Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Santa Claus is coming to town, but Avery sure hopes he doesn't stop at our house!

We Are Thankful

I really enjoy the new Thanksgiving tradition that we have started in the past few years.  Instead of getting the whole family together on Thanksgiving day, we have our Thanksgiving meal the weekend after.  Granted, we have to wait for pumpkin pie but it gives everyone a little more time for traveling and visiting.

On Thanksgiving Day, we had a very laid back day.  We put up the Christmas tree (but didn't decorate) while Avery was taking her morning nap.  We watched a little of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and chowed down on turkey, green bean casserole and wild rice that Adam cooked.

All that turkey wore these two out! :)

We headed to Arkadelphia on Friday.  It was a long drive, but Avery did great.  Adam kept her occupied and we only had to pull over once because she opened up a package of tissues and got them all in her mouth :)  We spent the night in Arkadelphia on Friday, ate lunch on Saturday and then headed back up North.  Melissa wasn't feeling great, so we switched up the car situation so she didn't have to drive all the way home.  Melissa & Jayden rode with me, Adam drove Kerry's truck and Kerry drove Kyler and Evan in Melissa's car.  It was a long drive for all on full bellies!  Jayden did a great job of keeping Avery occupied.  They spent quite a bit of time making funny noises at each other.

It's a two-fer: 9 and 10 months in one post!

I'm so behind that I'm putting 9 and 10 months together in one post.  Avery turns 11 months on Friday, so hopefully I can get back on track :)

9 Month Pictures:

10 Month Pictures:

The best way to describe this time period is:  On the Move!   At 9-10 months Avery is...

 ...A great crawler, stands on her own and can even stand up without the help of pulling up on a piece of furniture.  She's also good at cruising around and took her first few steps.

...Has started to throw temper tantrums.  She does it when you take something away from her that she wanted.  She does the stiff, arched back, screaming bit.  It's lots of fun :)  She went through a phase during this time period that she would throw a fit everytime you put her in the car seat or high chair.  Luckily it didn't last long

....Is still nursing about 6 times per day, but has also gotten great at eating solid foods.  She really prefers to eat whatever we are having and feed herself.  This child has not met a food she doesn't like.  She really loves to knaw on a piece of french bread and will scream if she sees us with bread and she doesn't have any.  Maybe she's going to be a foodie!

Her first taste of asparagus

Sharing a bowl of rice with Daddy

Scrambled eggs are yummy!

First time eating spaghetti.  I think she liked it!

She doesn't limit her culinary exploration...she tried out the dishwasher too!

....Loves to clap for herself.  She claps when she takes a good bite of food, stands up  really well, sees herself in the mirror, etc., etc.

....Is sleeping great since she got her tubes.  She sleeps from around 8:00 p.m. to around 6:00 or 7:00 a.m. every night.  She is all over her bed but prefers to sleep on her tummy in the corner.

This is how I found her one day when I came to see her at daycare during lunch 

....When she is nursing and really tired she will put her paci in her mouth, take it out and nurse for a few seconds, repeat.  She does this every night

....Loves to play near the stairs and with any boxes

.....Has learned how to slide.  Special thanks to the Mills crew for the new playset!!

...Has discovered the dog food bowl and crawls directly to it.  Hey, it's only fair since she shares her people food with the dogs while she's sitting in the high chair!

....Is a Skype expert!  We skype Auntie Weez, Cici and Pop, Mim and Daddy (when he's out of town).  

...Wants you to chase her and will squeal and laugh if you grab her bottom when you catch her.

Her first time to try on a crown

Avery is so much fun!  Each day she does something that makes us smile and keeps us on our toes.  We LOVE this little girl!!

Our Little Indian

I'm way behind on blogging and I hope to catch up this weekend.  Just to tide the family over, here is a video of our little indian.  Mim taught her this at Thanksgiving and she's been doing it over and over for the past couple days.  See Mim - she was paying attention!

First Steps!

Avery took her first steps tonight!  We had noticed this weekend that she was getting really good at standing and seemed to have great balance.  At lunch she and I had been practicing at daycare and I even mentioned that I didn't think she would be ready to take her first steps at Thanksgiving, but maybe Christmas.  I guess she heard me and decided to prove me wrong!

