Turkey Day

We spent Tues night through Sunday in Dallas last week for the Thanksgiving holiday. We stayed at my parents house, but actually celebrated Thanksgiving with Scott's family since his brother hosts the dinner and lives about 5 min away from my parents. We also got to spend some time with my aunt and my grandparents, which was really great since they hadn't seen Avery since she was 2 weeks old. Thanksgiving at my brother-in-law's house was fun and crazy as usual. We all took turns trying to beat my 8 year old neice at a racing video game and played Monopoly and card games as well. Whenever we were at my parents' house, Avery was busy crawling into the kitchen to go play with their little dog, Lucy. She loved watching Lucy jump up and down like a pogo stick and sticking her fingers through the gate to get some puppy kisses. As for Scott and I, we got to go out alone--twice! Friday night we went to the Dallas Stars hockey game. We had 8th row seats, which made it really exciting. Saturday night we met up with some college friends that now live in New York. They told us that they are expecting a baby in June, so that was really exciting. Congratulation guys!

Avery's 1st Halloween

For Avery's 1st Halloween she was a bumblebee. When I saw the costume, I knew immediately that was what she had to be. Coming up with a family costume centered around the bee however, was not as easy. As usual, we waited until the last minute possible to throw something together for our Sunday school party. After I said that maybe we should just stick band-aids all over ourselves, Scott had the bright idea that we could be beekeepers. We probably could have come up with a beekeeper costume that looked more convincing had we started sooner on it, but I think everyone still got the idea.
A few updates on Avery are that she now has two teeth (bottom front) and is finally beginning to crawl forwards a little. Up until now she could only go backwards and would get stuck up against things. She is becomming quite the social butterfly too. She laughs all the time and just seems to be more in tune with other people around her. She also loves seeing herself in the mirror. Everytime we walk through the hallway she looks in the mirror and smiles at herself. I guess this is the only time a person can do that without everyone thinking they are conceited.

Pumpkin patch

Last weekend we took a trip to Dallas since Scott had off for fall break. Scott and I went and signed the lease on the space for the practice Friday, so that's a done deal. The space is in a set of 3 new professional buildings in Keller, TX. It was exciting, but also a little nerveracking! Saturday we met my sister at a pumpkin patch in Flower Mound. They had hay rides, pony rides, a petting zoo, and of course plenty of pumpkins and hay bales. We originally planned to take some family pics there, but Scott was sick, so that plan went out the window. I think the pics that my parents took of Avery on their porch actually turned out better than the pumpkin patch ones anyway. We also got to visit with Scott's brother, his wife and our 3 nieces and then we watched the OU/Texas game with Scott's parents and his sister and her husband. Even though it will be hard to leave Edmond, it sure will be nice to be closer to family so they can be more involved in Avery's life-- and ours too of course!
I forgot to mention that Avery got her first tooth! It's not in all the way, but you can see it pretty good now poking through her gums. And just last week she started babbling-- mostly saying "da-da-da". I say "ma-ma-ma" to her all the time and she just laughs! ha!

New toys and other "firsts"

For those of you that have tried it, aren't consignment sales great? My parents have gone to several now in the Dallas area and have found all kinds of great stuff for Avery. Both the
Leap Frog Learning table and the swing came from a consigment sale, along with a bunch of other toys and more fall & winter clothes than Avery could ever wear! I have yet to go to one myself, but I definately plan on it in the future.
The story behind the bottom pic is that in the time it took me to go out and get the stroller out of the car, Avery went from a sitting position in the middle of the floor to being underneath her exersaucer facing the opposite direction! I did a double take when i walked back in the room! It's amazing how much she can get around even though she can't really crawl yet. She just rolls and slowly inches her way toward things.
Two other little updates are that she went to Bible class for the first time this morning and she ate her first few bites of cereal today. As for Bible class, she did great according to her teachers, but the food didn't go quite as well. She "ate" a few bites (most of it was on her face) but lost interest pretty quickly. So, we'll just have to keep trying and I'm sure she'll get the hang of it eventually. Grandparents and other family-- we'll post of pic of her first try at eating sometime soon.

Sitting pretty

Over labor day weekend we went to visit Scott's parents in Waco. They had not seen Avery since she was 7 or 8 weeks old. First we stopped off in Dallas and spent Thursday night with my parents. When we got there Thursday my sister and her husband were at my parents house to celebrate my birthday with cake and ice cream. Scott and I laughed about the birthday party because Avery got a present too and a balloon. If you didn't know better you would have thought it was her birthday! But that's OK because I really have no more use for birthdays after this one since I'm staying 29 forever!

