30 days of thankful: week one

so i'm attempting to take a picture each day and post something that i'm thankful for on instagram.  it's pretty much my favorite way of quickly capturing moments that i want to remember.  i wanted to post to the blog, too so that i'd have more than just the pictures if one day i want to print them out or actually do something with them.  i figured doing one post per week would be slightly less overwhelming than 30 pictures all at once.  so here's week one:

day 1:  this girl, this dog, and the fact that they love/tolerate each other.

day 2: this man who works so hard both at work and at home

day 3: sunday morning breakfasts.  a little helper.  and hearing "i love you, daddy".

day 4: the excitement of the holidays through this one's eyes.  she found this at home depot, became mildly obsessed, and is insisting in showing each of the animals. 

day 5: pillow time with these two.

day 6: a full term baby bump with a HEAD DOWN baby (as avery would say).

day 7: first day as a stay at home mom.  so thankful that i'm able to spend my days with this kiddo and her future brother or sister.

homeward bound.

well, as of this evening i'm officially a stay at home mom.  it feels so weird to say that.  especially because if you had told my 21 year old self that i'd be leaving the work force to stay at home with my kids in 9 years i would have never believed you.  but, time changes things i guess.  or at least it has the potential to.  and while i never would have predicted that i would be leaving a career to raise my kids, i feel strangely at peace with this decision.  actually, i feel a lot of things about it:  gratitude, excitement, and just a little bit of wonder about what the future holds.

i have a lot of hope for this next chapter in our lives.  i hope that we're able to spend a lot of quality family time together.  i hope that it brings a sense of balance to our family.  i hope that we're able to both enjoy the little things and let the little things go.  i hope that charlie and i are able to fit in some alone time after adding a second baby to the mix.  i hope that i'm able to do some contract work this year.  i hope that this time as a family with young kids doesn't fly by too fast.  

i have really enjoyed these past 2 years with avery.  working from home part time has been both crazy and amazing all at once and i really wouldn't have traded that for anything.  it was an opportunity that i dreamed about when i was pregnant with her and searching for daycares that i didn't want to send her to and i feel so fortunate to have been able to live that for the past 2 years.  but there was no way that i could take care of two kids and work at the same time and be both a good mom and a good employee and i have no regrets about the decision we made for me to stay home at this point in our lives.  

i'm hoping that avery and i are able to get into a good routine that lets us get out of the house a lot more than we have been with me working.  i'm also hoping that i'm able to do some fun activities with her while taking care of a newborn without driving myself a little crazy.  

i know that there were always be laundry to do, dinners to cook, and floors to vacuum.  but hopefully i can always stop in the middle of the mess and appreciate all of the time that i get to spend with my kids. 

life lately ...

i seriously can't believe that it's already november.  we're supposed to have a baby this month!  again, something i haven't completely wrapped my head around and i feel like november is just going to been a little crazy between wrapping up work, getting ready for our newest addition, thanksgiving (which i really hope that i'm home one way or the other for), and finishing up some things around the house.  

... we're finishing up some house projects, although i'm pretty sure there will always be a list of things that we want to do either soonish or someday.  we hired someone to paint our bathroom and i really don't care how lazy that makes me at this point.  at almost 37 weeks pregnant, taping, caulking, priming, and painting are not on my list of things that i want to be doing.  and i figure my back hurts enough just from keeping up with the general cleaning and picking up.  

...  the nursery is almost finished.  i have one more project that i may or may not do.  it's far from a perfect room as we ended up using a lot of things that we had around the house instead of buying new.  one of the things that i remember after having avery is that i wanted to make her room more personal after she was born and we knew she was a girl.  so i've left a lot of things very neutral at this point and i'm sure i'll end up changing things slowly over time once this baby's born and we actually meet him or her.  also, the baby won't actually be using this room for a awhile so it's basically being used for clothes and diaper storage at this point.  

