First Tooth

As mentioned, Avery's first tooth arrived last week Tuesday. I noticed it as Avery was chewing on my finger. In the last week it's really made more of an appearance and you can really see it now. We just took these pictures after she ate bananas, which she loves! Can you see it?
She's very excited about her new tooth. (Until the pain of the next one coming in hits...)

Ah, my baby's growing. :(

Avery's First Thanksgiving

Avery spent her first Thanksgiving with the Hunt family. We had a great weekend hanging out with the whole family (though Mom had to go into work on Friday). Avery got lots of quality time in with her cousins Nolan and Braden, which was really good for her. The babies spent lots of time playing on the floor and Avery had some developmental break throughs, rolling over, sitting up like a big girl, and making better motions toward crawling. (Amazing what a baby can accomplish when they aren't being held all the time!) Also, Avery's first tooth made an appearance last week, pictures to come of that once I can get one of her showing it off.

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for a great Thanksgiving!

Avery with Great Grandma and Daddy. Great Grandma kept saying what a cute baby Avery is - I agree! :)

Avery and cousin Nolan. Posing with the Christmas bear - getting ready for the next holiday.

Cousin Braden playing with the babies.

My little cutie. Happy Thanksgiving!

God Bless Avery

Our little Avery got baptized yesterday! As you probably know, Andy and I aren't real "churchy," in fact I can count on one hand how many times we've been to church together in the 10 years we've been together, but this was something we thought was important for Avery. We want to do everything in our power to keep this little girl safe. And as I've mentioned before about my friend's grand-daughter, Maddy, who has been fighting cancer I've realized how voulnerable babies are. God was on Maddy's side -she's now post-surgery, with the tumor gone and will be regaining full mobility!

Avery was baptized in Olypmia, at Aunt Jess' & Uncle Mike's and Aunt Sarah's & Uncle Charlie's church - Gull Harbor. She was baptized with her cousin, Nolan. The whole Ruhl & Groth family were in attendance along with Avery's Grandma, Grandpa and Nana. Thank you to all of you who were there for Avery and Nolan on their special day and for all the beautiful things you gave her! She's a very lucky girl to have so many special people in her life.

Here's our little angel during church service.
During the baptism.

The parents - and Sponsors. Andy & I are godparents too now!

Oh yeah, Mommy got baptized too! (I was never baptized as a baby - my parent's wanted me to be able to choose my own religion). Now Avery and I can share this special day.

Ah, aren't these two cute?!

Nolan & Avery were exhausted after their big day.

God bless these two babies and keep them safe.

Game Night at the Grazier's

We went to our friends' Margie and Scott's place Friday night for game night and Avery's buddy Alena (who's 2 days older) was there. We were excited to get the girls together again since last time they didn't even pay attention to each other. Alena has been crawling for a couple weeks now. We put the girls on the floor to play and once Alena got her eyes on Avery she went over to play. Avery couldn't do much to defend herself - it was pretty funny!

This was after Alena grabbed a chunk of Avery's hair. Avery was done playing. (And it was jammy time - bed time).We realized how bad Avery's only-child syndrome is, she does not like playing with other kids since she's never around them. Time to get her in some play groups! As soon as Avery can crawl and run away Avery & Alena are having another play date! Avery also stayed up with all the adults & partied all night with us - we didn't leave until after 1:00. She thinks she's one of the adults. :)

6 Month Stats

Avery had her 6 month check-up on Monday. We're happy to report that she is a healthy baby girl and doc thinks she's on track developmentally. She weighs 15lbs, 15oz and is 25 3/4" long. She's in the 50th percentile for both - Little Miss Average. She's still in size 2 diapers and 3-6 month clothes, but a shopping spree is due for 6 months clothes as she's getting too long and her jeans are very SKINNY jeans.

She started a new trick a couple days ago while laying in Mommy & Daddy's bed watching cartoons - she can now sit up all on her own. That only means crawling is coming very soon - and the chase begins!

Here's our little Stinker on her 6 month birthday. I got lots of these shots...
And then Daddy came home from the gym...

1/2 a Year Old!!!

Can you believe my tiny girl is already 6 months old?! Time sure does fly way too fast with babies. The past 6 months have been such a blessing to have this little girl in our lives. Although I don't want her to ever grow up, every stage is so much fun. She's become a little girl now, with a very fun personality, and she's such a cutie pie.

Avery is a very social girl - she loves to be out and about and will interrupt your conversation so that she can get a few words in too. She goes in stages on the words she decides to say - 2 weeks ago all she would say is "Dadda, dada, dada.." Last week she dropped Dada and started saying "Mum," obviously embracing the English on Daddy's side. I love hearing her say Mum, although it usually comes out when she's not real happy. Right before Halloween she started her grwol and has perfected it now. If she wasn't so darn cute I might think she was possessed by the devil. She gets real stiff and growls real loud. So funny.

