It's Just a Phase...

I can't believe our girl is 14 months old. We went to a restaurant the other night and for the first time she acted up. The whole time. She's whiney. She spits out her food. She's climbing. She's just plain ornery right now. As much as some of it...okay, most of it annoys me I know it's just a phase.

She's been practicing eating with a fork and spoon lately. She loves it. It makes eating take a lot longer but it keeps her happy.


David starts school on the 9th I believe. I think we're both kind of nervous. I know that people make it through school though in much tougher situations though. I think it's just going to make for some long days for the both of us. Man, we're kicking ourselves for not finishing when we first went. I need to get back too. I'm soooo close to finishing. Although I have no plans to use a degree anytime soon (we all know that things can change in the blink of an eye though) it would feel good to have that Bachelor's degree--finally.

Nothing else going on around here. Life is awesome with the people below us moved out. It's going to stink when someone else moves in. David was supposed to have a guy buy A LOT of stuff on Tuesday from him but the guy has apparently bailed. That's been a bummer.

Happy Friday! I love Fridays!

Good Times

Although our Christmas trip to Oklahoma was very short, we had a good trip. I COULD NOT have asked for Avery to behave any better than she did. She is such a good traveller! She didn't cry at all in the car on the way home until we were about 2 hours from home.

Here's Avery hanging out with her Grandpa. I was inside but David said she is definitely his child...he said when my dad started up his motorcycle that she was across the yard and looked up and came over to the bike when she heard it.

Avery definitely had the most presents under the tree.

This was Avery on the way to Oklahoma. We got to the hotel late and didn't get to bed until probably 2 and then she wanted to play. By morning time, she was a tired girl :0)

It's good to be home and back to normal though. Avery's enjoyed playing with her new toys and looking at her new books. My tree is still up, I'm holding on to Christmas a little longer. I'm so happy we had Avery this year. She makes everything better. I still can't wait until she's older though so I'll have someone to enjoy this time of year with!

Oklahoma Bound!

I noticed the other day that Avery has finally cut her 1 year molars on top! I don't know about the bottoms. Now if she'd cut her right tooth on bottom next to the 2 middle ones...I know, I'm real technical :) She's lopsided.

Her hair is growing into a mullet. I don't want to cut it though because I want her hair long. As long as I pull it up it doesn't look like one as much :0)

We are officially going to Oklahoma. I kind of figured we would. I just had to wait on David! I figured it would work out, usually does. I'm excited for the family to see Avery. She has become such a big girl. I'm really excited for David's brother to meet her for the first time too!

It's going to be interesting to ride that long in the car with a 13 month old. I'm going to pack the DVD player and go to the dollar store and pick up some cheap toys that will hopefully entertain her since they'll be new. Snacks too, they make everything better!

The next few days are going to be jam packed! I have soooo much to do!!!

December 18, 2011

Avery now loves to go around and draw on everything so the pens are put away...usually. I'm finding her drawings on all kinds of things. So I had the idea to just tape a big piece of paper down and let her have at it. She liked it for a while and then she was over it. I think I liked it more than her!

Avery got to try some chocolate chips and she loved them. She kept going into the kitchen and tried to climb the cabinets to get more.

Avery and her daddy reading a book. When her hair is down she looks like a ragamuffin.

She has a scratch under her eye that she did to herself and then she accidentally hit her head on her dad's and now she has a bruise on her forehead so now she really looks rugged.

She's getting really difficult to get pictures of. She usually will not look at the camera and if she does it's a silly face. I'd love to get a picture of a good smile but someday...

We're hoping that everyone is gearing up for a lovely holiday!

December 14, 2011

I know I've posted a lot of pictures of her watching her DVD's but she just looks so big to me when she's doing it that I keep taking pictures. Plus, she likes it when I wrap that blanket around her and put the dog next to her so I had to take a picture of her looking comfy.

Avery's great grandma sent her this hat and a few other things. We had to try it on and I think it's so cute on her! I am posting all of these because I think all the faces she's making are funny.

I went to the chiropractor on Friday and had some x-rays taken. David, Avery and I went back last night to go over them with the dr. Geez, I found out I have a pretty bad back. My neck curves the complete opposite direction than it should be (it curves forward). The doc said it's due to some trauma, like whiplash. I've never been in a bad wreck so I'm not sure where I could have done it. He said it could go back as far as when I was a baby and fell. It formed scar tissue keeping my spine curved forward. We've got to loosen up that tissue and realign my spine in my neck. This should help my posture which I'm super glad about. I did know about this though from when I went to the chiro in OK.

