Avery Turns 9 Months

Avery turned 9 months on January 10th.  I was waiting to update everyone until I had Avery's 9 month stats from her doctor's appointment, but unfortunately she was sick at her 9 month appointment so we had to reschedule for next month. I'll send a little update then. For now though, I think she's growing well and is absolutely perfect (but I may be a little biased...hee hee). 

Speaking of growing, while she was at the doctor for being sick with an ear infection, she did get weighed and she weighed in at a comfortable 20 pounds 3 ounces. I checked a babycenter percentile calculator and they said that weight fell into the 50th to 75th percentile. We'll see at the actual appointment. 

As far as I know though, she seems to be doing great. She's eating like a champ. Now she's eating almost any and all table food. Of course we break everything up into tiny bits, but she can pretty much each anything. A normal meal will have bits of fruit, some protein, some veggies and some carbs and then also purees of fruit and veggie. She is also still nursing 4 times a day. We are weaning that down to about 2 a day though and as I type we're pretty much there, but a few weeks ago at 9 months we weren't so I don't want to jump the gun. 

Avery is sleeping through the night, however she still seems to get irritated by teething and will wake up from her naps or at night without warning. Oh goody. She's sweet, but she sure doesn't seem to like to sleep consistently. An "ideal" day would have her waking up around 6 or 6:30, taking a nap at 9:30 or 10am, sleeping until 12pm and then going down for another nap at 3 or 3:30, sleeping until 5 and going to sleep for the night around 8pm. This happens occasionally, and usually her morning nap is better than her afternoon nap, but when she does take a good afternoon nap (2 hours or more) it's awesome.  

She is still a sweet girl and her fussiest time seems to be right before dinner unfortunately as I'm trying to scramble everyone's meals together, but other than that, she is rarely fussy. The other day at the grocery store, she had just had lunch, after a great nap and was the most smiley baby I had ever seen. She was hamming it up and smiling and waving at everyone. It was adorable. While she doesn't seem to have separation or stranger anxiety (except for Santa), she isn't always handing out the smiles to everyone. She can sometimes just be super mellow and just sit quietly in a stroller observing life around her. 

Avery has starting wracking up tricks these days and it seems to be fast and furious. She started crawling just before she turned 9 months, but now it's more like a sprint crawl than just a slow meandering crawl. 

She's got some strong will too. For example, she seems hell bent on crawling into our bathrooms and pulling up on the toilet seats (gross I know). I have to be eagle eyed to keep her away and have gone so far as when Connor goes potty, I have to shut the door so she won't come in and crawl around the toilet. Anyway, the other day, she was crawling in the hall towards the bathroom and I said, "Avery, no sweetie. You can't crawl around the bathroom." She looked up at me and literally starting crawling faster than I had ever seen her crawl to the open bathroom door. She was trying to make a run for it. That little dickens!! I grabbed her of course, but it was really funny. She's already a little sassy. Oh no. 

She also is cruising so well now. She can make laps around our coffee table and pull up on just about anything, including a flat wall. We haven't seen her take any steps just yet (well maybe one or two here or there), but she's getting more and more confident every day. She is also doing pretty well with push toys, which I remember Connor struggling with even after he learned to walk since they move pretty fast especially on a hard wood floor. Oh goodness. 

She still doesn't have any words, but she likes to screech and she'll say "Ma, ma, ma" or "Da, da, da." I don't think she is meaning to speak to one of us though. Man, at dinner, when she's not getting fed her baby food fast enough, she'll screech so loud. Connor often says, "Avery stop" which just adds to the volume. Anyone want to come over for dinner? Ha!

One of her cutest skills these days is waving. If you wave at her or say, "hi Avery" or "bye Avery" she'll wave. Man is it cute. She mimics movements too. If you put your hands up and down she may try it or one day I was putting my head to the side and she would do it too and laugh. 

Well here are some recent pics of our 9 month old baby girl and some recent videos. Enjoy!

Sweet Avery at 9 months old!

I'm sassy and sweet.

