Fall Time Baby

This little fall time baby is just under 2 weeks away from celebrating her first birthday.

Someone grab me a tissue!

As tradition goes, Monday night, we all bundled up and headed to Jaker's Jack-O-Lanterns, the pumpkin patch in Springville, with my family.  Ava's first time of course.  It was cold. And windy. And crowded. And did I mention it was cold?  Ava wasn't a fan of the cold.  Or the wind.  Or the pumpkins for that matter.  But it was still fun regardless :)

I love that she is pretty much the same size as the pumpkins :)

Oh, and we must not forget about the scary corn pit too...

Oh, I just love this little tender hearted angel! 

And I love this time of year! 

Family Of Three

Back in September, Jace won a Facebook giveaway with a local photographer.  The prize was a 30 minute "mini" family photo shoot, with 20-25 edited images.  To say I was ecstatic that he won, would be an understatement.  I had been stressing, and I mean STRESSING over family pictures for awhile.  Who would we have take them?  How will we pay for it?  What will we wear??  You get the point.  To have two out of those three concerns lifted off of my shoulders, just like that, felt pretty darn good.  Sherry Ward is amazing.  And when I say amazing, I mean ridiculously AMAZING.  Her work is incredible and I was shocked, relieved and beyond happy that she got the beautiful pictures of our little family that she did!  Especially because a certain little lady wasn't being all that cooperative.  And I do have to give some credit to my parents who were there dancing, singing and waving toys about to try and get her to smile.  They helped immensely :)

All in all, we are so grateful for the opportunity we had to work with Sherry, and even more grateful for the wonderful photo memories she captured!

5 Years & 10 Months

I really, really wish I could find the time to blog more than once a month.  But hey, I will give myself a pat on the back for doing AT LEAST that!  Life is busy!  And this past month especially, we found ourselves constantly trying to catch our breath.  Ava reached some HUGE milestones this past month and Jace and I celebrated 5 wonderful years of marriage!  Not to mention that every single one of us got some kind of sickness within the month of September.  Not cool.  But all in all, it was a great month.  Here's the recap...

The end of August we celebrated Jace's mom, Julene's, 50th birthday.  Grandma Bea and Papa came into town from Missoula for her surprise birthday bash, as well as Uncle Del, Julene's brother, who Ava met for the first time!  We spent a lot of time with them that weekend.  There is nothing better than family! 

September 12, 2013

My sweetheart and I celebrated 5 years together.  It's crazy to think that I've been with this guy for half a decade!  We decided to do something a little extra special since it was our 5 year anniversary.  We left Ava with my parents overnight (first time EVER leaving her overnight) to spend some alone time up in  beautiful Park City.  As hard as it was to leave my baby for the first time, it was very nice to get away with my man and have a little break.  I am happy to say that, after 5 years, we are still in love :)

And Ava is growing up right before our very eyes! 

She has two new teeth, totaling 6 now.  She has started to climb on everything, including the stairs at my parents house.  She pulls herself up to stand now, something that literally happened overnight.  We lowered her crib mattress when we noticed that she was getting onto her knees in her crib, and the very next day, she was standing up in it when I went in to get her in the morning.  Little stinker!  

She still loves to scoot everywhere on her back, and army crawls like nobody's business.  She will pull herself up to her hands and knees when she wants to climb on something, or stand up, but she STILL will not crawl on her hands and knees.  It is so funny!  We think that she is just going to go from scooting to walking.  

She will eat pretty much anything that is placed in front of her, and is starting to realize that big people food is SO much tastier than baby food.  She will still eat a few different assortments of baby food, mostly the jars of fruit, but now completely refuses the jars of veggies.  She loves to eat whatever we are eating, and loves to feed herself.  Some of her favorites include:

Avocado

String Cheese

Graham Crackers

Goldfish Crackers

Yogurt

Tomatoes
Pizza

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Tilapia 

Mashed Potatoes

French Fries

Ice Cream

Broccoli 

Bananas

Sauteed Zucchini 

Mac 'n' Cheese

Just to name a few.

We feel so incredibly blessed to have such a wonderful eater!  We just pray that it continues!

She loves to dance!  Anytime she hears any kind of music or beat, she will start to bounce and wiggle her little body, kicking her legs and flailing her arms!  It is THE cutest thing in all the world.  She loves to talk and will make her little voice heard throughout our entire house.  

She is a curious little monster, tries to get into anything and everything she's not supposed to, loves to read books and is such a joy to be around!  She is so hilarious and keeps Jace and I laughing every day.  

And then this happened...

It is so hard for me to believe that my baby is almost ONE!  Where did that year go??

My gosh, I LOVE HER!