Avery update

Avery is getting soooo big!! She is now almost 11 months old and such a handful. Avery has now mastered crawling and is pulling herself up on everything. As you can see from the picture Avery pulled herself up on the baby gate at my parents house and it looks like she is in baby jail. She is now also climbing our stairs and falling down them (I only looked away for a minute and she came tumbling down). I guess thats part of learning, for me and her I have to keep my eyes on her ALL the time. You can also see her teeth in the picture. Yes that's right she now has 6 teeth, 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom. At the end of November her 1st tooth on the bottom came in and then they all started coming after that. So needless to say she's been a little cranky, but it doesn't seem to bother her much anymore. We've also had to baby proof our house. As you can see she likes to open the cupboards and pull everything out. Good thing this time it was only the tupperware and not the glass dishes.

In this picture you can see her hair is finally growing and getting darker. The other day I was finally able to put her hair in 2 pigtails. They aren't very long, but I was excited I can't wait until it gets longer so I can really start doing it. From this picture you can also kind of see she is now drinking from a sippy cup. She still gets a bottle at nap and bedtime, but for most of the day she likes water from her sippy cup, a sure sign of a big girl!!

In this picture you can see Avery eating her 1st dish of Mac N Cheese. She loves the baby food Mac N Cheese, but she didn't really like the regular stuff. She does however like mashed potatoes, grilled cheese sandwiches and Little Puffs baby snacks. She even feeds herself, it's fun to watch her try to find her mouth. What a cutie!!

In this picture you see Avery looking silly in her hat and gloves. She is getting ready to attend her 1st Winter Carnival at the end of the month in McCall. It will be so fun pulling her around in the sled and letting her play in the snow. We never seem to get much here in Boise so McCall should be a new experience for her.

I hope everyone is doing well I apologize for being such a blog slacker, but it gets busy chasing Avery around all day. How do you do it with more then 1 kid?? I will post some pictures of the house soon now that we're all moved in and settled. I do love all the extra space, but hate the cleaning that comes along with it!

Happy Anniversary!!

I am such a blogging slacker, things are just so busy these days and by things I mean Avery she is into everything, but I will talk about that later.
Kyle and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on Sunday while we were in Utah visiting our families. We got to go to dinner at the Praire Scooner on Saturday night and it was so delicious, I hadn't been there in a long time and had forgotten how good there au grautin potatoes are!! It wasn't anything to excititng, but for us a night out without the baby is good enough for us!! I just want Kyle to know how much I love him and how incredibly grateful I am for him. He is such a wonderful husband and father, I couldn't have asked for better. He works so hard for our family so I can stay home with Avery and I truly appreciate that because not all mothers get to do that. He is so amazing with Avery and she has him wrapped around her little finger. She is such a daddy's girl and loves to play with him. I am so blessed to have him as my husband and love him with all my heart!
HAPPY 6th ANNIVERSARY!!

MeRrY ChRiStMaS!!

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas, I know we did. Here are just a few pictures of our Christmas day. Avery didn't care to much about opening her gifts, more with playing with the paper that was coming off the packages. She did like the little toy train we got her though. It is suppose to encourage crawling, although she basically is crawling. It's more of an army scoot and crawl combined. I'm just glad she isn't crawling on her back and pushing with her head anymore, we thought she was going to break her neck doing it that way. I apologize for not blogging much lately, but we have been really busy with moving into our new house and getting things ready for Christmas. I will post soon about our family and my little Avery that is just growing like a weed. She already has a tooth and 3 more breaking through, it's crazy how time flys. Avery with her toy train, mommy and daddy gave her.

Avery on Christmas night eating her dessert from her Aunt Lindsay.

VERY, VERY MESSY!!!