She's working on sitting up, and is just about able to do it on her own. Sometimes in her quest to grab her feet her head gets the best of her and she falls over on her stomach, but she goes with it and pushes herself up on her arms. Speaking of arms, she has them up all the time. We're not quite sure if it's "Pick me up," "I'm scared," "I think I'm a bird..." It's hard to get pictures of her without the arms in the air. She's gotten pretty good at rolling over from her back to stomach now. I guess it was hard for her to get this skill down since she's held all day by Mommy, Daddy, Nana, Grandma... Hard to be so loved! She still loves her very pink exersaucer and sometimes has so much fun that CRAZY BABY comes out and she attacks the toys with her arms and mouth. She thinks it's hilarious when I then call her Craaaaazy Baby. :)

Every time I leave this little stinker behind I ask for kisses and she's gotten really good at slobbering all over my cheek now and smiles big when I thank her for the kisses. Such a sweetie.

We think the teeth are making a comeback, she's normally such a happy baby but she has her moments where she has complete melt-downs and holds her gums. We're still waiting to see that first tooth pop out of the gums. Poor baby. She started eating 2 weeks ago, starting with mashed up Avacado. She's still not too sure about the food thing, but she and Opa love making a huge mess trying to get it in her mouth.

Avery had a 6 month photo shoot with a professional photographer, Irene Jones out of Everett that I went to high school with. We get to see them this Saturday and I can't wait! Irene posted about our shoot on her blog - check it out and check out her amazing photography: http://blog.ijphoto.net/2010/11/08/avery/

In the meantime, here are the pictures from Avery's monthly at-home photo shoot. The new blonde hair is still coming in, pardon the slight baldness.

Trying to escape the photoshoot.

Shhh... don't tell Mom... I'm going to take this ridiculous bow off when she's not looking...

There's my smiley baby. How can you not be crazy about this little girl?

Happy 1/2 birthday Avery! I can't wait to see what's yet to come and can't believe how much you've changed my life and filled my heart with so much love. We love you!

Congratulations Aunty Nan!

My little sister, (25) finally got herself a big girl job - working at C Beyond in Bellevue! We decided this was a perfect opportunity to get together as a family and celebrate her good news. Sometimes you just have to encourage the positive things in life. We threw her a (surprise) gathering at Mom & Dad's Friday night. We had a great dinner and good laughs.

Congratulations Kristin, we're very proud of you!

Avery with Oma.
Opa and Nana with the Granddaughter and Granddog.

The new business woman and her little family - Anthony and Dre.

The Hermans clan. And what a crazy bunch we are! :)

Halloween

For Avery's first Halloween we decided to go down to Olympia to Aunt Jess & Uncle Mike's so Avery could spend it with her cousins, and extended cousins and Grandma. We had a busy day on Sunday: church (first time for Avery), cousin's Braden's soccer practice, then off to Aunt Sarah's & Uncle Charlie's for dinner & trick-or-treating. Exhausting for Avery, mostly because of the 5 outfits she changed in and out of all day. :)

Last weekend at Nana & Opa's - modeling her Halloween outfit that Nana got her.

Hanging out with cousins Nolan and Braden. Nolan and Avery still have boundary issues with eachother - maybe because of the constant smacks in the face and chewing on fingers?

Braden the vampire. He LOVES Halloween. If he had it his way every day would be Halloween - even Christmas!

Our attempt at getting all the cousins together. Here's the best one I got, but with all the paparazzi flashing away I'm sure there's a better one somewhere. Sarah got these shirts for all the kids to wear when Nolan was born.

From Left to Right: Nolan (4 1/2 mos), Braden (4 1/2 yrs), Avery (5 1/2 mos), Katie (4 1/2 yrs), Emily (1 1/2 yrs). Nolan & Braden are Avery's direct cousins (Jess' kids) and Katie & Emily are their cousins (Mike's sisters' kids). Got it? :)

And let the trick-or-treating begin! Avery wasn't too happy sitting in her stroller at first. Little Miss Social had to be out like everyone else. Eventually we got her back in and Daddy rolled her up to every door with the big kids.

Nolan fell asleep half way in.

The 2 little pumpkins. They weren't very impressed with eachother, just looked for what part of their costumes they could eat! (P.S., if you forgot, Nolan is 5 1/2 weeks younger than Avery. He's a big boy!)

We had a great time! Thanks to Jess & Mike and Sarah & Charlie for having us over and giving Avery a great first Halloween!