Avery's Blessing + Stats

We blessed Avery on the 16th, and it was such a neat experience.  I loved hearing what was said in the blessing because it was so beautiful.  We really have a special little lady on our hands.  She is going to be beautiful inside and out.   My favorite thing from the blessing was how much it talked about the Savior.  Avery is going to know who He is and that makes me so happy because I know Him, and knowing Him makes me happy and gives me peace and strength.

I am also so happy that we had so many family members there.  Thanks to Lauren for picking out her blessing dress for me.  I loved it!  Gina and Lindsay, and any of my other cousins that end up having girls, if you read my blog this is officially an invitation for your daughters to use the dress.  I would love to have a sisterhood of the traveling blessing dress :) If you don't read my blog, I will talk to you about it later :)

I want to post Avery's stats in case - jk because I know I will eventually - lose the papers they are on.

5/5/12 - 7.19 lbs (41%) - 20" (71%) - 13.7 (68%)
5/15/12 - 7.96 lbs (45%) - 21.5" (96%) - 13.9 (56%)
6/07/12 - 9.81 lbs (55%) - 23" (98.9%) - 14.7 (75%)
7/06/12 - 11.97 lbs (65%) - 23.5" (88%) - 15.2 (60%)

daddy-daughter dancing

i could not love this picture more, so i had to post it

Swimming

Here is some video from swimming! Avery hated it. :)

An Avery Update

So these pictures are not the best quality, but they illustrate two really great things Avery has started doing - sucking her hand to self-soothe, and smiling!  She smiles the most when she is on her changing table.  It is like this magical zone in which she is always in a good mood.  We have no idea why, but we take advantage! We have probably spent hours so far with her on the changing table smiling and talking to each other :) It is so much fun!

Change

(This post is about two weeks behind the times)  

               

 Changes that are happening at our house this week:

·       Brad is starting his new job

·       I am working my last week at Wencor

·       We are moving to North Salt Lake

Let’s start with Brad’s new job because that leads to the other changes. Brad took a job with Accretive Health – a Chicago-based healthcare consulting company - to work with them on their contract with IHC.  He is going to Chicago for training for a few days, and then will continue training in West Valley for a few months before he gets assigned to some physician clinics to work at.  We are excited because he likes consulting and is interested in the healthcare industry, so this is a really good job for him.  There are also going to be opportunities later on to work on other consulting projects that the company has going in various parts of the country, so we might actually get to experience life outside of Utah soon!  That would be exciting.

So we found a really great place to live this past week and are moving on Saturday.  Our new place is a townhouse in North Salt Lake, and I think we are going to like it.  It is a two bedroom that is pretty similar to what we are in now, with the added bonus of a garage! We have already met some of our neighbors, and they are really nice.  We are also right next to a park and our church.  And I am so excited because we are only going to be 10 minutes away from my sister Andrea! Which will be so much fun! I am really excited about that.

So because of all of these changes, I have put in my notice at work.  As of this Friday I will officially be a full-time mommy. I am excited! Also, putting in my notice could not have gone better. My boss was so nice about it, and HR is not going to make us pay for the company’s portion of the insurance for the past 8 weeks, AND they are paying me my full salary for working minimal hours this week.  Thank you Wencor! 

Life is going to be so different with Brad now making the money and me being home all day. But this is how we both want it to be.  I have learned a lot from working full-time, and so I am glad that I had the opportunity to do so and I know that I will be a bit sad to leave. But I am so so so grateful that I get to be with Avery all the time.  I miss her while I am at work. And I know that Brad is going to feel better being the one bringing home the bacon. For the first time since he was 16 he hasn’t had a job the past 6 months.  I think he prefers working as opposed to just studying.  Our roles are becoming more traditional

Avery's Smile

Avery's developmental update - 6 weeks

Avery is growing up so fast! Here is a list of her wicked awesome skills so far:

• Pooping violently and being really smelly afterwards
• Smiling socially!
• Holding her legs straight at a 45 degree angle while lying on her back
• Lifting her head while on her tummy
• Responding vocally to us sometimes
• Rotating her head from one side to the other - once she gets going with this back and forth, it is almost as if she can't stop :)
• High pitched shrieking
• Eating voraciously
• Not spitting up very much
• Staying awake for 5 hours at a time - she is the most alert baby ever! (Don't worry I try to prevent this, and she doesn't do it very often)
• Growing rolls of fat - most prominent in her double chin and and very upper thighs :)
• Peeing in a stream that arcs away from landing on the second diaper we put under her while we change her
• Getting people to tell her she is beautiful
• Melting her parents' hearts

Some preferences she has made perfectly clear include:

• When she is upset, constant movement calms her down or
• Being up on someone's shoulder is her favorite
• Freedom to kick her legs like an Irish dancer - she won't tolerate any restriction of movement from clothing or blankets on her legs
• She doesn't like to cuddle in a sideways position against your chest like most babies do

Random facts:

• Her hands smell like sour milk pretty much all the time
• It is practically impossible to clean in her neck folds
• She always has lint in her toes
• Her hands and feet are clammy
• Her skin is SO soft - my favorite thing to do is squeeze her fat silky thighs :)

We feel so lucky because she is such a good baby! She has quite a calm disposition most of the time - I was hoping she would get that from Brad, and I think she might have - fingers crossed that it continues that way!