Then he showed me how my spine curves toward the right. I also have a small degree of scoliosis (which I already knew about). My spine is really misaligned where the nerves are that lead to my gall bladder. Thankfully I've had no noticeable issues.

The reason I went in though is because my lower back has been killing me. That would be because I'm pinching my sciatic nerve. He said that my lower back has been that way for years. He was surprised at how bad it was for how young I am. :/

The good news is: he can fix it. Bad news: I might have to sell my house to do it :)

The cool thing is this place is also a wellness clinic. He has a lot of cool things to do to help improve my over all health but unfortunately I only have one house to sell. It's really amazing how much money he must think I have laying around! So, I guess the correction process is going to go slow. Real slow. Oh well, it's better than nothing.

I was glad that David came and saw the x-rays with me. That way he sees I had good reason for all the grimacing I've been doing lately :0)

We've all been sick lately and it just won't go away. I've been trying to steer clear of chemicals in my cleaners but yesterday I finally went and got some stuff to sanitize this house. It has been ridiculous. I've never had this happen. Hopefully we'll all kick this crud!!!

That's all that's going on around here.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

I've learned some lessons in tree decorating this year. I have had a heck of a time finding more white lights so I had to un-string the ones I put on and spread them out to fit the whole tree. So I don't have as many lights as I wanted but the tree is done. I was beginning to think I was going to have an undecorated, half lit tree on Christmas morning. So first lesson: buy a lot of lights. More than you think you'll need. Lesson two: buy more ribbon than you think you need. I bought that ribbon 4 years ago (or so) and am just now putting it on my tree. I guess I could have bought a smaller tree. I need to get more ornaments. I didn't have enough to go around the whole tree :0)

I have always wanted a color coordinated Christmas tree. I bought ornaments a few years before we moved to Idaho and I've never had a chance to use them. This year I got too! I know the stuff on my mantle is random so just ignore that stuff. And I love my nutcrackers down by the fireplace. I still need to get a tree topper.

Avery loves the Baby Einstein DVD's. I know I've mentioned that already. She's getting better about not pushing the buttons and stopping it.

It took Avery quite a while to even notice the tree in the living room. She's barely messed with it. She did break an ornament on it last night though. I'll just glue it back together.

David has been sick this weekend. We have had the hardest time kicking this bug or virus or whatever it is. Avery's been sick since Thursday. She's better. I got some homeopathics for her and I think it's really working. Her green snot cleared right up. Her nose is still running some but it's clear now. She's had a dry cough that now is wet sounding but I think she's been on the mend since I started giving her the homeopathic medicine.

She's been waking up alot lately. I think I may go insane from it. Good thing she wakes up in the morning all cute and jabbery!!!

We got her to say "daddy" the other day. She will not say any real words at all. She says "bye" still and that's it. She jabbers but won't repeat anything. Within the last week we've got her to start blowing kisses. That's cute. Instead of saying "mwah" when she does it she says "bah".

Avery and I went to the chiropractor on Friday. I haven't been adjusted. We all have to go in Tuesday evening to see my x-rays. My back is REALLY out of alignment. And he tested my adrenal glands and they're sluggish. So I think we'll address that issue too. About 2 weeks ago I did something and my back has been feeling pinched ever since and is making it difficult some days to move. I'm excited to get in alignment!

Well that's all that's going on around here which is obviously not much. I'm finally better, now we're just waiting on David and Avery to kick this crud.

A Few Pictures. Enjoy.

My new Christmas tree! I got it for a great price and I'm loving it!

I was really annoyed last night because I've been wanting to get a new tree forever and so I finally get one. Well, I get some lights for it and of course I didn't get enough. I was stuck at home yesterday because David accidentally took my car keys with him to work. So yesterday evening we went to get more lights and OF COURSE Wal Mart is out of them. We drive across the street to Lowes and I grab some and what I thought was one of those extension cord things with extra outlets. I get home and plug in the lights and they worked so I excitedly finish stringing lights. Then a few minutes later they started blinking. I hadn't paid attention and bought twinkling lights. Then I realized my extension cord was just that...an extension cord but no extra outlets. So my tree is still half lit and bare. Something's working against me here! I did buy a nice lit garland for my mantle though :) And it's lovely!

