Happy 2nd Birthday Avery!!!

Avery listening to her Happy Birthday song and blowing out her candle! Hooray that we accomplished this with no tears and the birthday hat! ;-)
Typical Avery- loving her books! We found her on the outskirts of the party with a pile of books and she even recruited her buddy Abby to read with her! Too cute how they all play together now!
All the kiddos at the birthday party- Sammi, Sydney, Brady, Avery, Abbie, Riley, and Lindey! Man they've all grown in a year! Plus Lulu, Grandma and Papa's puppy joined the party too!
Papa and Oma with the birthday girl!
Avery opening up some presents with mommy at her High School Musical Birthday party.
Avery actually smiling for the camera!!!! Thanks Papa for getting us a good picture! ;-)
The girls in their new jammies from Oma and Papa.
The whole Herron Clan at the beautiful Key Largo house we rented!
Steve taking Avery down her first water slide- she was a bit timid after getting some water in her face! ;-)
Riley and Jaxon playing together!
Riley floating in her water toy!

It's official- we've been surviving this parenting gig for two years now! It's hard to believe that Avery is already "two" (as that is one of her favorite things to tell everyone, that she is "two"), man time has flown by. She is in the phase that she will repeat everything you say, so we've got to watch ourselves. This weekend Steve's dad, Bill, who likes to call me "Lil Chels" called me that and next thing we know Avery who was playing blocks (her favorite thing to do these days) isn't phased from playing but repeats it right away "Lil Chels"! So funny how they're like sponges. I was overjoyed that our photograph fearing girl, Avery, finally took her first pictures for her two year pictures without crying through the whole thing for the first time in at least nine months! She absolutely loves being a big sister, playing with her little sister and helping with her.

Riley has been just getting bigger and bigger and blowing us away with her personality. She is now sitting all by herself and loves to play whatever her big sis is playing. Riley is so strong that it blows us away with how she can move her body around and jump like crazy in her jumperoo (perhaps she's going to follow in her Uncle Casey and Oma's footsteps and be the next highjumper in the family). She absolutely adores Avery and it shows with how she watches her and grins like crazy anytime Avery gives her any attention. Riley is definitely going to be a daddy's girl too, as she lights up anytime Daddy is around.

We were blessed to have an amazing winter getaway vacation with the Herron family, Steve's parents, as well as his brother Gregg, wife Nicole, and my adorable nephew Jaxon. We enjoyed a week in Key Largo with some awesome 80 degree weather and an awesome vacation house on the water. We had a blast!

2011- Family of Four

This was all the attention Avery would give her sister at first (Avery 17 months, Riley 2 weeks)
Enjoying the Pumpkin Patch at Greenbluff in Spokane in October.
Riley at 1 Week! She still has that same attitude you see in the picture now! ;-)
Last picture of a family of three, while in Hawaii with the entire family in May 2010 (I'm 32 weeks pregnant there).
Avery learned to walk in Hawaii with the help of all her Grandparents and Uncle Casey.

Finally... I will be updating my blogs on a more regular basis. We've finally resolved all the computer problems, which brought about picture problems in uploading. So, what has gone on in the last year... Avery is rapidly approaching her 2nd Birthday in March- she is "little miss personality" as Steve puts it. She is full of energy and often will run laps around the island in the kitchen or "suicides" between people. She is talking more and more every day, but is still mainly saying 1-2 words at a time. Some of her favorite things to say are Papa, Oma, Hi Ry (for Riley), Special (her special bread or anything else I call special), Show, Help, and baball(basketball). Riley has been an amazing addition to our growing family and thank goodness has been the most laid back and relaxed baby ever. Thank goodness of that much since they're only 16 months apart. Riley is often reffered to as "Saint Riley". She has given us a challenge with her eating, just like Avery did and has to have special prescription formula due to her milk protein allergy. However, she is very fun loving and loves to hang out, watch her sister, jump in her jumperoo, and play with whomever gives her attention. The transition to two kids in the family was particularly hard for the first three months, but has gotten to be much more doable recently. There are definitely a fair share of ups and downs, but I can't imagine it any other way now. We truly have felt blessed to have two healthy and loving girls! So here are some recent pics to update you:

10 1/2 Months Trip to Shedd Aquarium and Playing in Snow

Avery has become quite the performer this month. Her tricks she performs are: wave, clap, "so big" (were still working on mastering), blowing kisses, she can say: Mama, Ball, Uh Oh, and she is standing up on everything. She has become quite fond of any music and dancing, as a matter of fact, High School Musical is mesmerizing to her. With any music and dancing she will become entranced and bob to the music by rocking her body or clap to the music. She loves Patty Cake and the Wheels on the Bus too. Her two favorite toys would be her balls and books though. She loves to play catch with her basketball or soccer ball and will clap and cheer for herself every time she throws the ball.

