Da-da?

Our little chatty cathy has a new favorite word (sound actually), which sounds just like Dada. She used to almost say Ma-Ma when she was angry, but this new Da-da comes out all the time, especially when she's tired. Andy loves it. Is she saying Dada? Either way, it's pretty cute!

Avery's New Tricks

As I mentioned in Avery's 5 month post, she has 2 new tricks that she loves performing. The first is the tongue trick: she sticks it out and holds it up to her lip - like she's trying to reach her nose. Very cute.
The second one is grabbing her feet, and if she's in the mood, putting her toes in her mouth. This will probably be the highlight of her gymnastics career since Mommy & Daddy are not flexible at all!

Don't you wish you could do this?! She must be a true Albertinje, my Oma can STILL do this!

Our Little Stinker

I took Avery to get her pictures taken in her Halloween costume last weekend. We caught her on a great day - she had a long morning nap - so she was more than happy to pose for the camera. As you probably know by now, Andy calls her Skunk and I call her Stinker so it was only appropriate that she would be a Skunk for Halloween. (I added the bow and flower above the ear so she looked like a girl skunk).

Here are some of my favorite shots:

Pepe Le Pew!

Grandma Hunt got Avery and her cousin Nolan matching pumpkin outfits. She looks like such a big girl here. My tiny baby is growing up. :(

Classic Avery right now. She always has her hands in her mouth and feet in the air when they aren't in her mouth too.

This is her other new habbit - trying to reach her tongue to her nose. So cute.

We're taking Avery trick-or-treating in Olympia with her cousins next weekend so more Halloween pictures to come!

Hair Today - Bald Tomorrow

When Avery was first born she had so much hair that even the nurses couldn't believe how much (light) hair she had. The first comment eveyone made about her was always "look at all that hair!!" I never thought I'd have a bald baby, but 5 months later that full head of hair is long gone. Here's some pictures from my phone that map the hair loss.

One of her first baths at home. (Maybe 2 weeks old).

Her head started to grow and the hair couldn't keep up. (She's not happy about being drug to the mall in this picture). This was during the wave stage - I was able to wet her hair and put it into a cute curl in the front.

And the wave has been lost, but there's still some fluff...

I took this one last night. She's pretty much lost all the original hair - minus what resembles a mohawk on the top and a rat tail in the back which we trimmed yesterday. There's new hair there - it's just very light. Hello toe head! She may be bald but she's still pretty darn cute. :)

Go Huskies - Avery's 2nd Football Game

Last weekend we attended Avery's 2nd Husky football game. This time we had tickets in the Don James Center, which is very accomodating to bringing kids to games. It has a huge indoor space with dinner, snacks and a ton of great viewing areas. The seats are really roomy and cushioned. We're very spoiled - thank you Grandpa Hunt for sharing your company perks with us! We had a great time, and after 2 OT's the Huskies pulled out an amazing win!

Avery with Daddy during our dinner inside. Check out that cool jacket Avery's wearing - it's straight from 1981! My Aunty Myra saved some of our baby clothes and this was my favorite item. It's in great shape and so cute! Now that's retro. :)

Avery was very excited to see Grandma & Grandpa since she missed their visit this Thursday as they were in Vegas for the week.

The game started at 7:00 and we didn't leave until 11:30! Avery slept the game away cuddled in her UW blankie. Those headphones work like a charm!

5 months old!

Last Friday Avery turned 5 months! Time sure is flying fast! I wanted our tiny girl to stay little forever, and I still think she's growing up way too fast, but I'm enjoying each new stage so much, and just when I think she can't get any cuter she does something new to make my heart melt.

Our tiny baby is starting to look more like a big girl. She's still in the 50th percentile for weight (we're guessing around 15 pounds now), but carrying her in her car seat is really becoming a task now. And she has the cutest rolls on her thighs and arms. She's fitting solid in her 3-6 month attire now, and still in size 2 diapers. In the last few weeks she has lost a significant amount of hair - hard to believe our baby who received 100's of comments of "look at all that hair" is now mostly bald. All that's left is a small patch of long whispy hair on the top of her head (think mohawk) and a patch at the base of her neck. But the new stuff that's coming in is very light blonde, shedding that reddish tint.

She's been enjoying her exersaucer for a few weeks now, but at the turn of her 5 months, she now can almost flat-foot it when standing, and uses every toy on it, spinning to reach all of them! She's rolled over only a couple of times, we're still working on that one. She's on the brink of sitting up. She loves to be sitting upright and would have the sitting up thing down if her head didn't make her roll forward. :)

She starts foods next month, but we've been sneaking little bits of food to her occasionally. So far she likes cheese (just like Mommy & Daddy) and bread and Nana's chocolate chip cookies, though she's still not quite sure what to do with that little bit of stuff in her mouth. She puts EVERYTHING in her mouth - her favorite chew toy being adult fingers. She's still working on her first teeth, we haven't seen any cut yet, but she chews everything and has had quite a few tantrums when they start to hurt - crying and holding her hand on her gums. Poor baby!

