Merry Christmas!

Up to your ears in trash!

While doing my daily internet surfing I came across an article on this guy that hasn't thrown garbage away for a year! Crazy huh?! Well it has basically changed his life and changed the way he does things (trash wise). I personally think its a little overboard since he kept even the things you could recycle. It got me thinking because it is crazy how much trash we go through every week! And our neighborhood doesn't have recycling so its bad.  Anyways take a look at his blog! Click HERE

My new little Niece Lily

Last night we finally got to see my little niece Lily. Our family was free of sickness and germs so we headed over to visit. Avery absolutely LOVED her! She was so interested and kept saying, "aww baby cute!"

Playing in the snow

All excited to play in the snow. Little did we know Avery wouldn't be smiling a bit later.

Avery's little patch of grass.

Avery, Jenna, And Taylor

Yesterday me and my neighbor decided we should take the kids out in the fresh snow. Avery had never been so we ran over to Target to get all the gear. She picked out her boots and was so excited to play with her friends.  We got home and got all ready, went and met our friends outside and BAM I find out Avery is petrified of walking, touching, anything with snow. YIKES! She screamed the whole way to the hill behind our house. Screamed while I made her try sledding down the hill and hated me the rest of the time. Only wanting our neighbor to hold her. We finally went to the bottom of the hill and the only way she would stand on her own was in an area that was cleared of snow. Hopefully next time she will be ok with it!

Sleepy Girl

Avery is struggling at taking her naps and decides a lot of the time to NOT nap. (Which drives me crazy!) She is slowly getting back into the groove but this picture we got when we drove home from Chris's dads house. She hadn't had a nap yet and she fell asleep in the car which is not the norm for her. Chris carried her in and she didn't budge. We didn't really want her to take a nap since it was 6:30 and she would be up all night if she did. Chris laid her down on he love sac and she still didn't move. Penelope cuddled up next to her and Avery slept for 30 min. What a miracle!

Black Friday

Our normal tradition is to put up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday) and I do all our Christmas shopping that day. I usually gather all the ads for black friday and head out early in the morning to hunt down all the deals for Christmas. This year was a bit different and we well me ended up putting up the tree the next week and Chris went out (ON BLACK FRIDAY mind you) for me and gathered up ALL our Christmas gifts. And the Christmas shopping was done! Can you believe it!? And all by my wonderful husband! Thanks Chris! Now every morning me and Avery come down stairs and she insists on turning on the christmas lights. She LOVES the christmas tree and is doing really well at not touching it which I am VERY surprised at.

Thanksgiving

Avery's HUGE Thanksgiving meal... She didn't even try any of it. What a shame!

For Thanksgiving we had my mom and Chris's mom over for the big feast. This year we went easy since I was really sick and ordered take out from Mimi's Cafe. It was sooo yummy! We had all the traditional yummy food even pumpkin pie and there was no slaving away in the kitchen. 

behind behind...

Sorry for the lack of posting but yet again I have become very sick and can't shake it of for some reason. Two weeks later and still sick. YIKES! (oh and I can't hear out of my right ear hurray!) So here is my attempt of updating out blog even though we haven't really done anything exciting except sit at home. Here is a cute picture of Avery on her Barbie 4-wheeler she got for her birthday. At first she was terrified of it then she warmed up to it and rides it everywhere!

My big girl

I can't believe how big Avery is getting! She is the cutest thing ever! Yesterday we went out and took pictures with Averys cousin Danica for our little tutu business adventure. It all started back when we did tutus for my sisters baby shower we had such a good response to that. My other sister was invited to a craft fair and sold a ton so we are in another this weekend. If it does well we may have a real tutu business. We will see what happens.

Avery's Birthday Bash

We had Averys birthday party last sat. and it was so much fun! We had tons a balloons everywhere along with all our friends and family. Thanks to all that came and celebrated!

We had pin the tail on the donkey and a pinata. It was hilarious because it took so long to break open the pinata and all the kids were so patient waiting for all the candy to fall out.

Avery's Birthday!

