There are SO many better pictures to post from Christmas this year, but here are a few from my phone.  I will post more as I get them uploaded to my computer.

On Sunday 12/23 we rode the "North Pole Express" up to the "North Pole" that left from Horseshoe Bend and can you believe that it only took 30 minutes to get to the North Pole?  Who knew that it was so close to Idaho!

Santa even boarded the train with us on the way home.  The picture below isn't very clear, but you can see Avery just staring at Santa.  I wish I got a picture of her face because it was precious.  I wish she looked at him the same way when she visited him at the mall a week earlier.  That picture to come soon!  It's a dozy!




Avery got some AWESOME boot's from Aunt Wendy and Uncle KJ for Christmas.  We had to model them with her super cute "Santa Love's Me" outfit.  Good thing we got this picture because she had a blow out in said outfit about 20 minutes later!




Christmas was just a blast this year.  I can't wait to see all the pictures from other's who have a better camera than us!

Hi guys!

I am now 22 weeks and things are going great!  I am now getting the occasional heart burn and I am still experiencing the round ligament pain if I laugh too hard or twist my body in a weird way.  I also am starting to get the leg cramps.  Those are really fun to wake up too in the middle of the night! OUCH!

Other than that, baby girl is semi-calm in there still.  I feel her rolling around occasionally, but nothing to crazy yet. 

We still haven't decided on a name.  This one has been much harder to name. But, that's ok.  She is so special that we have to find an equally special name!  We still have a while to decide.

Have a great week!

Don't her big puppy dog eyes just kill you? 

They just down-right kill me. 

Looking at these pictures closely has made me realize that it's probably time to start doing something with Avery's hair.  If only she could sit still for one dang second to let me!

Kris and I attended my companies Christmas Party this weekend.

We had a lot of fun catching up with friends and co-workers and people watching.  There were a lot of drunk people at the party...so we enjoyed ourselves watching people make complete fools of themselves.




I thought I would include pictures of some of my friends at work.  Not all my friends are pictured, and not all girls pictured are friends. :)

I just want to say how much I love my wedding ring.  It's hardly ever captured in photos...so when I get one of it, I must show it off.

Bravo husband, Kris.  Bravo.

We are having a


LITTLE



BABY





GIRL!


As you can tell...Avery is already ecstatic about the news.

We are so grateful to be able to add to our little family.  And, I wasn't the least bit surprised when the ultrasound tech didn't see anything between our little girls legs.

Kris and I have a tradition to grab a bagel after every Dr's visit at Blue Sky Bagel downtown.  And, while we were eating I started tearing up telling him how lucky I am that I will have two best friends for the rest of my lift.  I immediately started thinking about when my girls are adults and we talk on the phone every day. They will call me to cry about bad times and they will call me to share their exciting news.  We will have traditions of going Christmas shopping together and have weekly lunches just so I can kiss their faces.  They will have my grandchildren some day and they will call me for advice.  When, at that point, I will remind them of what perfect little babies they were.  And, that they didn't cause us ANY grief what-so-ever. And, then I will chuckle.

Anyway, I could ramble on and on about it, but you get the idea.

I am so lucky to have such a wonderful family and we will just keep adding to it so long as we are able.  You can't have too many best friends!  (Oh, trust me....I know that this will be when their are older.  I am a parent for now.  Best Friend when they are adults)

Can't wait to meet you baby girl!

Guys.  I am not good at taking pictures.  I am making this picture small because the lighting obviously distorts my face.  Except the dark circles under my eyes.  Those are legit.

Can I blame it on my camera phone?  I will take another one tonight!  This is just ridiculous!

See how hard it is to get a good family picture?  There were at least 5 more taken that were immediately deleted.  What is it going to be like with 2 kids?!  Oh, dear.

Regardless, we had a great time at the Festival of Trees this year.  There are probably around 100 trees uniquely decorated and then bought for charity.  Avery loved looking at all the lights and toys on the trees.  Last year she got to see Santa and take a picture with him, but it was too busy this year and we ran out of time.  Santa is a busy dude!

I love Christmas time and this is such a fun way to kick off the season.

My phone was just NOT taking good pictures last night.  I don't know why.  And, as you can see, I had a crying baby hanging on me, so I didn't have much time to keep taking pictures.
 
