'tis the season!

Here are some pics we've taken over the last couple of weeks. Avery is so much fun this year!! She loves her "jingle bell", she says "ho-ho-ho", likes her Santa hat, points at the Christmas tree and says "ooooh" and loves playing with her Little People Nativity set. We ask her where baby Jesus is and she picks him out every time. :) We are really looking forward to our annual Christmas Eve brunch with the Corsos, our Christmas Eve candlelight service at the Village, spending time with family and seeing Avery's face on Christmas morning as she opens her presents. She'll probably like the paper better than the gifts, but we're okay with that. :)

Hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas season!!
Joy & Blessings,
Andi

walking!!!

Our girl is walking!!! Yay! :)

I'll post more pics and commentary very soon.

Merry Christmas!
Andi

day 2, no bottle!

Avery is 14 months old!!! I absolutely cannot believe it! She is becoming a big girl in front of my very eyes. Today was our second day with no bottle. I think Avery would have given it up whenever I took it away, but I wasn't ready until now. I've been gradually decreasing her feedings from the bottle since she turned 1, but I was still giving her 1 bottle at night. I didn't even intentionally take it away, but circumstances over the past 2 days just made it easy to give her milk in her cup instead. Since she's done so well and hasn't asked for her "ba", I guess we're bottle free. :( Don't get me wrong, I'm happy about the milestone, I'm just a little sad because that's one more step away from baby and one more toward little girl. She is so fun right now! Changing so much and doing new things everyday. Last month she started blowing kisses in addition to her enthusiastic waving good-bye. It is adorable! She also likes to do "gymnastics" in the window sill. She walks on the window sill, sometimes balances on one foot, lifts up on her toes and does knee bends. It's like she's on the balance beam. Scares the life out of me, but it's fun watching her exercise her daring side. She's always talking... we can't understand most of it, but talking nonetheless. We can understand daddy, mama, bird, ba, Jack, bite (she says this when she wants food), hi, bye-bye, and hey. We also got her a new "big-girl" car seat. She seems to really like it.

In other news, we decorated our tree tonight. It's beautiful. We get a real tree... a noble fir. I love the way a real tree smells. I hate the needles, but the smell makes it worth it. We always had a real tree when I was growing up so I can't bring myself to buy an artificial one. I'll deal with the needles. Avery and Brian hung the first ornament; Brian's Florida State ornament. Apparently, this is a Stubblefield tradition. Well, Brian thinks it is. Really, I let him hang it first and then I hang all the other ornaments and conveniently move his to an inconspicuous spot because it doesn't go with the rest of the tree decor. Such Christmas spirit! :)

Also, I'm finally on facebook. I caved under Brian's (and all you other facebook addicts) peer pressure. It really comes down to this... I couldn't let my husband one-up me on anything socially based. It's just wrong. So, now I too am addicted. It's crazy. I am obsessed with seeing who has added me as a friend and I'm determined to get more friends than my husband. So look me up on facebook. I need to win! Just kidding honey, I'm glad you have lots of friends! :)

Good night!
Blessings,
Andi

hats again?

Could it be that Avery is going to wear hats again?? Little love was definitely a hat wearing baby, but at around 8 months she wised up and decided that she didn't want anything on her head. She subscribed to her daddy's philosophy... bald is beautiful. Much to daddy's delight, she began pulling off her hats and bows. Daddy may have been happy, but mommy was sad. Because of Avery's lack of hair, and without the defense of a bow or fun hat, I would now have to combat all of the "what a cute boy" comments. (It's crazy... even if she's dressed in pink, we still get those comments.) So, since bows are too tempting to pull off, I thought I would give hats another try. It's winter and she needs something to cover her ears. She'll go for that logical reasoning, right? :) We got this cute hat a couple of weeks ago and believe it or not, she actually wore it long enough for me to get these cute pics. She even seems to be posing with it a bit. Maybe hats are our friends again... we'll see how long it lasts. A mommy can hope right?

Happy Monday!
Andi