Little Miss Avery

She started sitting on her own this week. She still wobbles a bit and falls down, but at least she is able to entertain herself a little more. She likes to grab toys out of her toy box. I can't believe she is already six months old. She looks so much older sitting up on her own. ( I bought this cow outfit with my friend Teresa in mind. She loooooves cows! :)


This is an outside baby. She could be screaming her head off and as soon as I step outside she stops. I have feeling we will be spending a lot of time outside this summer. I need to stock up on sunscreen and baby hats. We need to keep her little red head covered up!

Poor Avery. She always has bed head. This particular day was one of the worst. Her Donald Trump hair just flies around and gets twisted until it's sticking straight up. I meant to post the other picture we have of her hair, it shows her little mohawk a lot better.

My little nut balls. I came into the living room and found that Grace had put her headband on Avery's head. Avery was giggling and playing like it was no big deal. These two just crack me up. It will be interesting to see what they get into as Avery gets older.

May Flowers

Grace is so proud of her flowers. Mom and Steve came over last week and we went to the farm stand down by our house. Grace just went to town picking out flowers. Of course she wasn't looking at price tags, she just picked the ones she liked. Her Nana spoils her! I think they did a good job of planting everything. The flower bed was already here, they just had to add the flowers.


This is her little cottage that she painted in November. Her Grandma and Grandpa gave it to her as a big sister gift. She waited all winter to put it outside. I think it looks really nice with all the flowers.

She got this little bunny at Wal-Mart. Mom and Steve took her to get some planting supplies.

I'm glad Steve knew what he was doing. I've never planted anything before, and I don't know if I would have put the effort into planting flowers. But I'm glad they did because it made Grace so happy. She has been watering them everyday. (You can't see it, but Steve has a band-aid on his thumb. Grace, in her typical hyper-hypo fashion, just started digging at the dirt without thinking and stabbed him with the digger tool. He's too nice to say anything, but I did. She cried. That's what I'm here for... to make her feel bad. I'm so mean)

Avery was a big help! She supervised and tried to drink Diet Coke. (Grace called it Nana Juice when she was little)

It was so nice to have them come out and pay attention to the girls. I got to go back to bed that morning and go through the girls closet. It's funny to see the things that make you happy when you have young children. Sleep and the ability to get things done without distractions. But I know that one day I will wish for those distractions again. But for now I will continue to appreciate when people come to visit and watch my munchkins for a while! :)

ABC's of Me

A: Addiction: Doritos
B: Breakfast (what you eat) ~ Cereal
C: Chocolate or Chips ~ Uhh... look at my addiction
D: Dessert or Appetizers ~ Appetizers :Outback Cheese Fries (but I don't eat them because they have about an entire days worth of calories in them)
E: Essential Items ~ Wallet, Diapers, Jacket (I'm always cold)
F: Favorite Color ~ Purple
G: Gummy Bears or Gummy Worms ~ Cinnamon Bears
H: Hometown ~ Brazil,IN (technically it's CenterPoint,IN)
I: Indulgence ~ Going to the movies with Scottie
J: January or July ~ July baby, I hate the cold!
K: Kids ~ Grace and Avery
L: Life isn’t complete without ~ Friends
M: Most exciting memory ~ My wedding day, and the birth of my two girls ( I was put out during Gracie's birth. But the next day was great!)
N: Number of brothers & sisters ~ 1 brother -Curt 1 sister- Kelsey
1 step-sister -Jill
O: Oranges or Apples ~ I heart apples!!
P: Phobias or Fears ~ I've got some weird ones, but one of them is being trapped in a fire. But what I'm really scared of is having my house catch on fire while we are away and Kingsley can't get out. I'm having anxiety just typing it.
Q: Quote ~ "Those who love are never alone." (I've had that saying on a plaque for years)
R: Reading currently ~ I got a free book from Mom2Mom a couple of weeks ago. It's called "Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This." It's a christian author who talks about the craziness of motherhood and how our relationship with God works through it all. She is hilarious. I'm really enjoying it.
S: Summer or Spring ~ Spring - not too hot, not too cold
T: Tag 6 People ~ Cali, Amber, Sara B., Tabitha (those are the only ones I can think of with blogs)
U: Unknown fact about me ~ I wanted to be a professional dancer, but was too scared that I would always be poor. Sometimes I wish I would have had the guts to go for it. (I actually had a prof. dancer see a video of me dancing in high school and wanted to know why I wasn't pursuing it in college. I thought that was pretty cool.)
V: Vacation I want to go on ~ England, Ireland, France (anywhere in Europe)
W: Walking or Running ~ I am not a runner!
X: X-Ray or Ultrasound ~ Ultrasound, I love to see the babies!
Y: Your favorite Food ~ Anything Italian
Z: Zoo or Bowling ~ Zoo, I think bowling is dirty. I hate wearing shoes after other people, and I'm always afraid of getting some strange fungal infection from using the balls. (I don't know.... don't ask)

Calgon.... Take Me Away!

