St. George/ Mesquite!

Jesse's first football game was this past Saturday... and it was in St. George!  This was exciting for us because it meant a mini-vacation for our family and sunshine!  The trip was all I dreamed it could be, and Avril cooperated like a saint for the most part.  I was worried about the long drive but it really wasn't bad.
There was something going on in St. George that weekend so there were not any hotel rooms available.  We stayed with the other football players for a special rate at the Oasis, in Mesquite, NV.  They were all out of non-smoking rooms so they gave us a smoking room.  Mommy would not have that, so I nicely complained about the smoke being bad for the baby, and right on cue, Avril started whining.  The nice lady upgraded us to a bigger room with a king sized bed that was smoke-free, for the same rate... totally based upon my amazing powers of persuasion :)

The car ride down:

...just before daddy and baby fell asleep.  yes, we switched drivers first.

The next morning we had the most delicious buffet breakfast with our friends Cody and Jolene.  Avril didn't even mind getting back in the car.

Avril is wearing her Logan Stampede sweatshirt... she's their biggest littlest fan!  And the cutest, naturally :)

We took full advantage of the fantastically warm, sunshiney weather and busted out all the 'S' words- sunblock, shades, swimsuits, and a stroller!  What good times!

Could she BE any cuter?!?

We went to the pool at the Casablanca Hotel because it was nicer and plus it had something kinda necessary.. water!  The one at the Oasis was empty :)  We had soooooo much fun, but the water was frrrreeeezing.  Avril didn't care.  She kept on begging for us to let her go all the way in!  Daddy and Mommy just enjoyed relaxing by the pool.

So Happy Together!!

That night was the game... we lost, but it was just a pre-season game, so the coach put in a bunch of 2nd string players.  I don't know if I have ever seen Avril so hyper.  She was LOVING being the center of attention in the stands.  Every time the music would come on, she would dance.  When the crowd cheered, she cheered.  She even kept shouting out, "Dada!"  Everyone couldn't get over how cute she was.  She truly is such a joy.  This is just the happiest I have ever been in my life.  I feel so blessed and lucky to have such an amazing family.  Here are some cute video clips I took to show how much fun little Av was having at the game:

Mommy and Baby Sleep Through the Night

It has been over a year now since Mommy has slept through the night.  Avril has never been much of a sleeper and usually gets up about every 2 hours to nurse during the night... even at a year old.  I have been trying to wean off, which has been a difficult task.
My Behavior Analyst hubby has decided to try yet another of his behavior modification techniques on the baby and me, in an attempt to give us both a full night's sleep.  I will always wake up when I hear the slightest peep out of Avril.  I usually let her cry for a few minutes and then decide to go in and soothe her back to sleep.  This almost always requires nursing her.  I know I'm not supposed to... but I am weak sauce, as Jesse would say!  Jesse has tried multiple times to try to talk me out of going in to get her but I usually give in to her crying, especially when it because full out bloody murder screams.  So... Jesse implemented a reward program to motivate me to not give in to the crying, and to stay in bed.  Each night I don't go in to get Avril, I get a reward!  After a whole week of not going in to get her during the night, I get the ultimate reward... Jesse will take a whole day off of work to spend with us :)
I must say, the results have been fantastic!

Day One:
Avril gets up about 4 times during the night and cries herself back to sleep each time.  Mommy wonders if she's doing the right thing.  My reward:

Jesse bought me Junior Mints, my favorite candy!






(At this point I am wondering why I am being rewarded for torturing my child)


Day 2:
Avril wakes up about 3 times during the night... crying episodes shorten from about a half hour each time to maybe 20 minutes each time.  Mommy feeling a little better about this idea.  My reward:

I got to pick out a new pair of sunglasses from Old Navy.  I really needed some cuz we somehow manage to lose sunglasses ALL the time!  This time I won't let that happen...





Day 3:
Avril only gets up once during the night, and cries for about 5 minutes!!  Mommy and Daddy are ecstatic with her rapid progress. :)  My reward:

I got to pick out a dress from Old Navy!  We are going to St. George next weekend for Jesse's football game so I wanted to get some fun things to wear that'll be nice and cool.  Pay no attention to the un-made bed behind me... but of course pay attention to the cute little attachment tugging on my new dress.








