18 Weeks

Blogging

So I love to visit blogs. Anyone's blog. I often surf around from Amy and Derek's blog to a ton of others, which is why I just added their links to my page today. Less button clicking for me now. Some of these people are friends of course, but some are aquaintances, and some are complete strangers. I think it is so fun to "peek" into other people's lives. It is also a ton of fun when you stumble across a blog of someone you have not heard from or seen in so long. I love that through Erik and Ky's blog I found Fargo and Eleven! Through Cara Mac I found Rhino and Flicka...how fun to read about friends from back in the day at FR. There are a ton of others of course, but how boring for you to read every name. Also- why do none of my Biola buds or Monte Vista pals have blogs? Its time to jump on the bandwagon ladies! What did we do before the Internet? Maybe this is why I am so bad at picking up the phone.

Anyways...Jaron and I had our big ultrasound on Friday and everything looks great with baby burrito (Avery's nickname). We had a moment of weakness when the sonographer asked if we wanted to know the sex. We looked at eachother and shrugged, but then Jaron, my strong in mind, hubby said "NO" we do not want to know. I have to say that if it was just me in there I probably would have given in and found out. Now of course I am glad we are living in the unknown as it will make the arrival day all the more exciting. My due date is Septemeber 22.

I will post some ultrasound pics and a long overdue pic of my growing belly soon...i promise. :)

On a sadder note, we had to say goodbye to our furry neice Liberty Belle. We have been watching her for D&A for a couple months. We'll miss you Ms. Libs!

Avery and Liberty exchanging a goodbye hug and kiss

Liberty and Roger

Easter Part 2

We started our day off by heading to church and then made our way back down to my parent's house. My grandparents and my uncle Scott were there too to enjoy an Easter egg hunt just for Avery and then a delicious prime rib lunch. It is always so special to spend time with family! Here are a couple of pics of Avery in her Easter dress. I keep forgetting to get a good one of the whole family to post. Hopefully there will be some soon.

Easter Part 1

Yesterday we headed down to Gilroy where my parents' church hosted a big Easter Egg Hunt at a local park. The 2 year olds got to go out first and the field was cluttered with toys, pencils, necklaces, eggs, and tons of other stuff. Avery was only interested in the eggs. She loaded up her bunny basket and was very excited to open all the eggs up and get out the candy inside.

Half Moon Bay and Pacifica

Yesterday Jaron and I both had the day off so we decided to drive up the coast to Half Moon Bay. Jaron's spring break was this last week and mine is this coming week so this was our only week day off together. It was a beautiful day...about 61 degrees and bit foggy but I love that kind of weather. We arrived around lunch time so we scoped out a place to eat. I wanted to grab some seafood, but we just could not decide where to go. We ended up continuing to drive north to Pacifica and found a Taco Bell. Now this is not just any ordinary Taco Bell...it has the best ocean view in Pacifica! It fit the bill and we enjoyed the awesome view.
Avery was so excited to go to the beach. She kept repeating to us that she needed her bathing suit, but of course it was way too cold for that. After lunch she was ready to head down to the water. She walked down to the water with Daddy to put her little toes in but ended up falling down and getting all wet! She was not happy and now when we mention the beach she says. "NO Beach!"
On the way home we passed by a farm with pony rides and a petting zoo and some other fun things so we decided to stop. Avery was loving the animals, particularly the baby ducks.
All in all it was a great day!

The past few weeks

I finally figured out how to upload photos from my mac to my blog so here are some from the last few weeks. Jaron also got our desktop to come back to life so he was able to burn all of our pictures to cds. Not many hours after the burn, it finally died for good. Thank goodness we were able to get our pics!!



This last pic is of a tree blooming right in our front yard. The flowers are so beautiful I had to take a picture.

A sad death

Well, I have really fallen behind on posting, but my life is truly crazy and since I am home at 5pm and in bed around 8pm there is not much time to blog. I came home on Thursday to a power outage and unfortunately our desktop computer never came back to life. I think its days of life are over. The very sad part is a bunch of our pictures were on it and are now lost. We had been saying for a while we needed to burn them to a CD, but of course that never happened. So, now I need to learn how to resize and work with iphoto on my mac so that I can post more pics. The blog seems pretty plain without them.
Not much to say about the pregnancy...I still have good and bad days, but I think the bad days are slowly disappearing. I am entering my 14th week of pregnancy and have my big ultrasound on April 20th. Avery still thinks she is having a brother.
Avery has slowly started to want to use the potty. Last week she used the potty at school and everyday after that she has wanted to wear panties. Of course she is very picky with what panties she will wear. She always wants to wear her yellow care bear panties. So far, we have not been successful at home and I am really not excited about this whole training thing as I have to get up every 5 minutes so Avery can sit on the potty for 2 seconds and then joyfully exclaim "ALL DONE!" and then thinks she deserves her jellybean reward. Oh the joys of mommyhood.
Only 51 more days of teaching until summer vacation. I never knew that when I was a student my teachers looked forward to summer more than I did, but I am very ready to be free of my 51 6th graders. :)

How about burrito?

