Pumpkin Patch

I wanted to get some pictures of Avery at the Pumpkin Patch this year, so I thought with my mom being in town that would be the perfect time since she could be the photographer!

We went to the Owens Farm one in Richardson because it is right by Rustin's work and he was able to meet us there over lunch. 

I knew Avery would have fun, but I underestimated just how much fun she would have...and how cool that pumpkin patch is! 

Our first stop was to get some pictures while she was happy - 

If you're wondering what she was yelling at and throwing her arms up for - it was the goats. She was facing them while we were taking pictures and could not wait to get over there to them.

They also offered a hayride. At first I wasn't going to take her on it because for some reason I thought it would be really long and she would start crying and we'd be stuck. But the man who drove it approached us and said they were about to leave so I thought we'd try and I'm so glad we did! She had SO much fun! Of course, she's fine as long as we're moving, and during the hayride we passed ponies and more goats. She was squealing at them as we passed.

After the hayride we went to the other barns and she saw pigs, rabbits and horses.

Then at the end we all got to pick our own pumpkin out of the patch.

I think we all had as much fun as she did! I'm looking forward to making this a family tradition for years to come. 

Pulling Up

Avery is just dying to walk, and pulling up is the next best thing, so that's what she does ALL the time! 

Here are a few action shots - 

When she's ready to get out of bed, she lets me know by standing up... 

So we got her this activity bench at a garage sale for $5. (We love bargains!) It's the best $5 we've ever spent! She loves standing up and playing on it all the time. And it's a Leap Frog so it has all kinds of cool music, counting and ABCs. And you can even change the language to Spanish if you want. Perhaps she'll be bilingual?? :)

Also, please note her sweet Cowboys slippers.

Avery 13 Months

So I decided I wasn't going to do "monthly" posts after she turned a year. I wouldn't have monthly pictures to show anymore, and I thought I'd just write when something cool happens. Well then I got the urge to blog on Oct. 7 - right when she turned 13 months. I guess I had conditioned myself? But then I haven't had a chance to actually write until now...

So here's her 13 month update - 

She still weighs right under 20 lbs. She now has two teeth on the bottom and two more that are trying to come through on top. 

She's not walking yet, but loves pulling up. That's almost all she does all day. 

I think I have a picky eater on my hands. I feel bad because I always feed her the same stuff, but it's all she'll eat! I even got some recipes for baby finger food and spent all this time making them and she wouldn't eat a bite. The only things I can count on her to eat are avocado, peaches, and yogurt melts. Then of course she loves the Gerber puffs and crunchies, which I'm sure she'd be fine with me feeding her all the time but I am trying to limit it.

She has also picked up some bad habits while eating. She likes to get her hands super messy and rub them all over her hair. Luckily she doesn't have much hair so it is sort of easy to wipe out.

She also thinks it is super funny to drop things, and the more sternly I tell her "no," the more she laughs. I have started ignoring her and that seems to be working better.

While we were in Wichita Falls, she went to her first wedding. My cousin, Keyton, got married. She actually did great during the ceremony, and it helped that it was super short. Here is a picture of her and my parents before the wedding -

She also had the time of her life hanging out with her BFF, Willie. 

Also during the trip we went to my cousin, Lindsay's, baby shower. Avery was napping when I left to go so she didn't join in that event. 

Here are a few more pictures of her lately. This is us before we went shopping one afternoon-

This is her eating at Gloria's with my mom and me - 

Wichita Mountains Trip

I've been making trips to the Wichita Mountains (which contrary to popular belief are NOT in Wichita Falls, but rather in Oklahoma) most of my life. I always have a blast and talk about it to my friends, so we decided we all needed to make a trip.

There is a town close to the mountains called Medicine Park. It was founded in the early 1900s and most of the buildings are made of cobblestone. Since it's less than 2 hours from WF, I've never stayed the night, but have always wanted to stay in one of the cabins there.

