Happy New Year!

   2013 was a pretty good year(new awesome baby, Avery was potty trained finally).  To celebrate New Years Eve we got the girls party hats and left them with Grandma and Grandpa while Daryl and I went out to eat with our friends Christie and Ben.  Happy New Year!

Emery at Six Months

  On December 28th Emery turned six months old.  Emery has learned a new helpful skill:  She can hold her own bottle now.  We were really excited about that since Harper was the laziest baby known to man, and never bothered to acquire that skill.  Emery is sometimes an enthusiastic eater and at other times apathetic.  She really likes bananas so far.  She is still pretty much all smiles, and rolls all over her domain, the family room rug.  On the occasions she makes it off the rug and onto the wood floor she seems really surprised at the new surface.  It doesn't look like crawling is on her agenda anytime soon.  There is also no sign of teeth.  They are taking their own sweet time.  On the other hand she doesn't have much of a bald spot and her head is nice and round.

Holding her own bottle.

Emery isn't really sitting up that well yet. 

She really wanted to eat the monkey.

Coming up for air after assaulting the monkey.

Here's your comparison shot.  She is definitely bigger than that monkey now.

Christmas Fun Part 2 2013

    Here's the second part of Christmas.  My sister Nellie and her husband Paul came with Reagan and they picked up Ashlyn on their way up from California.  My sister DeAnna flew in Christmas night, but I don't think I have a single picture of her.  Then my brother Adam and his wife Angie already live here, so they came of course.  We were only missing my brother Phil and his family, and my sister Alex and her family.  We missed having them with us.  It was really nice to see my niece Reagan again.  She is about eighteen months now, and she is little standoffish at times.  You have to really work at her to win her attention. Somehow I was able to pull that off and she followed me around whenever her mother wasn't around.  If my sister was around I usually didn't get the time of day from her. Harper and Reagan had quite the battle of wills over toys though.  Whatever Reagan had Harper wanted to have.  Christmas morning Harper was very uninterested in her presents.  She opened a few fun ones and was done.  I had to open up the rest of the boring gifts of clothes she got.  It was nice to see everyone and celebrate my sister Nellie's fortieth birthday after Christmas together.  I can't wait until we see everyone again!

Ashlyn doing what she does best.

Grandma and Avery making cinnamon rolls together.

Reagan and Grandpa

Daryl and I with Emery in her Christmas jammies.

The tree on Christmas morning.

Reagan opening gifts.

Avery left a letter for Santa on Christmas Eve asking for a Barbie with a cinnamon roll offering, and last year's picture of her and Harper visiting Santa.  This was all Avery's idea.

Opening Christmas gifts.

More gift fun.

Emery and Reagan having cousin fun.

Daryl also was accepted by Reagan.

Reagan wearing I think six pairs of Harper's underwear.

Christmas Fun Part 1 2103

   I had too many pictures to post about Christmas all at once, so it is going to be divided up.  The Sunday before Christmas we had Aimee, Karl, and Tyler come over for dinner, and we exchanged gifts that night.   Emery got her first taste of chocolate pie thanks to Karl and Aimee, and she could not get enough of that stuff.  As soon as I would get another forkful of the pie she would lean her little body as far as she could go to shovel more in her.  She liked the chocolate a lot.  We had a lot of fun that night, and we even got together the next night to go see the lights at Enchanted Village.  Unfortunately, the camera I brought that night was dead, so I have no pictures of that.  We also got together again the day after Christmas with Karl and Daryl's mom for breakfast, but again I have no pictures of that.  

Avery and Harper are holding the quilts that Aimee sewed for them.  Avery's is Disney princesses and Harper's is Minnie Mouse.  They love them and sleep with them every night now.

Harper, Avery, and Tyler playing Kinect party on the Xbox.

Emery being fabulous.

Karl was the best brother ever and got Daryl Deep Space Nine MicroMachines that are staying in the package.

Harper was super happy to get underwear for Christmas.

Snow Day

   This morning we heard Avery come tearing up the stairs to our bedroom just excitedly exclaiming about the snow that fell last night.  I was already up and Avery was just jabbering away about snow running from one window to the next.  She looked over to see Daryl still sleeping in bed, and she rushed over to him to yell in his face about snow and how he needed to wake up.  We both hurried up to get ready for the day, so we could go experience the snow.  This is Avery's first snowfall that she has been old enough to really appreciate it, and she wanted to do it all.  She made a snowman that was about six inches tall and had a carrot nose as well as bamboo arms.  She also made a couple snow angels, and she had a great time sliding around.  The snow was pretty wet and sparse, so all of these activities were difficult.  

   Harper was not a fan of the snow because it was windy, and that made it bitterly cold.  She lasted maybe five minutes before needing to go inside where she immediately began to cry and demand her jacket come off.  Avery lasted maybe ten minutes more because there just wasn't much snow and it was cold.  I was pretty glad myself when she decided she was done.  By the afternoon the snow was all gone, and I won't be sad if we don't get anymore snow. 

Avery's first snowman.

The girls playing in our snow.  You should be impressed I found enough snow to make that snowman with.

Emery at Five Months

   Emery turned five months old on November 28th, which was a while ago now.  Oh well.  At five months Emery can roll all over the place from her tummy to her back and then back to her tummy.  She has started to eat rice cereal and mum mums.  She isn't a huge solid food fan yet though, but that's alright she has plenty of time to get used to that.  Emery is still the happiest baby.  It's so easy to get her to smile and laugh.  Avery loves her so much too.  Often she will exclaim that she is so cute and that Emery loves her very much.  It is so sweet.

Emery working on her mum mum.

Avery loves to get in on pictures with Emery.

Emery is taller than that monkey now.

Once again Avery insisted in being in the picture with her Rapunzel.  I love Emery's look of surprise.

Thanksgiving 2013

   We had a great Thanksgiving.  My parents were there, my sister DeAnna came too after having Thanksgiving dinner with her in-laws, and then Daryl's brother Karl was there with his family.  Dinner was pretty good and we had way too much dessert, so everything turned out great.  Avery and Harper were excited to see Tyler as always.  The girls had a great time decorating Tyler's robot dinosaur with some Christmas ornaments that Aimee brought for the girls.  

Aimee and DeAnna having fun.

Tyler brought this turkey he made in school for us.  He is such a sweet guy.

Karl and Aimee.

I love this face!

Playing with robot dinosaurs is serious business.

Daryl grating some chocolate for a pie.