Phone Dump

Most of the pictures I have on my phone I post to Instagram and/or Facebook...but not all of you have Instagram and Facebook, so just in case...

Ready to go shop and eat with Mommy and Daddy


Avery Claire likes to take "selfies" of us so she can look at them.


The girl loves to watch Barney in the car.


These times are so rare, but that makes me love them and appreciate them so much more when they do happen.

 
I worked on cleaning the house last Friday....as I cleaned, Avery Claire cooked. She had a feast lined up ready for us when I was done.


This is what a girl looks like at her 6:30 wake-up call when she laid in her bed and didn't go to sleep until 10:00 the night before. She does not want to get up!!

 
We had the football banquet last night, so Avery Claire stayed with Becca and Daniel. We seriously don't know what we'd do without friends who love our girl and take such good care of her!!


We DVR'ed an episode of Dora called "Grandma's House." Avery Claire knows it by heart and LOVES it. She'll watch it over and over. She knows that Dora calls her grandma "abuela" and loves to say "Swiper, no swiping!!"


 I gave her She found some Expo markers the other night. She has written all over her little white board {and possibly her arms}. She loves to practice writing her 'A's'. Tonight, she wanted me to show her a 'G.' And she wrote all over her arm and told me she needed to show it to Mrs. Misty at school tomorrow. I told her we could probably put it on paper and then take that to Mrs. Misty. She was excited about that and then when I gave her the paper, she smashed her arm against it. She was literally "putting it on the paper." Guess I should explain myself a little better.

And Little Bill. He's still with us. But he has been literally laying on the rocks OR floating vertically in the water. Nothing has changed about how we feed him or take care of him, but I'm worried he's about to kick the bucket. I have to admit that every time I go to check on him, I feel partly relieved when I see his little gills move. And I feel slightly another way. I'll let you figure that out. I changed his water tonight and seriously thought he was a goner. Then I jiggled his cup around and he started swaying and moving. Maybe he's got a little fight left in him. I googled it - Beta fish have a life span of 2-6 years.
 

Avery Claire's Room and Play Room

Even though these rooms aren't 100% complete, they're close enough to show you.

In Avery Claire's very first room, I had her monogram above her bed and loved it. I didn't do it in the rental house, but knew I wanted to do it again in the new house.
BB (Tia's mom), made pillows with fabric I found. I think they look perfect. Thanks, BB, for making the pillows for us! We hope you and Robert call us the next time you're coming through!!
 
Notice the little girl in the too big, short sleeve Roll Tide shirt? Every day, she wants to put on a short sleeve shirt. I hide them after I wash them, hoping she'll forget about them. She doesn't, so I usually let her wear one as long as we're at home, inside. I know when summer gets here, she'll probably want to wear a hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants.
This is what her bed looked like 60 seconds after I took the pictures and she said "Here, Mama, take a picture with me in my bed!"
 

And here's the playroom {aka: classroom, grocery store, restaurant, monogramming room}. I absolutely love having a place to put the toys. They may not always stay in there, but I can always put them back in there and close the door. I do try to keep it organized, but if there are toys out of place when we go to bed at night, it doesn't bother me!
 
My monogram machine lives on the table, but he's at the shop getting a new tension. Becca, there really was a problem and we'll get that blanket done as soon as I get it back!!


I had these pictures done way before Christmas and Santa forgot to deliver them to Clay Co for a Christmas Eve delivery. He remembered about 30 minutes away from home that he'd left them! 

Poor baby just started antibiotics today for another UTI. We went to the doctor last Friday, but they had to culture the urine and it took until today to be able to pinpoint the bacteria to know how to treat her. We're hoping this one stemmed from constipation, too. And we're doing breathing treatments and Nasonex because she has coughed her head off yesterday and today. The Nasonex worked wonders at 4:00 am when the breathing treatment, cough medicine, and Vicks on the feet trick failed to work. She usually hops up in the morning and this morning, she told me she didn't wanna get up. Neither did Mama or Daddy! Hoping for a better night's sleep tonight!

Say a prayer we can get the cough stopped and the UTI cleared up. Thank God she's such a champ at taking medicine!

Pro Life

Today is the 40th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade and the decision to make abortion legal in the U.S. This is not meant to be a "preachy" post, but I've just had this on my mind since.....
Sunday, our church played a video that began with a picture of an embryo, then a sonogram, then a baby, a little girl, a teenager, a girl graduating from college, getting married, having kids of her own, etc. Then at the end of the video, it said that the girl's life never happened because she was aborted.

I know this is a heavy topic. But it's something I've thought about since I had Avery Claire. Before I was pregnant and carried her little life inside of me, I really was kind of "pro choice". Not that I agreed with the idea of abortion or would have ever been able to do that myself, but I kind of just figured it should be up to a woman to make that decision.

But after I had Avery Claire and really started to think about it, I cannot fathom the idea of aborting a sweet, innocent baby. A baby that has absolutely no choice in the matter. In the U.S., a baby is aborted every 26 seconds. There are over 1.2 million abortions in our country every year.

I am certainly not judging anyone who has ever had an abortion. I know that we make the best decisions that we can at the time in our lives that we make them. Our preacher talked about how God forgives us and we should forgive ourselves. Anyone who has had to make such a decision should never let the ways or people of this world put a burden back on them that God has already forgiven them for.

I just think about that video, and I look at the sweet, innocent face of my baby.

 

And I know that I am "pro life". What if my sweet baby weren't given the chance to be such a loving, independent, stubborn, silly, precious little two year old girl?

