Christmas Party

We took Avery to the NICU Christmas party today. They had fun crafts and face painting, this was his first time, and Santa Clause. He held so still while she was painting his cheek.

Avery was very interested in seeing Santa, from outside the room.

As soon as it was our turn to go in and meet Santa, he wanted nothing to do with him. Even though as we walked in to the party he went up so some random lady and asked, "Please, up".

SNOW!!!

It started to snow yesterday and snowed all night and through part of today. I decided to take Avery out and get the driveway shoveled... again. Also we could play in the snow. Avery liked to eat the snow, but that was just about it. He was not really interested in playing in it at all.

All the pictures that I posted have him with his mittens on, but he kept pulling them off and his hands were getting really cold, so I would put them on again.

Sitting on the snow is about as close as he got.

When we came in from playing in the snow Avery laid down in front of the fireplace and just stayed there. He is not too enthusiastic about the cold yet. I think, "Just give it a couple of years".

Thanksgiving

The first thing that Avery did on Thanksgiving morning was put his tooth through his lip. He was up on the bed with Jeremy, getting Daddy up, and ran to the end of the bed and tripped and fell into the foot board. It is a good thing that Jeremy is good with blood, as I am not.

While we were waiting for Jon, my brother, to show up, Jeremy got Avery to go to sleep. It was not a long nap, but he had had a hard morning.

The food at Shannon's was great, Avery didn't want to eat much, but it was the best turkey I have ever had!

Dance Dance Averylution

When I first saw him dance, he squatted down, got really still, and started shaking his fist. I thought he was pooping.
He has since become a much better dancer. After weeks of trying to film the fun, he would not let me video him. The camera would come out and he would stop. Finally all my persistence paid off, and he ignored me and the camera and just had fun.

What was I thinking?!?!

Earlier this year I offered to make the Christmas presents for the Young Women in our ward, as I am now the 1st Councilor. I had remembered seeing a really cute pattern in a book at someone's house. I picked up the book and thought, "this shouldn't be too hard". Ha Ha Ha. Who was I kidding? When I offered we had 12 girls. I am doing 20 pillows because we have had so many move in. I am getting really good at quilting and having my seams come out even.

Jeremy was very skeptical about them until he saw one of the finished (washed and stuffed) pillows. Now he says "WOW, those are really cute!". I is taking me about 3-4 hours per pillow, I do them in sets, so don't know exactly how long.

I think that I will not be so apt to volunteer next year. We will be getting quite a few more in to the YW and not many leaving.

So Sleepy

I have been in jury duty for the past two weeks, this is my third week, hopefully we will be done the first of next week.

One of the ladies in our ward offered to watch Avery while I was busy each day. This has been great, he has had such a fun time. The only problem is that she puts him down for his nap really early and he only takes a half nap. So by the end of the evening he is so exhausted that he can't even cope with any thing, he just screams. So today while I was making dinner he is sitting in the living room and looking at one of his books. Then all of a sudden, he starts to cry. I think that he fell back on to the wooden chest after he dozed off. So I held him for a little bit and put him on the couch. Then I proceeded to work on the laundry. When I came back to check on him, this is what I found. He got the other half of his nap today.

Friends?

It is sometimes really hard to keep Avery away from Jake. There are times when I wish that Jake would just give Avery a little pressure bite. Not to break the skin, but so Avery would leave him alone.

Avery is so tricky, he can already roll his tongue.

Happy Halloween!

Avery tried on his Halloween costume a couple of days early so that we could make sure that it fit. He loved it and did not want to take it off. Anytime that he would see it, he would grab it and ask me to help him to put it on. He is a horse.

So the big day comes and we are just playing around. Mom is putting away Avery's clean laundry, when I hear a giant thud followed by the "I am really hurt" scream. I run out to the living room and find Avery with his head on the mantle and his body in front of it. He must have been running and tripped and flew into the mantle. There was blood everywhere and Mom was about to have a hysterical break down. He bit both sides of his tongue and got his chin. Thank goodness for Shannon, whom I called and she calmly told me that all would be fine... It took a while, but Avery did finally calm down enough to get a drink and wash some of the blood away.

