are you sick of this sweater and hat combo yet?  i am not.  she wore them for two days straight because winter paid us a visit before fall was over and they were the only warm things in her closet.  apparently avery has decided that she does not like wearing things on her head.  hoods, hats, stacks of blocks that i try and balance there, they all get taken off immediately.  the blocks are one thing but the hoods and hats are going to be a necessity this winter, avery.  i have a feeling we'll be in a constant battle over wearing them.  apparently she doesn't mind being cold.  what she doesn't understand is all the judgey stares i'll get from people who are thinking 'how could you take that baby out of the house without a hat?!'  for now we'll just settle for 10 second stretches at a time and hope that when it gets really cold she'll forget how much she hates things on her head.  

i call this the happy baby series.  of course the cat was the one responsible for this smile but at least i was able to document it.  as soon as she started crawling she seemed to figure out how to pull herself up on things and then get faster and faster when she was going places.  the kitchen is a favorite place to play because there's chairs, water bowls, trashcans, and the occasional crumb that the dogs have missed.  i've been finding myself cleaning this floor multiple times a week and even then there's dirt on it.  i suppose a little dirt won't kill her but let me tell you a good 'is my floor clean test' is to put white socks on the baby and then let her crawl around for a bit.  the answer is always no.  even if you just cleaned the floor, especially if you have 4 pets.  oh well. 

this kid will be on an airplane bound for d.c. in a few days and i'm more than a little nervous that this will result in totally screwing up with her sleep.  the last time we went somewhere back in july her nighttime sleep was screwed up for 2 months.  2 months!  i realize this is a long time to attribute to a few days away but nevertheless i still blame the trip.  and we're actually at a point now where avery's sleeping well at night and taking a good morning nap.  and she's never been a good napper.  ever.  so i've been clinging to these naps.  my fingers are crossed that after we return from maryland that she gets back into her good rhythm because i don't know if i can take another 2 months of a baby who's up 3 times a night.  i've gotten used to sleeping and i like it that way.    

baby + cat.

i know i keep mentioning how amazing ollie is with avery but seriously, he.is.amazing.  i have grown up with tolerant cats but i think he's a little different.  as much as she hangs all over him, pulls on his whiskers (yes, this really happens), eats his tail, and climbs over him he still sticks around.  i actually think he loves her just as much as she loves despite how annoying she can be.  since she's often crawling in his direction but when she isn't he's usually somewhere close by and will lay down near where she's playing during the day.

the other day i was at a conference and charlie called me because avery was crying and he couldn't figure out what was wrong or snap her out of it.  i told him to take her over to the cat and sure enough she stopped crying and turned into a happy baby again.    

i like to pretend that this is her version of a hug but i think this has more to do with the fact that he's so soft.  she does this to him all the time.  don't let his annoyed look fool you.  after this picture was taken she literally climbed over top of him and he didn't move at all.  he makes a pretty good obstacle course.  

her version of cat has turned into 'tat' which she excitedly says every time she sees him.  and although this is about ollie i have to say that henry has also been amazing with her.  she can climb all over him, take his toys, and he just lets her do whatever she wants.  now that she's crawling he'll occasionally try and play with her and although she doesn't get what he's doing she thinks it's hilarious.  i'm really grateful that we have such nice animals and that she loves growing up with them as much as we love them.  

a trip to the pumpkin patch.

ahh where has the time gone?  some days i have the best of intentions to blog and then the end of the day comes and i curl up on the couch with charlie and a glass of wine for an hour before i climb into bed.  as much as i want to document these things, because the time goes so fast and i want us to remember, i'm usually so sick of the computer by the end of the day that i want nothing to do with it.  also, it's difficult to type and hold my wine at the same time.  anyway, we went to the pumpkin patch today.  we wanted to get some pumpkins and i've wanted to start making traditions for our family.  and a trip to the pumpkin patch is an easy and fun one for fall.

it was still pretty cool today.  in the 50s, which is sort of nice when you're doing fall-like activities.  somehow it feels less like fall when it's 80 degrees out.  plus this meant that avery got to wear her new hat that i got her yesterday when it was snowing and i realized she had no winter clothes.  

we didn't have far to go, which was nice since we were trying to squeeze this in between avery's nap and the broncos game.  as you can see she was thrilled to be picking pumpkins.  