Defend the weak and the fatherless. {Psalm 82:3}

All About Me {AC}

Last week at school, Avery Claire's class worked on "All About Me" Projects. They asked us to send in pictures from magazines of our child's favorite things. Considering we threw away all of our magazines before the move, we were in a little bit of a bind.

So, we took pictures of her with her favorite things and sent them to the 1 hour photo booth at WalMart. Doesn't that sound simple? Except that I sent in a picture order for my mom last week at her WalMart - 3 hours away - and didn't realize that WalMart had become my default. So when the 1 hour photos took 3 hours Wednesday night and I had to wait until Thursday to get the pictures, I was beyond frustrated when they weren't even there!! I ended up printing them on my computer.

Favorite pillow/thing to take to bed:
Favorite Toy: {Ellie}
 
Favorite Team: Roll Tide!
 
Favorite People:
 
Favorite Cereal:
 
Favorite Candy {this is really her favorite food, if we're honest}:
Princesses!!!

Favorite place to eat: {it was a toss up between sticks at PH or Zaxby's}

Computer vs. TV

Who knew watching Max and Ruby on the "pooter" would be so much more fun than watching it on TV?!

We were watching Nick, Jr. this weekend and I told Avery Claire we should look at the website for games. We saw the videos and she's hooked! She wants to watch "Max and Wooby on the pooter" all of the time. Well, not all of the time. But enough of the time that Mommy gets a few things done while she watches!

The Kitchen

I've had lots of requests for pictures of the house, but I really wanted to wait until I had everything in its place. I guess that's going to be never. So, I'll post room by room when I have them in some kind of order.

Here's the kitchen:
  I really wanted a very neutral kitchen. I knew I wanted cream cabinets with a glaze. I thought I wanted a chocolate glaze, but the cabinet guy was trying something knew with a more gray glaze, so we went with it. I love it (although this picture doesn't show it well).
 
We decided to put the microwave in another cabinet and do the hood over the stove. Glad we made that decision. Also glad we decided on the insert for the microwave (see first picture). I think it makes a big difference. I also think the backsplash and centerpiece under the hood turned out very nice.
 
I love the bar. I really wanted to do it a darker color and was unsure if the black would be too "much." Again, love it. It's also great that I can watch the TV from the sink!

Because of a measurement mistake, we ended up with 3 feet of extra cabinets, which meant 3 feet of our breakfast area was taken up by cabinet. Our plan was to put our table here and then use the dining room for an office. But our table just was too crowded. So, we used the dining room as a dining room and put a writing table in the breakfast area. First of all, I love the table. And I love having it in the kitchen, which is something I wasn't sure about.
 
We love our kitchen. I wouldn't necessarily say I've cooked very much in it, but it's so much fun to be in here, I just might cook a little more in the future.

Bedtime Drama

Bedtime around here has been less than pleasant lately. There's been a lot of "stay with me a little bit," "hold me a little bit," "pat my back much," and then tears when all of that has to stop. Don't think I'm a mean Mama. If Avery Claire would go to sleep every night with me rocking her or holding her or patting her back, I'd do it. But she won't. It just fuels the fire. How are children born knowing how to stall? She's just TWO!!

We've tried being tough. We've tried doing the holding, patting, rocking, etc. It's all good until we really mean business. Then it's meltdown time! So, to save our sanity, we moved a TV and her DVD player into her room and let her watch TV until she went to sleep last night. We know it's not a good habit to start. But it worked last night.



And tonight, she watched TV for a bit and then called me in there and said to turn it off because she was tired of watching. After she told me to pat her back 5 times and then shushed me and told me to tiptoe out, I think she is finally asleep. Who knows...but bedtime the past two nights has been much less stressful. We'll see what works tomorrow.

And I'm caught up!!! Woooohooooo!! Now I've got to catch up on laundry because I've spent the last two nights blogging!

The BIG 3-0

Friday, I turned the BIG 3-0. It really didn't bother me at all. I'm so very thankful to have such a sweet, healthy family, sweet friends, a job I love, a spare tire that will get me where I need to go, a beautiful new home. There are so many families who are worried about health or money or who have lost someone they love. I am thankful to be thirty!

Avery Claire and I had planned to go have a birthday breakfast, but just like every other morning that week, we were running behind. We had just enough time to go through the drive thru and pull over and eat together in the back seat of the car. Sweetest breakfast I've had in awhile.
 
Tammy, the sweet lady at work that I couldn't live without, had me surprises on my desk when I got to work. She takes such good care of me!
My loves took me to dinner Friday night
Nana and Papa came Friday night. Saturday we shopped and had another birthday dinner! I very much enjoyed my 30th birthday weekend and couldn't asked for more!!

Smart Girl

Avery Claire has been practicing writing A's and # 1's at school this week. Her teacher circled the letters she made by herself. Pretty impressive!
 

Still loving the InnoTab...
 
Avery Claire knows how to choose her name when she turns on the InnoTab and tells me it's "woading" when the circle is spinning. And she'll say "hit the home button!" to go back to the home page. She knew more about the iPad than we knew.

Roll Tide!! Beat the Irish!!

I had to take Avery Claire to the dr. to check for another UTI yesterday (she didn't have one, but apparently constipation can mimic a UTI). When I sent this picture to Dusty 15 minutes before our appointment time and 15 minutes before his mandatory faculty meeting, he said he just knew Bama was doomed.
 
We took his truck to the dr. and he changed my tire. I'm thankful for a sweet husband who came as soon as I let him know we needed him and didn't mind one bit that I left him with my troubles.

I got a few snuggles in the chair while we watched the game last night. I think Avery Claire got to see the first 3 touchdowns.


 

I'll be honest - after she went to bed, I didn't see many more touchdowns myself. But what I did watch of the game was so much fun! I love watching a stress-free national championship game!