September!

September has been a month of firsts. The school year started and I had my first day at work.

Here is Avery at the staff retreat hanging out with little Luke Shoch. Believe it or not he's only 2 months older than Avery. Love the arm rolls. Avery is clearly in awe of his size. Apparently she was a little jealous too because she has since gained a couple rolls.

Here we are on my first day of work. I was really sad to be leaving Avery. She has coped with it a lot better than I have. She loves her babysitter Ellen and often doesn't even notice I've come to pick her up because she's having so much fun. Plus she has a new friend, Ellen's son Malachi. Malachi is 3 months older than Avery and has been teaching her plenty of new tricks. The latest is screaming when she's happy. Glorious.

Another first! Avery started solids this month! It was hilarious watching her try to figure out what to do with this new stuff in her mouth. At first she just let the rice cereal drip out of her mouth. She's figured it out now though and has moved on from just rice cereal to carrots and sweet potatoes. Next on the menu is peas!Avery also found her toes for the first time this month. Apparently that's a big developmental milestone. She'll lay on her back forever just sucking on her toes. Adorable!And here's nothing new... just another adorable picture of our baby girl and her daddy. A perfect pair. :)

Laundromat Photoshoot

Looking through the hundreds of pictures we've taken of Avery these past few months we've realized that we have very few of her actually smiling. Granted, she is a very serious baby. But she does in fact smile quite a bit. It's just that everytime we pull out the camera the smiles disappear. We had some spare time at the laundromat this weekend so we took some photos of her determined to get a few smiles on film. Here are some of the best...

She's growing up!

These days Avery either has her fingers in her mouth or she is busy chewing on some sort of toy, blanket or anything else she can get her hands on. She's pretty serious about it. All business.

Sometimes one hand just isn't enough and she has to suck on fingers from both hands.

Avery relaxing after a nice bath. Remember how she used to hate bathtime? Well, that is a thing of the past. She has a ruber ducky that she just loves to chew on in the bath. She'll pretty much shove her face under water in an attempt to get the the ducky to chew on.

These days, bath time = fun time. :)

She is also enjoying being read to a lot more. Avery stares intently at the pictures and reaches for them while we're reading. This time though, instead of looking at the book Avery just wanted to watch mommy while she read. What a sweet girl.

We were also able to take Avery to the beach for the first time. She didn't go in, but we were able to dip her feet in. It was cold but worth it.

Avery has recently learned how to blow rasberries. It's hilarious because she's all business about it. She hunches over trying to look at her mouth to see the bubbles she's making. Here she is in the car practicing. FYI, the picture is a little wierd because it was filmed looking into a mirror.

July Update!

Avery turned 4 months this week! We can't believe she's been around this long and yet it seems like she's been in our lives forever. She's growing and changing so fast. It is so amazing to watch her develop. Suddenly she figures out how to do something that just the day before she wasn't even close to attempting. It's fascinating!

This is the ball she figured out how to reach for, grab and chew on. It's her new favorite thing to do. I wouldn't suggest picking it up unless you are okay with a puddle of drool in your hand.

Avery has three different toys that are monkeys. She likes to chew on the head of this one and grab it's wiggly legs.

This month has been pretty hot which means temperatures in our little third floor apartment reach around 90 degrees on a regular basis. Now that it's not just me enduring the heat, I have become completely shameless in using my friends for their A/C and pools. This is Avery taking a nap on the Ell's picnic table after a dip in their pool. Happy girl.

Another day. Another dip in the pool. Another nap on a friend's picnic table.

So serious!

Avery trying to figure out who the mommy imposter is after getting my hair colored.

At her four month check-up, Avery weighed in at 13 pounds 12 ounces and was 25 inches long. That's 50th percentile for weight and 75th for length. Doin' good baby girl! Here she is getting a good luck kiss before her shots. Fingers crossed we get a good nurse this time!

The shots didn't go over well so we stopped by daddy's work for a little squeeze on the way home. I think it made her feel better. At least that's what I told myself.

Daddy's in charge of the after bathtime ritual. Believe it or not, she was smiling right before I took this. It is SO hard to catch her smiles on camera. We always end up with this "huh?" look on her face. Still cute though. :)

Avery is starting to learn how to roll over. If she wasn't so committed to constantly sucking those fingers she'd have it mastered by now. Unfortunately she refuses to withdraw them from her mouth so this is the position she sits in on a regular basis, half rolled over and frustrated.

Avery is giggling a lot more now. Sometimes she's up for it, but this day I think she wanted me to stop but couldn't quite keep her giggles in while bieng tickled. So adorable!

Fun Pics

Dan's mom found Avery an awesome jumparoo outside of a Goodwill near where she lives. WShe gave it to us last weekend and Avery had been hanging out in it every day since. She loves the yellow monkey on it and is starting to reach for it, something she was yet to do. It's fun to just sit back and watch her absorb all the sights and sounds. Thanks Caroline!

Avery taking a short break from bouncing around.

We're still working on getting Avery to enjoy bathtime. Up until now we had resorted to giving her showers which she actually loves. She doesn't mind the water running down her face at all. She does have to learn to enjoy those baths. This week was a real break through. We realized that if one of us got in with her, she actually enjoyed it a lot more. I guess she felt safer. Her she is, happy for the first time taking a bath... We actually even got a smile out of her!

After her bath.

Small feet in mommy's hands. She still is just so little. We love our little girl!

4th of July Weekend

Dan had Friday off for the weekend, so we decided to go big. Thursday night, Aunt Tammy and Uncle Mark came over to babysit and Dan took me to see Wicked in San Francisco with our friends Mindy and Jason.

The show was incredible! We were super impressed with the music, singing, costumes, and the plot was really creative. If you haven't seen it, your really should!

We also spent two long afternoons at Aunt Tammy's apartment complex by the pool. The first day Avery was a champ and took a 2 hour nap poolside.

The next day, there was too much fun to be had and Avery refused to fall asleep. The good thing was that she was all smiles regardless of missing her last two naps of the day.

Cards with the Petitis

The PE teacher at the school that I work at is obsessed with playing spades. We get together with him and his wife about once a month to play spades. When we first started, they'd smoke us every time. We're starting to give them a run for their money these days though. This was Avery's first spades night at the Petitis. She did really great.

She helped out Dan making his bids.

Here she is trying to distract Sue by looking cute. It didn't work. We lost the first game.

Here she is getting focused and practicing her poker face. You'd never know they had the Ace, King and Queen of spades with that look. This time it did work and we were winning the second game. Unfortunately we had to leave before it was over because Avery was tired and wanted her crib. The Petitis got off easy.