Avery's 7th, 8th & 9th Months

Who knew having a baby was so time consuming! And add working into the mix, and I barely have any time to do anything, let alone write a blog! I am SO FAR behind, so I'm going to lump the last three months into one blog post! I'm going to keep it brief and use pictures to show her last 3 months! So, here it goes!

1st Easter

Avery's Baptism April 28, 2013



Avery's Baptism April 28, 2013

Crawling: She started crawling in April. Here's a video (I'm not sure if the link will work)  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10101279086746997&set=vb.29604118&type=3&theater

Teeth: She started getting her teeth in at 6 months old. As of 9 months, she has 8 teeth! And she sure knows how to use them!!!

Here she is at 8 months showing off her bottom teeth!

My First Mother's Day: We spent mother's day at my sister's house. It was a nice day!

Mommy and Avery!

Daycare: Avery started daycare in May. It's taken a little bit of adjustment, but she's finally getting used to it! She was having a hard time napping. I think she just enjoyed watching everything that was going on, that she didn't want to nap and miss anything!!

Avery's 1sst day at daycare!

First Time in a swimming pool, Memorial Day weekend: Avery loved the water!!!

1st time in the pool!

Family swim time!

She is so stylish!

Sleeping 12-13 hours at night! I don't have any photos for this, but I had to share because from about3 months to 8 months old, she would NOT sleep!! She was consistently waking up 1 or 2 times every night!! But now she sleeps from at least 8pm to 8am! YAY!!!

Just a few things she enjoys:
Her brother! Her face lights up when she sees Keeghan!!
Playing peek-a-boo
Music, including Old MacDonald, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and NKOTB!!! :-)
Food, even pickles!!
Her orange monkey! LOVES that thing!

She loves her brother!

She loves pickles, just like mommy!

Did I mention she loves her orange monkey?!?!

And one more photo: Avery months 5, 6, 7 and 8!

Avery's 6th month

I can't believe Avery is already half a year old! Time is flying by too quickly and she is growing up way too fast! I am cherishing every moment with her and reminding myself to not take anything for granted! She will never be this small again, so I'm trying to capture every moment with her! Before we know it, she'll be 16 years old asking for the car keys because she has a date with the senior quarterback... Oh jeez, I just had a mini panic attack! Let's just focus on the moment right now, and right now she's an innocent, adorable six month old! :-)

This month was full of joy and sadness.

She's gotten really good at eating! I pureed some squash and carrots and she just LOVES them! I'd like to think it's because mommy made them with love, but I think she just really loves the flavor. Once I realized that she was a bit "stopped up" (if you know what I'm talking about), we tried to feed her prunes to get things flowing again... Well, she did NOT like prunes! So instead we tried pears. She loves pears and the fiber in them is enough to keep her "regular," which is good for mommy because having to give her a suppository was NOT a fun event... I won't go into detail, but let's just says it was MESSY!  Back to the food. So far she's had: rice cereal, squash, carrots, prunes, pears, peas, bananas, and sweet potatoes (I don't think I've missed any...) and so far she only hates prunes and is a little iffy about peas. But she'll eat peas if I mix it with something else, like carrots or sweet potatoes. 

We don't like prunes!

Not a big fan of peas, but she's a trooper and ate them for mommy!

Oh yeah. We like carrots!

She also celebrated her first Valentine's Day! We spent the evening at home, relaxing!

Neal and I celebrated our 4th anniversary on February 28th, the same day we lost our dog, Ike. Ike was such a wonderful dog! Since Avery's birth, he was a bit jealous of her, and he didn't really want anything to do with her! But the last few weeks of his life, he started getting interested in her, and Avery was starting to get interested in him, as well. She liked watching him and feeling his fur. I'm so sad that she will not remember him, only what we show her in pictures and stories we tell about him. We miss Ike so much!

 

 

Ike and Avery

One of our last family walks with Ike.

One month to six month comparison

Avery's 6 month photos:

Avery's 5th month

January 26th - We went to Aunt Donna's 50th birthday party. Avery seemed very shy, and was only happy in mommy's arms! I think a bit of her personality was coming out - we have a shy little girl on our hands! Either that, or it was the beginning stages of her teeth coming through. and she wasn't feeling too well.

January 28th - Avery started going to our neighbor, Adrienne's house. I think she really likes it over there! She never cries when Neal drops her off, and when it's time to leave she always cries (but I think it's because she doesn't want to be put in her car seat!). Adrienne has two kids, so it'll be great that she'll get to interact with other kids!

Just a few days shy of her 5 month birthday, Avery's bottom two teeth cut through! This explains all the drooling, hands constantly in her mouth, and diarrhea! I'm sure it doesn't feel good, but she just looks so dang cute with those two little teeth when she smiles!!

Her bottom two teeth!