I'm cute, but boy do I drool. I'm a shark with 8 teeth! 4 on the top and 4 on the bottom.

I can crawl and get my sign now. This is fun. Destruction, here I come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtIuullV5ww&feature=share&list=UU7PBoSNM5PePPzZTaIocn2Q
This video is from the first day she learned to crawl. Man, to see how fast she goes now is amazing. She started crawling on December 27th. Jeff had guessed she crawl before the end of 2012 and man, she just made it. Ha!

http://youtu.be/H0viFwAEe_I
Avery waving and cruising. 

 http://youtu.be/_NCbsOm_TlU
Avery walking with a push toy. In this video she isn't walking very straight, but normally she's pretty good with one of these things. 

Christmas Part 3 - Bryan College Station (BCS)

After our relaxing week at home, we headed off to Bryan College Station to spend time with my family. We call it Tivo Christmas, because we celebrate on our own time as if we had just recorded it on our Tivo and then celebrated later.

In attendance was my whole family: My parents, my sister Erin, my brother-in-law Arthur, their kids Martin (7), Winnie (5), and Libby (3), my sister Julie, my brother-in-law Brian, and their kids John (7) and Dixon (4 months). That makes 7 kids and 8 adults. Let's just say, when we're all together, it's pretty chaotic, but it's also like a party all the time.

Our third day was "Christmas" Day. We work it out so the kids open their presents in the morning and us adults open our presents in the evening after the kids get put to bed. It makes it super fun, because we can let loose and see what everyone got, without keeping an eye on the young and impatient kids. The kids and the adults had a great Christmas.

We had our first really cold snap and the highs were in the low 50's every day, but it was also pretty gray and a little windy, so playing outside wasn't all that much fun. The clutch move however, was the fact that my parents heated their entire pool. This was awesome, because even in the cold temps, the kids could get their energy out and have a blast in the pool. They even got to swim in the rain one night.

Even without the pool though, it's so fun to see the cousins play and get along so well. They are so cute together. The little 3 year olds, Connor and Libby are adorable. They seem to speak the same 3 year old language and love playing make believe games. I caught them pretending to be baby hamsters at one point. Of course Connor idolizes his oldest cousin Martin (7 1/2). He follows him around and is always asking where he is. Both me and my sister Erin are so happy to see our kids so close. 

Despite the crowd, we were tried to keep the gathering as low key as possible. We only cooked one night, but even that was easy, because we all just chose a heavy hors d'oeuvres to prepare on New Years Eve. We got a babysitter one night and went out to dinner and had drinks, and the other nights we ordered take-out. It was great and gave us our entire day and evening to just have fun instead of slaving away cooking and cleaning in the kitchen.

As always, we burned the candle at both ends, staying up really late (around 2am each night) and getting up early with the kids, but it was worth it. We had a blast. Here are lots of pictures from our third and final Christmas in Bryan. 

Just settling in. Avery shows off her standing and cruising skills.

Dixon had just woken up from a nap, so he was pretty mellow and relaxed laying on Grandpa's tummy.

Now there's a happy guy.

This year, the kids were all about games on their phone.

Avery was naughty and climbed up on the bar. Oh please let this be the last time that happens. Hee hee. For real though, she looked cute on the bar and Grandma and Grandpa couldn't resist a photo shoot.

They couldn't resist sweet kisses either.

Dinner time for the cousins was always an adventure.

The whole crew was present, so Jeff quickly got out the camera and took a snapshot. What a fun bunch.

Swimming during winter time. Gotta love it.

The cute baby cousins, Avery (8 mos.) and Dixon (4 mos.).

Some Grandpa bonding time.

Older cousins Winnie and John were so sweet and gentle with Avery. You could tell they enjoyed taking care of her.

Sweet tenderness from cousin John.

The big kids.

Santa, aka Grandpa, came for a visit on Tivo Christmas Eve. All the kids were excited even though the bigger kids knew it was Grandpa.

Dixon was a little stunned.

Avery once again was completely distraught. Can you tell she was just crying?