This is the look that says "Are you kidding me? Do you know how hot it is in here?"

Jeremy talked me into taking Avery around at the Trunk or Treat. He did not care about the things that were getting thrown in the bag. But he was loving the car that had the dancing skeleton. We stopped and danced for 10 minutes. I thought he would be scared of it, but he loved dancing with it.

Here are my boys :)

We had a friend drop these by.

Avery did not have a problem eating his, but Jeremy and I both had a little problem taking the first bite, they were actually quite tasty.

I was able to get some apples this year from the same place Jeremy and I have picked grapes from for the past three years. I wanted to get some apple juice. I thought it would be just about the same as the grapes. I had a five gallon bucket of apples, I did have to cut out the wormy spots, but it filled by juicer/canner. I was thinking that the same amount of grapes will give me 8-9 quarts of juice, so I should get that much from the apples. I talked to my Mother about why there was not very much, I had gotten three. She said to just leave it steaming and maybe it would break the apple pulp down and I could get some more. I had about 2 quarts of grape juice that had drained out of the pulp from the day before, I poured it over the apples thinking it would release more juice. I only got one more quart. I left it to steam and the water ran dry. In the process of putting more water in, I was in a hurry and did not put my gloves on, I poured the water in the hot pan while holding the upper parts and it turned into a huge steam cloud that enveloped my hand.

Eventually the entire portion from knuckle to first joint on my pointer and middle finger blistered. The skin came off the blisters when Jeremy and I dug all of our potatoes on Saturday. I could not get my ring off for four days as my finger swelled up so fast. My whole hand is looking much better this week.

The four jars of juice is all I got for all the pain and suffering. I also did get some fruit leather made from the pulp. Maybe next year I will try and find an apple press so I can get more juice out.

Happy 18 months!!

Avery turned 18 months on Saturday. I can not believe that he is getting so big. The time has just flown by. Today he decided that those little levers were kind of interesting, so he reached up and started flipping them. I wish that I had gotten the picture of when he got a face full of water, he thought it was so funny, that he went right back to flipping again. It is a good thing we have a lock on it.

He just got three teeth in this last week. A few weeks before, he got five teeth in, all in the space of about a week and an half. I guess he just wanted it over quickly.

I got the last of the tomatoes canned today, YEAH!!! I will still have some ripen, but not very many. It has been nice to have it hot so long, I think most of the tomatoes will ripen on the vine before it freezes.

The Berry Ranch

Avery and I went out to a pick your own pumpkin patch today while Jeremy went kayaking. We got to ride on a hay ride, I was hoping for horses pulling us, but it was a tractor. Someone made a smart remark that there were 90 horses pulling us, Ha Ha.

Here are the other kids that we went with. Their mother and I have been walking together in the mornings for the last month. We have been enjoying getting to know each other better, and our families.

While there we also had the opportunity to see and pet some animals. Avery was enthralled with the chickens, we got to pet a sheep and see some cows up close.

The kids are supposed to be able to carry their own pumpkin or you have to pay the adult price for them also, but I lucked out and didn't have to. Maybe the guy felt a little sorry for me. Avery did not really understand the reason we were out in the big field. He thought that it was just to walk around and get dirty, of which he did a marvelous job! I can not count the times that he fell over, he even slipped around in a smashed pumpkin for a bit before I came to his rescue.

After trekking through the pumpkin patch, not as far as most people were going, because Avery wanted to walk all by himself. I got the pumpkin below and carried it while holding Avery's hand, back to where the tractor ride picked us up, also Avery's pumpkin, as he was too tired.

I was worried that it would be a lousy day to go out as it was cloudy all morning, but it was sunny and warm while we were there.

New trick

Avery loves it when you clap for him after he does some thing. He started off stepping off the hearth at my friend's house, it was the height of one brick. The very next day he came home and started to try it off of our hearth. it is a good thing the hearth is surrounded by carpet, at times I wish the whole house (or world) was covered in carpet. He is now stepping off the steps going out the front door and out the back.

