Friday Faces Part One...Part Two to come later!!

Update...a date, a cold, and bring on the Christmas Cheer!!

Hello All!

Everything here is so very good!! Avery has a touch of a cold, a runny nose, running like a faucet Saturday & Sunday, not too bad today, but you can tell she doesn't feel up to par. She doesn't have a fever but I am monitoring her closely. Haven't called the doctor yet, wait and see for tomorrow, she acts fine, just quiet.

Gary & I had a date Saturday afternoon without Avery. We started our Christmas shopping, and went out to lunch. Grandma & Grandpa Scofield babysat at their house for a couple hours. Gary and I had a good time, first alone time in 4 months. We had fun picking things out for Avery and our nephews. Grandma, and Grandpa and Uncle Johnny had a ton of fun with Avery!!!

I can't wait to start decorating the house for Christmas...CANNOT WAIT!! But gotta get through the next 2 days of work then I have 5 days off to decorate and shop etc.-YAY!!

Avery continues to thrive and makes all sorts of progress everyday. Her new words are; cool, what!, red, star. Sometimes please,  and sometimes thank you. She can now jump a little, and just about take off on a run. She has the biggest and best smile you have ever seen-just lights up our whole world!!

I took her to rehearsal last week, and introduced her to her 25 "big sisters". She was great. She walked around the studio to them, and laughed with them, and sat next to some of them, and talked, they all loved her!! She's quite the charmer!!

Her hair is getting so long, not long enough yet for pookie tails, but getting there.

We are having Thanksgiving with Gary's side of the family, as my side is going to Indiana. We had Thanksgiving dinner with them yesterday.

I think it will be a Dora Christmas at our house this year. We got Avery some Dora pj's while we were out and put them on her last night for bed-she was thrilled!! Dora and Avery are best friends!! We love Dora here, and do the "We did it" dance at least 4 times a day here.

My updates are short due to I am in costume season at the  studio, and very busy with that right now. Can't wait until that's over-it's stressful and time consuming. Need to start choreography soon, and still need to figure out when I will be able to fit that in-TRICKY!! :)

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving. Gary and I have A LOT to be thankful for this year!!

Friday Faces!

Our Saturday...

This is the first time Avery's really spent some time in the backyard. She had fun picking, and throwing the leaves up in the air, and chasing our cat Jesebelle. What a beautiful day today. A ladybug kept flying and landing on me and Avery while we were out there-SWEET!!

Friday Faces... Part 2- Case of the squints! (Gary's picks)

Friday faces...

Weekly Update...

I was going to hop in the shower at 6:01 AM this morning, but Miss Avery just woke up, and just quieted back down and our stairs are extra creaky so I'm waiting a few minutes before I go up, so I will post this quickly.

We are doing great, Avery is learning more everyday. Her new thing is to take you by the hand and go into another room. Our house has 2 living rooms in it, so after awhile she will lead you by the hand into the other one. The other day my parents were here, and she went to all 4 of us one by one and touched our hands  which means let's go into the other room.

Her words are expanding, the newest one is "cool". She will also clap 3 times and say "clap, clap, clap" as she does it, (from Go Diego Go). She makes all sorts of faces, and her newest one is the famous Home Alone face-so funny!!

We watched Toy Story 3 over the weekend, and she really enjoyed that, she stayed in the room with us through the whole movie. We had the old Karate Kid movie on the other day, and she REALLY enjoyed that. She was laughing, and talking to Mr. Myaggi-go figure!!

Gary and I are so excited for Christmas. We have Chinese lanterns in our kitchen that I change to different colors for the different seasons. For Halloween, I found jack o lantern ones, they looked really good. But I have bypassed the Thanksgiving ones, and the Christmas colored ones are already up- excited much?

We are already planning our Christmas shopping outings. We'll be home for Thanksgiving, so that means we can decorate the house over Thanksgiving Break-YAY!! Every other year we go to my Brother's in Indiana, this year we stay home. My parents will be in Indiana though, they go every year. We will have dinner with Gary's side, we are excited about Avery's first any type of Holiday. Gary and I have A LOT to be thankful for this year!!

Avery has changed a lot in the past few weeks, to us she feels more settled.  More at home. She really knows who Mom and Dad are now, and we feel like she trusts us more. Avery and I have always had a bond from day one, but now Gary feels that extra special Daddy and his little girl bond. Gary has always had a special bond with Avery, but he said he noticed this week that she looked at HIM differently. He said she has a different look in her eye when she looks at him- a more comfortable, trusting look- a connection at a different level. Gary has been so waiting for that- so special!!

I still have a hard time going to work everyday. It's because of a lot of reasons. I would love to be a stay at home Mom, but we can't afford for me to do that right now, someday hopefully. I miss Avery as soon as I walk out our front door. I think waiting this long to become a parent, I feel like that's all I want to do. I love my job, but I feel like it's time to put all that effort into our child (children). I'm sure it will eventually pass. Once I start choreography, and Recital work and Company I'm sure it will seem refreshing. But I'm still in that phase of Mommy & Avery time, and lovin' every minute of it that I have!!

Have a great week, because of Veteran's Day, I only work 3 days this week-YAY!! A 4 day weekend with the Averybug!!

Friday Faces...Saturday smiles!!