Little Miss has been very clingy to me lately.  I must hold her every second of the day when I am with her.  Or, she must know where I am and be in the same room with me.  It sure makes me feel good sometimes, but it gets hard to do most things with a 1 year old on my hip.  (Like, use the restroom, cook dinner, take pictures of my belly.  You get the idea)

Anyway...19 weeks already!  Phew!  Has the time gone by as fast for you as it has for me?

I can't believe we are finding out what we are having next week.  The poll results are really all over the place.  About half the people I ask think its a boy and the other half a girl.  Maybe I should put up another poll on the side of the blog like I did with Avery? 

I must.  I must keep things equal between the two.  Can't be showing favorites!

So...cast your vote!  Boy or Girl?  I would tell you what I think, but I don't want to sway your vote.

I didn't really want to make my picture SO HUGE, but the alternative was pretty small. 

So...BAM!  There's my belly, in all it's glory.  18 weeks.

I am really going to try hard to take weekly pictures of #2.  I don't want this one to feel like already, in the womb, there are less pictures of them than our #1.

I am still feeling pretty good, actually.  I am starting to get uncomfortable while trying to sleep, but that could be due to the fact that we need a new mattress, terribly.  I feel little flutters and tinnnny kicks every once in a while, but nothing that Kris can feel yet.  It seems like he could feel Avery so much earlier than 18 weeks.

Maybe, just maybe.  God has blessed me with a less active baby?  God?  Maybe?  Please?  My ribs would be so grateful.  They are still trying to heal from the first baby foot.  I don't know if they can handle another?!

I wonder if we could ever get a decent family picture together?

Either Avery is crying, the lighting is horrible, or Kris has 4 eyes.

Regardless, I am happy to report that we are expecting our little surprise baby #2 at the end of April!!  WOOHOO!  We will find out what we are having on December 5th and we can't wait!

I am already horrible about taking pictures of our #2.  And, I promise to be better about the baby bump pictures.

I am happily in my second trimester (17 weeks this week) and feeling great!  I am getting my daily headaches and my sciatic nerve is giving me issues, but other then that I am feeling awesome!

We have two HUGE maple trees in our front yard.  And, if you know anything about maple trees, they have a ton of leaves.  I MEAN A TON.  And, they don't all drop at once.  So, this weekend we set out to pick up some of these said ton of leaves.

Saturday we did about half the yard and it took about 2 hours and 5 big trash bags.  My back was hurting terribly, and we had to get ready to go the BSU game so we called it quits for the day.

Sunday we finished the yard with the help of Butch.  Thankfully!!!  I don't know how much of a help I would have been without him. But, Avery was loving the big piles of leaves.  She was a huge help picking up each leaf one by one and putting it in the trash. 

She didn't even mind the few face plants she took while loosing her balance in the grass.  She is a tough girl, that's for sure.

Avery wasn't all too cooperative this weekend for her pictures.  But, we were at least able to get some usable pictures in her piggy costume.

Still the cutes little piglet I have ever seen, without a doubt.

Happy Halloween!

12 Months.  How did they pass so quickly?  Avery is such a fun baby so full of life.  She isn't afraid to show her personality, as you can see from most of the pictures above. 

Avery started to really get good at walking the week of her birthday.  Now, a few weeks later she is practically running everywhere.  She loves to chase us around the house, and loves to be chased even more!  I find it so adorable when I ask her to find one of her toys and she goes looking all around for it.  She is so smart and remembers where she puts her things.  Sometimes, she will even find the remote control for me when I can't find it!  When I put the boots she has on in the pictures, she was just strutting around the house.  Such a girly girl.

She is so brave and is starting to climb up on furniture.  Scares the heck out of us!  It is fun to see her little brain put to work though.  "Let's see, how can I get up onto this chair without being caught?"

Oh, and I have to report of SUCH a big milestone for our girl....she is sleeping through the night. 

Almost. 

I say almost because about once a week she still wakes up and I bring her into bed with me for about an hour.  Any longer and I will have bruises all over my body from her wailing body limbs.

One of her favorite things in the world is her doll "Suzie".  She is holding her in the bottom picture.  This doll holds a little special place in my heart and I am so happy that she loves her doll so much.  I bought Suzie at a garage sale on Oct. 1st 2011.  A little girl saw my huge belly and asked if I wanted to buy her very first doll for my baby for $0.25.  I said, of course, my baby girl will love it!  And, one garage sale later my water broke.  So, that little girl was right.  My baby does loves her first doll that she so thoughtfully let me buy.  And, we will keep it forever!