Day 4:
Avril sleeps through the entire night... not a peep!!!!  This is a monumental day for us.  Mommy did not know it was possible to sleep through the night after becoming a mommy.  It feels fantastic!  My reward:

Jesse brought me yummy Costa Vida sweet pork salad for lunch.  Lucky me!  Mmmm...








Day 5:
Another night of sleep.  So wonderful...  My reward:

That hubbin of mine cleaned the kitchen spotless and even trickled his cleaning hurricane to the other rooms.  So nice :)  I love him!








Day 6:
Avril sleeps like a baby, scratch that...a  sleep deprived mommy!  Whoever made up that saying didn't have a baby, or at least not an Avril.  Mommies are the real ones who are exhausted all the time and ready for some well deserved sleep!  My reward:
TBD... so I haven't decided what I want for my Day 6 reward, but don't you worry, I'll find something!!

Day 7:
The sleeping through the night saga continues... I think we can officially say it has worked now!  And the GRAND REWARD....
Jesse is taking a whole day off of work to spend it with Avril and me!  We are going to go to Baby Animal Days.  Hooray!!  I am so excited!!!  Woo hoo!  This is my favorite reward :)

Avril's One Year(ish) Stats

Well, we were a little late on getting to our 12 month Dr.'s appointment for Avril by a few weeks, so it was closer to a 13 month appointment, but the doc says she looks great!  She is about average on height and weight... the doctor assured me that those were the only average things about our little Avril.  Everything else about her is extraordinary!  She does have a rash on her back and a little on her chest, which he immediately identified as eczema.  We got a prescription for some cream that should clear it right up, he said.

Here are Avril's 12.8 Months Stats:
Weight:  22.0 lbs  (59%ile)
Length:  29.5 in    (53%ile)
Girls Head Circumference:  17.5 in  (27%ile)-  small head, like mommy

Avril had to get 6 shots at her appointment!  Six!  My poor baby girl screamed till she was purple in the face.  She had a small fever and threw up a couple times afterward but now seems to be much better.  It was so hard for me to watch, but at least it's all over with and now she has been immunized.  We love  you Avril, you're such a joy in our lives!

Skies are Blue, Let's Go to the Zoo!!

Yesterday was the first day of Spring Break for Jesse, which means a whole week of no school, and no Utah State job, and a whole week of more Jesse time for Avril and mommy!!!!  The other wonderful news is that the sun came out just in time for us to enjoy it.
We decided that Avril needed some plain white/pink undershirts so we busted out the stroller and the whole fam took a walk to Old Navy.  Avril stayed asleep in her stroller the whole time we were in the store.  Daddy and Mommy picked out a couple cute shirts and off we were!

 Here is Avril in her new pink shirt, freshly slobbered on!  Just look at those big eyes.  They are starting to turn more of a hazel color now, they can't seem to make up their mind...

Cheesy smile!  This is the face Avril makes all the time now.  She'll even do it on cue, when you say, "Cheesy Smile!"

Avril all dressed in her cute outfit, and ready to go enjoy the sunshine!

 ...Off we go, to the Zoo!

We ventured all the way across town to Willow Park Zoo.  We seriously had sooooo much fun!  Avril would get so excited and point to every animal.  I think she could've stayed there and stared at those animals all day long.  She didn't want to leave one exhibit to move on to the next.  The weather was perfect.  I could not have asked for a better day.  It was just fan-freakin-tastic!

Here are some pictures from our Zooper Dooper Day:

 Avril wanted to hop over the fence and go pet all the animals.  Look at the bald eagles!  So cool!

Avril's favorite part of the zoo was the pond with the ducks.  They came right up to you (only a little food motivation required).

Enjoying the wildlife.

Our whole family, happy as pigs in mud!

...And when we got home, the fun was not over!...

Daddy was being goofy and making Avril crack up!

Avril wanted to play with her bath toys so we let her hop in the tub fully clothed :)  She looks like a little girl now, not a baby anymore!  It's too fast!

...and after that long, perfect day...

Aaah, asleep at last.  Zzzzz....  Good night, sweet angel.

She's Trying to be Sweet but...

Avril's tender kisses aren't always so tender.  Usually the kissee will end up with a slobbery face, but in this dolls case, she is almost decapitated!