I don't really like Calgon, but I really feel like that today. My only realible source of napping for Avery is gone. If I can't get her to sleep in her crib during the day I can usually stick her in the swing. I've noticed lately that it has been hit or miss with the swing and today it has entered a whole new level of frustration. My freakishly strong baby tries to sit up on her own and gets herself laying sideways in the swing, and then procedes to scream bloody murder. (Like she is doing right now while I type.) Do they make full body restraints for infants? ;) Just kidding! But seriously, I am at the end of my rope today. Scottie is still on his surgery rotation, and he didn't come home until 1 or 1:30 last night. Avery decided to stay up until almost midnight, and it took me from 8:30-10:20 to get Grace asleep. Needless to say there were lots of tears shed last night, and they weren't all from the kids. The crazy thing is that as we are praying for Scottie to find out what he wants to specialize in, surgery is the one that keeps coming up. He loves it a lot, but is hesitant about the time commiment. It's a five year residency, and they work you like a dog. A speaker at his school told his class that the divorce rate among surgery residents is around 75%. That should tell you had hard and time consuming it really is. I've been encouraging him to do whatever makes him happy, even if it's surgery. But after last night I'm not feeling so confident! I know that if this is God's will for Scottie, then He will help us through the rough spots that are sure to come. Maybe it will be better once Avery gets older. If not, I might just look into that full body restraint thing...

Happy Mothers Day!!!

I went to a Mothers Day brunch at my church on Saturday. They played this funny song by Anita Renfro. She said she took everything a mother says in a typical 24 hours, and made it into a song to the William Tell overture. It is so funny, and there are quite a few things in there that I say on a daily basis. Enjoy! Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers out there, including mine! :)

Sweet Sisters

I love watching these two together. They have such a neat relationship. Grace is so good with Avery, and Avery loves Gracie to pieces. Grace can make her smile like no one else can.


But sometimes Avery can get a little grabby and it can hurt! What kind of mother continues to take a picture even though her oldest daughter is crying from pain? To make it worse, I was actually laughing at her face. I really shouldn't admit things like that, but I'm just keeping it real. (I did free Grace from Avery's iron grasp and gave her some tlc.)



Grace isn't crying in this picture. They were having a good time on our big fluffy chair.

I love that Grace will play with Avery and keep her company. Grace spent the entire day at school on Friday. I was so excited to get a lot of cleaning done while she was gone. The funny thing was that I didn't get anything done until she got home. Avery wanted attention and I wanted to clean. But her shrieks and cries won out. So I waited until Grace got home to play with her and I got more done in 30 minutes then I had all day long!! I love watching these two build a friendship.

The other day I looked over and saw that Grace had dressed Avery up in her cowboy hat. It is never boring at our house. Grace is always doing something fun or crazy with Avery. I have a feeling we are in for a wild ride with these two! But I can't wait to watch them grow together. I'm so thanful that the Lord gave us two girls. I pray that they will always be close.

Food For Thought

Here I am getting ready to eat some cereal with applesauce. Don't I look excited and ready to go? Don't be fooled...


I hate baby food! I will only take three or four bites and then I'm done. I think my mom is started to get worried that I am going to nurse forever! But she told me the end is coming soon. I guess I should stop being picky and eat fruits and vegetables. I know it will make Mommy and Daddy happy.



Now, I did like the powdered sugared doughnuts my Nana gave me the other day.




They tasted soooo much better than that yucky rice cereal. I didn't really eat the doughnut, I just licked the powdered sugar.





I even licked my fingers clean. I know it's not good for baby's to have grown up food. In fact I had a little rash afterwards. So that is the end of my adventures in real food. I will have to wait until later!!

We've Lost Our Minds

Well... we are living without a couch or a kitchen table. We got a little crazy and sold them all in our yard sale. Recently we did some refinancing and did a loan through the Air Force, which left us with some extra money. Sooooo we bought a new couch, recliner, and kitchen table. The only problem was, all three of them wouldn't be delievered until the end of May/beginning of June. But since our subdivision was having a community yard sale we figured that would be the best way to get rid of our old furniture. Even though it's a little bit of a pain to be without these things, it was worth it to get the old stuff out of the house. We were able to get the recliner at a store in Peoria, so we have that. Plus we got an oversized beanbag/pillow chair.

One word : awesome! It is so comfortable. I can't wait until everything comes in a couple of weeks. I'll post pictures when we get everything. It feels good to have some real furniture, and we don't have to put it together from a Wal-Mart kit!! We are growing up!!