Avery and I were in the living room and Adam was in the kitchen. She was standing up and all of a sudden...she took a step!  Adam and I were both thinking..."did that really just happen?  Does that count?"  She was very proud of herself.  A little later she took 2 steps!  Of course we didn't have any luck getting it on video. As you can see in the video, she was done performing her tricks and was ready to just crawl around :)  Hopefully we can get a video of those steps soon.

Valuable Lesson

Avery just learned a valuable lesson...If you give your piece of bread to Shelby,  she won't give it back :)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...Toyland

One of the fun things about living in Bentonville is being surrounded by all the Walmart vendors.  Every year, they sponsor "Toyland" where kids can go and check out all the cool new toys for the holiday season.  It started at the Walmart Home Office, but they have since moved it to the Bentonville Square.  We thought it would be fun to take Avery this year, even though we didn't think she would realize what was going on...boy were we wrong!  This little girl was all about those toys!

Please excuse her crazy outfit.  It was colder than we expected, so we were trying to bundle her up with whatever spare clothes were in the car.

Her first picture with a princess

She practically dove out of my arms trying to reach for the My Little Pony.  Makes her "child of the 80's" mommy proud :)

She was also a big fan of the Little People

Bye, Bye Ear Infections!

After several months of constant ear infections and antibiotics, Avery got tubes in her ears on October 30th. It was so much easier than I expected and Avery was such a trooper.  The hardest part was keeping her from eating from midnight until her surgery at around 7:30 a.m.

We arrived at the hospital at 6:00 and were taken back for prep.  We got to stay with her right up until time for them to take her back.  Once they took her back, we barely had time to run to the restroom and sit down in the waiting room before they were calling to say she was done.  The doc came out and told us that all had gone well, and within another 10 minutes they brought Avery down.  She was wide awake and in good spirits, but hungry!

The man that brought her down had a beard and he said she had been playing with his beard on the walk down.  That afternoon, she slept a little longer than normal but did great.

We've already had some drainage from the tubes (yuck) and had to do antibiotic ear drops, but that means they are doing their job.  If they wouldn't have been drained then we would be dealing with another ear infection.

Our little patient:

Kisses from Daddy

Feeling good post surgery

This cracks me up that she is holding her foot while she sleeps.  I swear this child is part monkey!

Boo!

We had our annual Halloween party on October 27th.  We did it a little earlier in the day since the boys had a birthday party that evening.  As always Adam cooked some yummy food and everyone dressed in their Halloween best.  Other than that...things were pretty rough.  As soon as everyone started to arrive Adam mentioned that Avery felt warm...she had a fever.  It just went downhill from there....Jayden headed home early with some bad cramping in his side.  Then Aunt Sissy got so scared by all the spookiness that she had to head to the emergency room with a racing heart!  I sure hope that next year's party is much less eventful!

Don't worry...the knife isn't real :)

Bobbing for apples is always one of the Pitts' boys favorites

On Halloween, Avery came up to the Home Office to do a little trick or treating and see everyone. We really go to a lot of work decorating and most everyone dresses up so it's pretty cool.  My team was dressed a superheros...this is the best pic I had of my outfit.  I think I did pretty good since I had to throw it together at the last minute while Avery was recovering from getting tubes!

I picked up Avery from daycare and as I started to get her dressed in the car, I realized that she had a dirty diaper.  Then I realized that I had no wipes...great!  Luckily I had some paper towels that did the job.  Then it started pouring down rain.  By the time Adam go out to the car to help up inside, it was so rainy, windy and cold.  We were juggling so much stuff trying to get Avery inside that I forgot my good camera :(  So these are the only pictures I had from her first Halloween.  Luckily we had gotten some good pics at the Halloween party.  She loved all the people and decorations and was such a ham smiling and waving at people.  We didn't collect candy (bc Adam and I didn't want to have to eat it!) but she got a small package of pretzels that she carried around with her.  All in all, her first Halloween was a success!