...  the baby is finally head down!! yay.  at my 30 week appointment it was head down and it flipped at some point between 30 and 32 weeks.  i remember waking up one morning and telling charlie 'the baby flipped' and he was sort of skeptical but sure enough it had.  at 36 weeks when it still wasn't head down my midwife scheduled an external cephalic version and when i went in for my 37 week appointment the baby had flipped back into the head down position, which means i don't have to have the version.  it's been driving me crazy the past few weeks trying to get it to flip and figure out exactly where it was.  i had a feeling it flipped this week as it was a lot lower and my ribs were a lot less sore but i didn't want to get my hopes up too much.  really hoping to go into labor on my own this time around when charlie is not traveling.  :)       

...  i've also been trying to enjoy these last few weekends as a family of 3.  i know that avery's world is about to be flipped around soon and i sort of feel guilty about all the attention that she's currently getting but won't be soon.  i think she'll be excited about a baby (at least at first) but i think not getting what she wants when she wants it will be hard for her.  hopefully she's built some good independent playing skills from all of the days that i work from home and will be happy to occupy herself during times that i can't be two places at once. 

 ...  i have 2 more freezer meals to make this week and then i think we're done (or at least our freezer won't be able to fit any more food) until the baby comes.  i didn't make a lot but i've tried to have enough so that we have something decent to eat on those days when cooking seems like an impossibility.  i made some chili, potato and broccoli soup, and meatballs for spaghetti so far and am hoping to do a meatloaf and chicken and sausage casserole this week so that we'll have a few freezer meals to rotate in with cooking those first few weeks.  

avery calls this her work computer and insists on working on it when i have to work.

...  i have one more day of work left at my current job.  it feels really weird to say that.  i'm planning on finishing up a few things at home the rest of this week and also trying to take avery to some fun places.  

...  i 'think' we finally have names for this baby.  still not 100% positive about the girl names as we've been tossing three around, but we've committed to a boy name and i like all three of the girl names that we have, too.  we're definitely last minute name pickers unlike a lot of our friends who seem to have names picked out before the end of the first trimester.  i still sort of feel like i'll need to see the baby first to make sure.  i remember when avery was born it felt a little weird to call her 'avery' for the first week or so.  still feeling like this baby is a boy although not as strongly as i was before.  my midwife always refers to it as a 'him', which makes me wonder if she knows something i don't.

...  dunkin is sort of feeling better.  i mentioned that he's been limping a lot.  we noticed it a while ago but figured it was arthritis (he'll be 10 in less than a month) but it got worse and so i took him to the vet.  they couldn't figure out exactly where or why he was limping and so they put him on an antiinflammatory, which has made it slightly better.  the vet thought it was probably either a shoulder or elbow thing and something we'll have to manage the rest of his life.  at this point we were sort of happy that it wasn't anything more severe (he had a mast cell tumor when he was one and we've always been paranoid that it would return) but i think his intense ball playing days are over.

  

october 31.

holidays are so much more fun with avery around.  halloween was actually pretty cool this year because she really understood pieces of the holiday.  trick or treating didn't go all that well.  she didn't get the concept of saying trick or treat and she can be a little shy around strangers so she wasn't all that into actually going from house to house.  BUT she loved her costume and she loved getting henry dressed in his and she did pretty well handing candy out to people who knocked on our door.  

we started off the day in some halloween pi's.  with our usual coloring, sticking, and taping of pictures all over the wall.  charlie and i both worked and avery refused to nap for a second that day.  anyone who works from home knows how crucial that nap time is and just how hard it is when your kid decides to throw all of her stuffed animals out of the crib and scream at the top of her lungs instead of napping.

luckily she's been in a pretty awesome phase of playing by herself for long periods of time, which has really helped get some work done lately.  of course if i'm on the phone all bets are off.  anyway, after work i decided to take her and henry for a walk.  dunkin hurt his leg somehow and has been limping pretty badly so he's been missing out on his usual walks and ball playing.

it was really windy and avery fell asleep in about 3 minutes.  after we got back and avery finally woke up, we got ready for some trick or treaters and i forced henry into his costume that i make him wear every year.  spending $10 on a costume isn't such a terrible idea if he can wear it every year, right?  avery was so excited to get into her costume and i forced the two of them back outside to take more pictures.

don't mind the dying pumpkin and mums.  the pumpkin was carved 2 weeks ago and i never watered the mums.