I thought my fellow Okies would get a kick out of this Wal Mart. It has a parking garage. These are the escalators that go to the top floor (because we parked on top of the garage). It has a conveyor belt for your cart. They also have huge elevators for your carts. Isn't this wild? There's not one like this in Oklahoma! This Wal Mart is the most craziest Wal Mart out there I think. The people you see here just make you laugh and scratch your head. It's the kind of place that makes you hold your purse a little tighter.
David got a $100 gift card to a local restaurant from his work. Avery is SUCH a big girl! She's watching the football game, drinking her water. When did she grow up?
This is Avery waiting to go in to the Festival of Trees. We were waiting for David to park the car. She would not look at me. Of course.
Avery was up 6 times last night. She's acting fine this morning but she's got a runny nose and a hoarse sounding cough. I'm hoping she doesn't get a sore throat like her Dad and I have had.

We've got a lot to do today. We'll see if Avery's up to getting it all done!

1 Year Photos

Well, I got Avery's one year photos in the mail today. Honestly, I'm not loving them like I did her last set. But I think that comes along with getting pictures done. She wasn't doing any big smiling that day although she was happy. I'm still happy that I got them done.

I'm frustrated because I can't get my mac to read the disk that the pictures are on and on my laptop I can't see the screen to get them from my laptop. I was finally able to load them to an online album from the small window on my laptop so that I could view the online album on my mac. Talk about frustrated!

And I'm especially {kind of} bummed that her tutu pictures didn't turn out as cute as I was hoping. Eh, oh well. She's still a cutie!

A Few Pictures

Here's the little DVD player that Avery loves to go in and turn on and watch her Baby Einstein DVD's.

She's excited because she knows she's about to get a bath.

I swear Avery could be a mile away and hear the second I open the dishwasher so I turned on Baby Einstein for her and it totally kept her entertained so I could load the dishwasher.

Look at Avery's cute new boots.

Avery was playing in her room and came out with this:

Warning: Vaccine Rant!

I can't believe it's already December 1st. Christmas is just weeks away. I'm hoping to go to the Festival of Trees this weekend which is a fundraiser that raises money for a local children's hospital. I think they have around 700 trees! I can't wait until Avery's older and enjoys the holidays! It'll be so much more fun!

The news said we're having a freak wind storm. It is SO windy. I can't believe how windy it is. It made our power go out for about 3 hours. It got cold.

Ok, I need to get this out and since this is my blog, I'll do it here :). I've been thinking about vaccines a lot lately. And yesterday Dr. Nancy Snyderman was on the Today show and she called unvaxed children "walking Typoid Mary's" and said that parent's who don't vaccinate are "selfish and irresponsible". Why are parents who vaccinate their children so scared of children who are not vaccinated? Why aren't they afraid of the adults who haven't been vaccinated since childhood and have no so called "immunity"? If your kid is vaccinated, shouldn't you feel they're protected? Isn't that why a parent vaccinates? How come no one on mainstream news mentioned that the whooping cough outbreaks in CA and elsewhere were outbreaks among vaccinated children? I've been watching alot of headlines that are showing how the government is trying to force us to vaccinate. That's insane.

Here's what freaks me out about vaccines: Ian's voice No one knows if this will happen to their child. The government has the National Vaccine Injury Compensation program. It paid out billions last year. If vaccines are so safe then why did they pay out that much? I think it's no coincidence that SIDS, asthma, allergies, autism, ADD and other chronic illnesses are all on the rise. It doesn't seem normal to me to put vaccines in my child that cells from animals in it. What does that do to our bodies??? How about vaccines cultured in aborted fetus cells? It seems more natural to me to fight an illness than to fight what all the animal DNA and neurotoxins are doing to our bodies. I am seeing how this money driven industry is purposely making us sick to continue making money. I won't get into the other stuff I read :)

Ok, so I normally try to keep this stuff to myself but it freaks me out that someday maybe I won't have the choice to make decisions for my family. What is right for some, isn't always right for others. Sometimes I feel in my gut that if I had continued to vaccinate Avery, something would have ended up terribly wrong. It just feels SO wrong to me to do it. The more I read about it, the more confident I am that it isn't right for us.

I think this lady sums it up nicely...you can read it here.