While in Waco we went to West Fest, which is a Czech festival in the town of West, TX. We ate yummy sausage sandwiches on homemade bread and kolaches and watched some Czech dancers. The Bedicheks originally came from the Czech Republic, so we had to celebrate the family heritage. Other than that we didn't do much, mostly just relaxed. Scott's brother Mike and his sister and her husband were there too, so Avery got to see lots of relatives. As you can see in the picture, she is sitting up on her own now, but she still falls over some. I'm just hoping that it takes her a few more months to figure out crawling because I can already see myself chasing her and trying to keep her out of things. I guess we'll have to add babyproofing to our never-ending "To Do" list, which I can now keep better track of on my handy-dandy Palm that Scott gave me for my birthday!

Remote love

Avery is 4 1/2 months old now and is starting to get so curious. She wants everything that we have-- drinks, the cheese grater, the mail, the remote. . . just whatever. She has a special love for the remote though. She'll lunge toward it and reach over other toys I'm holding to get to it. We tried giving her an old remote, but I guess it's just not the same since it doesn't have colored buttons and a light on it. She also likes to sit at the table with us at dinner time now. I usually put some toys on the table, but of course her favorite thing to play with is a little spoon. I just keep thinking about what I'm going to do when she starts crawling and can reach everything! Agh!
This past week I started my new job. I'm doing contract work for Sooner Start, which is a birth to 3 early intervention program. So far I only have two clients, a 2 yr old here in Edmond and a 16 month old foster child in north OKC. I think I'm really gonig to enjoy basically being my own boss and the flexibility of it. And of course kids are always great. Besides it being younger kids than those at my job with Mid-Del, this job is a little different because I work at lot more closely with the parents. I'll be spending a lot of time just educating families and demonstrating what they can do to help their child. Scott starts his new job this Saturday-- he'll be at a place called Gentle Dental now. He is going to work Monday and Tuesday nights and 2 Saturdays a month. Hopefully we'll be able to go on some trips and do some fun things this fall on his weekends off. That will be so nice after 2 years of him working just about every Saturday!

Avery and Josey

About a week ago while we were in Dallas visiting my parents, we were able to get some pictures of Avery and our 4 yr old lab Josey together. The past couple of weeks Avery has been noticing Josey more and they even interact a little bit. Josey has always been the kind of dog that likes to be right by "her people", and now that includes Avery. I always tell Avery that she will have so much fun with Josey when she gets older and that they will be best friends.
It will definately be fun to see their little "friendship" develop.

Avery is now almost 4 months old. She likes baths, taking walks, listening to music, reading books,"talking", playing with her toes, and playing on her floor gym. (sounds like a baby resume doesn't it?) She sleeps through the night, eats well, and smiles a lot. The only thing she doesn't do enough of lately is nap during the day-- but I try to think of it as just more quality time with her.

Tonight will be her first time to stay with a babysitter other than one of her grandmas. Scott and I are looking forward to going out to dinner alone to celebrate our 7th anniversary. And to think that one year ago today we found out that Little Miss Avery was on the way!

3 months old

Well, here are the 3 month portraits I promised. They turned out pretty good. We had them taken at JC Penney, but I think I liked the photographer and the set-up better at Sears. I still haven't tried Picture People at Quail Springs Mall, so we might have to do that next time. I don't really have anything new about Avery to report since last time other than that we are finally getting her in bed a little earlier. It seems like she definately goes to bed easier now and Scott and I are enjoying having a little bit of time to spend together at the end of the day.

My only other news is that I have decided to just work part-time and so i resigned from my job with Mid-Del Schools yesterday. It was a tough decision becasue I really liked my job, but we were having a really hard time finding a full-time babysitter we liked and we just were not willing to put her in day care. I don't think I could leave her with someone else all day every day anyhow. I love being with her to watch her grow and learn and discover new things. Now I just have to get everything set up for my new job. More on that later.

Toe-touches

Avery in her "Bumbo" seat
Toe-touches under her floor gym

I guess I've been a bad blogger since I have posted anything in several weeks, but it's hard to find the time. Avery is growing fast and it seems like she does new things almost every day. Her most recent accomplishments are grabbing her feet, rolling over from front to back, and reaching and grabbing for toys. I love being here with her to see her learn and grow. For any of you with infants who haven't heard of a "Bumbo" seat, it's really neat. Once the baby can hold their head up well, you can put them in it and it wedges them in so they can sit up unassisted. I just think it's funny to see such a small baby sitting up in a little chair-- it cracks me up!

This past weekend my parents came to visit and we had a great time, of course. They even babysat Avery Saturday night and Scott and I went to a movie. We hadn't done that since before Avery was born. We saw Superman Returns, which we really enjoyed. We also went to Penney's and had some 3 month portraits done. Once they post them online I'll have to put them on here. Until then. . .

