Such a Slacker

Ok, so I know I have been a huge slacker when it comes to the blog. I had a friend mention that I did not have any updated pictures of the family and I felt pretty bad. I am sure people think that we dropped off the face of the earth. It’s hard to believe that it has been over 5 months since I have posted anything here. I guess I have a wonderful excuse for being such a bum...the addition if a new baby to the family. I don’t think I ever put up any information on our blog about our new little one that joined the family. Morgan Riley was born on May 17th around 9am. Of course she is a wonderful new addition to the family. As I post this she is quickly approaching 4 months and has already grown so much. She was a solid sleeper from the start but she is getting even better. Normally she will get up only 1 time around 3am and occasionally she will throw in sleeping through the whole night. She just went through a growth spurt that had her up once a night for a while so I am hoping now that she is done growing for a little while that she can give me a few more all night sleep sessions. Morgan is definitely growing faster than Avery did. She is already in 6 month clothes and when she stretches out the footed sleepers are getting a little tight. She can hold her head up and has really started cooing. This past weekend I had to go and check on her in the living room after I had been in the kitchen cooking because she was making so much noise. I thought she was crying but she was just singing to herself…to cute! Avery has officially made the transition from baby to a full on toddler. I know she made the switch so long ago but it is hard to believe how much she has grown. I guess with the addition of a newborn to the house it makes you notice how much things have changed since the beginning. She is running around the house like a maniac and is talking the whole way. She can say so many words and can really understand everything you say. She likes to choose between “miwlk” and “juce” for a drink, will sign for when she is hungry and will ask to get “up” when she wants to snuggle.

She loves her little sister but I think sometimes she gets more excited about her old toys that are being pulled out of storage. Her eyes lit up when the Bumbo came out but we pacified her with a green “throne” of another sort!

Just this weekend we pulled out the jumper that Avery loved so much and put Morgan in for a little while. Morgan is getting so big that she can already touch the floor and she loved to jump around and hear the sounds. The sweetest thing was when Morgan was is in the bouncer and Avery came over to “show” her how to spin the ball at make the toys light up. Morgan just looked up at her sister and a huge smile cracked across her face…I love it! We are in the beginning stages of potty training Avery and I hoping that we can have it finished by her birthday this year (or maybe next year depending on how it goes). She loves sitting on her froggy potty with a book but does not really understand the concept of having to take her pants off to make the next step. My bet is that we soon be having a pants free weekend so we can get some good practice in. I am hoping that even will all the excitement that is happening at our house I can get back to updating the blog. I know that this is the only way some people know what is going on in our life or to see how big the girls are getting. Thanks for sticking with me!

Just A Swingin'

Here in South Carolina we are slowly working our way out of the coldest winter since 1972. Hard to believe but it snowed twice this past winter; once little flake and people seem to panic. Most of the city shuts down (of course not where we work) and the milk and bread at the store are sold out. A couple of weekends ago it had thawed out and was nice enough that we took a trip up to the park to play. I had avoided the park this past winter (because it was too cold) and last summer because I was worried about Avery being too small (and all the germs that were there, eeeewwww). Now that she is a little bigger and can really enjoy it we have been going to the park more often. Back to the real story; we plopped Avery into the swing at the park and she absolutley loved it. We snapped a few pictures of her in the swing with the biggest smile! Trotter even got in a little play time at the park. Looking at the pictures after the fact made me realize how something so small can be such a joy; both Avery and being able to spend time with your wonderful family. Ahhhh, makes you feel so good.

Rumblin' Stumblin' Bumblin'

Folks...we have a walker! Avery has been taking one or two steps at a time for the last couple of weeks but she finally decided that walking might be more fun. On Saturday she decided that she wanted to walk from our coffee table to Heath. The most important part of that was she took 5 steps to get there instead of crawling. Heath and I were both so shocked and proud; it's hard to believe that she has gone from this tiny little thing to walking in just over a year. Of course we had to skype the whole family to show off the new baby tricks and naturally they were just as proud and excited as we are.

Catching Up On Last Week...

As you can tell from all the non-posting that I have been doing that we have been pretty busy at the Stone house. Avery had her first ever bout with the flu last week and it wasn't pretty. I will spare you the yucky details but we did go through every crib sheet in the whole house on Tuesday night and Heath did 10+ loads of laundry on Wednesday when he stayed home from work with the sick one. She is back on the saddle now and doing just fine.

I had to steal this picture from LeeJayne's Blog because I am a bad Mom and don't have another good one to share.

I promise to take some this weekend as well as update you on our lives for the last couple of months. There is some exciting news and lots of pictures to share!

BTW...Tomorrow is Friday, yah!!!!

The Big One!!!!!

My little baby, or toddler I should say, turned 1 year old just a week ago. In the days leading up to her birthday it was hard for me to imagine that she had been with us coming on a year and then in the next breath it felt like she had been with us for an eternity (in the good way)!

On the morning of the 8th I woke her up to get ready for daycare and as I was giving her a bottle I started to cry. She was no longer the little baby that I had held in my arms almost a year ago but fastly becoming a toddler with a personality all her own. She not known as baby girl Stone but Avery Grace Stone.