Acts of kindness...

I never post mid week, but I've been watching the series on the Today show this week about is civility dead, and wanted to share some random acts of kindness I've been witnessed to as a new Mom.

I do believe that civility is a little dead, with all the reality shows, and the political scenery recently. I do believe that children are different these days. Not all children are taught to say please or thank you, and I do believe that a lot of children expect things, and think they don't have to work for them. I have been witness to that in my job everyday. Very rarely do I get a thank you when handing out stickers, or candy, it's extremely frustrating being a teacher in this day and age. I have been behind a person who doesn't hold the door for you, and been by the person who doesn't see the line and cuts ahead of 5 people. It's just frustrating. I always hold the door, and let people ahead of me in line when they only have a couple of things, and I have a ton...

But last Friday Avery and I had a ton of errands to do, Friday is my day off so most of the running around gets saved for Fridays. Usually we try to keep the outings to 3 stops total. That's usually the most Avery can handle getting in and out of the car seat-can't blame her. But we had 6 stops last Friday.We stopped to have a little something at Panera Bread, when we were at Panera and our lunch/breakfast was ready to be picked up at the counter, I had my hands full with Avery, and my purse, and my drink, and said I would be back for it, and the man behind the counter picked up our food, and carried it to our table for us...so appreciated!!! He also said if we needed anything else please just ask-so nice!

Then in the same day as we were coming out of Sam's Club, it was pouring and we got our stuff in the car and I was taking the cart back, with Avery in my arms, but the cart rack was at the other end of the parking lot, a woman came over and asked if she could take it back for me, she said my arms were already full-so appreciated!!

Then there is our nephew Noah, who when we went trick or treating collected canned goods for our local Rhode Center, instead of all the candy-right on!!  :)

So I think civility isn't completely dead, but we all need to work on it more. Help eachother out when needed, and teach our children to say please and thank you, and to put others first, and think about people's feelings  a lot more, and always use our manners no matter what!!

I know we will teach Avery to use her manners, it is all by example. Us as parents are the examples that our children follow and learn from daily, so we must show them the way and teach them compassion, and to be thoughtful, and good people!

Just my thought for the day!

Weekly update...Halloween!!

We have been looking forward to Halloween for some time...10 years waiting to take out one of our little ones. Well let me tell ya, we had a blast!!

Avery was a little black kitten, with pink ears and tummy. She was just adorable! One of the benefits of being a dance teacher, you get all sorts of costume catalogs etc. Everyone expected us to dress her as a ladybug, and we hate to be predictable, so we did something different. Avery adores all of our cats, and says Koko, and Homer all the time, and chases the cats around and loves on them constantly, so it was a great fit for her to be a "Koko"- kitty cat.

I love her tummy in the pictures, I think it's the best part of the costume, and she would waddle in the costume-so cute!

We actually started or trick or treating on Saturday evening. We went to Great Aunt Nancy and Uncle Tom's house in Mexico. They go all out for Halloween. A graveyard on the front lawn, all sorts of life size people- Frankenstein etc. A special walkway and a ton of orange lights and light up pumpkins- FUN!! So we traveled there Saturday night and trick or treated with them and a neighbor of theirs across the street. We visited and got some candy, and visited their dog-Carly. Avery loves Carly, she woofs at her- so sweet!

Avery was great about her costume, never fussed one bit, always kept her hood with her ears on, and fussed only a little Sunday night with the make up. Saturday night she sat still for the make up application, Sunday she knew what we were up too- little stinker! But she hung on to her orange plastic pumpkin old school trick or treat bucket. She would meow when you asked her too, couldn't say trick or treat but she was very much vocal telling everyone a bunch of stuff.

We started out at Uncle Steve and Aunt Beth's house and went from there with cousins Noah, Owen and Sam to Grandma Judy and Grandpa Ron's all together. Then we all went to Great Grandma Vi and Great Grandpa Lew's house. Went across the street to their neighbor Joanne's, and then we tagged along with Steve and Beth to a party of one of their friends. We know them also, I teach their daughter Lucia dance. Lucia, and her Mom were very anxious to meet Avery. Lucia met us out on the sidewalk. Lucia had sent a goody bag home with me from dance on Thursday, with marshmallows in it for Avery. We introduced Avery to a bunch of people that hadn't met he yet- a lot of fun!!  Thanks for letting us tag along!!

After that we stopped to a couple of friends houses in town, and went to Grandma Margaret and Grandpa John's house. To round off the night we stopped up the road from my parents and went to cousin Cindy and Paul's house. We had a ton of fun!!

We couldn't get over the number of kids, and families in town that were trick or treating!!  We kept saying to eachother look at all we missed over the years. We live outside of town, so we never see it, we usually just wait for our nephews to come trick or treating they are the only ones we would normally get.

We had a lot of fun and Avery was very good at all of the stops, just threw a little fit when we went to leave the party, didn't last long though. Avery was very sociable at the party walking around and smiling. We were very impressed with her.

Avery got a lot of special things for Halloween, a kitty cat stuffed animal, a book that has sounds, McDonalds gift certificates, glow bracelets, big candy bars. She made out like a bandit.

So our first Halloween was a hit, and now we can't wait for Christmas!!! Hope you had a fun and exciting Halloween!!