We decided to have the kids decorate Christmas cookies for Santa. We let them decorate one and eat one.

Our cookies for Santa.

Connor showing off his singing reindeer hat.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas.

Christmas Day, Connor got eye black in his stocking. He was so excited.

Grandpa and his Christmas baby Avery.

Singing Happy Birthday to baby Jesus.

Connor got a framed picture of Johnny Manzel. He was beaming.

Look it's Batman. We have played Batman and Lizard man (the bad guy of Spider Man...go figure) a lot at home.

Sometimes the box is the best part.

Adult Christmas and we had to take our annual Father/Daughters picture after we got our gift from our Dad.

Brian made these shirts for all the guys for our annual Son In Law of the Year (SILOTY) competition. It always ends in the tie.

Even though it was rainy, it didn't stop the kids from having a blast while doing their annual candy cane hunt.

Grandma helping Connor and Libby find candy canes. It is really funny, because even candy canes that look so obvious to us are "hard" to find for the three year olds.

Happy candy cane hunters.

Mommies with the newest babies. You'll be hunting for candy canes next year little ones.

Adult supervision while the kids swim on a rainy night.

Avery makes a great life guard.

New Years Eve, Avery got to wear the crown from one of our poppers. "What's up Avery?"

Even though it was really cold, the kids happily sat through a mini fireworks display.

The kids even got to help.

Grandpa and ALL 7 grandkids.

Luckily, it had been a long week for everyone, so even the kids were being a little lazy on New Years Day. Thank goodness, since all the adults were pooped from our celebrating the night before. Here Libby and Connor snuggle with Aunt Erin.

Daddy getting snuggles from Connor and...

snuggles from Avery.

No more mellow Avery, here is our happy girl.

A perfect day to watch football. Michigan lost, but it was still a good day.

One last time to play with the boxes before we headed back to Sugar Land. What a fun trip.

Christmas Part 2 - At Home

After our trip to Amarillo, the following week we celebrated actual Christmas day at home. It was our first time in years to be home during Christmas week, because we are usually in Amarillo. We did Christmas early in Amarillo though, because Gigi and Pagger Don were going on a cruise to spend Christmas with Stacey in Europe. Not so bad.

It was neat to create our own traditions and memories. Jeff was planning to go into the office that week, but didn't end up having to go in very much, since not much was going on, so that was really nice too. We were all home and the weather was nice, so we had lots of fun. We were able to relax and Connor could play with his new toys all week.

Avery didn't get much this year, but Connor loved his gifts. I think his favorites were a remote controlled race car, his Woody doll, and a new football.

The only bad news was that both Connor and Avery got sick over Christmas. We had to go to the clinic on Christmas Eve for Connor and Christmas Day for Avery. Poor kiddos. It didn't really dampen their spirits though, so that was good.

I didn't take too many pictures from us at home, but I swear we had a lot of fun and we were able to rest up for Tivo Christmas in Bryan the next week. Stay tuned...

We skipped Connor meeting Santa this year, because he still said he was scared of him and we didn't want to tramatize him again. We thought sweet Avery, who never cares who holds her, would be just fine. Um, we were wrong. Avery met Santa and was immediately a little nervous.

A few seconds later, she was completely melting down.

Daddy, save me from this crazy man!

We finally got some cold weather, so Avery showed off her cute winter hat.

Connor all bundled up.

Preparing the snacks for Santa, I thought this picture was cute, because Jeff and Connor are posed just alike.

Avery is happily playing with Connor's batman truck. She doesn't know the thrill of cookies and egg nog yet.

Mesmorized by 'Twas the Night Before Christmas."

Sweet Father-Daughter Moment.

On Christmas Day, Connor got some new books in his stocking.

Avery got some new books too.

Connor loves his new Woody toy. He even sleeps with it.

Avery attempting to open a present. She didn't quite understand and obviously just wanted to chew on the wrapping paper.

A combination of a Mrs. Claus, an elf, and little red riding hood. Merry Christmas.