On Averys  birthday we had a grand ol time. She was in a great mood, which is always nice. We started the day with my mom coming over and going to Avery's fav place to eat...McDonalds.  We let her play for a while then off to take a nap. Later that night we met up with her cousins, grandma Sandy and grandma Allyn at Jump On It. Avery absolutely LOVES jumping pretty much on anything. Trampolines, beds, couches, the ground. So she had a blast epsecailly with her cousins Jaeden and Savanna! We came home after had cookies and opened a couple of presents. Avery's words were.. "oh! cool" to every present she opened. Grandma Sandy got her an electric barbie four wheeler. She thought it was pretty cool except she was petrified to ride it. Sad! But now we can't get her off of it! Happy Birthday Avo!

Would you hire Ave to do your painting?

Chris starting painting the basement this week and I thought hey there isn't carpet and nothing that could get ruined we should have Avery help! She absolutely loved it as you can see on our painted child. I got home from running errands and couldn't stop laughing at her white paint mustache. 

Avo's B-day

Hey all you friends out there! We are having Avo's b-day party next sat. and you are all invited! Let me know if you are coming. Its at our clubhouse. I didn't put the address cause I don't want any crazies tracking us down. (The news freaked me out about blogging and identities and stuff) 

Let it snow....

Can you believe the snow we had yesterday? I LOVE IT! Well I'll probably be sick of it in a few months when I want it warm again. But I just love when it snows. It makes everything all cozy and quite. Me and Avery watched it all morning. I can't wait to take her sledding.  I guess its time to break our  Christmas music.

Cornbellys

We were able to go to Cornbellys twice this year which was so fun! Me, Avery , and my mom went on Halloween then we went the next day with our friends McKell and Dan. Avery had so much fun. (As you can tell since she has a huge smile below)

I had to take my work camera and I absolutely love that I did because I got this beautiful picture of Avery's REAL smile!

She looks so tiny up on that chair. It reminds me of when she was just barely sitting up.

I cannot believe we got her to put her head through there!

Avery followed the pumpkin princess everywhere because she knew she had candy.

Cornbellys Day number 2!

Good ol slidin fun

Avery's new boyfriend Isaac

Halloween!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Halloween was so much fun this year because Avery could actually Trick or Treat! She went around putting her little treats in her bag and just loved it! We started off the day by going to Cornbellys with my mom (I will post those pics later). We came home got ready and ran down to pick up Chris from work. We went to Grandma Sandy's for Avery's first Trick or Treat stop and went around her neighborhood for a bit. Then we headed down to my sisters Sarahs to trunk or treat in her neighborhood. Now this was no normal trunk or treat! They had a haunted house, dance, food, movie and a hay ride! It was crazy fun and Avery had a blast hanging out with her cousins! Overall this was the best Halloween yet!

Avery with her Grandma Sandy

Waiting for some yummy candy

My nephew Jason and niece Stephie

Avery and her cousin Danica

A bath to clean off all the candy/makeup/yuckies with bestest cousins

Pickin Pumpkins

The day has finally come that we were able to pick our pumpkins! Hurray! I took my camera and we barely got this girl to smile; but she loved looking around at all the pumpkins! At times she was distracted by this huge jumping thingy at Cornbellys and this is the second time that we told her we couldn't go in :( sad. But tomorrow is the day she will get to jump and play all she wants!

Pumpkin Carving!

Finally! Pumpkins! It took two tries to go pick them but finally we have them and we stayed up all night carving away! It was so much fun. Chris went downstairs and came up with an array of power tools and saws. We googled our ideas to get pictures and started away. Surprise surprise when Lil Miss Avery didn't want to get her hands dirty. Every time she gets anything on her hands she freaks and wants to wash them so this time was no different. She did like watching though.

Avery and daddy

Ya Avery wanted nothing to do with touching that icky pumpkin insides.

Stephan and me carving away with power tools and knives!

Our pumpkin creations!

Chris's self portrait! hehe....We all thought it looked a lot light  dwight from The Office. But that was probably because we were watching a really bad slasher movie with him as one of the leading stars. Yikes!