Date NIght

It is so wonderful when Jesse has some time off and gets to spend time with Avril and I.  He works so hard to take care of our family and I feel so lucky to have married such a loving, hard working, all-around incredible guy.  Jesse had the night off and we felt we deserved a date night so we took Avril along and ate at my favorite restaurant in Logan, Takara Sushi!  It was soooo good.

Here is my ridiculously good-looking husband and that ridiculously cute baby of ours:

Avril decided that she was too advanced for the fork and spoon and thought she'd have a go with the chopsticks instead. Mostly she just wanted to stir the soup with them and throw them on the floor.

Random Avril Cuteness...

Avril pulls so many faces now.  I wish I could capture all the faces she makes... I guess I need to keep my camera on me more often.  What we have come to know as the "surprise face", has been ripped off by the etrade baby, and renamed the "shocked face".  If you have not seen this commercial, you must.  I get a kick out of the etrade baby commercials.  Here you will see where Avril's adorable facial expression has been stolen.  Its at the end of the commercial:

Hahaha :)  I knew we should've put Avril in commercials.  Her "shocked face" is even better:

She has such a big personality in that cute little body!  She keeps us laughing all the time.  Here is another funny face of Avril's:

We're not sure what to name this face yet...

We are astounded at how quickly Avril's language skills are developing.  She has been able to say "thank you" for some time now... only it sounds like "thee thoo".  She will hand you items that she has picked up and say with a big grin, "thee thoo!"  It is so cute :)  She also will drop things on the floor (on purpose) and say "Uh oh!"
Lately she has added the word, "close", which she learned from her musical radio toy.  When you open the place where the fake CD goes, it says "Open", and then when you close it, naturally it will sing, "Close!"  All you need to say is the word, "Open," and Avril will happily shout out "Close!"

Another one of her latest sounds is the "Moooo" sound.  Mommy has been playing with a little cow and making the cow moo.  As soon as you pull out the cow, Avril knows to go "Mooo".

She will try to imitate many of the words we say around her now.  Most of the time she just loves to babble her own language though.
Today I tried to get a video of Avril talking away, but she became camera shy once I started recording so it didn't work.  I took this small clip of Avril, and then I played it for her.  This is the funny part... she just lit up and got a huge smile on her face when I played this video back to her on my phone.  I am not exaggerating when I say that I played this video clip at least 30 times for Avril to watch.  She was just amazed to see herself on the screen.  Every time the video ended and I put the phone down Avril would pick it up and hand it back to me, grunting in her baby language for me to play it again.  Over and over, I obliged.  She then learned how to press the "play" arrow on my phone screen and played the video on her own!  Tonight she fell asleep with the phone in her hand, after having watched this video clip an obnoxious amount of times.  She is too funny...

And here is Avril wearing a new birthday outfit from her Grandma Carme.  What good taste Grandma has!  Thank you :)

Happy Birthday Grandma Gayle!

Grandma Gayle's birthday is the week after Avril's birthday. Her birthday is on March 2nd but we had 2 celebrations in order to include the whole fam, since some of us (i.e. Jesse) have busy busy schedules. On Tuesday, Jared and I took Grandma Gayle to lunch at Angie's.

The birthday girl and her handsome son

Mommy and daughter, happy as can be!

You can tell Avril enjoyed her lunch... or should I say, mommy's lunch?   Mmmm, good soup!

Check out that cute dimple!

Thanks guys!  I had a splendid time at lunch.  We should do this again sometime!

Since it was Grandma Gayle's birthday, Sabor (Angie's owner) gave us a free dessert!  It was a HUGE cinnamon roll.  We all thoroughly enjoyed it. 

On Thursday, we dined with everyone at the Olive Garden.  We forgot to bring a camera, so we had to make do with pics from my iphone.  Hence, the not-so-great picture quality.  Oh well, better than nothin' I guess...

Here is Grandma Gayle ("nana", as Avril calls her) after being serenaded with a happy birthday song, by the servers at the Olive Garden.  She doesn't look a day older than 29!  :)

The 2 loves of my life!  My hubbin' and cutie cute.  Avril is able to drink out of a straw now, but thinks its more fun to take the straw out and chew on it...

Happy Birthday Grandma Gayle!!  We LOVE you muchas!