In the last month we've also learned that we aren't the only ones who think our little Avery is the sweetest thing. She's such a social baby, loves to people watch, so she's always a perfect angel in public. Everyone is convinced she's the sweetest! She has so much personality. She's a Chatty Cathy, especially when others are talking, and has started grunting which she thinks is fantastic. And if you catch her at the right time and tickle and wiggle her body she'll give you a huge smile and laugh. She's also been experimenting with the high-pitched squeel which I'm sure has the neighbors' dogs going crazy. In the last few days she's also re-discovered her tongue and uses it quite often - sticking her tongue out at us and using it during conversations to us. Too cute!

As usual, here's her 5 month photoshoot. People have been saying she's starting to look more like me. Do you see it?

This picture cracks me up. I just see her thinking "OMG, my nails are a mess, I need a pedicure!"

Really Mom, I hate these signs!

She was trying so hard to eat the butterflies on her skirt!

Happy Birthday Albertineje! (That's what my Oma (Albertine Hermans) calls Avery - it means little Albertine. Appropriate since that's her middle name). We love you sweet girl!

First Weekend Away

Last weekend was our 3rd annual Oktoberfest trip with friends in Leavenworth, and our first weekend away from Avery. We dropped Avery off with Opa and headed out. It only took Mommy a good 20 minutes to dry the tears. :) We had a great time, we certainly appreciated a weekend out with friends and knew our little Princess was in great hands.

Here we are during the festivities.

And the Oktoberfest crew. We stay in the Hutte at the Enzian - this year we squeezed 13 people in.

Meanwhile Avery was having a great time with Nana and Opa.
Andy and I woke up Sunday morning before everyone else woke up and made a mad dash down to see our baby. We were greeted with a very big smile. We sure did miss that little Stinker!

East Coast Weekend

Last weekend (Thursday through Sunday) we flew out to Philly for our friend Maria's wedding in Delaware. As this was Avery's first plane ride we were very afraid of having a screaming child on our hands for 5+ hours, but we were pleasantly surprised by what an angel she was! She slept 2 1/2 hours both ways and ate and people watched the rest of the time. We're so proud of her!

Here's our little angel with Daddy on the plane on Thursday morning on our way out to Philly.

I'm ready for take-off Mommy!

Thursday night when we got into Philly and drove to Wilmington, DE, we met up with some of the wedding party & guests at a local English Pub. Avery had on her very cute outfit that our lovely bride got her.

Friday we had some time to kill before the rehearsal dinner so we did some exploring. We ended up in New Jersey. There are no pictures of Jersey to share, it didn't leave any lasting impressions on us. As far as I'm concerned New Jersey has only been good for one thing - giving my grandparents a place to call home when they came to the United States some 57 years ago and the birthplace to my Aunt and Dad! :)

Saturday was the wedding - Mommy was a bridesmaid. Maria and Ed's wedding was in the backyard of their house and it was so beautiful! Tropical Storm Nicole let up in time for a sunny wedding day, thank God! We had a great time at the wedding. Here's a few of our pictures from the day.

Avery with the Bride and groom.

The Hunt family.

Avery and Mommy with Maria, the beautiful bride.

Avery & Daddy. Doesn't Daddy look handsome? He cleans up well!

This was as close as Avery got to the ceremony. Such an angel, she started her nap 20 mins before it started and slept for an hour and a half! Yes, my child is close to perfection. :)

On our way out of Delaware on Sunday we spent some time in Philly since Andy had never been there. We got some sights in and had a Philly cheesesteak sandwhich of course!

The Liberty Bell.

Ben Franklin House.

The Second Bank of the United States. Of course I had to be in this pic!

Avery was really impressed with Philly, can you tell?

The Philly cheesesteak. Tasted like Hamburger Helper to me. Sorry Philly!

After we dropped off the car we headed to the airport to come home. We did have one little incident - the airline (US Airways, never using them again!) down-graded to a smaller plane and Andy's reservation was deleted! After waiting about an hour, with very stressed-out Mommy, they got him a seat and we got to sit together. Phew! That was a quick trip across the country. We're very glad to be back home on the West Coast!

Last Day of Summer

Last weekend (Sept 25th) was beautiful in Seattle, so we decided to spend our possible last sunny (summer) day at Alki. We had a great day in the sun and Avery slept most of the day away in her stroller. Here are our pictures from the day.

Then we went to Nana & Opa's for dinner. Daddy and Opa had their usual steak off - Opa gets the biggest steaks he can find at the grocery store and they compete to see who can eat the most. Andy always cleans his plate and Dad hurts himself trying to keep up.

Here are the gargantuan steaks. Fred Flinstone style!

Avery cheering them on. Daddy won hands down, Opa only got through half of his steak.