I'm usually not the one in charge of planning trips (I'm not the best). But since I had been there a lot, I figured I'd take charge. It's a super small town, so there weren't many options that would fit 7 people. I tried two other cabins before this one and they were booked, so this is where we stayed: https://resnexus.com/resnexus/book/more.aspx?B=28&ID=811&ResID=25814.

So we all assumed from the pictures that these were all separate rooms (living room, kitchen, bedroom). But oh were we wrong. This was all ONE room that was smaller than a two-car garage...for 7 people (Andrea, Annette, Sherrie, Jana, Rustin, Casey and me)! We made do though - Andrea and Annette slept in the "loft" which should be more accurately called a crawl space. Annette even took a nasty fall early Saturday morning, which woke everyone up laughing. 

Sherrie and Jana were going to sleep in the pull-out bed, but upon opening it, found a pair of dirty socks and a stick??

I guess it was too many girls for poor Casey because he slept on the porch. But I must add that I'm pretty sure the wrap-around, screened-in porch was bigger than the cabin. 

During all my previous visits, it has NEVER rained, so of course it rained all day while we were there. Luckily it wasn't coming down too hard so we went for a hike anyway. 

After our hike, we went to the Visitor Center and then to eat at Meers. It was DELICIOUS as always. If you're not familiar, Meers is a hundred-year-old restaurant that serves longhorn burgers the size of pie plates. 

Back at Medicine Park, we went to the lake there. There were a lot of fish, ducks and turtles around for us to feed. 

The next morning we decided to go to the only bakery in town. To be honest, we didn't have that high of expectations but it was really good! They had these "muffins" that were made of biscuit mix, sausage and cheese and served with gravy all over them. 

There are many other funny stories to tell, but most of them are the "you had to be there" type. Hopefully I can talk them into going again and we can get a bigger cabin and no rain! 

Avery's 1st Birthday

Wow so this post is super late. We had some technical difficulties with the camera/pictures. I was waiting on those to get resolved, but not sure how long that will take, so I'm just going to post them. The camera was on the wrong setting (my fault) so the pictures aren't that great. Rustin and Casey took a lot with the "big" camera, but they are in some sort of format that we can't download without some other software program. At least you'll get the general idea.

At first I compared myself to the other one-year-old birthday parties I've been to or seen on Facebook that reminded me of that show "My Super Sweet Sixteen" because they were so over the top. Part of me feels like I need to keep up, but I really try to keep that part of me in check. Keeping up with everyone in Dallas is as futile as keeping up with the Kardashians!

I wanted something low-key with just family and close friends. And I didn't see the point of having entertainment like a bounce house, pony rides, clowns, etc. For one, Avery is too small to enjoy most of it, or it would have scared the crap out of her. Also, most of my friends are still single, so there wasn't even going to be that many other kids there.

I decided to go with an "owl" theme. Partly because I still think it's cute, but also because I wanted to use decorations from her nursery. Here are a few pictures of the decorations -

I got this banner at Hobby Lobby. They actually had a lot of cute 1st birthday stuff there.

I hung all of her monthly pictures above her high chair. 

My wonderful and talented friend, Sherrie, made the cupcakes and Avery's smash cake. I got the owl cupcake idea off Pinterest and she did the rest!

So Avery was not happy at all for most of her birthday because little did I know, I was poisoning her with whole milk (see previous post for more information on that).

Yeah this pretty much sums it up haha... There was no way I was taking the paci out.

A lot of great family and friends came to wish her a happy birthday -  

So all the pictures of her eating her smash cake are on the other camera. But I think this one is before we had it ready. I tried to tide her over with some crunchies (which she loves). Then distracted her with the smash cake so she'd stop taking her birthday hat off!

For most of the party Avery wore the super cute dress my Aunt Holly got for her. But then she changed to her casual, after-cake onesie. It even has a 1 on it (thanks Hillary).

My parents got her this princess car and she loves it. I think she wasn't too sure about Aunt Andrea touching it. Or maybe she was interested in her wine...

Playing with Myra, Neeraj and Kavli's little girl. 

All her "loot." Thanks again to everyone for making her first birthday special!!