Gabe's 7th Birthday and Avery is 8 Months!

I really need to blog more but I am trying to keep it up at least once a month!

On March 18th, Avery officially turned 8 months old. I have always said that about 8 months to 12 months is my favorite age. Then they start walking and get to be a lot of work physically because they are constantly moving! So she is just getting into my favorite age! I like this age because they are smiley and can sit on the floor and play, but yet they are still young enough to wrap in a blanket and rock to sleep and young enough not to be getting into everything. Avery is quite the sweetie pie right now. She recently learned how to stick out her tongue and it is her favorite way to smile now. Here are some other facts about Avery:

Weight: about 21 pounds (didn't take her to the doctor for a while so that's an estimate using our scale)

Height: about 28-29 inches

Hair: Dark brown and long enough for a ponytail on top!

Teeth: She is getting one on the bottom! I didn't even expect it because the boys didn't get any until they were 1! Then the other day (after her waking up during the night a couple times) I was like, "She has a tooth! Omigosh!" She wasn't even that crabby!

Sleeping habits: Goes to bed around 8:30, if she wakes up before about 3 am I just give her a pacificer and she goes back to sleep. If it's about 4 am or later I will give her a bottle and then she usually sleeps until about 7:30 - 8:30 am. Some mornings she takes a catnap about 10 am and other days she just goes down for a nap at about 12:30 and sleep for a few hours. Otherwise if she does take a nap in the morning it usually is 2:00 - 5:00 that she sleeps for a nap.

Personality: She is usually a pretty easy baby. She isn't afraid of being held by new people yet.

Tricks: She just barely learned to sit up on the floor without falling over. We kind of had to force her to learn because she outgrew her baby carseat and the new size she's in has to stay in the car. So when I go into the store she has to sit up now in the front of the cart! It's sad though because I liked being able to carry her in and out of the car in her carseat for those times she fell asleep. My babies never last long in those baby seats! They always meet the size limit before the age limit!

Clothes: She is in 12m right now but getting close to 18! I had a ton of summery clothes that are 12m but unfortunately it is still cold out! So we are doing a lot of layering. It needs to get warm out!

Now onto the birthday boy!!

Gabe has been getting really into legos since last Summer. He moved into his own bedroom a couple months ago and has been asking for it to be a Lego room for a while. So on the night before his birthday, I had him and Caleb stay at grandma and grandpa Rhodes' house while I totally redid his room. I painted one wall to look like a whole wall made ot of Legos, which took FOREVER and a lot of painters tape. Josh also made him a lamp that looks like a giant lego and we got him a lego clock and some other fun stuff. When he got home after his party he was pretty surprised! We also had a new bike for him in there.

So his actual birthday party was at the Vivint Office downtown. It's a big open space with air hockey, foosball, a big kitchen area, etc. Our friends still work for Vivint (the Summer sales company that Josh used to work for) so they let us use it. It went really well. He had invited every boy in his class, which was only 7 boys (its mostly girls) and then also a couple of boys from our neighborhood so there were about 8 boys that came total, including Gabe and Caleb. We had a Lego City themed party where we played Pin the Nose on the Lego face (we made this face out of legos and put it on the wall), had a pinata shaped like a firetruck, and had a Lego creation contest where they got to build for a little while. Then we also had pizza and cake. Josh has a coworker whose wife makes these amazing cakes and she made Gabe's birthday cake. He had requested a "Lego firetruck" cake and she did an amazing job! I didn't even want to cut into it! 

It's hard to believe our little 3 pound baby was born 7 years ago and now he's a big kid! He works so hard in first grade, especially on reading, and he's gotten a lot better since the school year started. He loves reminding Caleb that he is older and likes to be the one to tell Caleb how to play and what they should do. Caleb is usually pretty good at listening to him but every now and then he decides to beat on him. Since Caleb is now the same weight at Gabe (60 pounds) its getting to be a pretty even fight.
Gabe still loves to snuggle though when Josh is gone to work and we often watch movies in my bed at night until he falls asleep. He's growing up so fast but he's still a little boy in some ways! :)

Avery's (delayed) 7 month post! And some other stuff...

This is a very late seven month post, seeing as how she was seven months on February 18th. Oops. Unfortunately, she spent a good portion of the month of February sick. She started off with what we though was just a cold and cough because Caleb had the same cough first, but then one night when she had a fever of 103.5 and was seeming really out of it, we decided to take her to Community Care. They told us she had RSV and sent us home with a nebulizer to do breathing treatments every four hours and some other medicine. First they gave us an antibiotic, but then when we took her to our regular doctor two days later, he said the antibiotic wasn't really needed (and it was making her sick) so he gave us a different steroid medicine to try and clear up her cobweby sounding lungs. After about a week she seemed a lot better and within about two weeks she seemed pretty much over it. We are just glad to have out smiley girl back!

Gabe and Caleb are both enjoying school and they had this special Dr. Seuss week this last week of February. There was one day that Gabe dressed up like Thing 1 from Cat in the Hat. They did a lot of fun activities every day and finished out the week by eating green eggs and ham.

