TBG Visit!

Last Thursday I took Avery to visit the office! She had so much fun getting to put faces to the voices she heard for so many months from inside the womb. :) Overall, she was a pretty good little office guest! I think that if she could do AutoCAD, they might have put her to work.

Thanks for letting us come by, guys! We had a good afternoon...


Avery next to the company logo... I think it may have scared her or something...


TBG's newest recruit! Avery's about all they have space for these days since they're filled to capacity already and not even completely moved into the new office space yet! ...yikes... (Left to Right: Emily, Kathy, Wes, Jeff, Anna)


You're a natural, Kent. Watch out.


Avery and Emily looking very peaceful


Avery and Anna hanging out and talking


Avery meets the Boss!... She wasn't even nervous...

Avery is being Dedicated this Sunday

One Month Old!

Avery turned 1 month on Sunday! Amazing how fast the time flies!... She's already getting bigger which is SO bittersweet for me and Collin! While we LOVE the fact that she is growing strong and healthy, we can't believe that with each day she's getting bigger and older already, and that the days of snuggling a tiny little bundled-up newborn are quickly fading. (How is that POSSIBLE?!... I still feel like it was yesterday that we were announcing the pregnancy.)

Happy One Month, Avery!! ...And many more....

First Sunday at Church!

We took Avery to church with us for the first time yesterday! She looked so cute in her little Sunday outfit! (Thanks, Ella!) We didn't put her in the nursery this time, but we're working up the nerve. We've never left her in someone else's care, so it'll be an accomplishment for this 1st time Mom to actually do that, but the nursery at church is wonderful and I know there's absolutely nothing to worry about.

She did GREAT in Sunday School with us though! She had a lot of fun learning about Jesus! :)

Back online!

My super smart computer nerd hubby fixed our problems and I'm back online! We had (and still have) some major issues that we're sorting through and I think a few nasty viruses somehow slipped through all of our virus protection software, but Collin put in a new hard drive and so I can get online again!

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm connected again, so e-mail away!

Daddy/Daughter Dinner Date! :)

Another milestone for Miss Aves! We introduced a bottle feeding into the mix today, and she took to it like a champ!! You know what that means for me?... FREEDOM! :)

No- I actually enjoy feeding Avery, but now Collin can share in that too! And it's nice to know that if I need to be gone for more than 2 hours at a time, Avery won't go hungry. It was somewhat funny though because as first-timers in all of this, the process of preparing the bottle took about an hour! (All veteran Moms are laughing now...) There was LOTS of prep work! I had to boil certain parts of the bottle, warm up frozen milk to a suitable drinking temperature... okay, it doesn't sound like much, but it was!

Once everything was finally sterilized, thawed, warmed and ready to eat, it was time to put Avery in Collin's arms and see if she'd take the bottle. (Some parents and books had warned us not to wait too long or she may never take a bottle.) Collin put the bottle down to Avery's mouth and at first she wasn't interested. I was hovering over the two of them on pins and needles hoping that she would drink and then I thought, "Wait... I probably shouldn't be here... if she can see me she may want the real thing instead of re-heated leftovers, and who would blame her?" So I got up to go grab the camera and as soon as I was out of sight Collin gave me the thumbs up sign that she was drinking! WHEW!... Thank goodness.

Anyway-- all that to say, I forsee MANY more Daddy/Daughter dates in the near future. They had fun! :)

Computer crash

FYI- Our home computer crashed, so I'm unable to check e-mail or update the blog during the day. I can check e-mail, etc., at nights on Collin's laptop... but I wanted to let everyone know that I'll be offline for a while. :( Wish us luck trying to breathe life back into the old computer. Glad I married an I.T. guy!!! :)

TIMBER!!...

Remember this that I posted back in April??....
















...Yeah... well... The big Ash tree in front of our house finally came down this week. It had been giving us plenty of warning signs that if we didn't take initiative and bring the tree down, it would soon come down on it's own, limb by limb, and it wouldn't have been pretty. It was rotting and diseased, but it sure did provide some great shade to the property that we're going to miss!

The tree was over 30 years old and was HUGE. Watching the crew bring the beast down was quite entertaining! We got some good video footage, but only a few still pictures. I'm honestly sad to be without the tree. It changes the entire look of the house. Our house looks very naked from the street now, but we hope to put a new tree in soon... it just won't be near the size of the old tree. But the good news is that we can rest easy knowing that the wind can blow and we don't have to worry that a gigantic branch might come crashing through the roof!

...Homeownership.... There's always something....





















Above: Where's Waldo?... How would you like to have the job of the guy up in the tree?! Pretty scary, huh?

Below: Almost finished and grinding down the stump
















Below: All gone! Amazing...

















