Our 18 Month Old Cutie

Little Avery Brenna turned 18 months this past week. A year and a half already! Goodness time just keeps flying. This girl is so so precious to me. She makes me smile! I seriously get so excited when it's time to get her up in the morning. She always cracks up laughing when I walk in, and she gives me the biggest hugs and sweetest cuddles. One very cute thing she does now is when we ask her for a kiss she leans in and says "mmm uah!". I mean really, how can that not melt my heart. I love her dearly. Now she is full of cute things all the time, but I do have to say that I think it's going to be this little girl that is going to give mommy and daddy more of a run for our money. You see, our two big girls are pretty quiet, great rule followers for the most part, and don't really push the limits too often. But Avery Brenna... I often find her sitting in the middle of the kitchen table or in the middle of the school table coloring to her hearts content on that same table, and she has found herself in time out quite often for hitting her sisters (hitting them hard with hard toys), or for biting, and she is a screamer. She is known to scream "mama" over and over, pretty loud mind you, until she gets what she needs. The word "no" doesn't seem to interrupt her playing quite like I had hoped. She is definitely a fun girl with a little spunk and little attitude! This girl loves her sisters so much, and they love her equally. They all exchange hugs, kisses and "I love you's" all day long. Here are some things she does at 18 months. She doesn't hardly say anything yet, she just doesn't seem interested, but she will nod yes or shake her head no at any question you throw at her. Like I mentioned earlier she says "mama", she also says "uh oh", "ball", sometimes she says "more", "this", and that's pretty much it :) . She knows what a puppy, a fish, a kitty, and a monkey says. One of my favorite things she does is when you ask her to show you her sad face she puts her little lip out and tilts her head. Then if you do back she cracks up laughing. I never get sick of that one. This is the only picture I have of her sad face, but I must get another one!

She is still just a tiny little girl, weighing in at only 19.1 pounds which put her in the whopping 0.79 percentile. She loves to "read" books out loud and I love to listen. She loves to sing and she sings some pretty cute little tunes. And she really loves to dance and jump and climb anything she can find!

Avery Brenna, we love you so much sweet girl. You make your whole family smile and we all love to pieces. I am so thankful that God chose me to be your mommy and I pray that I can teach you and guide you in the right direction and that you learn to love God with every ounce of your being one day.

The Room Shuffling Begins

With little baby brother coming in just a few short months it's about that time to maybe start doing a little preparation! The first thing we decided to tackle was to move Aubrey to her own room (which used to be the guest room). In a few more weeks we are going to move Avery in with Adalyn and then we will be able to transform the nursery to get ready for a boy! Still seems weird to me! This past weekend Jeff and our friend Lance painted her room. Aubrey and I found her new bedding at Homegoods a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't something I would have originally picked out for her but it was so inexpensive and came with a ton of stuff we couldn't pass it down. As long as it had some pink in it Aubrey was happy. Here are the girls helping out with the beginning of the painting.

Here is the somewhat finished product. We aren't done decorating it yet, but this is what we have so far. The rest will have to wait!

And here is our big girl on the first night in her very own room!

Now Adalyn has been a really sweet girl through this whole thing. We could tell she was a little jealous, but she never said anything. That night though, as we were telling Aubrey good night, her eyes started welling up with tears. I gave her a hug and asked her what was wrong. Poor girl was just sad that her big sister wasn't going to sleep with her anymore. It really broke my heart. I tried to play up having your own room thing for awhile, but she says she will feel better when Avery moves in with her. Here are those cute sisters cuddling before saying good night.

A Few Other Fun Parts of our Week

It was really nice to have a pool at the house and we definitely enjoyed a lot of swimming time. This picture of Granny, Adalyn and Reegan cracks me up!

The cousins all had fun getting to do crafts, and making necklaces during the week.

One evening after dinner we headed over to a Family Fun Center where they had miniature golf, jumping castles and go carts. The go carts were a hit with everyone. I couldn't do them, but Aubrey rode with Daddy and Adalyn rode with Pawpaw. Adalyn looked a little worried throughout the whole ride but they both ended up riding a second time. Adalyn didn't want to go with Daddy (I think she thought he would scare her) so Aubrey rode with Daddy again and Adalyn rode with Granny. My camera died before the second ride.

After the first ride we all went to get some ice cream. Look how cute all these cousins look together!

All the kiddos had fun jumping but this was the only picture taken! This was Avery's first time and that girl loved it!

All four of my family members were sick at some point during the week. That was the not so fun part! Here are all the sickies cuddling!

It really was a fun fun week spent with family! And to think next time we all get together there will be two more little boys running around. It's about time we get some more boys in the family!

Some Beach Time

We did get to enjoy a little bit of time at the beach while we there. I would have liked more just because we all love the beach. We took advantage of the time we had and had so much fun. The girls loved being in the water since it was pretty warm which was quite different from their San Diego experiences. The first day at the beach Avery wasn't feeling very good so she wanted nothing at all to do with the water or the sand. She is our water baby so I was really surprised!The next day that we went she loved both the sand and the water and was her old curious self! Aubrey and Kyley had so much fun playing together, building sand castles and playing in the water. Those two really hit it off on the trip. Here are some pictures of one of our beach days.

Family Pictures

One evening we went and had family pictures taken out on the beach. And when I say family pictures I mean the WHOLE family! A photographer came and took some whole group shots and the individual families too. I was so sad I didn't bring my camera out there because we had a lot of time just sitting around waiting and the girls looked so cute playing in the sand. Jeff took a couple with his phone so this is all I have. Once we get the family ones back I will post them. I'm so anxious to see them!

After pictures we all headed out to eat. It served as a reminder to Jeff and I that it is NEVER a good idea to take your kids to a restaurant at bedtime, especially on day four of vacation and no schedule. We quickly scarfed some food down and got those kids to bed!