We have been slowly looking at names for the new baby so today I asked Avery what we should name him/her. I went through a list of names, all of which she said no to. She then decided to start giving me suggestions such as burrito, her first choice, then great grandma, then poppa. Trevor is also a popular one...probably because she has been watching a video of cousin Trevor in the bath all weekend. (about 20 times I think :) Of course, we still don't know what the name will be but I think we will take burrito off the list.

Whatch'ya doing? and a pregnancy update

This has become Avery's new favorite phrase. She asks us many times throughout the evening..."Mommy, whatch'ya doing?" She has even started asking Roger and Liberty this question. I have no idea where she picked it up, but it is pretty funny to hear her saying it all the time.
I have been feeling pretty sick lately, unfortunately. I started to feel as though I was going to get away with an easier time this pregnancy, but the last few weeks have been pretty bad. I feel worse in the evenings and have taken to going to bed around 8pm or so. My clothes are starting to become a bit tighter, but hopefully I will not grow as large as I did with Avery!

Time at the Park

I asked Avery what she wanted to do today and she said "park and ice cream". These are her two favorite things because Daddy had the week off and took her out to the park a few times and out for ice cream with her Baskin Robbins gift certificates. We decided we would take her to the park and hope she would forget about the ice cream. (It has worked so far!)
There is a great park at the end of our street and we had fun on the slides, swings, and the teeter totter. Here are a few good pics.

September Baby on the Way

I went to the doctor today for an ultrasound to confirm my pregnancy. We have known for a while, but today finally saw the heartbeat. Everything looks great and we should expect a new brother or sister for Avery in September!

Future American Idol - Avery sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Avery sings "Jesus Loves Me"

Avery sings ABC's

Ink Face

Jaron and I were chatting and all of a sudden turned around to find Avery covered in black ink! She had found one of my stamp pads and decided to paint her hands and face. We could not resist taking some pics before we cleaned her up!

Cutie and a dog

2 Years Old!

On Sunday, January 14th, we celebrated Avery's 2nd Birthday! We had a fun family gathering at our house and after Avery watched Dora the Explorer on t.v. and was no longer grumpy, we dove right in to opening presents. She received lots of great gifts like a Dora doll, books, Bible music cds, a sesame street medical kit, a stuffed dog, and a cute coat rack!
After that we were ready for cake and icecream. Avery had a great time blowing out her candle...she did it four times!
A fun and exhausting day for a now 2 year old.

Just Like Daddy

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Well, it has been a long time since we have posted anything new. I guess we were overwhelmed with too much work before Christmas break, and then too tired and exhausted (lazy) over the entire break to do anything. Now that we are back in the groove, I have decided to get back to it!
We had a wonderful vacation. Jaron and I enjoyed 2 weeks off...the benefits of working at a school...and especially enjoyed having the time to spend with Avery. My sister flew out from Maryland and stayed for a week over the break which was nice. We celebrated Christmas Eve at my grandparents house in Gilroy. We did an ornament exchange this year so our tree was full and beautifully decorated as you can see from the pics. On Christmas day, my parents, uncle Scott, and my sis were here at our house. We had a relaxing time and a great meal.
On the 30th, the Olson family came out to our house for a second Christmas. It was so fun watching all the kiddies open their fun gifts. Avery especially loved her stepstool made by grams. She uses it everyday!
On New Years Eve we headed out to Derek and Amy's house for the night. Our camp friend Chops (Chris) and his fiance
Kirsten were there as well. We had great fun playing games and watching good ol' Dick Clark's Rockin New Years Eve. We actually stayed up until about 1:30 or so. Not bad!!

Tahoe Trip

Avery and I headed to Tahoe with my parents while Jaron was in Baja. Unfortunately, I was sick the one full day and night we were there, but my parents did take Avery for her first
adventure in the snow!
On the way home, we were able to get video of Avery singing her ABC's and twinkle twinkle little star. Check it out!