Two days later he decided that he would try his new learned feat and step off the wicker chair that is right next to the hearth, you can see it in the picture. That did not go quite so well. He fell sideways and hit the side of his head on the hearth. It left a nice goose egg and a blood blister.

Little Helper

I was putting the dishes away one morning, I was working on the silverware, when Avery went over and started to help. He stacked all the little dishes up in a pile, without any help. He will now help me get all the clothes out of the dryer and put them in the basket also. It may take a little longer, but it is fun to have a little helper around every now and again.

Jeremy's new bike

Jeremy decided that he wanted to get a motorcycle so that he could save money on gas (he has only been getting about 10 mpg). He let his Dad, Wes, know his plans and Wes started to look around down in Utah. He found one and he and Sean went to check it out. Sean said it was a good buy and you should get it brother. So Jeremy has Wes pick it up for him. The only problem was that it was in Utah and we are in Boise. He got it for a good deal because it had been in an accident. So last month we went down to pick it up and bring it home.

We started off at 4am on Monday morning, I was hoping that Avery would just stay asleep, he didn't. On our way to Kathy and Wes's, we stopped at Brandon and Jessica's for breakfast and a visit. Jeremy also got made up for the day.

It was a very fast trip as we had to be home on Wednesday. Jeremy worked on the bike with Wes almost the whole time, it needed some repairs so he could ride it home.

Here are the pics of the one he actually purchased, the other was given to him as a parts bike, he needed the headlight and some other things off of it.

Chase me

Avery would entice Koda over to his kennel by going over by it. He would then go tearing off across the room and into the kitchen or down the hall, with Koda right behind him. They did this quite a bit, it was nice to have an Avery watcher while I got other things done.

We had the opportunity to watch a dog for a couple of days for some friends. Jeremy was not that excited when he came home from work to find Koda in the back yard. Avery thought it was the best thing that had happened to him in at least the last week.

I am not sure if Koda is waiting for Avery to open the gate or checking out an odor.

Koda was very protective of "his space". Avery liked to see how close he could get. They had fun playing outside together.

OUCH!!!!

So I was trying to wait to upload any photos until all the bruises disappeared, but he is just getting them on top of the other ones. The two on the left side of his head were just getting to be yellow, until he fell again today and got two more goose eggs. He also fell in the dry grass and scratched his little face up. Of course, we have his 18 month appointment next week, maybe they will all be healed up by then.

Roseola

Now I know what was wrong.... Avery had a really high fever Tuesday thru Friday. Today, he broke out in this rash all over his head, neck and trunk.

Avery gets his groove on

While Avery and I were down in Arizona this summer, one of his cousins, Courtney, gave him a used phone. It plays some fun ring tones that Avery likes to dance and listen too. He will bring me the phone and then start dancing to the music... It was especially nice to see him doing this tonight as he has been running a 100-102 fever for the past 24 hours. He is trying to cut all the rest of his teeth in one fell swoop, OK, just six. He had three come out last week and three more are right there. He has been one hot, cuddly monkey today.

Making of the Maracas

Last week was the second week that Avery and I have been working on making some maracas for him. We are going out to Kortnai's house. Last week we did paper mache on balloons (I forgot the camera), this week we painted them, next week we will put in noisy things so that he can annoy Dad.

Here are Brittany and Jacob, the older with only his fingers dirty, they younger with a purple mohawk.

It is definitely past Avery's nap time, hence the half mast eye lids. He did have fun though. He was asleep before we hit the freeway, it is only five minutes from Kortnai's house.

When we got home, after putting Avery down for a nap, I decided to make an angel food cake. I was taking it to dinner out to Phillip and Kortnai's the next night. Obviously my pan was not big enough. I was glad that I had put the cookie sheet underneath, until it went over that also and started the whole house smelling like burning sugar. I guess that I need a bigger buntd pan.

It tells you to take it out and turn it over onto a bottle right out of the oven, it took about 3 minutes for it to hit the deck. It still tasted good, even Phillip who does not like angel food cake, had more that one bite.