Sorry for the rant :)

Nov 30, 2011

We're steadily selling things off. It's a big relief...financially and in the fact that David will no longer have to haul around so much stuff. I can see the weight lift from his shoulders.

I got two teasers from the photographer today. Though the pictures are adorable, I'm excited to see the others. David asked why she took the same pictures as last time since she's wearing the ruffle diaper cover with no top and the pearls. I only took 2 outfits for her so I didn't care what else we did after those outfits were used.

My girl melts my heart every day. We are so blessed with such a sweet, healthy, smiley, loving girl. Some days I just can't believe she's mine :)

Today Avery and I drove to Franklin, ID to get her one year pictures done. We're a month late but that's okay. I can't wait to see them. She fussed the whole way there (it's almost a 2 hour trip...well depends on who's driving). She was perfect and smiley and laughing while getting her pictures done and then fussed the majority of the way home. It wasn't the most pleasant drive.

She's been really...I don't know. She's happy but easily set off I guess you could say. She cut a tooth but I haven't checked to see if anymore are coming. She's been doing this chihuahua yap thing again (she was doing it and then stopped) and it's horribly annoying.

I've been very thankful that she hasn't had many injuries. On Sunday though, she busted her lip (not bad though) and then fell in the living room and bit her lip. It looked like she had bit through it but she didn't. Then yesterday after she was done eating she poked herself in the eye with a fork. That kind of freaked David out but she was fine. Maybe she was trying to keep from having her picture taken :)

I am hoping that the next person/people who move in downstairs are not video game players. The guy has friends over and they play some game. I'm so thankful David is not into video games!!!

Avery was 13 months old yesterday and she was bigger than the photographers 17 month old little girl. I've discovered she doesn't care for oatmeal. I think she might eat the steel cut kind that I have but not the flavored instant kind. Not that I'm upset about that. The kid will eat boring cream of wheat (farina) but not flavored oatmeal. Silly girl. She's got some new shoes and at first she wouldn't walk in them. At. All. But I put her outside and that was enough motivation to get her walking. She likes her shoes now.

Tonight she opened and turned on this little portable dvd player and started watching a Baby Einstein video. She was just laughing and talking. Cutest thing ever.

If you tell her "let's take a bath" she gets all excited and goes straight to the tub. She loves bath time. She understands going bye bye too.

Well, David seems to have caught what I have had for what? 4 weeks now? But of course he seems much...worse...:)

That's all for now!

Picture Catch Up

Thanksgiving day 2011

We like playing with the tea pot.

Avery's helping dad set up the table for Thanksgiving.

We finally set up our desk top. We've been busy selling stuff today. David is selling a lot of his tools and equipment. We're trying to get ourselves to a good spot financially. Today he sold his beloved welder and air compressor. Someone's coming later to look at the Chopasaki. It's tough but it's for the best.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, my computer is on it's last leg. It's been acting up tonight and then even more of the screen started acting up and now I can't see more than half of the screen. :/

I was going to post pictures but I can't see them to see which ones to post. Except for my stuffing picture.

We had a good Thanksgiving. Our friends Zac and Jocee and their 3 kiddos came over. We split the cooking and it all turned out so good.

I ended up with stuffing and gravy. I've made stuffing once before though. Since I didn't have any pan drippings for the gravy, I bought some turkey legs and roasted them and used those drippings. This was the first time I've made gravy...besides breakfast type gravy. And I have to give myself a pat on the back because it was good :) My stuffing turned out good too. I was pleased with the flavor. I made my gravy yesterday and my pies yesterday so all I made this morning was the stuffing and warmed up the rolls. I'm glad I did it that way, it made things easier.

David was going to deep fry a turkey but we realized the fryer was in storage in Preston so he had to smoke it instead. It turned out awesome! It had great smoked flavor and we put apple juice in the pan too. It was moist and beautiful. Once he smoked on in his other smoker (we used the electric this time) and the turkey was black as coal. This one was perfect in color.

Of course we have a lot of things to be thankful for this year. I'm thankful we've been able to watch Avery grow up and I'm super thankful for David's new job. It's made things so much easier and we're getting ourselves set up for a good future. It's really exciting. I'm thankful we have friends here in Salt Lake. It's made things nice to have a friend to hang out with.