the most important thing in this picture is that she's wearing shoes!  this is actually the first time she's every worn them.  because along with a hat and a winter coat i realized that even though she wasn't walking yet she was going to need shoes this winter.  so i ordered her some a week or so ago, but they're still on their way to us.  and then my dad (thanks dad!) reminded me about these shoes that were mine that my parents had given to me so i decided to see if they fit.  they're a little long but apparently my daughter has inherited my hugely fat feet so i could barely squeeze her feet into these.    

i sort of love this picture.  minus the ugly pumpkin.  she's giving charlie her scrunchie nose smile. 

we picked a few pumpkins and then went to go show avery the farm animals.  she loved them, which surprised me.  after her trip to the zoo where she wasn't into the animals at all i wasn't expecting her to care but she seemed to really like them all, especially the pigs and the sheep.

the pigs were pretty cute. 

and avery was totally into them.  

although those pumpkins were totally overpriced it was definitely worth the trip and i'm sure we'll visit again with the masses next year.  i'm just hoping that these pumpkins last until halloween so we can carve them and roast their seeds. 

living room progress.

this room has been (and still is) such a work in progress.  i haven't bothered to do too much in here since we moved in and i ended up dumping furniture that i couldn't fit/didn't want in other areas of the house.  here's the thing:  charlie and i aren't formal living room people.  when we were house hunting we were actively looking for houses that did not have formal living rooms or dining rooms because we knew we wouldn't end up using them.  in fact, before we started looking for houses i had promised charlie that if we ever ended up with a house with a formal dining room he could put a pool table in it instead.  but after looking at a lot of houses, we found this one that despite the formal living room met our needs.

anyway, back to this room. the three pieces of furniture that it started out with were 2 bookshelves and a bench that held our shoes.  the bookshelves were definitely staying because i had no where else to put them.  i knew i wanted a white couch and we ended up with a loveseat because the room is actually pretty tiny and a couch would have looked pretty big and not left us with much room.  i also wanted  cheap couch because i wasn't thinking we would spend a lot of time in this room.  so ikea won out for this one.  and surprisingly i love it.  its super comfortable and we've ended up spending a lot of time on it reading books to avery.  i was originally thinking that i wanted a flatwoven rug in this room but after living in the room a while i realized i wanted something more cozy because with a baby we spend a lot of time sitting on the floor.  i was really in no hurry to get a rug but i found this at target and brought it home to try and charlie ended up loving it (this never happens) so it stayed.

the curtains were fabric from hobby lobby that i got for less than $30.  i used the ever-popular method of no-sew curtains to make them, which is so, so easy it makes me want to make new curtains for our bedroom.  i had no intention of hanging curtains this high  (they're over 100 inches long) but i didn't bother measuring when i was making them so they ended up super long.  i was planning on shortening them but charlie liked them long so i left them.  we still have pictures to hang and eventually i would love to get a chair in the room but for now i'm loving that it's actually a place that we spend time in and not just a room we stuck furniture in because it's the first thing you see when you walk in the house.  charlie informed me months ago that this is where our christmas tree is going to go so i'm sure we'll be spending even more time in here in a few months, reading christmas books and listening to christmas music (when charlie will let me start playing it, which isn't until after thanksgiving).  

 oh my goodness.  these pictures make me so happy and yet so sad at the same time.  i love how much she loves this cat.  it's ridiculous really.  i cannot how many times a day she looks for him, calls him, and gets so excited when she sees him.  there's no easier way to snap her out of a bad mood than to ask her where the cat is.  but she looks so big in these pictures, with her hands pressed against the door.  tonight right before i put her to bed i sat her next to him while i was picking up some things.  she pet him for a bit and then laid her head down on him.  sleepy love.  the only thing sweeter is when she does it to me.         

this kid is on the mooove.  and this cat is pretty upset about it.  they went a few rounds around the kitchen island today because toby wasn't smart enough to figure out that she can actually follow him places now.  this is his back off move but she just charges after him saying "ca ca ca" and "t t t".  these animals have no idea what they're in for.  she cracks me up all the time.  tonight when i was feeding her dinner she kept making the fish face and i could not stop laughing, which of course just encouraged her even more and made dinner about twice as long because it's hard to put green beans in your mouth when you're laughing.  and her new favorite game in the bathtub is to throw all of her toys out of the tub and then peer over the edge to make sure they're still there.

as much as i'm still getting used to having a mobile baby and there are times i turn my head and she's not there, i'm so happy for her that she's figured out how to get around.  it really seemed to be her 9 month 'birthday' that she really started to move and she's quite proud of herself and much less frustrated than she was before.  charlie keeps saying how proud of her he is.  it's sort of funny.  i have also quickly figured out that dresses do not work on a crawling baby.