Also, I have a funny Gabe story. So Gabe was asking me about what my favorite birthday I ever had was and I was telling him about my 11th birthday when my mom surprised me a with a limo. Then I was telling him what the inside of a limo looks like and that they have a window that rolls up so you can either see the driver or not. Gabe asked, "Why would you want the driver not to be able to see you?" and I said, "Maybe you just want privacy." And he goes, "Maybe if you need to change you clothes or something?" and I say, "Or if you are on a date with a girl and you want to kiss her and you don't want the driver to see." And he says to me in a serious voice, "That's a little inappropriate to be talking to a kid about." It just made me laugh out loud. I think it was because the voice he said it in still sounds so little, like, "That's a little inap-wo-pw-iate to be talking to a kid about," but yet he was lecturing me. haha.

Otherwise, we have just been busy getting out house organized. We got some new living room furniture with our tax return and finally sold our craigslist couches! (For $50 more than we paid for them 5 years ago! haha! My dad would be proud.) I have been stressing about every little decision, which is of course driving Josh crazy. I also have been still couponing, which Josh likes because it saves a lot of money! I really like it too. It's fun finding good deals.

That's about all for now!

Here's some pictures!

Avery is 6 Months Old!

I can't believe how fast time flies when you have a baby. They grow so fast! And they are constantly changing. Avery had her 6 month check-up and shots last week and she was 19 lbs, 6 ounces and was 28 inches long. She is still in the 95% - 100% percentile for both height and weight. She can roll from her stomach to her back but not from her back to her stomach. She doesn't really do much else! Just babbles and squeals a lot! Here are some pictures!

Merry Christmas!

This year Santa decided to bring me and Gabe the flu. :( Gabe got it on the night of December 22nd and then felt better on the 23rd. Then he passed it on to me. I was throwing up all night on the 23rd. So then on Christmas Eve morning, Josh and the kids went to his parent's house without me to celebrate Christmas with their brunch. They were gone until about 5:00 Christmas Eve and I slept probably until about 4:00 then woke up and watched "Christmas Vacation" by myself in bed. I was pretty exciting! Luckily, no one else got sick and we were able to have Christmas day barf free.

Gabe was flooded with Legos this Christmas. It is his new favorite thing. Santa brought him a giant bag full of various legos. Other grandmas also bought him lots of lego stuff too. He should be busy for a while! Caleb got some Iron Man toys, some Batman and Spiderman toys, some walkie talkies, and a big Hot Wheels wall track from Santa. Avery mostly just got clothes! Josh and I are saving for some new furniture so we didn't really buy much else except for some cologne and shoes and a purse and a big box of chocolate from the boys to me! (Caleb has eaten half of it... haha)

We just stayed home all day on Christmas and relaxed. The boys took forever to open their presents because they had to stop for thirty minutes after opening each thing ad play with it. Except for the clothes. Caleb actually opened one pair of jeans just enough to see the material and said, "It's clothes," and didn't even unwrap the rest, just gave it to me! Nice, huh?

The day after Christmas we went sledding at the sand dunes. We even got Avery all bundled up and pulled her around on a sled. She is such a good sport. Caleb got a little snowboard from Brad and Diane that he was learning to use. Gabe was having fun on his new saucer sled.

So that's all our Christmas fun! Now our tree is already down and it's onto the New Year!

Gabe's Who-Ville Party

This was such a cute thing that Gabe's first grade did at his school. On Friday, December 21st, they had planned this big "Who-Ville" party for all four first grade classes in the school gym. They had decorations, games, watched "The Grinch", and had "Who-pudding" (pistachio). It was so fun! How do I know this you ask? Because I was there too! Our whole family went and joined in actually!

Being December 21st, it was apparently also the scheduled last day of the world. With everything that has been happening lately, and now all this hoopla about the world ending, there have been a lot of stupid threats made at various schools and things. I guess in Idaho Falls, the bigger town about 20 miles away, they had stationed a police officer at every school to just make sure things stayed safe. However, in Rexburg, the city hadn't specifically planned for that. They really don't even have enough officers on duty ever at one time to put one in every school (we're pretty small town here...) But some parents had called Josh wondering if there was going to be an extra security at the elementary school our kids go to and the answer was going to be no, but... then Josh decided that even though it was supposed to be his first day off this week, he would put on his police shirt and stuff and hang out there.

So he took Gabe to school at 8:00 and stayed there, talked to the principal for a little while, let everyone know he was there just in case, and then went and hung out at the Who-Party in the gym. Me, Caleb, and Avery went at about 9:30 and stayed until it ended at 11:30. Caleb just joined in on all the activities (he totally could pass for a first grader so being that there were 4 different classes there I don't even think the kids noticed him) and all the teachers said they were so glad Josh was there and it made every one feel a little less stressed about the day. Luckily the day passed completely uneventfully!

In the afternoon I went home and Gabe stayed until school ended at 2:30 and had his individual class party where they made us some super secret presents he said. I'm glad we didn't keep him home from school like some of our friends did with their kids. He would've missed out on so much Christmas fun! I much prefer sending his dad to b his bodyguard instead! haha. Guess I am lucky he can do that!

Here are some pictures of the Who-party. The funniest picture is of Gabe and this little girl, Eliza. Her mom had put a cup on her head and styled her hair up in a high pony-tail so she looked like Cindy Lou-Who. Then they had this station where one kid would sit on a little scooter and the other kid would pull them like they were on a sleigh and the puller would wear these antlers on his head to look like the Grinch's dog in the movie! So cute! At one point though, Gabe got a little out of control as the sled dog and took a corner fast and sharp and sent little Cindy Lou-Who flying off her scooter into the Christmas tree. It was classic. Luckily they both just laughed. I wish I would've had a video camera. Ah, kids. So fun.