Christmas 2010

This Christmas seemed to fly by! It was a lot of fun filled with family, presents, and lots of food! But sadly no snow at all! That was a little disappointing, I looked outside on Christmas day and it didn't look like Christmas at all, it looked like some day in October, it wasn't even that cold. This year we spent Christmas Eve at the Brandley's and Christmas day at the Keeffer's. Since we were going to be gone all weekend we decided to open our gifts for each other on Christmas Eve morning before we headed down to Ogden. Louis' favorite gift from me was probably his Jeep knife he uses it all the time and my favorite gift was my new camera! Sadly we didn't get anything for Avery, I know we're horrible parents. The only thing we got for here was some Christmas Eve jammies. I don't think she minded though. She liked her pajamas, she showed that by spitting up on them moments after they were put on. Love that girl, she is a pretty spit uppy baby though. Christmas Eve at the Brandley's was really good I enjoyed it a lot. They ate food first then moved into the living room to read a story and scriptures and sing a few songs. After that we each wrote down what our gift to Jesus would be this year. A spiritual gift of course. After that we opened our Christmas Eve jammies. Since we weren't going to be there Christmas day we had everyone open our gifts to them and we opened the gifts that were for us.
Christmas day was great we started out at my parents and sat with them while they opened their presents for each other. The present opening went a lot faster now that they don't have any kids at home. Everyone was there by about noon and we ate our brunch. (even though it was lunch time we're still calling it brunch) It was about here where John called from his mission! It was great to talk to him, he's doing so good and having a lot of success. I can't believe he'll be home in only 11 months. After brunch and talking to John we headed into the Living room to open the presents from each other. Then we just relaxed and played games and snacked. We hadn't planned on going to the Brandley's on Christmas day, but I suggested we head over there since everything was done at my parent's house. So we headed back over there and just visited with the family that was there.
That ended the Christmas festivities. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed the company of our family and being reminded on Christ and His birth.

This is actually our first family picture, we never got one at the hospital or anytime since then

An adorable picture of Kami and Avery

Brian Reagan tickets from Kami

The awesome blanket his mom made him

Avery in her Christmas outfit from Celestial

Megan and me on Christmas day

Maya getting to hold Avery for the first time. She LOVES her and did not want to let her go

Blessing Announcement

I just wanted to let everyone know that we'll be blessing Avery on January 2nd at our church which is at 100 S 200 W in Logan. Our sacrament starts at 2:20 and we'll be having a pot luck after in the gym. Tell everyone please so everyone will be able to come!

One Month From Heaven

It's pretty hard to believe that it's already been a month since Avery joined our family. It's been a fun month and I think Louis and I have done well with the adjustments it's brought. Avery's learned a lot, had her first babysitter and has gotten to go on a lot of fun trips.

Let's start with what she's learned. . .at about 3 weeks she rolled over from her stomach to her back! I know she didn't mean to but it was still very exciting. She's always rolling onto her side so I wondered if one of these times she'd just go all the way over. We have gotten the art of nursing down pretty well, we had a rocky start, but I'm glad it's going well now. She had jaundice when she was first born and had to be on a bilebed for a few days and I was told by my aunt who had some of her kids on one as well that babies with jaundice have a harder time nursing so maybe that's why it was so hard at first. She'd push away from me and pretty much refuse to eat, I had to pump and then give her a bottle. She would actually take the bottle with no problem which was slightly frustrating. It is so much better now though! She does pretty well with sleeping, she only usually get's up once during the night and hopefully (fingers crossed) she'll learn to sleep through the night.

Avery's Grandpa Brandley was her first babysitter. Louis had a work Christmas party that we went to and Joel came all the way up from Ogden to watch Avery for us. Everything went well and they had a good time together! Josh and Megan have also watched her, it was actually on Josh's birthday (we had celebrated the night before though) and they took her so we could go on a little date. I really appreciated it and was able to have a great time going out to eat with Louis. I'm grateful we have family close and family that are willing to watch her for us, even on their birthdays!

The past weeks have been a little busy for us. The Sunday after Avery was born Louis' brother Phillip was having his farewell. So we headed down to Ogden for that. He did a great job on his talk even though he was nervous! We also sang in the sacrament meeting and that went well too. Phillip was very grateful that Avery came early for him and that he got to spend a little time with her before he left. The Tuesday after that we headed back down to Ogden for Phillip's setting apart and to go to Sterling's basketball game. Which they won if I'm remembering right. That Saturday we once again went to Ogden to go to Kami's institute Christmas program which was really good, I always enjoy going to them.

So our little Avery is doing great and so are we! Here are some pictures of our first month with her.

This is usually how she sleeps, always with a hand by her face, even in her ultrasound pictures she had a hand up by her face like that

Grumpy face

After her first real bath, she hated it

Tummy time

Louis and Avery taking a nap, they do this a lot together

In her swing with the cute headband from Nanette

This was Louis' idea, but it's cute isn't it!