Miss Avery's pumpkin. And what better than a George pumpkin.

And for me Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas! Hurray for pumpkins!

You may need earplugs for this one!

WARNING: turn down volume or else don't blame me its loud I was about to die on Tower of Terror! 

Chris made me video myself as I was falling down 13 stories in an elevator. You can't see much but you can hear me screaming my guts out!

YAY! for family vacations!

So I promised that I would write about our fam vaca. So here I am writing about it. We flew into California thursday night and hitched a ride in this awesome party van with snoop dog as our driver. Well it really wasn't snoop; but this dude literally looked exactly like him and sounded like him too! We got to the hotel and just hung out and relaxed, good thing we did because Avery decided she wasn't going to sleep at all that night. YAY! 

Friday we jumped on our FREE shuttle bus to downtown disney to meet my aunt and uncle. SURPRISE! my dad ended up meeting us there too. So we walked around and Avery enjoyed all the water features there. She kept saying, "water! water!" ps be prepared to spend mucho bucks to eat any sort of food. We spent 25 bucks just on breakfast; but it was sooo yummy!

Friday night we hit up the Halloween party at California Adventures! It was soo much fun we were all dressed up in our Halloween garb and got to trick or treat throughout the park.  They had Character throughout also and Avery thought they were so COOL! She kept wanting to butt in line to see them which is a HUGE step from last year when she would scream bloody murder if they would even look at her. 

The first ride we hit up was Tower of Terror. And of course Avery couldn't go on it so Chris decided he would go on his own. Me and Avery walked around outside where she met a monkey who she became friends with instantly and proceeded to scream, "MOSTER!" to everyone that had a costume on she didn't recognized. Chris came out of the ride of course all hyper from the adrenaline and said you HAVE to go on this ride. Now I have NEVER been able to go on Tower of Terror because for some reason every time I am around that ride (since it opened when I was twelve) it has been shut down! So the TERROR has been building for 12 years! And ya right I am NOT going on a ride by myself (for those of you who know me I don't like to do things by myself) let alone the Tower of Terror. Chris of corse had other ideas and proceeded to bug me the rest of the night to go on the ride. So all night I was shaking in my boots freaking out talking myself into going on this stupid ride! We walked around tried to go on Mosters Inc. (which broke down just as we were close to the front) and then I FINALLY talked myself into it. I went, shook a whole lot, screamed a whole lot, almost passed out on the ride since I was screaming so much, screamed some more and did it and did it all by MYSELF! YAY! I know I'm the coolest ever.

Saturday came around and we met up with Taunya's fam(chris's sista) and his mom Sandy and my cousin Liz. We hit up all the rides we could. Doing fast pass, baby pass, and multitasking rides so we didn't have to wait as long. The minute we got there we hit up the kids ride and the very second Avery saw the carousel she was like, "horsy! horsy now! so that was the first ride we went on. It was soo much fun this year. (Last year we went to Disneyworld with Avo and she sure didn't enjoy as much as this year) She would get to the front of the line and say "ride my turn my turn!" And we sure got a lot of laughs since Avery had to wear her monkey leash the whole time. But hey you try chasing a 2 year old in a crowded area. We have decided that this is going to be our family vaca every year. (Since we have done it 2 years in a row this time.)

Sunday we hit up our swimming pool for a bit since Avo is a little fish and had a blast Avery loved swimming with her daddy! Then we headed to the beach! Hurray! We walked around and shopped, ate dinner at this really cool fish place for Taunya's b-day, then Me, Chris, and Avery walked on the sand. Avery also loved all the birds. She kept saying , " duckies come here come here." And she would pat her leg.  Avery is like her mommy she absolutely loves the Ocean! She would chase the waves back and forth and run up and down the sand.  Then it was off to our airport. We were early so we took a cab to the mall, Avery passed out from exhaustion (which we all know is next to impossible for her to sleep anywhere but a quiet room) Then to the plane and finally 11:00 and we are home in our comfy bed cuddled up next to our puppies! 

So this our lovely family vaca, which I had a blast on and can't wait until next year to do it again!