Birthday Quilt

My mom is the best! She made me the most beautiful quilt for my birthday this year. Let me just say she has only started making quilts just a couple years ago and even though she has always been a wonderful seamstress, she mastered the quilt thing very quickly! This particular quilt was a huge surprise because at least a year ago, I was watching a random quilt show one Saturday morning on PBS and I saw a flash of a quilt in the background hanging on the wall that I loved! I tried to tell my mom about it, but we could not find a copy of the episode without buying the DVD set of the whole season of this show! So we did, and she got to briefly see the quick seconds they showed this quilt I loved. They did mention the name of the lady who designed it, so unknown to me, my mom has been searching for the pattern since early in the spring! She said she searched and searched until she finally found the pattern online and ordered the book, then she began to make the quilt which took a while, but turned out BEAUTIFUL! I love it and never really thought I would actually get this quilt when I saw it last year! Thank you, Mom!!!!

Great-Grandparents

Avery is very blessed to still have 5 great-grandparents! Craig has one living grandmother, and I still have all four of mine. We recently went to Texas for a quick weekend visit and we celebrated mine and my sister Jenna's birthdays. We invited all the great-grandparents over for the party and I made sure to get pictures of Avery with them. She had a blast running in the sprinkler outside and eating one of her favorite summertime foods--WATERMELON! If there is watermelon around, don't count on her eating anything else!

Ultrasound #2

Well, here is our little peanut at 12 weeks. I guess it's more the size of a large lime right now. A little over 2 inches long. The doctor's appointment went great and everything looked good. The heartbeat looked good, too and we finally got to hear it for the first time! That was a big assurance to me. Even though you can see it beating on the ultrasound, it's nice to hear it with your own ears. We have the rudest ultrasound technician ever, so she acted like it was ridiculous to even try to look at the sex of the baby. I knew she would be like this, but I wanted to say, "IT'S MY BABY, I CAN LOOK AT ITS CROTCH IF I WANT TO!!" But of course, being the polite person that I am, I did not. So we will have to endure another 8 weeks of not knowing unless my mom can get one of her friends at her old clinic to do an earlier ultrasound on me which is what I am hoping for!! I know this picture if hard to make out, because our tech doesn't try to take time to get a good picture. The head is to the left and those little white spots above the forehead are the fingers of the left hand up by the head. Oh, no...maybe a drama queen. :) The body extends to the right and the legs are kind of curled up. Maybe next time it will be a better picture!! If this pregnancy goes like the one with Avery, I should have just a couple more weeks of nausea, but maybe it will be finished earlier!!!

Swimming Lessons

Here is a slideshow of some pictures from one of the days of Avery's first swimming lessons! 5 of us moms and our kids are going out to Craig's aunt and uncle's pool and we got a licensed swim instructor to come give us private lessons! It has been so awesome! Except the last two days got rained out, so we are rescheduling for next week. The kids are all 2 and under and Avery has done so well! We are teaching them to float, swim forward, grab the wall, go under the water and tons more. It is so much more information than I thought! I am learning a lot and Avery is having fun. It will be something I will have to continue to work on with her so she will be ready for big kid swimming lessons maybe next year or the next.

Potty Training!!!

Potty Training--Who ever thought those two little words could bring such stress and worry to a mom?!! Avery has been working on going on the potty for a while now. Well, I have put her on the potty and she has gone some over the past few months. But none of it was of her own accord. Well, my friend Amy showed me this video that was shown on the Today show and we followed it and it has worked very well so far! Here is the link: http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&vid=a322140d-86f4-4229-b223-b115fd97a9d3&playlist=videoByTag:tag:source_today+show:ns:MSNVideo_Top_Cat:mk:us:vs:0&from=MSNHP&tab=m17&GT1=42003

If you watch the video, it will show you what we did. It has been a little over a week now and Avery has been wearing big girl panties with only a few accidents during the first few days. She goes in the potty all by herself and I am so proud of her! This picture is from one day when I knew she needed to go. (Sorry if this is TMI.) #2's don't come very often, so I told her if she did #2 in the potty she could have one of Daddy's white donuts. (The powdered sugar kind that leave lovely sugar lips!) Well, that's all it took because a while later, she got her donut! We have gone to the store and restaurants and all except for one time so far, she stays dry! Yay for Avery! I just wanted it to happen sometime before the next baby comes, and hooray, it happened!!!!