Avery is going through a phase where she has been deadly afraid of the bath and screams bloody murder when we try to put her in- although she used to love it. So... I have to get in with her just to slowly work her into the water. She has also been having some attachment, especially to Mommy, and is afraid of many things at first including the vacuum, mixer, blow dryer, and new faces. Not too surprisingly, she is big for her age and is still in the 95% for height and about 75% for weight. As she is turning 11 months, she is already wearing 18 month clothes and starting to phase into the 24 month clothes. She still gets the same compliment all the time- "She looks just like her Dad." We will see if her soon to be brother or sister, due July 29th will get the same compliment. I'm 16 weeks now and we're getting more and more excited to add to the family soon. Avery can't wait to be a big sister!

We took Avery to the huge Chicago Shedd Aquarium and she was quite interested in the animals- although I think her favorite part was the 5 minute cartoon video they showed prior to the dolphin show! ;-)

Since we've finally gotten some snow we have taken Avery sledding a couple times in the back yard. She wasn't quite sure what she thought about it as you can tell, but she rode along with her neighbor buddy, Lindey (3 months). After a couple minutes she figured out how to drag her hand in the snow as we went and was amused by that for quite awhile. Then we attempted to play in the snow for a bit and she tasted her first snow- you can tell she wasn't too fond of it! Lastly, Daddy had to dress Avery up in her Super Bowl outfit for the big day.

9 1/2 Months 1st Christmas at Clark Griswolds

Merry Belated Christmas to everyone... just now getting all of our great Christmas memories shared. We had a fabulous Christmas with the Grandpa and Oma Clark, and Uncle Casey. Avery's favorite part was chasing around all three of the families dogs- Lady, Stella, and Jordan. She has definitely grown to love dogs from her experience. During the entire 5 hour flight both directions Avery was a champ and slept, played, and ate without a hitch. She even played along and posed for the camera a bit! She also enjoyed playing with G-pa and his glasses. Although there were many highlights attending the Gonzaga girls game and McCarthy Center for the first time was at the top of the list- she was not sure what she thought of the bulldog though as you can see. She was pretty excited about opening presents though and showed excitement with each gift! During this time Avery has decided... she did not want any more baby food and only wanted big girl table food, become quite the speedy crawler and can move faster than you can believe, and she is just starting to stand up on occasion.

8 1/2 Months- Thanksgiving with the Herrons & 1st Christmas Preparations

It has been an exciting last couple weeks for us. Avery has become an expert crawler in large thanks to Lulu (Grandpa and Grandma's dog). She spent the entire long weekend chasing Lulu around. We had a blast cutting down our Christmas tree for the third year here in Chicago. Avery loves to jump now... as you can see as she practiced her jumping with Daddy at the Christmas tree farm. She especially was a huge fan of the Christmas lights, but as in all her toys all she wanted to do was shake it and put them in her mouth. The good news is that she doesn't want to mess with the Christmas tree! Avery's new favorite thing is dancing now as seen with Mommy!

Avery's on the Move...

7 Months and Enjoying a Midwestern Fall!

We've had a great time with Avery now that she is so much more alert and active. Although, we've also learned a few powerful lessons already and she still isn't crawling. The biggest lesson was that we must have eyes on her at all times as she "sky dived", as Uncle Dave called it, off the kitchen counter into a belly flop onto the hardwood kitchen floor three feet below. Somehow she survived without a scrape from jumping out of the Bumbo. She has become quite a sitter and loves her car. We had a great trip to Battle Creek with the Herron Grandparents and family. The highlight... Avery is expecting her first cousin! Uncle Gregg and Aunt Nicole are due on May 23, 2010. She was absolutely enamored with the pumkin they brought to share the exciting news, so much so that none of us could get her to look at the camera! Congrats you guys! Then we all went to an Apple Orchard and toured the corn maze together and checked out all the happenings there. We even had a little competition at the corn maze, girls versus guys, but us girls got out smarted by the boys. Don't worry there will be a next time! Before it gets too cold we've been taking many trips to the neighborhood park with the swing. Avery likes to play with her neighbor buddy Abby. Lastly, we made our first trip to the Brookfield Zoo where we got to check out the goats and all the animals that were there with some of our friends from our play group.