avery really loved her costume and i was just happy to find something that was warm and still cute.  avery's really into animals right now so the leopard costume was pretty fitting and it was 40% off at old navy.  i was a little disappointed at just how skimpy some of these costumes for kids her age are already.  i figured we had at least 10 years before we had to fight that battle but i was not about to dress my one year old up as a sexy lady bug.

and just because i can, here was avery (and henry the squirrel again) last year on halloween.

weekend happenings ...

we had another pretty good weekend that seemed to just fly by.  how is it that tuesday and wednesday can take forever to go by but somehow saturday and sunday go by and it seems like it was just friday night?  we spent the weekend having a little fall fun and getting a few things done around the house.  sadly, i have no proof that we actually accomplished things around the house but i assure you we did. 

on friday night we took avery to a halloween party at the place where she takes 'gymnastics'.  i was thinking that she was going to boycott the costume but apparently she decided that she's the cutest thing ever when she wears it and has been asking to wear it almost every day.  of course as soon as she has it on she keeps saying "it's so cute" and "mommy, so cute", which means that she wants me to reassure her that yes, she does in fact look adorable.  so anyway, she happily put on her costume on friday night and we headed to gymnastics.  they had a few activities set up for them to do like fishing for candy, some obstacle courses, making bags for their candy, and then a few snacks.  she only napped for 20 minutes that day and i thought that she would pass out in the car but she surprised me by staying awake the entire time.

quite impressed with her cuteness. 

showing henry who's boss.

a little apprehensive about walking under the giant cat.

making her treat bag.

a cupcake.

AND a lollipop, which was her favorite.

on saturday charlie took avery to gymnastics, the car wash (which she's been begging to go to for a while), and grocery shopping and i headed to ikea.  i'm usually never alone and it felt a little weird to be spending a few hours without avery.  i have to say it was pretty nice to enjoy a 45 minute drive without listening to applause even once.  i got to listen to country music the entire way without anyone complaining.  i got a few random things there and avery's birthday/christmas present which was the main reason for the trip.  i figured with a baby on the way soon it was better to get the present now then worry about it with a newborn.  avery and i took henry for a walk and then we met charlie at the playground so avery could show off her climbing skills.  some other people showed up to play while we were there and they had a dog that avery wanted to pet.  after she pet the dog she pointed to his penis and said 'penis' and then charlie wanted to die.  all i can say is that we have four male animals at home and she's interested in body parts.  we did some more cleaning and random things around the house on saturday and finished by hanging even more shelves that night.  the good news is that i've officially put all of the tools away for now so i think that we're done hanging things for a bit.

some rock climbing.

sunday we did some more stuff around the house and then went to a birthday party later that afternoon.  it was at another gym and avery had a ton of fun playing on everything, except for the foam pit.  that she did not like.  we came home, watched the rest of the broncos game, saw a killer sunset, and read books before bed.

the foam pit.  not a fan.

lately she's been insisting on reading books on our bed.  i think this is 'hot fudge', which has gotten a lot of attention in the past few months.  

  

22 months.

wow.  we've reached the stage when people ask me how old she is and i'm torn between replying in months and saying almost two.  it's really hard to believe that it's almost been that long as the time has seriously flown by.  at 22 months she still gets more and more fun by the day and i think this month was a little bit more mellow than the last few.  

avery actually spent the majority of the month in a huge 'mommy phase'.  i mentioned this in her 21 month post, too but i think it definitely got worse before it got better.  she would seriously not allow charlie to do anything for her and it was pretty frustrating at times to both watch and go through.  i definitely appreciate the help that he is when he's around, especially being pregnant, and she really wasn't into letting him do anything.  one of the most epic moments that i remember from this month is one night after dinner when we asked her if she wanted a piece of pumpkin cake.  she said yes (of course) and charlie got her the cake and then picked her up and put her next to him to help her eat it.  she started screaming 'no, mommy cake' and when he told her that no, he was going to be the one to help her, she picked the piece of cake off of the plate and threw it across the floor.  BUT i think that things have actually gotten better in the last week or so and i'm sort of optimistic that they'll continue that way.  she's actually let charlie do more things for her and will even ask for him to come and play or ask about where he is when he's not around.  he does have a bunch of travel coming up so we'll see if that will throw her back into only allowing mommy to do anything for her.  