Avery is a bit lazy (seems to be taking after her mama!), so the process of rolling is taking a while. No matter how we lay her down, she seems content. She's rolled from her back to stomach and from her stomach to back, but she doesn't seem too motivated to practice! 

She started laughing this month. Not the adorable belly laugh, but more like a heavy breathing laugh (very hard to explain!). It's still cute, though! Apparently mommy and daddy are funny, but not quite funny enough to get a full-blown chuckle out of her... yet! But I'm working on my comedy routine! From seeing other babies, I understand that injury really gets them laughing, so I am prepared to hurt myself to get a good laugh out of her (i.e. banging my head on a wall, stubbing my toes, slamming my fingers in doors, etc...).

We also started her on solid foods this month! We started her with rice cereal. When we started, I didn't think she liked it, but by the time we were finished, she seemed to enjoy it!

She seems a bit unsure about the rice cereal!

Avery's 5 months old!

5 months old!

Avery's 4th month

What happened this month:

• December 15 - Went to her Great Great Aunt Lillie's 90th birthday party. She found her feet that day and played with them in the car!
• Christmas - See below
• December 26th - 1st night in her crib (10pm-5am)! She tossed and turned from3:00am - 4:30am, but no crying!
• New Years - See below
• She really enjoys playing peek a boo!
• Cooing - Avery is cooing/talking so much! She's going to be a talker (just like her Aunt Kristy)!!!
• Grabbing - She is grabbing at everything within reach! toys, clothes, burp cloths, hair, etc. She's even learned how to pull her pacifier out of her mouth, and the other day I saw her pull it out and put it right back in! And along with the grabbing, everything that she touches immediately goes to her mouth. I just love watching her go through all the phases a child goes through, even if it means my fingers or clothes will be covered in her slobber!!

Avery is definitely the boss in our household. She decides when mommy and daddy wake up, when we eat and when we shower, just to name a few! And I honestly don't mind! I'm willing to starve if my baby girl would rather me play with her! :-) Before I got pregnant, I always heard a lot of moms talk about how they forgot to eat lunch or didn't have time to shower... I thought they were just exaggerating! Well, now I understand! Just the other day I was holding Avery and my stomach let out a gnarly growl! I looked at the clock and it was 3pm... I forgot to eat lunch!

Avery's first Christmas was great! Our 1st Christmas party was on Saturday, December 22nd. This was my immediate family. Then we celebrated Christmas with Neal's mom and grandma on Sunday December 23rd. On Christmas Eve, Neal, Keeghan, Avery and I went to church and then had our family Christmas at home. Then woke up early Christmas morning and drove to El Campo to celebrate with my extended family! She spent Christmas with her BFFs Lily and Aiden on December 30th! Then we celebrated our Kutac Christmas on January 5th. Needless to say, Avery had a very fun and extended 1st Christmas! I'm so grateful that we have such a wonderful and loving family and friends! Avery got lots of clothes, toys, books and a college fund started, just to name a few gifts! Oh, and she got a wonderful savings fund started for our family trip to Disney World!!

On New Year's morning (a mere three hours after the famous ball dropped in NYC, to be exact), I woke up feeling sick. I initially thought I drank too much (I only had two glasses of wine the entire evening, so I ruled out too much alcohol pretty quickly). Looks like I had a stomach bug. I was up every 15 minutes running to the bathroom and had a fever of 102. Avery was sleeping in her pack & play in our room that evening, but luckily I never woke her up! However, when she woke at 5am for her morning feeding, I was just heading back to the bathroom for another visit to the porcelain god. I built up enough strength to feed her (I had to take two breaks to run to the bathroom, but thankfully Neal was available for me to pass her off quickly!). While Neal went to Walgreens to pick up some Pedialyte and Gatorade, he started getting sick, too!! Thankfully, my sister was spending the night, so she took Avery with her to her house to get away from us sickos! Then that evening my mom came to stay with us so she could take care of Avery. We were out of commission for 24 hours! Getting sick is one thing, but getting sick when you have an infant in the house is SO much harder! I was so worried about her getting sick that we quarantined ourselves to our room, but at the same time, I missed my baby girl so much and knowing she was in the other room made me want to get out of that germ infested room and get a peek at that beautiful smile!

Ironically, about a day or two before we got sick, Avery started getting fussy, very clingy and wanted to eat a lot more. Turns out she was going through a growth spurt. Unfortunately for me, that means I was feeding... A LOT. And holding her more than normal. We had lots of contact to pass along my illness to her! Thankfully she never got sick! However, because I was so sick and dehydrated, my milk supply dropped, which meant she wasn't getting enough from me, and was always crying for more! We had to dip into my frozen stock pile, which I'm SO glad I have! I'm still working to build my supply back up, but so grateful I didn't dry up!

Avery's growth 1-4 months:

September 10 (1 day old)

October 9 

November 9

December 9

January 9