Avey's 13 Month Well Check

We took Miss Ava Lynn to the pediatrician for her 13 month well check when she was actually 14 months old!  She turned 13 months old on Christmas Eve so that was not a great time to get in to the doctor's office, plus we were trying to stay away from there during the height of flu season!  She is doing great!  She weighed 23 lbs. 5 oz., which put her in the 75th percentile.  She was 30 1/4" tall, which put her in the 50th percentile.  Her head circumference was 47 cm, which was the 85th percentile.  She had grown so much since her last appointment in August!  I'm so mad at myself that I didn't get a picture of us in the office! 


Just for fun, here are Lex's stats from her 13 month well check:


Weight: 21 lbs. 6 oz.,  50th percentile
Height: 29 3/4 inches, 50th percentile


Ava was a month older so it's not a super accurate comparison, but I think it's so interesting to see where they each land on the growth chart!  I've always thought that Ava was a lot shorter than Lex at this age, but I guess they are pretty close.  Ava's weight demonstrates how much more she likes to eat than her sister!:)  Also, Alexis had already been walking for a few months at this point and Ava had just started.  I'm sure that plays a big part in the difference in their weights!  All that really matters is that they are both very healthy and we are so very thankful for that!!!

Potty Training and Snow Day

Well, the day has come!  We decided to potty train our girl!  We have been waiting for her to be "ready" because everything that I had heard and read said that it was so much easier if you did so!  I knew that she was aware of her bodily functions and she had been keeping her diaper dry pretty regularly during nap time and sometimes even in the morning.  She is the kind of child that is very hesitant to try something new, but usually warms up pretty quickly so I had a feeling we were going to have to kind of nudge her off the cliff so to speak.:) 

We decided to try the 3-day potty training method where you basically devote your entire life for 3 days to the art of "going" in the potty!:)  I got ready with lots of snacks and drinks and a cute stuffed Dory for encouragement.  Lex has been really into presents since Christmas so I decided to wrap several inexpensive things to give her as gifts each time she was successful.  We stocked up on Rapunzel, Doc McStuffins, Cinderella, and Anna/Elsa undies and we were all set to go!

We started on a Friday and she was decently successful!  She went on the potty a couple of times and on the floor a couple of times, but overall she was doing pretty well.

Saturday and Sunday were about the same with several successes and a few misses.  We figured out by this time that she was somewhat overwhelmed with the prompting and gift giving and treat eating so we packed most of that stuff away and went a little more low-key route.  Monday was okay and then Tuesday was ROUGH.  I think she was realizing that this was a permanent thing at this point and my patience was also running kind of low from many, MANY minutes spent in our bathroom.:)  At one point, I'm pretty sure I thought to myself that we were definitely not having anymore kids because that would mean that I would have to potty train 3 children and I didn't think I would live through it.;)  It was one of those days where we were glad for bedtime!  Ha! 

But then on Wednesday, she got up and did SO MUCH BETTER!  I really backed off on asking her all the time if she needed to go and she did such a good job at telling me on her own.  I really think she was just annoyed by me constantly questioning her and improved dramatically as soon as I gave her some space.  I'm guessing this might be a life lesson that sticks with us as she grows up.:)  She has done SO awesome since then.  I think she has maybe had one accident since then and that was during a nap.  She still wears a pull up to sleep at night and doesn't always wake up dry in the morning, but we have time to work on that.  She is so proud of herself and we are SOOOOO proud of her, too!!!  Such a big girl!:) So I guess for us the 3 day potty training method was really more like a week long effort.  Some days were kind of long, but in the end it was totally worth devoting almost all of our time to getting her trained in a relatively short period of time!

We had some more snow so Daddy and Lex went outside to play.

This time the snow was wet and heavy so they made a big snowman!  Look at those smiles!!!

She was so proud of her snowman!

Daddy and his big girl!

Avey stayed inside since it's sort of difficult for her to walk in snow boots, but she hung out in Daddy's hunting boots for a bit!:)

A Wonderful Wednesday

We had a fun day yesterday!  It wasn't anything particularly special or planned, which sometimes makes it the best!:)

We were in the bathroom brushing teeth and getting ready and Alexis wanted to put her ton-ax (contacts) in just like Mommy!:)

The girls got the play-doh out and played with it for a while before lunch!  Ava is not allowed to play with the actual play-doh yet because she eats EVERYTHING, but she enjoyed stacking the tubs up and knocking them down!:)

Lex made a blobby snowman out of all of her different colors!

