Our House!

I didn't want to say anything till everything was final and now that it is, I am so happy to say that Adam and I are home owners! So excited!

Sunday Morning

I love that fall is finally here! This morning it was cold enough to have the blankets out and snuggle on the couch as a family. Weekends are the best! We love helping Avery explore new things and if you have a couch with detachable cushions and you have  blankets out one thing will lead to another and *poof* a fort! It was a hit! Avery loved it! I'm glad we got these memories on camera! Enjoy!

Cookie Pie

Dessert for tonight! Super easy recipe and fun to make! Thanks Pinterest! The link is below.

http://soozind.blogspot.com/2012/03/m-cookie-pie.html

16 Months

It is crazy how fast our little ones grow up! I remember when Avery was "pink and wrinkled and new." Now she is a toddler that is getting into everything and learning so much every day. I'm trying to take in every moment tantrums and all! One thing about Avery is that she definitely knows how to throw a tantrum, but I find with her that if you pick her up and give her a nice big hug and let her know she is loved then she calms down pretty quickly. A little love goes a long way. She loves to explore... if Adam or I are in the same room that is. If that's the case she will go through everything! I call it semi- independent :) Avery is so outgoing too! It doesn't matter what age the kids are around her she will go up and start playing with them. She's pretty sensitive to others around her, or at least to Adam and me. If either one of us has had a harder day than usual she picks up on it and tries to make us smile. She will be extra cuddly with us and she is usually not very cuddly normally. When Avery does cuddle though it's the best! She cuddles when she is very tired and will snuggle her head into your shoulder. I love it! She has such a sense of humor too! She will start laughing when we are laughing and she has the most infectious laugh! I thought she would end up growing out of it, but thank goodness she hasn't. It's this high pitched continuous giggle and if we are in public and she gets going, people always comment on how funny and cute it is. Adam has also made it his text message ring tone for me :) 

I seriously considered dedicating a whole post to the fact that she is off the bottle now. We introduced her to sippy cups a little before she turned a year old, but she was definitely not ready for them. I wasn't too worried about it till recently when she started using her bottle for security and comfort. She never took a pacifier or I think the whole process might have gone a lot smoother. Also she definitely wasn't very interested in food which had me worried as well. I'm happy to say though that she has been bottle free for almost two weeks and her interest in food has definitely increased and I have absolutely nothing to worry about there! I just love her so much and I know Adam and I are so thankful to have been blessed with our sweet little Avery!

 Just watching t.v.

 for some reason she loves getting in baskets!

 Always ready to go somewhere!

Little Helper

Avery is such a great girl and I love every moment with her! I even love her tantrums... after the fact of course :) She has such a fun personality and is getting to be such a good helper around the house. She helps pick up her toys and she loves helping me in the kitchen when she can. I am always prepared for a mess when she helps with meals, but that's part of the fun right?

Helping me with dinner tonight :)

You would never be able to tell from this picture, but she was actually having a good time. It's a treasure when we capture a smile on camera!

Splash pad!

The heat in Texas has been brutal all summer which is to be expected really. Luckily we have a few things around here to keep Avery cooled down while having fun. On Fridays I go to a play group with some women from my ward and we meet at the Woodlands splash pad. Avery was a little timid at first, but she has since fallen in love with going there and running around. She loves waiting for the water to splash her in the face and even runs right along to try and play with the older kids. She has no fear! She loves it so much it's not uncommon for Adam and me to take her there on Saturday mornings now! And it works for both of us because I can always count on her take a nice long nap afterwards!

This picture cracks me up! Sometimes the water is too fast!

Such a big smile!

What a cutie pie!

I had to add this picture! This is Avery lounging with her Daddy on the Fourth of July. She means serious business when it comes to her relaxing apparently!

Galveston

Adam, Avery and I went to Galveston today! It was super fun and free! It's always nice to find something free to do as a family and Galveston is only an hour and a half away from Houston, which is where we live. It takes a little bit more to prepare for even a trip to the beach when you have a little baby, so we started the night before. We packed sandwiches and a fruit salad to eat while on the beach and took a cooler for drinks. Definitely a lot cheaper than having to buy something at a restaurant. We bought a beach umbrella which was a necessity because Avery has such a light skin tone and we didn't feel like melting in the hot sun either :) Avery loved the beach (we went to California last month and went to the beach there. I'll post on that soon)! she loved just standing on the shore while the tide washed in and out and her feet sank slowly into the sand. And she loved it even more when Adam took her a little further out to jump some small waves. She would always clap her hands when the water splashed them! My favorite though, was when she would just sit on the shore and raise her hands up and squeal when the tide reached her and washed over her legs! We will definitely be making a return trip. We had so much fun!

 

Raising her hands while the shore reached her!

She gobbled that fruit right up!

