some visitors-Chloe with Alec and Mailey

 My cousin Kara aka Aunt Kara

 She really is a great helper...most of the time...

 Just before we took family pictures

 Chloe's gag reflex in action!  For some reason when she's done feeding Avery or she spits up, Chloe starts to say "Take her, taker!" and gag.  Silly girl!

 Grandma Bonnie with Avery after she got her hair done

 Gotta get the classic sleeping with Daddy picture!

 I put Avery in Chloe's bed with her for story time and the both LOVED it!

 Especially after Dad got home!

 Documenting Ronnie's bed head for future generations...proof of his thrashing sleep habits!

Already trying to hold her own bottle :)

 We had a jammie day on Monday-this is the girls watching Dora.  I feel terrible, but Avery already loves watching TV and will sit and stare at the screen!

Chloe decided on our jammie day that she wanted to dress up like Rapunzel and watch Tangled together.  She also decided it was hilarious to stick her finger up her nose and wouldn't move it for the picture.  She's such a jokester these days!

 The Barfinator!  I thought we lucked out and that Avery wouldn't be a barfer like her big sister, but apparently I spoke to soon because she went through 3 outfits yesterday :(

Making our Family Home Evening Treat together!  Poor Ronnie looks so tire...because he is!  He's running ragged these days :(

Chloe's little setup-I love how Avery's smiling at her!

Exasperated sigh....where to begin???  January has shown us a small sample of what our lives are going to be like for the next year and it is BUSSSSAY!  Life right now for us is wonderful, blissful, fun and at times overwhelming, depressing, chaotic, and BUSY (Maybe it's the other way around...life can be overwhelming, chaotic and busy, but at times wonderful, blissful and fun!)!  My life is very full of new beginnings...as in I have a new beginning every day, because whatever I did yesterday, didn't work out so well.  I LOVE my darling girls, but life with 2 is challenging!  Some days (as seen above) we don't even make it out of our jammies!  But with that challenge comes fulfillment-the little glimmers in time when Chloe begs me to lay in bed with her and snuggle, when she comes to me and says "Mommy, I need a hug." and the million funny little things she says all day.  She stops me in my tracks every time she says "Mommy, be nice to me!" when I'm starting to go over the edge.  I love the time just after Avery finishes eating and is perfectly content to look up into my eyes and coo and gurgle at me.  You can just tell that her little smiley eyes (inherited from her Daddy) are full of love for me, her imperfect Mommy.  Motherhood is HARD and it is definitely my refiners fire right now, but I am in love with it!

While I'm busy at home, Ronnie is getting pounded out in the "real world".  He currently works full time at the radio station as their IT/engineer assistant and is either in the station or up tromping through the mountains fixing antennas.  He's also hard at work opening his computer shop (more to come on that), still taking computer clients, and repairs cash registers.  He's always flying in and out of the house and is usually on the phone while doing so. Sadly, he doesn't have much time for airplanes anymore-thanks your sacrifice hon!  Aside from that, he's the Sr. Primary chorister (how perfect is that?) and I'm the 8-9 year girls Activity Days leader.  We will also be starting construction on our home sometime in February, through the Color Country Community Housing program!!!  It took me a while to feel this way, but I am SUPER excited to be building our own home!  To be able to paint, renovate, have a garden, or get a dog will be so liberating!  Unfortunately, what free time we did have will be eaten up by building our home, since the program requires sweat equity and we will have to work 30 hours a week.  We're hoping to be in sometime in the fall :)  Like I said, life is BUSSSAY, but it's the best busy out there!

Avery Turns 1 Month

At the time of this post, she's technically 6.5 weeks and the pictures were taken at 5 weeks, but I figured it was close enough!  Avery is such a little joy!  Here's a little bit about our sweet girl up to this point:

• Sleeps from about midnight to 7 (wakes up around 5, but goes back down with a binky)
• Usually drinks about 6 ounces!  She's a serious porker
• Size 1 diapers since around 5 weeks
• 0-3 months clothing since about 5 weeks
• Likes to snack.  She'll drink about two ounces then stop for a little while, then get really upset again until you feed her more
• Started REALLY smiling around 5.5 weeks.  Smiles all the time now, especially for Daddy :)
• Loves to stretch and lay on the floor, especially first thing in the morning after breaking free from her swaddle
• Sleeps swaddled in her bouncer chair
• Is a binky baby
• The other day Ronnie was on the mountain for work so he called and I put the phone up to Avery.  As soon as she heard his voice, her whole face lit up and she started raising her eyebrows, smiling and cooing. Cutest thing ever :)  Love the relationship between a girl and her daddy!
• When she farts we call her Nacho because she sounds just like Nacho Liebre.  Seriously, sometimes I can't tell if it's her or Ronnie!  
• Tonight she got SUPER excited when she saw her bottle!  Her whole face lit up as I raised it to her mouth :)
• Coos lots and lots.  Melts my heart every time I hear her sweet voice!
• She gets hypnotized by the shower.  I can always get a shower in as long as I put her in her bouncer right next to it.  She'll just sit there quietly until she falls asleep, but wakes up as soon as I turn it off.  I'm definitely guilty of leaving it on after I get out so I can get ready.  It's a pretty awesome trick!

Our Girls :)

                         

                                         

Chloe is on the left in the top pic and on the right in the bottom...Avery is obviously the other one :)  What'd'ya think???  Do they look alike?  Definitely sister!

Christmas Day

She was a bit timid at first...

But then she got really into it

Love this face.  This face says Christmas to me :)

Teacher Chloe

The girls in their jammies and Chloe's special new backpack

My Santa babies :)

She found baby Jesus first thing when we got to Grandma's house

The cutest little conversation ever :)

The LeBaron boys and their electronics!

Too hilarious not to blog....

Finally made it to my parents house

Having all of our family live in town means we have a VERY BUSY Christmas day!  Busy in the best, yet still exhausting, kind of way- especially since we just added Avery into the mix! We started our morning around 7am by waking up Chloe to open her presents-hopefully that only happens for a couple more years!  I love the excitement of Christmas morning!  She was pretty bleary eyed at first, so I had to point out all of her presents and get her started on her stocking, but after that she was all over it!  After each present she would sit and try to play with it, but we had to push on so we could open all of them before heading over to my parents house.  I think we I went a little overboard this year...she would've been perfectly happy just getting the first present she opened, which was a remote control car from Dad (one of the only gifts he picked out).  It turns out you actually spend more money buying gifts starting in September than in December...go figure!  It was also really hard separating gifts for her b-day and Christmas.  Anyhow, she got lots of new, more age appropriate toys (my way of justifying how much I got her), including a sweet easel and a backpack to tote all of her stuff around in.  Ronnie got lots of clothes (I know, boring, but he needed them), some cologne, and yummy treats and I got BOOKS, lots of purple skittles, and a paper shredder!  The purple skittle were a huge score, because they don't sell them in the big stores anymore :(  Ronnie found some at Maverick and bought 6 bags for me!  Definitely a favorite :)  Little Avery slept through her first Christmas!  We got done with presents and scrambled to get ready for church before going to my parents for a buttermilk pancake breakfast.  Alas, it was not meant to be and we sacrificed the pancakes for our sanity and stayed home so that we could get ready without being grumpy.  Church was lovely and brought the Spirit to our heart through music-it kind of made me wish that Christmas was on a Sunday every year!  Ronnie did great leading the primary kids in their songs (he's the chorister)!  After church we headed over to the LeBaron's to hang out with cousins and open more presents.  It was fun to see everyone with their new toys and clothes and just enjoy each others company.  Chloe had to go to the bathroom at one point, and after setting her on the toilet, promptly asked me to leave and shut the door.  I walked out and totally forgot she was in there, until Bonnie (mil) directed my attention to my bare bottomed girl playing the piano!  It was especially funny because I'd tucked the bottom of her dress into her collar so it wouldn't fall into the toilet.  Around 3 we headed over to my grandparents to celebrate with my mom's side of the family.  We had delicious food, great company, and played a short round of Settlers of Catan.  After that,we finally made it over to my parents house to hang out and open gifts.  My mom is seriously the best gift giver in the world and gave us some very thoughtful gifts, including some cookie sheets!  I've been living with just 1 forever and that's no good for making cookies! It was a wonderful Christmas and I loved spending it with all of my favorite people, especially my wonderful husband and sweet girls.  It was so awesome being on the parent end of Christmas :)