Before and After shots: Sadly, I liked it a lot better before...

Poages at the Pumpkin Patch!

We took our Little Pumpkin to the pumpkin patch today!

Last year we took Howie as a young puppy and had such fun making pictures of him romping around through the pumpkins that we thought it was fitting to take Avery and see if she had as much fun as Howie did! She's still too young to be able to coax smiles out of her on demand, but she seemed to enjoy herself and was so sweet the whole time... She didn't get fussy even though we were passing her around and propping her with pumpkins... She's so patient with us.

Hard to believe that once Halloween rolls around she'll be one month old! Here are some pictures we took...

Baby's 1st Outing: Chuy's on Knox!

We got to go to Chuy's for about an hour on Wednesday night to celebrate one of my good friend's 27th Birthday! (Happy Birthday, Melissa!) It felt good to get out of the house, but there was still that lingering 1st-time-Mom voice in the back of my head saying, "She's too young to be out of the house!" :/ But she seems to be fine, so I guess we didn't pick up any germs! :)

Avery is 3 weeks old today!! I can't believe the time is passing as quickly as it is. Each day gets better and better... We are truly blessed and loving life! :)

Hugs & Happy weekend!
















Above: (Left to Right) Kristen, Melissa, Lea (who's due in January!) and me
Below: Collin with his super high maintenance baby girl... Can't you tell how demanding she is? :)





















Below: Jon (hubby of the Birthday girl) and Collin

Week #3!

Avery is 16 days old!

It's hard to believe that it's been that long. It seems like we just blinked and all these days have passed! We're still having fun settling in and getting used to our family consisting of three members now instead of just two.

The "big events" in Avery's past few weeks of life have been a couple of car rides to the doctor, LOTS of visitors to the house to see her (including her "Gram" who stayed for a week to help out!) taking a walk around the block with Mom, Dad, Howie and Aunt Jen and Uncle Andrew last Sunday afternoon, and also taking a few BATHS! Yes.. Real baths! (We were having to sponge-bathe until the umbilical cord fell off) But now that it has come off we have been able to bathe her like a big girl and she seems to find it pretty relaxing! Avery also has fun watching football with Dad. College football or NFL... She doesn't seem to have a preference yet. She doesn't keep up with the game much, but she likes her Daddy/daughter time for sure. They had fun rooting for the Aggies on Saturday! Oddly enough... it worked! :)

We also had two trips to doctor's appointments this week! One impromptu-trip to Avery's doctor when a case of the sniffles turned into what seemed to be a severe respiratory problem (but then turned out to actually just be a case of the sniffles) and also a trip to my doctor to make sure I'm healing as I should be. Both appointments turned up good news! Avery is healthy and the doctors complimented her on her sweet disposition. They said that usually newborns scream and cry throughout the visit, but she just laid there and looked around peacefully as they checked her out! (Sweet baby...) She weighed in at 7 lbs. 14 oz! That was music to my ears, because she has already surpassed her birth weight and that means she's getting enough to eat and growing like a healthy girl!

When she's not cruising around the block in her super-cool stroller, or taking a bath, or watching football with Dad, she's usually sleeping. And somehow, I think Collin thinks that the rule "When the baby is sleeping YOU should be sleeping" applies to Dads instead of Moms. Either way, Daddy and daughter sure do like to catch their Z's together...

Can't wait to have more to report!...


Above: Cheering on the Aggies to a BIG win!





















Above: Sleeping with Dad...
Below: Sleeping with Dad...





















Below: Ever had one of those dreams that's really thought-provoking?? Apparently Avery has them quite often...


Below: What more could a girl ask for than a nice hot bath and a strategically-placed rubber duckie?? :)

Happy to be home!

I am at a complete loss for words...

Maybe that's because of lack of sleep, or maybe it's because our world has turned upside down... or maybe it's simply because of this AMAZING new little life that's joined ours! Yes-- it's true that there is less sleep to be had, and also true that a newborn changes life in EVERY way... but I can honestly say that my life this week is a million times better than last week! There's more laughter, more tears of joy, more love in our home, sweeter memories being made... This first week home from the hospital has already blessed my life in countless ways and we are SO content just looking into the eyes of our sweet Avery. She is an absolute angel, and we are truly blessed.

Collin, Avery and I came home just before 8pm on Sunday, October 1st, and we've been "settling in" ever since! Collin is not working this week and all my family went home on Monday, so the three of us are having fun trying to get into a routine with the new family. There's not a whole lot to report as of yet... Avery eats a lot and sleeps a LOT (and both are blessings in themselves!) She only woke up once last night between 1:30am and 7:30am! Amazing. We're having a lot of fun welcoming this beautiful baby into our lives! We can hardly take our eyes off of her.

Here are a few pictures...