While we were playing with the play-doh, it started snowing enormous flakes of snow!  We threw on some warm clothes and went outside to catch snowflakes in our mouths!  Lex loved it!!

Ava's usually happy to just be included in whatever is going on.:)

After Daddy got home from work, he decided that he would take them out again for a bit.  Ava put on her Iowa Hawkeyes hat that she got from her birthday twin Tim for Christmas!

Daddy and the girls in the beautiful snow!

Ava has started coming up to me and giving the sweetest hugs around my legs.  It just melts my heart!

Kaitlyn texted us and asked if Lex would want to go watch Meriah cheer at the basketball game.  She finally went poop on the potty (after 3 days of holding it!) so we agreed to let her go!  We took Avey and went on a little date to Applebee's while they were gone.  I think Ava liked her only-child status for the evening.:) 

And Alexis LOVED the game!  She got to see "Riah" cheer and Kate said she was yelling to her really loudly!

This girl loves her auntie! 

She's lucky to have an aunt that lets her tag along and do fun things!  It was a fun day for all of us!:)

Winter Activities

The girls (and the rest of us!) are trying to beat the winter blues by getting involved in some things outside of our house!:)

We started swim classes on Tuesdays a couple of weeks ago!  It is a parent-tot class so Bryan and I have to be in the water with the girls.

The girls love it!!  They get to do fun things like ride a horsey (pool noodle) around the water!

They also get to "swim" from one end of the pool to the other and pick up rubber duckies.  They swim on their bellies one way and then on their backs on the way back.

They also get to practice jumping in the water from the side of the pool.  This little peanut doesn't really get the concept of jumping so she just leans over and falls in!:)  Alexis is super comfortable in the water and is getting close to needing independent swimming lessons.  Ava is getting much more comfortable in the water, too!

Last week, we started Wacky Wednesday at church!  Alexis isn't quite old enough to participate, but Camille is being kind and letting her join!  She LOVED it!  She gets to be in a group with a lot of other kids her age and I think it is going to be so good for her.  She gets to play with Lill, Emerson, Claire, Josi, and some other kids so she is thrilled!

Bry is participating in the men's Bible study and I am volunteering in the nursery.  Ava and I got to hang out with Damon!  We had a blast!  Since it was just the two of them, we took trips to go watch the big kids sing and to play in the Lil' Shining Stars room.  We get to each supper at church before our various activities start so that is awesome!   

And, last but not least, we started gymnastics on Thursdays last week!  This girl was so thrilled with her leotard!

She was very happy to see all of the fun things out to play with at the Y gym.

Little sister tagged along, of course!  The cut-off for the class is 18 months so she isn't quite old enough to participate.  She was such a good girl while she watched!

This is a parent-tot class, too, so we get to join her for all of the activities.  They started with stretching, of course.:)

Then she got to practice walking on the balance beam!  She did pretty well to start with, but quickly started to realize that she wasn't going to be allowed to just do whatever she wanted during class time.  That caused a bit of an ongoing meltdown.:)  We're hoping that she will do better next week now that she knows what to expect!

Daddy met us there after he got off work so he joined the fun, too!  She got to hang on the bar!

Grandpa had wrestling practice at Crestview so he stopped by after he got done!  They were trying to do forward rolls, but the little one was slightly uncooperative.  She has a history of rebelling against stuff that she has never done before and then she warms up eventually.  We're hoping that this is the same way!  All in all, we are having fun doing some new things in the evenings this winter!  We spend most of our days at home right now so it is sure nice to have things that get us out and about occasionally!:)

Lately

We've been having some fun around here (not including the potty training...that hasn't been that fun!:) in the past few days!

Daddy and Alexis went outside to play in the snow!  It's been warmer around here lately (hallelujah!!) so they wanted to get out before it all melts.  Who am I kidding?  It's only January...we still have plenty of time for snow playing, most likely!

