Weekend with Nana

Aaron left to go out of town on Friday morning and won't return until later Sunday afternoon. Football season has kicked off and this weekend was the first away game. To help out, my mother came for Saturday and part of Sunday. She was a HUGE help lending an extra set of hands and love to Avery and helping me get caught up on the house! We had a great time and I truly appreciate her coming! These were taken Sunday morning before church.

(Grammy- are you happy that she's wearing a headband??!)

Just the girls

Open mouth, insert foot (or sock)!

Just because

Going to church today...

My 27th birthday!

I thought turning 25 was bad. What will I do when I hit 30? For my birthday this past Friday, Aaron, Matt, and Ellyn took me to Jonah's in Peoria, IL. (Avery was watched by Matt's mom and dad.) Jonah's is a seafood restaurant with some excellent food! Since I don't go into the office anymore on a regular basis, it was fun to be able to actually pull myself together and have some adult conversations and company. I had a great time with some great friends!

First time for cereal! (and the highchair)

When we took Avery to the doctor yesterday, she said that if we wanted, we could start Avery on cereal about once a day until she gets the hang of it. Once she's accomplished that, she can graduate to vegetables then fruit. (I still can't believe how fast all this is coming up!)

So we attempted cereal last night for the first time. And we attempted it in the highchair... for the first time. As you can see from the pictures, the chair just about swallowed her up and she wasn't really too thrilled with this new contraption. Eventually, we switched her to her bouncy seat and did much better. Overall, we think she did really well for her first time eating cereal. She gave us a few choice faces but managed to get most of it down. And of course about half way through, she thought she needed to help out by holding the spoon herself.

4 month check-up

We took Avery to the doctor yesterday for her 4 month check up and more dreaded shots. She still cried but nothing like the first time. She has more fat on her legs this time to absorb the sting! Avery weighs 11 lb. 14 oz. and is 23 3/4 in. long. Apparently when I measured her last month I was a little off on my 24 in measurement. The doctor said she is developing just fine and should be rolling over soon. Also, she said that Avery is not teething, contrary to what Aaron and I had believed.

Avery is 4 months old today!

Can you believe it? We can't. I don't have any stats yet as we don't go to the doctor until Wednesday but I'll fill you in then on her height/weight. What I can tell you is that we have one stubborn, hard-headed, independent little peanut. Aaron keeps blaming me for those characteristics...

Avery is growing so quickly. There are some mornings where I could swear she's bigger than the night before. She's very active and gets bored easily when in one spot too long. She loves to "talk" and has discovered that she has a volume button. As you can see from previous pictures, she loves to stand and look around. She smiles like crazy and we think that she might be teething. Just today she found her feet. People keep telling us that she's going to be an early walker because of how strong she is, but for now, we're trying to keep her little. Did I mention that she HATES to take naps? Wow. She's completely against them but if we do get her down they last only 30 minutes. And I mean 30 minutes almost to the minute. Night time has gotten much better. We try to get her down around 7:30 or so and she'll go until about 7:30 the next morning with one feeding around 3am. We're starting to wonder if she actually wants that feeding or if it's habit now. Something to be discovered. About the teething- it seems early yet, but we're starting to figure that it would explain all of her drooling, fussiness, wanting to put ALL items in her mouth to chomp on, and loving cold, wet washclothes to suck on. We have nothing to compare it to but we're told that's what it sounds like.

There are several pictures below, many more that I would love to publish but that would take forever, that were taken today. We took tons outside after church today, some of her finding her feet, and then some of her new toy- the Baby Einstein Exersaucer. Those pictures show her in it for the first time. She did really well and we're guessing she's going to love it because she gets to stand the whole time.

More to come later this week after her doctor's appointment and more yucky shots. Plus, I have to go to Chicago tomorrow night for work and will return on Tuesday night. That will be my first time without Avery overnight and Aaron's first time by himself with her overnight. I think we will both need prayer! They'll both be fine and it'll be me that will miss them like crazy and probably won't be able to sleep even though I'm getting the opportunity to sleep through the night for once. Oh well.

Just because it's been awhile