She loves it when her Daddy and puppy go outside at night because she can stand at the glass door and look out at them. Avery is a teething monster and has 7 teeth now; 4 top and 3 bottom. This means that she will bite and chew on anything including Dad's shoulder or Mom's knee (true but painful story). She is crawling all over, pulling up, trying to climb and walking around everything. She will let go and stand for a minute but then will fall down. She loves all of the Christmas decorations, including the tree, and will look at them for hours. Avery is eating all table food now and no longer on baby food. She is also on whole milk but the switch was made from breast milk/formula to milk around 9 months. She is such a big girl and we are so proud of where she is now and so proud of where she will go with her life!

Back to the birthday celebration. She wore her special birthday shirt made by B and she looked so cute. The cupcake and the 1 were perfect!

She has not had much sugar at all in her little life so we decided against letting her smash, smear and eat a whole cake by herself. So, I made cupcakes instead with pink frosting and blue lettering. I messed around with several designs including her initials, name and Happy, First and B-Day. They looked so cute and we couldn't wait to see what she would do with one. We lit the candle, sang happy birthday and then let her go at it. She put one finger in, tasted the frosting and then really started to eat. She got all the frosting off first and then started on the cake part. Sounds like she learned well from her Mom, going for the highest sugar content first. She had eaten about half of the cupcake when we decided that she was done before there was an overload on sugar! She loved it and every time I tried to sneak a cupcake after that she would come over and want to share. We opened some presents and then went on with our normal routine. I was so happy that we didn't do anything crazy or big for her birthday. It turned out perfect and just the way we wanted it. The little one and us celebrating together. Of course, if all of the Grandparents and Aunts/Uncles could have been there it would have been great, but we loved it all the same.

Happy (Late) Birthday Little One!

South Carolina State Fair

This year when the SC State Fair rolled around Heath and I both knew we wanted to take Avery. We wanted her to see all of the cute animals, bright lights and smell all of the yummy treats. Of course the weekend that we wanted to go to the fair it was supposed to be rainy, cold and windy. Not what you want to hear when you are trying to take out a 10 month old to look around. The weather seemed like it was going to hold on Sunday so we headed out to the fair. The wind was blowing a little but it wasn’t too cold and everybody was bundled up accordingly. With so many people, noises and lights Avery was a little apprehensive at riding in her stroller at first, but she calmed right down. We got to see all of the prize chickens, ducks, cows and even some pigs. The display of the baby ducks riding on a ferris wheel and going down a water slide was so cute; but what she especially loved was little finches jumping around in their cage and singing to her. Heath carried her up close to the cage and she just lit up with a huge smile.

Overall it was a great trip and we can’t wait to take her again next year when she can enjoy it even more.

Halloween & Our Little Monkey

This was Avery’s first Halloween and of course it was celebrated with much excitement. Roy, Brenda, LeeJayne and even Bauer travelled to South Carolina to visit us all. We loved spending the time with them and we were so happy that they could come and play with Avery. She had just gotten tubes in her ears the day before everybody came in but she was a trooper and had a great time. On Saturday during the day we decided to hit up a pumpkin patch that was close to the house. We walked around and checked out all the fun things they had on the farm. As we were checking out the goats one sneezed and Avery got so scared, I guess she didn’t understand that everybody sneezes! They had an old time horse ride that we put Avery on and she loved it. On a side note the horse cost 25 cents to run. Not that it was a lot of money but I can remember when those things were a penny in the grocery store. Wow, it makes me feel pretty old to even type that.

She looked like such a big girl up there.

The farm also had a cute area with pumpkins and bales of hay set up for pictures. Of course we put Avery up there and snapped a few cute ones. We had to put down a blanket because the hay was a little prickly and she didn’t like it touching her legs. She loved holding the baby pumpkin and even tried to put it in her mouth a few times. We had to stop that because the pumpkin was a little dirty…ewww! As you can guess Avery dressed up as a monkey and she was SO cute. It was really warm the weekend of Halloween so we waited until it cooled down to dress Avery up in her suit. We handed out bags of candy to the other kids in our cul-de-sac and dropped off a few other bags to some of the people up our street. Avery was pretty confused at what was going on; kids screaming and yelling, people dressed up in weird costumes and lots of people coming up and touching her and telling her she was so cute. We stayed outside for about an hour until the heat and noise pushed us back inside. We had a great time for Avery’s first Halloween and being able to spend the special time with family.

11 Month Pictures - And Slacker Mommy

Ok, so I have been a REALLY bad blogger. Avery is about to turn 1 and I haven’t even posted her 11 month birthday pictures yet. Of course there is a lot going on at our house but it includes chasing after a fast crawling baby, baby-proofing, pulling a certain baby off the bottom of our coffee tables and making sure that most things can safely be pulled up on instead of cooking, reading and playing on the computer while the baby plays with the toys surrounding her. It is hard to believe that Avery is becoming much less a baby and really turning into a toddler. She is pulling up on everything and is walking around toys and furniture while she is holding on. She is standing on her own occasionally and after about 3-4 seconds will fall down to her butt. Her personality is really blossoming and she is talking up a storm. Momma, DaDa, baba and other sweet babble is filling the house all day long. I promise to recap the last month and a half in a few posts, just not all at one time.

Here are the 11 month pictures with the cute one!

Someone behind the camera is SO funny!

Would much rather be playing with toys than posing for Mom and Dad.