Dallas Arboretum

For one of Scott's father's day gifts, Avery and I went to a store in Coppell called "Art From the Heart" and made him a frame that has her footprint on it and is painted in OU colors. In the frame I put a picture from our visit to the Dallas Arboretum while Scott
was in Nicaragua. Naturally, I didn't want to put any pictures from it on the blog until we gave him the frame and picture. The Arboretum was so beautiful and I'm already looking forward to going back and taking pictures next year when Avery can pose by herself and walk around and stuff. I'm thinking it might even be a good place to have some professional portraits done for her 1st birthday. Yikes! That's hard to imagine!
I think Scott enjoyed his 1st Father's Day though. If you know him well I bet you can guess where he chose to go for lunch--- that's right, Pizza Hut. He's a simple man, but I love him for it. We laughed at that fact that Pizza Hut was so busy today. We decided that Father's Day might actually be one of their busiest days other than Super Bowl Sunday. Other than that we've just had a relaxing day at home together as a family- what more could you ask for?

Friends and fondue

The "friends" part of the title refers to Avery's new favorite buddies-- the duck and frog wrist rattles that are attached to her carseat. She is so funny looking at them and smiling and "talking" to them. You'd think they were telling her jokes or making funny faces or something. And everytime we put her in the carseat she looks at them like "Oh yay. you guys are still here!" I guess with a 2 1/2 month old it's the little things that a parent delights in.

The fondue part of the title refers to our visit to "Simply Fondue"restaurant in Dallas last week. It was just one of MANY places we went. Avery's Mimi and Poppi definately kept us busy while Scott was in Nicaragua. We did a lot of shopping-- including dowtown Grapevine, visited the Dallas Arboretum, ate out a lot and I even got a relaxing massage from my sister, who is a massage therapist. All that "going" really made the week go by fast. I'll post more pics of mine and Avery's trip soon.



We let Avery have a try with
the fondue fork at Simply Fondue

Avery and Memaw

We have had a busy past few weeks visitng family and with family visiting us. Week before last we spent Wed. through Friday in Dallas staying with my parents since Scott had a little break from school. Then Scott's mom rode back to Edmond with us to stay for a week. She had originally planned to do this because I was going to have to go back to work for a few days before school was out. But it turned out that I got enough donated days that I didn't have to! Yay! So Jan, Avery, and I just had a good time running around
shopping and spending time together. Scott even got to hang out
a little bit since he was stil on break and only worked a few days
at Dental Depot. We also got to enjoy some of Memaw's yummy
cooking. We are looking forward to next week as Scott's sister and
her husband are coming to visit.
On a sidenote- Avery was 8 weeks on Friday. So I guess we have
to start counting in months now. It seems like she is already
growing up so fast! She smiles all the time now and is doing new
things every day. Best of all she is sleeping from about 10 or 11 at
night until 5 or 5:30 in the morning! We'll probably be in for it
when we have our next child!

Say cheese!

This weekend we had some portraits done of Avery and our family. Luckily, Avery was alert and content right up until the very end. Not that we have anything to compare her to, but she really is a good baby. For the most part, she only cries when she's hungry or really tired and she lets us tote her around everywhere. I go somewhere every day with her, whether it's to Target, Wal Mart, a playgroup at church, etc. I'm just not the type that can sit at home 24/7. One of her first words might very well be "go". This past week she had her one month check-up

and she weighed 10 lbs 11 oz. She has started smiling in response to us, which is so much fun.
We were even able to get her to smile in a few of the portraits. For about a week now she has been sleeping for a 4 hour stretch at night and then 3 hours after that, which is a nice change. Hopefully that 4 hours will just gradually increase over the next few weeks/months. By the way, she is already growing new hair in her bald spots. . . and yes, it is still really dark!

One month old

Avery was one month old this past Friday. I took the pictures this afternoon (Sunday) though, right before we went on a "family" walk with her anhd Josie . I know Avery is still really little all things considered, but i can't believe that she is already a month old! Tuesday is her one month well-baby check, so we will see just how much she has grown. Last night she slept in her crib for the first time and did really well. It was nice not to hear every little noise she made, although I did miss hearing her little sighs and contented breathing. You can't tell from these pictures with the bow on, but she has lost quite a bit of her hair in the front, especially on her left side . She kind of has a little mohawk patch right on top. Scott and I were joking that it looks like a receding hairline or male pattern baldness. With all the hair she has though, I'm sure the bare spots will just fill in with new hair eventually. It will definately be interesting to see her grow and change over the coming months. . . .

Easter weekend

This is a week late and I already wrote about it, but I wanted to post some pics from Easter weekend in Dallas. We were able to see lots of family and introduce them all to Avery. She continues to eat and sleep a lot, and is still sleeping in 3 and 3 1/2 hours stretches on most nights. We have found that she likes baths, taking walks in her stroller, riding in the car, looking and listening to her mobile, and being bounced in her infant seat. This week she will get to have her first real bath since the last little part of her cord fell off yesterday.