Just another day

It can be very difficult trying to keep a one year old occupied in an apartment! I try to keep it interesting for her from the minute she wakes up to when she goes to sleep. A normal day for us is waking up at 7:00 and playing together with her toys in her room for the better half of the morning. After a while a little change in scenery somehow makes the toys interesting again, so we move to the living room with the same toys and play with them some more! She cracks me up! We have breakfast together and usually by 9:00 she is ready for a nap. By 10:00 or 10:30 we bring out some more toys including her walker, which she is pretty much a pro at! Adam and I are so excited because she stands by herself all the time, and you can tell the wheels in her head are turning to figure out how to start walking. I can usually continue getting my chores done for the day while she follows me around. By lunch time I take Avery out in the wagon so she can have some outside time and we check the mail together, something I remember doing with my mom when I was younger :) Shout out to Theresa my mother in law for the wagon, because she found this awesome one that folds up and is perfect for apartment living! I don't know how I would bring the groceries upstairs with Avery if it wasn't for that wagon! On nice sunny days Avery and I can go to the pool for some swimming! She loves the water! She is always tuckered out after the pool too, so it's always nap time after a nice swim. For the rest of the day it's more fun and games with my little girl and by 4:30 Adam is home and I LOVE seeing Avery get so excited when she hears Adam unlocking the door. She loves her Daddy so much! We try to keep ourselves busy and time usually goes by so fast! I love all my time with Avery. She is such a blessing!

                 





   Avery trying to put on my sunglasses! So cute!

                                         

She loves digging through all the grocery bags on our way up to our apartment.

I love our walks!

Avery turns one!

I can't believe my little girl is one! Time goes by so fast! I have enjoyed every minute of it though. And looking back on the difficult days, it turns out I have enjoyed those too. To celebrate we drove back up to Fort Worth to throw Avery a little birthday party with our families, and we loved it. It was low key and fun. We spent the morning running errands, getting the cake, some gifts and we even got Avery a pretty little birthday hat to wear, but by 1:00 she was not in the mood! We went without the hat...       I was really worried though that she wouldn't dig into her little cake we bought especially for her! She was hesitant at first, but she caught on quick. And we were able to get some really cute pictures!   Don't expect to see any smiles either, she was all business! Needless to say she took nap a after our little party :)  

She is just the cutest thing ever! I love her so much!

                                                                               

Our 3rd

Adam and I just celebrated our 3rd year anniversary on the 11th of April! We kept low key, but we still had a lot of fun. He sent me three roses while he was at work and after Avery was asleep we exchanged gifts. It wasn't till the weekend when we drove up to Fort Worth that we went out by ourselves. We had dinner and went to Barnes and Noble. I know! Crazy! We had a good time, because more than anything we just like to hang out and be with each other :) I am so lucky though to be married to my best friend! Adam really is awesome and I love him so much!

             Adam gave me a jewelry box from Pottery Barn that I have been wanting for forever!

                                                                        My Roses!

I got Adam this engraved clock. I wanted something that he could have in his office some day :)

                                                   awww, aren't we just the cutest?!

Easter

Things are finally starting to come together in the new apartment and so far Houston has proved to be not so bad. It's not DFW, but it's not bad :) Thing is living in the Woodlands, you have to know where you are going because everything is covered by trees, so needless to say, I am getting pretty good at making u-turns. And our ward here is pretty small, but on the up-side there are some younger couples with small children, so making friends should be easy! So this Easter was our first Easter on our own and we had a great day! Avery was a little small for Easter egg hunting so we just gave her a basket this year, although I must say I gave birth to her last Easter so it was going to be pretty hard topping that gift. :) The gifts were just practical ones with a little stuffed bunny for her to play with, not that it mattered what she got because she just loved playing with the Easter grass! These were my favorite pictures of the occasion.

                                  I love her smiles!

                                                      Such interesting grass!

So Excited!

Adam received the call today from NOV (National Oiwell Varco) offering him a position to work for their company! It's an entry level position as a Contract Specialist that he is expected to hold for at least a year and then he can start climbing that corporate ladder! We are also excited because this job is exactly what he needed to break into the industry. I am so proud of him! He worked so hard to complete school. Not to mention the fact that he worked full time during school to support us! He is amazing! Him accepting this offer does mean moving to Houston, Texas, but we have family there so it should be fun. And it means Avery will have moved twice already in her first year of life! Luckily Houston isn't far from Fort Worth (5 hours) and so visiting family and making it home for the holidays should still be very easy. Adam starts on April 1st, so we will be living with my sweet Grandma and keeping her company while she gives us a place to stay till we find our own place. I have to say living with family is going to be the thing I am going to miss the most. I never moved out of my house immediately after school and I enjoyed living with my parents till I got married. When we did get married, Adam and I lived with his parents and when we made the move to Utah we lived with his sister Alison which was seriously so much fun!  It will be an adventure for us, and I will keep you updated.  In the mean time you can revel in the fact that I actually started a blog :)