Pink Cowboy Boots

Dressing up girls is SO much fun!  She loves her new cowboy boots!  When I try to take them off her she follows me around with them in her hands and sits down, kicks her foot up and tries to make me put them back on!  Ahhh, a girl after my own heart!!

We LOVE Nana & Papa!!!!

My mom and Steve came to visit us for 5 days for Avery's birthday weekend and instead of resting and relaxing (it was their Spring Break after all) they decided to redo our backyard!  I was complaining to my mom about how the dogs destroyed all the grass and how it was really unsafe for Avery to play out there, so what do Mom and Steve do?  Go to Home Depot, buy a ton of soil and sod and REDO our backyard!!!!!!  

I didn't get to take an actual BEFORE picture but this was right after they re-soiled everything.

BEFORE- View #2

HALF WAY DONE

AFTER!!!!!!!!!! Doesn't it look amazing!

AFTER- View #2

And THEN (I couldn't believe there was more either!) they bought Avery an AMAZING swing-set for her birthday!!!!  This is Avery patiently waiting for Daddy and Papa to put it together!

The final product!  Are you kidding me??!!!  It's so amazing- it even has a little picnic table underneath the canopy part!  She already loves it and i know she is going to love it for many, MANY years to come!

Thanks to Daddy and Steve for putting it all together!

Perfecting her rock-climbing skills

Avery playing in our brand-new backyard!  You don't know how much this means because she LOVES to be outside and I would never let her get dirty in the backyard before but now she gets to go outside every day and go crazy.  And yes that is the dog's water bowl...and yes she is sopping wet, although you can't tell from the picture.  And yes she is having the time of her life playing in the backyard!


Thank you so much Nana & Papa!  We don't even know how to thank you enough for your generosity and for all your hard-work while you were here!  Avery is so blessed to have you both!  We love you both so much and miss you already!!!

1 year check-up

We just got back from Avery's 1 year check-up and the doctor said she was the "picture of health" which was really good to hear.  Unfortunately poor Avery got 3 shots and her blood taken- but she is resting comfortably now.  She is still really big for her age weighing 22 lb 5 oz (75th percentile) and 31.5 inches long (95-100th percentile).  The doctor asked about the heights of Matt and I, as well as our brothers and sisters, and parents, and he said he really thinks Avery is going to grow up to be somewhere between 5'9"- 6'- can you believe that?!!!  I am not really sure how he can guess that at this age but its still funny to think about.

Anyways all is well and Avery is growing like a weed and learning stuff everyday.  Now she can

-completely walk by herself without falling at all!

- point to her nose, Macy, Mommy, and ball when i ask her where they are

-sign more, juice, all done and we are working on cracker

- constantly babbling- we says she is speaking "chinese" haha

- the nanny asked Avery yesterday "Donde esta pelota?" which means "where is the ball" and she walked right over and got it......so i think she may grow up billingual!

We are going to start the switch to whole milk this weekend, as well as wean off the bottle so we will see how it goes!!!  

Avery's Birthday Party

Avery's birthday party was on Saturday March 21st- which is the actual date of her birthday- and it was a blast!  The theme of her party was "Simply Sweet" so we loaded up on every pink or green candy, cookie, cupcake, brownie, etc that we could find and everyone had WAY more sugar than they could handle.  Everything went really well and Avery seemed to to have so much fun!

The "main" dessert table.  I made this huge cupcake as Avery's cake to smash up.  It turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself!

Another view

Decorated High Chair

I stole the idea of signing a book from Lisa- we also got the book Pinkalicious which is about a little girl who ate too may pink cupcakes and turned herself pink- how appropriate!  The sign behind the book says "It was so SWEET of you to join us today, On Avery's very 1st Birthday!  Please leave a note that will make Avery smile, so that she may remember this day for a very long while!  THANK YOU!!"
The birthday girl cheesing it up before her party started.  

Mommy and Avery

Starting to dig into the cake.  She wasn't so sure about it at first but caught on REALLY fast!

"Mom, is that whole cake for me???  This is so awesome!!!"