Now I'm getting excited for Christmas. Ok, I was already excited. I'm so looking forward to when Avery is older and she enjoys Christmas! It's going to be so fun to see her on Christmas morning. I've been getting ideas for traditions we can do each year to help keep the season Christ centered. I'm really excited to implement them. I want Avery to grow up remembering family things like that.

New Video

New Video is up

David thinks this is just totally gross :) She loves them though!

She liked the spaghetti!

The girl who lives below us stayed home from work today. I didn't know this until she decided to blast her music at 8:20 this morning. I'm positive it was because Avery and I were being too noisy. Oh well. Was I supposed to wake up knowing she was home? She blasted it until after 12. Thankfully you couldn't hear it in Avery's room so it didn't bother her sleeping.

I emailed my landlord asking him if he knew for sure when they're moving out. He said no. Bummer. I was hoping it would be mid December like the girl said but looks like it's going to be January. Ugh!

David's working late tonight so I'm going to go play with my girl.

Well, other than the lovely people who live below us, moving to Salt Lake has been AWESOME!! David's new job is such a blessing and the future is looking bright :)

II'm thinking it's about time to go to the doctor. I've been fighting this crud for 2 weeks now. David was sick a while ago and has a sore throat tonight. It's my ears and tubes that are hurting me though. I can't seem to shake it.

Avery's getting to be pretty rotten. We went to a new church on Sunday and I got paged to come to the nursery because she was hysterical. It was sad.

She's driving me nuts with the way she messes around when I feed her. She pretty much pulls everything out of the back of her mouth. She's a little finicky. I'll feed her something and then before she's done with it, she's acting like it's gross.

She's still sleeping horribly. That got old about 8 months ago.

Avery got a little tea pot and tea cups for her birthday and it's so cute because she'll take the pot and pour you some tea. It makes noises like it's pouring too. I think it's so cute. Every animal she sees a picture of she growls.

Well there's not really anything going on around here. I'm excited for Thanksgiving. I wish we had some fall decor but I'm on a strict budget so no extra spending. Some day...

No! You may not take my picture!

Ok, just one.

Must...get...computer...

Chick-fil-A

Cick fil A finally opened near my house and so Avery and I had to make an emergency stop there today! I just can't get over how big she is. Where'd my baby go?! Here she is eating some nuggets :)



She liked dipping her nuggets in BBQ sauce!

Grrr, last week when the girl downstairs and I spoke we had a...I don't know what you'd call it. We didn't fight, it wasn't really a "heated discussion" but it was maybe a slightly "heated discussion".

Basically the issue is she's mad they lost the driveway even though they knew it was coming. In fact, they rented the freakin' basement without the driveway. So, because she's mad about it she informed me that I could take out the trash in the mornings. They had been putting it out and I was putting it up. Ok, it doesn't really matter who does what. What makes me mad is she's only switching who does what because she is being petty since she's mad about the driveway. The trash cans are rigght by their door so they could still easily put the trash out. But I "can put them out since I have the driveway". Um, ok. So I asked her if they were going to put them up and she said if my car wasn't in the way.

This is where I got mad.

The discussion went downhill from there. I smarted off. She accused me of being mad for having to do my fair share. When I've been doing it all along...

Then she went on to say the she didn't think it'd be a big deal (switching the trash) since they were losing the driveway and she's never complained about the noise. Whuck? Who sent me those texts complaining about the noise then? So I reminded her that she has complained. More than once. She said I would too but since it's an old house she has understood. I would hate to see what she's like when she doesn't understand.

Anyways, so we've been putting out the trash. Well, we have three bins. One for trash, one for recycling and one for yard waste (branches, leaves, etc.). We put out the trash one and the yard one. They put up the trash one but not the yard one. Can a person be any more petty? When she accused me of being mad for having to do my share, since it's only fair she says. I told her I wasn't mad about doing my share I was mad that she was being petty. And THEN they do this. Really? Because you weren't technically the person who used that particular bin, you can't put it away? I would like to insert some not nice words here but I won't.

For the last 2 months, when she has complained, I have bent over backwards to comply and keep the peace. For the first 2 months we have left every Saturday and Sunday morning so as not to bother them. But of course they don't realize any of that. I have tried to be nice. David even said I was being too nice! Well, I'm over it. They. Need. To. Move.

I do not like those people, particularly the girl. She is so unpleasant. I wish I could turn back time and have never entered into her life. My life would be better for it. Come on January! They're supposed to be out by then!