In Memory of Grandpa Thompson

My Great Grandpa Thompson died yesterday at the great age of 100. He wasn't suppose to even make it through November let alone until his 100th birthday on December 2nd. What a trooper! And he truly was during the past little while as his health had been declining. He was doing fair until he suffered a mild stroke in November and lost control of his left side, something he feared deeply. But we all knew he really wanted to make it to 100. In October he had began to plan the big birthday party to celebrate his 100 great years of life, but it had to be canceled after he had the stroke. But that stroke wasn't going to stop him from making it to the big day and so he did. Truly a man of his word. I have such fond memories of my Grandpa and I am so glad that my daughter got to meet him. My grandpa told my dad that this was the 5 generation picture he was looking forward to the most (see the bottom picture). I can't remember a time when my dad wasn't working for or helping my grandpa whether it was taking care of the horses, fixing things at his house, or in the last days getting him into bed at night. My dad had such a great bond with him and loved to take care of his grandpa. I will miss my visits to his house each time I came to town. But he was such a great man and I will never forget that. If your ever in Roy and are by the Aerospace Museum look for the Thompson Gardens right there by it, it's dedicated to my Grandpa. You will be missed by all!! Avery with her Great Grandma Meenderink and Great Great Grandpa Thompson.

5 Generation picture. Me, my dad, my grandma Meenderink, Avery, and my great Grandpa Thompson.

HaPpY HaLlOwEeN!!

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween, I know we did. As you can see Avery was a pretty ballerina for her very 1st Halloween. We went to our ward party and had soup for dinner and then did a trunk or treat in the parking lot, then after we ran out of candy it was off to Nampa to visit Kyle's parents and neighbors to show off our beautiful ballerina!! Isn't she a cutie!! We got lots of compliments on her cute costume!!

This is my favorite picture. She is soooooo cute!!

Happy 50th Mom!!

This weekend my mom celebrated her 50th birthday!! We decided we would surprise her with a trip down to Utah to visit and celebrate with her. Me and my dad worked out a plan so that when we got there I would put Avery on the door step and my dad would tell her a "special package" had arrived for her. Well when she opened the door and saw Avery she started to scream she was so excited to see us, but mostly Avery!! It was so fun to visit with all my family and to be together to celebrate such a wonderful mother!! I love my mom with all my heart and am so grateful God sent me to her. She is so good to me and Kyle and even better to my little Avery. She loves that little girl to pieces and spoils her to death. She is such a wonderful grandmother and mother. I love you mom and I hope you had a fabulous 50th birthday!! Here is picture of my dad and Avery on my mom's birthday. We had such a great day just hanging out and doing a little shopping. What a great weekend!!

Here is a picture of my brother Lynn and his wife Tory and there niece Braylyn and nephew Denton and Avery in the middle of them. They feel like my niece and nephews some times because they love to come and visit my parents with them. They are the cutest and I'm glad they were all able to come and visit us while we were there.

Here is the birthday girl and her "special delivery". Avery loves her Grandma and her Grandma's yellow dog. We always love to go to Utah and visit. I LOVE YOU MOM!!!

House Update...

Sorry it has been so long since I've blogged, but things are getting busy with the house getting finished up and trying to get packed up for the big move. So this will be short, but I thought I would show you some pictures of how the house is coming along. Hope you enjoy, we really love how it is turning out, it's better then we expected.
This is a picture of the front door and the windows to the nursery. The stone turned out really good. Notice the speakers at the top left of the pictures. We had the electrician install into the whole house including the courtyard a high tech sound system so you can plug in your Ipod and listen wherever you are in the house. I 'm sure I will have a hard time learning how to use this. Here is a picture of the backyard and the covered patio. Avery already has a sand box to play in (not pictured), I can't wait for her to be big enough to play in it.

This is a picture of the living room. They were still working on putting the granite and mantle on the fireplace when I took the picture. We just bought a 46" flat screen to put above the mantle. It should look really nice after it gets finished and installed. The door on the side is going to be Avery's playroom/toy box under the stairs.

Here is a picture of my kithcen. This is probably my favorite room in the house. It turned out so good with the different color of cabinets. I LOVE IT!!

Tahdah...this is the front. We still haven't got a rod iron gate for the front, but we love how it has all turned out. In our subdivision they require you to have 18 shrubs/trees in the front yard. I think that is a little much since I don't have much of a green thumb, but let's just hope they make it through the winter.