The birthday princess

We were so so SO blessed to have Nana and Papa here for Avery's first birthday!  They were SO much help and SO SO SO generous- they completely re-did the backyard and replaced all our grass AND bought Avery a awesome swing set- I will have the before and after pics in an upcoming post.  Thanks again for everything you guys did for us- we can't thank you enough!

Opening presents

This is how we all felt at the end of the party-hahahaha!

If you are honestly interested in seeing all 93 pictures that we took CLICK HERE to be taken to our snapfish albulm.

Overall everything went really smoothly and I think it was the perfect 1st birthday party for my SIMPLY SWEET little ONE YEAR OLD girl!!!!!!

Happy 1st Birthday Avery Kathryn!!!!

Happy 1st Birthday Avery!!!!!!

Her 1st Birthday Party was a huge success and we had SO much fun!  I am going to relax and enjoy the last night with my parents and will post more pictures tomorrow!

Just to Tide You Over

We are busy with Nana and Papa but will have many more posts to come!

Weekend Update with Avery Winston

Hahaha- did you get the title of the post?  Like Weekend Update on SNL?  oh- you are not usually home on Saturday nights- oh yeah neither are we- we are SO much cooler than that!    :-)

Mica came to town on Thursday and we had such a great visit! We had a much-needed Girl's Night Out on Thursday and then attempted a trip to South Beach on Friday but it was SOOOO windy so we were not able to stay long. And Sadly I didn't get any good pics of Mica and Avery- I will post the good ones once she emails me- don't forget to email us those pics Aunt Mica!
Here is me and my baby at the beach!


Matt was off this Saturday- yay!- so of course I put him to work- ha! We cleaned out the garage and donated a ton of stuff. Our garage is so much neater- but wowza- we have SO much baby stuff. Avery alone has like 3 tupperware tubs full of clothes that don't fit her anymore! And that is in addition to the swing, bouncer, exersaucer, etc. And we can't get rid of any of it yet! So we organized everything and it looks so much better and we actually have so much more room than we thought! It's so nice that Avery is walking because she can be outside with us without crawling around everywhere getting all gross and dirty. She LOVES to be outside too- she just waves at everyone that passes by and walks, walks, and walks.  She was a really big help to her mommy and daddy today!  Doesn't she look like such a big girl in this pic??!!!!!

We have a big week coming up because Avery turns 1 year old a week from today-ahhhh!  I can't believe it and it makes me a little choked up (i know i am a ridiculous mushy mommy!) but i am SOOOO excited because my mom and Steve are coming to town for her birthday party and we CAN NOT wait to see them!!!!!!  

Crazy Bag Lady

A Walk in the Park

I took Avery to the park the other day and she had a blast.  It was the first time she could walk and actually attempt to climb up the stairs and slide.  She is now walking 100% of the time and getting pretty steady.  It's so funny to see her walk because it still amazes me that she is old enough to even be able to crawl, much less walk!  This past year has FLOWN by!  

Happy Wednesday!

Cook's in the Kitchen

Grandma and Papa John got Avery this ADORABLE little kitchen for her birthday (which is 2 weeks away!) and she absolutely LOVES it!!!!!  I love it too and I know she is going to be playing with it for many, many years to come.  Thank you so much!

**Avery would like to send a special thank you to her Daddy who took 4 hours on Sunday to put her adorable kitchen together!**

Two Blog Posts in One

The Story of the Never-Ending Red Balloon

**refer to original post here ***

**All pictures taken over the past weekend***

The Obsession Continues

can't blame a girl for knowing what she likes!  

Walking, Walking, and More Walking

Avery is now officially walking by herself!  She begun with her first independent steps about a month ago but now she can do it all by herself.  She doesn't even need to hold my hand anymore!  The problem is that my little excited baby starts to try to run and then looses her balance.  But I have to say that she is doing pretty good and gets more steady every day.  Check her out!

Aunt Allison's Birthday Gift

"Aunt Allison gave me this Juicy Couture outfit for my birthday and I can't decide what I think.  Do you like it?"

"Oh yeah, you like it???"

"Ok your right, its pretty stinking cute."

"I know I look good."

"My mom couldn't resist my cuteness!"

THANK YOU AUNT ALLISON!!!!