despite all of that she's actually in a good mood 90% of the time and is pretty funny to be around.  she's picked up a few phrases that i think are so cute and will repeat them since she knows that she gets a pretty favorable reaction out of them.  "mommy, look at me" is one that i think she actually picked up from another girl on the playground but uses it all the time now since she knows that i think it's funny.  she's also really into saying that things are "cute" now, and when we're out shopping will say "this is cute" for things that she likes.  i was at the fabric store picking out fabric for a crib skirt and she repeated that for the fabrics that she liked and then refused to let me buy a few that i actually liked.  twice i picked up fabric and put it into the cart and she handed it back to me saying, "mommy, no".  like, no, this is hideous and i cannot let you buy it.  so the baby's crib skirt was officially picked out by avery.  she also chose a lamp for her room in the same way, telling me that one was cute and then rejecting others that i offered her.  i love that she really has an opinion about things now.  

she still loves the animals and now really plays with each of them individually.  she'll play tug-o-war with henry and throw the ball to dunkin.  she'll also call for henry now, yelling "hen!" over and over until he comes.  i'm always surprised when he does but i think he's slowly learning to appreciate her a bit more.  dunkin has become her real buddy this month and she'll request that he come outside and play with her.  she hugs all of the animals, except for toby who is just a huge jerk.  she does try and play with him though, but it usually ends with him biting her and then her running over to show us her latest injury.

she's been saying "i love you" this month.  and not on request but on her own.  she's pretty selective about when and who she'll say it to but i think she really gets what it means as it's not something that comes out of her mouth all of the time and usually when she says it there's a hug or kiss to go along.  henry was the first to hear it.  and i'm pretty sure he didn't appreciate it as much as he should have and my mom was the second.  she loves grandma and anytime she hears the facetime ring she'll run over saying "grandma, grandma".  she has thrown an 'i love you' to charlie and i as well, which is always amazing to hear.  she definitely tells the dogs and cats that she loves them much more often than she tells us, but it's always cute to hear her tell ollie that she loves him for the tenth time as she sits on top of him.  

we've done a lot of fall activities this month and i think she's really starting to understand things a lot more.  she's really into pumpkins and has loved the few fall decorations that we've put up around the house.  she loved carving pumpkins and we've been talking about christmas, too so i think she's excited for that when it finally comes.  we got her a leopard costume for halloween, although i'm not sure if she's actually going to wear it as she was not into trying it on at all and basically threw a huge fit when charlie forced her to put it on.  so we'll see if she actually dresses us.  she may just be avery in a halloween t-shirt for halloween. 

i think her eating habits have gotten better this month and i think that the discovery of ketchup has helped a lot with that.  she loves ketchup and now dinners that previously were refused are considered gourmet if they're dunked in the right amount of ketchup.  she also loves dipping things in salsa and syrup.  the only thing that's sort of a pain is that she won't do the actual dipping herself but instead demands that i do it.  

she's still going to gymnastics and we actually went a lot this month because we had a bunch of makeup classes to do.  she's less interested in participating with the group and much more interested in doing her own thing these days.  i really could care less at this point and am really just happy that she's actually doing anything.  if she wants to hang on the bar for 5 minutes instead of playing with the balls then i say go for it.  i figure she has the rest of her life to listen to rules and do exactly what the teacher is telling her.  

she doesn't really watch tv but i've put on an episode of planet earth about 3 times this month and she was so into it.  she loves animals, they're her current favorite toy, and is actually really good at identifying them all.  after the second time of watching 'pole to pole' she pretty much had it memorized and could tell you what was coming next.  charlie watched it the last time with her and she was telling him 'polar bears, caribou, wolf, leopard, shark' before they came on.  at this point i'm really loving that animals are her current thing that she's into instead of sesame street or some disney characters.  i figure we'll avoid those as long as we can since they really annoy me.  

she loves to color and paint and i'm hoping that i can figure out more creative things for her to do as she's really into those things.  she also really likes to help cook and bake.  she can feed the cats on her own and does not like it if you try and help her at all.  if she could open the door to where their food is they'd probably eat ten times a day.  she gives dunkin his treat each morning and stands over his food at night to yell at toby if he tries to steal some food.  