Lex got a UNI hat from her birthday twin Sarah for Christmas so she had to represent!:)

Daddy built a great snowman while Lex tromped around in the snow!

She loved it!

Those two right there are two peas in a pod and I love them both!!!:)

Avey missed out because she was taking a nap and because her newly walking self isn't quite ready for snow boots yet!:)  She got in Daddy's boots instead!

I got to have a tea party with the cutest little Anna!

And with the prettiest Rapunzel I have ever seen!

Our women's ministry had a brunch at the Vine on Saturday and shared our vision for this year.  We are focusing on controlling the tongue and have chosen this verse as our theme verse.  I am hoping to make great strides in this area!

The girls are obsessed with eating frozen waffles for breakfast!  We still eat oatmeal with baby food mixed in on most days, but they love these for a change of pace.  I love Avey's "wing" of hair that is always sticking out on the side!:)

Home Is Where the Halls Are

This has been a week of snow...and cold...and blowing snow...and FREEZING cold!!!  It has been so nasty out that the girls and I have only left the house for a couple of hours (for swim class on Tuesday) since Sunday!  And it's Friday!  And we're going a little crazy!:)  Actually, they have been pretty well behaved and we've been keeping busy with fun activities and house work.  It's times like this that I am thankful that I am naturally a homebody!  Here's what we've been up to during this week where winter really arrived:

I have been working on cleaning out the girls' dressers and closets and putting away things that they've outgrown.  We had to try on this sweet hat to see if it still fits!

We've been playing dress-up!  We were in the kitchen and Lex said, "I show Daddy my dress?!  Oh, I hold my sheep!!  Cheeeeeeeeese!!!"  I assumed that meant I was supposed to take her picture and text it to Bry!  She cracks me up!

I got out some felt so that we could make blankets and things for the girls' new dollhouse.  Alexis did NOT want me to cut anything...instead she wanted to carefully lay them out all over the floor.  Of course, she was furious when her sissy crawled all over them and messed them up!:)  She is very into having things laid out just so!

Little sister is working on her first molar so we've been seeing a fair amount of this!:/

Thankfully, we've also gotten to see her cute smile, too!

And she's been practicing her walking some more!  Doesn't everyone chew on a plastic French fry while they walk?

Alexis loves playing with her fa-i-yee (family) from her dollhouse.  She wanted them to watch Beauty and the Beast with her so she lined them all up on the couch!:)

I was getting ready after my shower on Wednesday and had my makeup bag out on the counter.  I talked to Bry on the phone for a bit and then went on with getting ready.  I went out in the living room and saw this!  Lex was so busted!!  She had taken my entire makeup bag to the couch and was playing with my mascara!  She looked so sheepish that I couldn't help but laugh.  Thankfully I found her before she got too curious and she didn't make too big of a mess with the mascara.  It was on the couch a little bit, but it came off pretty easily.

She had mascara all over her face and hands and was much more embarrassed to be caught than I was upset.  She looked way too cute to be mad!  Ha!

Checking out her handiwork in the mirror!:)  There's a first time for everything!

Later that day, I knew that we needed to take a bath to take care of the mascara massacre so we started off by bringing some snow inside!  I filled two big bowls of extremely fluffy snow and let them go to town in their jammies.  The snow was so strange...so fluffy and not really packable.  When you did finally get it into a ball, it turned into a ball of ice! 

The girls weren't really all that sure what to do with it so why not eat it?!  Lex wasn't really a fan (shocking)!

But Avey loved it (shocking)!  She would have eaten the whole bowl if I let her!

Yesterday, Alexis got out her foam shapes and used the spray bottle to stick them to the bathtub wall!  So much fun!

We've been working on eating what we are given for lunch/supper and Avey has been doing so well!  She chowed down on some chicken fajita soup and then gobbled up some tomatoes!:)

Both girls were quite impressed with Great Grandma's cinnamon applesauce!  This was Lex's cute smile, not a "smells bad" smile!:)

Thankfully, we've had a couple of visits from grandparents to keep us entertained!  Mom and Lex posed with her grandma and grandpa and Lex from her dollhouse to send to Dad for his birthday!:)  We're looking forward to getting outta here sometime soon, but we are sure thankful for our warm home this week!