Fourth of July!

Watermelon is one of Avery's FAVORITE foods! Usually I cut it up for her in bite-sized pieces and she has to lean over her plate so as not to stain her clothes. This is the first time she has gotten to have a big slice and just go at it! She loved it!

Cousins Avery (2) and Kate (1). They are only 6 months apart! Look how big they are getting!

The little kids were all decked out in their fourth of July clothes! They were so cute!

What a cute group!!--Ashley (9), Austin (6), Hayden (6 days short of 6), Ashton (4), Avery (2), and Kate (1).

Yes, we snacked all day long! Aunt Joyce is never without a good spread of food!

Bathing Beauty

This is how Avery watched most of the fireworks. She did do some of the popping things you throw on the ground, and a couple of sparklers, but she wasn't a fan of the loud noises.

The 4th of July was really fun this year! We went to the Friske's pool as usual (Craig's aunt and uncle), but Avery got to have ALL of her cousins there this year! Craig's brother Chad and his family came from Texas and the kids had a blast together! Not to mention, so did the brothers and their fireworks. You can see how much Avery enjoyed it. She had her hands on her ears most of the time, and after a while, we went in--I am not much of a fireworks fan! But we did have tons of good food, fun in the pool, and fun times with our family!

Big Bubble Bath

On this night, Avery got to take a big bubble bath in Mommy's tub! She loved it and thought she was really big stuff. She asks for one all the time now!

First Swim of the Year

When Daddy got back from overseas, he got an extra day off since he traveled on the weekend, so we went to Uncle Gary and Aunt Joyce's house to swim! They have a great pool, and Avery wore floaties for the first time! She did great, and in no time, she was doing a lot of it by herself! She even jumped off the side by herself and no one had to catch her! What a big girl!

A Visit at Nona and Pop's

There is a great patch of sand where Avery loves to dig!

What better way to learn where some of your food comes from than the actual source! (and corn on the cob is one of Avery's all time favorites!)

this is about the best smile for the camera I can get these days. I have to say "show your teeth" and this is what I get!

Well, as most of you know, Craig was just out of the country for work for two weeks recently. The first week we stayed here because we had VBS, but my mom came on Wednesday and took care of us until we all left Saturday to go to her house. We stayed with my parents for a full week, and it was so wonderful to be taken care of the whole time! It was busy because we had my mom's VBS that week (we were so worn out!), but Avery always has a great time at Nona and Pop's house because there is so much for her to do there! She feeds the horses with my dad every night, and they go down to the pond to feed the catfish afterwards. She runs around and plays in the dirt outside and rides her little car up and down the driveway. This time she swam outside in the new pool/sprinkler thing that Aunt Jenna bought for her. Also a new thing was we got to help pick some things from Nona and Pop's garden. We got to shuck corn and see potatoes and beans from the garden. Avery loved running up and down the rows of corn because she was hidden behind the tall stalks. What a great place for visits to your grandparents! However, we were SO glad when Daddy finally got home! We picked him up at the airport about midnight last Saturday night and Avery ran to him yelling "DADDY, DADDY!" while all the people in the airport looked at us, and I could not hold back my tears. It was sweet. (I know, I'm so emotional with this pregnancy!)

Chef Avery

OK I know it has been a long time since I have posted and I was doing so good at keeping up! My only excuse is that the exhaustion and nausea are really getting to me and it is hard for me to keep up with normal daily activities and chores! I am praying that this part of pregnancy will be over soon, but in reality, I probably have another month of it at least. Pray for relief!

Anyway, here is my little Chef Avery after I found an apron, oven mitt, and hot pad set that all matched. She was particularly excited about the oven mitt! Just like Mommy's!!