Where did the time go?

Where has the time gone? In just a blink of an eye I have a "grown up" baby. This week we have discovered that she has a tooth coming in! Bye bye babyhood...

We barely could tell that she was teething and then all of a sudden there was something sharp in that bite. I have tried to get a picture but there is barely enough to see and she does not like me messing with her mouth. This is the best photo taken during the tooth capturing photo shoot, but there is no tooth to see in this picture.

Speaking of teething... she is chewing on everything. Including her feet which I find completely adorable.

At the same time, she is also getting ready to crawl! We are not just leaving babyhood, we are sprinting out of it. She now regularly gets up on her hands and knees. She is able to push herself backwards (which she finds entirely frustrating), but there is no forward motion yet. She is getting very adept at rolling from place to place though.

She still loves her squash and after a short period a couple of weeks ago of refusing to eat from a spoon, she is an eating machine.

She is still favoring her left hand, but we will wait to see the final outcome on that. She is also sucking her first two fingers on her left hand, upside down, which is funny to see. Unfortunately, you will have to wait to see it because apparently I don't have a picture of that (She is too much of a camera ham to be seen with fingers in her mouth when the camera comes out). The neat thing about this is Kevin's Grandma is one of the few lefties in the family and she sucked her fingers the same way when she was small! Funny the things that pass through the generations!

She definitely has her own opinions on things. She prefers sleeping on her tummy, she does not like roasted acorn squash, she likes to be held, she gets very excited when Daddy comes home from work, she loves dancing and quick movements, she likes mimicking the sounds that Mommy makes, and she does not like to be left alone for very long.

She does well with bath time as long as she has a washcloth to suck on and you don't take too long drying her off after she is out of the tub.

And on a side note, we celebrated Christmas again last week. The black and white dress Avery is wearing at the beginning of this post was one gift of many that she received. In fact, we all received quite the cache. Thank you family for the fantastic gifts and thank you Brad and Sandra for transporting them up here from Texas.

Look for another post soon, as Avery's 7 month birthday is on Friday!

Avery's Favorite Food

Avery has decided that her favorite food is squash. She likes it as a facial moisturizer, an eye shadow, a lipstick, mascara (which I had to remove before the photo), hand lotion, and all around fashion accessory. This is in addition to enjoying it as an afternoon snack.

I'm not sure what got into her today, but apparently the food was more interesting all over her face than in her mouth. This is the messiest meal we have had so far. (Yes, so far) The best part was as soon as I pulled out the camera she started with these huge smiles like she knew how funny she was!

Just a sweet moment for those of you who don't get to see Avery on a regular basis...

Happy New Year!

On this first day of the new year, I am posting our photos of... Christmas! It is a New Years gift to myself, because if I get this done, I will be all caught up with the blog. But don't expect another update so soon. With the marathon of 4 posts in a week and a half, I am blogged out.

This year we spent our first Christmas at home, which was appropriate since this was Avery's first Christmas. We have started some traditions of our own and look forward to 'tweaking' them as Avery gets older.

A couple days before Christmas we got a pretty good snow storm. About 3 inches. It was fun to have a 'White Christmas', but what was even more fun for this Arizona girl is that it was about 60 degrees the day after Christmas!

The morning of Christmas we made a batch of homemade cinnamon rolls. This is the before photo, they were gobbled up so quickly after they were out of the oven that I did not get a photo. Suffice it to say, they were very tasty!

Then it was on to stockings and presents. Avery most liked the paper, but we all had fun.

This video is more for tradition sake then anything, my Dad always filmed the entire Christmas morning experience, we have opted for a bit less. But, this is for you Dad, Christmas morning video...

This is the aftermath photo of Christmas morning. I always liked these shots because it is a reminder of all the fun that was had.

This being Avery's first Christmas, we found a great 1st Christmas ornament for her. It is a bit hard to see here, but it is so sweet.

I love Christmas cards! I love sending them, and I love receiving them. Each one that we send and receive is a reminder of the special people in our lives. This year we had a great place to display them, so here is a shot of some of this year's cards. Thank you all who sent them.

After opening gifts on Christmas morning, we headed over to Topeka to enjoy the Christmas meal with Kevin's family. We had a really good time around the busy dinner table and I participated in the traditional family Scrabble game. How did I do? Well, someone always has to come in with the lowest score, so this year I humbled myself to take that lowly spot. But as always it was fun.

The weekend after Christmas, Kevin, Avery and I went to the Plaza in Kansas City to see the famed Christmas lights. We have tried to do this every Christmas we have been here, but this was our first successful attempt. It was fun, but because of the cold and the nearness to Avery's bedtime, we enjoyed the lights from the car.

So, that's it! I'm all caught up. For the New Year celebration we went to some friends house and watched the KU football team win and played the Wii. We were home in time to see the ball drop and Avery slept through the whole experience. I'm sure the significance of a new year will effect her later.

We wish you a very happy and blessed New Year!

Tonya, Kevin, and Avery