Avery's early weeks

I know that some of you have been waiting for more pics, and I am finally getting around to it. As those of you with kids know, the past 2 1/2 weeks have been like a time warp. In some ways they have flown by, but in other ways it seems like an eternity since Avery was born. She is doing really well- basically just eating, sleeping, pooping, and making lots of noises. A few of the noises we have nicknamed are the dolphin, the grackel, the squeaky door, and for awhile she said "hep" when she nursed. Last Tues at her Dr. appointment she had gained almost a pound over her birthweight which put her at 8 lbs. 12 oz. She is a growing girl! Right now she is snoozing away and making soft little coos and sighs every once in a while. This past weekend she took her first trip to Dallas for Easter. We got to introduce her to her 3 living great-grandparents, 2 great aunts and a great uncle, most of her regular aunts and uncles, and her 3 cousins who had lots of fun holding her. As for Scott and I we are managing to stay relatively rested since she sleeps about 3 to 3 1/2 hours at a time at night and we're resuming more and more of our "regular" activities every day. We will try to keep the pics and updates coming as best we can!

Avery's debut!

Just as Scott promised, here's the story of Avery's birth. . .

Thursday afternoon I went to the Dr. and we did a non-stress test to make sure Avery was still doing OK since she was already a few days late. Although she had been active some that day, she decided not to move hardly at all during the test, and the Dr. was not pleased with that. So he sent us over to radiology to do a biophysical profile, which is basically an ultrasound that looks at fetal well-being. There were a few things that didn't look quite as good as they should, so the Dr. sent us over to labor and delivery and said he would call us and we would decide what to do. On a sidenote, my Dr. left for Denver right after our appointment, so we were now being taken care of by another Dr. in the group. Dr. Melendez decided to go ahead and admit me and start the induction process. I had mild contractions all night and then my water broke on its own at 5:00 am. By 9:00 I was ready to push! I pushed for about 1 1/2 hrs but Avery was getting stuck and I was exhausted, so the Dr. let me rest for about an hour. We started pushing again at noon and finally, with the help of forceps, she was born at 1:22 pm. I was so relieved and overjoyed that she had finally arrived! She weighed 7 lbs 14 oz and was 20 3/4 inches long. She had a conehead and some marks from the forceps, but all that is gone now and she looks beautiful! Since she got stuck and the birth was so traumatic for my body, the Dr. suggested planned C-sections from now on. . . but we will worry about that later. For now we are just enjoying our sweet, beautiful daughter! We can't wait for you all to meet her!

Light at the end of the tunnel!

Today we went for what we hoped might be our last Dr. appointment. However, there is a chance that we might have to go one more time. Our Dr. called to try and schedule me to be induced on Monday, Wednesday, or Thursday of next week, but they already had 4 people on standby for each of those days! So, that's kind of the bad news, but the good news is that they were able to schedule us for Monday, April 3rd. So at least we have a date now, even though it's a little later than I had hoped. I guess this will give Avery a good chance of still being in charge of her own birthday. If she's still hanging in there next Thursday, we will go for a non-stress test where they hook me up to the fetal monitor to make sure that she is still donig OK. In the meantime, we will try to go about our normal activities and hope that nature takes its course!

The final countdown

We are now down to only 2 weeks left in this journey called pregnancy. Could be a little sooner, or could be a little longer (ugh!), but either way, Avery will be making her debut soon! We are getting really excited to see her and hold her. Like I told Scott last night, it's kind of like knowing Christmas is coming and having a really big present to open!

Spring break officially started last night, so i am looking forward to a week of relaxing and finising up some final preparations before Avery comes. Unfortunately, Scott isn't gong to get to relax as much as I am on his "spring break". He is working several days at the Dental Depot and will also be spending a day up at school working on his research. He's got a test, a project, and a presentation coming up in the next 2 weeks, so he's busier than ever! He's praying that Avery will come before her due date so that maybe he can get out of doing some of those things!

Well, I am off to do shopping at BabiesRUs!

As you can see from the pics, we are finally finished with Avery's room! As I look at it now I am wishing we had a "before" photo of when it was our office-- quite a transformation! As you can also see, my belly is ever-expanding. For anyone who cares to know, my belly button still is not an "outty", but is just about flat. Tomorrow I go to the doctor for the first of my weekly "checks", so we are excited to see if I am making any progress toward D-Day. Scott and I both are looking forward to Spring Break not next week, but the next. Scott is going to work some at Dental Depot, but we decided that we should plan some last minute fun things if i feel up to it. Hopefully that will also help keep my mind off of thoughts like "When is this baby going to come out?!"