she's kind and sweet and will give hugs and kisses for no reason.  she says "bless you" when anyone sneezes and "sorry" when she bumps into us or the animals.  she was carrying her stuffed polar bear up the stairs the other night and kept saying "i got you, i got you", which is what i say to her when i'm carrying her down the stairs.  she gives "big hugs", which are totally different from regular hugs and is really into "family hugs" when we all hug.  she loves a good family hug and will then usually give kisses to everyone followed by "nosies".  she'll help with things when asked, is great at throwing things away, and picking up her toys and books.  she still loves to read although she is still really into reading on her own.  her favorite books this month are still "clifford's first christmas", "hot fudge", "fox on socks", and "oscar the cat about town".  when she reads fox on socks it just sounds like she's saying the f-word over and over again.  she could listen to the song "applause" on repeat all day long and can get very demanding in the car when it's not played continuously.  she does not like country music but loves christmas music, particularly "jingle bells".  she now puts herself to sleep for both bedtime and naps and as much as i'm so proud of her for that i do miss rocking her to sleep.  it was always my favorite part of the day.         

continuing our halloween tradition.

so every year since charlie and i have been dating we've always carved pumpkins and made riceballs for halloween.  we haven't always done it on the actual holiday and we have missed two years in the last nine.  i think the second year we were together we didn't continue the tradition and we missed last year because we were back in maryland for the two weekends before halloween visiting family and friends.  i was looking back on some pictures from that trip the other day and it really made me miss the east coast falls.  so pretty.  

anyway, we knew we definitely wanted to keep up the tradition this year since avery was old enough to get the whole carving a pumpkin idea and because she's really into pumpkins.  we actually have a ridiculous amount of pumpkins sitting on our porch currently.  i think the count for 'big' pumpkins is up to six as charlie didn't want to carve any of our pumpkins that we got from the pumpkin patch.  we actually picked up two more from whole foods, which shockingly had the lowest price for pumpkins that i've seen.  

avery was totally into the idea of carving them and helped me pick out the seeds and put them into a bowl for roasting.  we carved two pumpkins and avery and i did most of the cleaning out of the seeds work since charlie was making the riceballs.

once i showed her what to do she was all about it and helped for a really long time.  after cleaning out the pumpkins she took a break for a bit to play with dunkin.  she is really into him these days and it's so cute to see her hang out with him like he's her buddy.  i think he secretly likes her, too, especially because she's always trying to go outside and play ball with him. 

she likes to grab his nose and say 'honk, honk'.  he doesn't love this.

meanwhile, charlie was cooking the riceballs.  we probably should have gotten her more involved in this process as she really does like to cook and bake, but it's just so messy and there are so many uncooked ingredients like meat and eggs that i think it would be harder to have her 'help' at this point.  maybe next year.
  

and avery got bored again and went outside to play with dunkin.  or actually she went outside and then insisted that he come and play with her.  we had gorgeous weather on saturday.  it was in the mid 60s and it was so nice to have a few windows open while we were hanging out.

looking for his ball.

she settled for throwing a flower. 

tackle. 

we finally finished carving our pumpkins and cooking the riceballs.  i always forget how long this process takes!  the riceballs were delicious as always and avery loved having the candles in the pumpkins.  we put them back outside and hopefully they won't get destroyed by any animals before halloween so we can light them again. 

charlie's is the cat that he did for avery and mine is the face.  i should have made it a nose but i ran out of carving motivation and thought it still worked this way.  i've loved the fact that we've been able to do something fun and fall-like each weekend in october.  it's such an awesome time of year when there's fun things to do, the weather is perfect, and there's not the pressure of the holidays to decorate the house or bake fancy meals or buy a bunch of presents.  i really do love the holidays but sometimes i love the low-key ones more because there's not a lot of pressure to do anything special so anything that you end up doing is a lot of fun.  we've got one more weekend in october to enjoy and i think we're taking avery to a halloween party where she does gymnastics.  i did buy her a costume although she's been pretty adamant about not wearing it so we'll see if she actually dresses up for it.