A Few Of My Favorite Things...

Aveda Rosemary Mint Shampoo & Conditioner with Body Wash

Aveda Volumizing Tonic

Aveda Confixor

I put this in my hair on the ends while it is still wet. Once my hair is dry, it feels so thick (if you know me, that is saying a lot!) and actually helps it hold some curl (also saying a lot!) without making my hair feel heavy like most gels.

Big Sexy Hair Hairspray
You can find this at any drug store. It is the best hairspray I have been able to find!

Mary Kay Satin Hands

I love to pamper my hands with this every so often. It makes, not only my skin pretty and soft, but also my nails. After I use it, my hands feel so good for days! I've even been known to use it on my feet. :)


Bare Minerals Powder Makeup

Beauti Control Extra Help Concealer
This concealer is the best coverup out there! It is the perfect consistancy and the colors are so natural; you cant tell you are wearing it even with other brand powders/foundations. Plus, its onlly $5!!
Smashbox Foundation Primer
I have always thought things like this were a waste of money until I was given a free sample last time I was in Sephora. Holy Cow! This stuff is awesome! It feels so soft when you put it on and it really does help your makeup go on smoothly and stay on longer. I am pretty hard to impress with things like this, but it is definitly a winner in my book!

Avery 9 Months

20 lbs

28.75 inches long
(Obviously, I was way off when I tried to measure her length on my own last month, lol)

This puts her in the 75th percentile for both groups

I feel like I say this every month (probably because I do), but time really does fly by so fast! I feel like it goes by so much faster when I watch Avery grow and develop. It really is amazing how much a baby changes in just under 1 year...

Anyways, this has been a whirlwind of a month! Since September 25, we have been back and forth from my parents house almost every week; It has been a lot of fun, though. Avery's cousin, Ella was born (today is actually her 1 month bday!), which is mostly why we have been there so much.

I feel like Avery has made a whole bunch of changes in just a short period of time. These last 2 weeks of her 8th month she has:

1. given up her pacifier (huge!)

2. two teeth have surfaced

3. sleeping through the night (again, HUGE!)

4. Pretty much down to 1 nap. If it's a busy day and/or we have a lot going on she may take 2, but normal slow days she is down to one 2 hour nap. I felt like it's pretty early for her to be wanting just one nap, but if she's tired, she will sleep. She sleeps in the car so that can throw her whole day of nap schedules off completely even if I just have a few errands to run.

5. She still uses her pointer fingers a lot. I think it has developed into her way to wave hi and bye. Every time she sees someone she sticks her arm out and points at them. She also will randomly look at me and get a huge grin on her face and point at me with both hands. It's like she is saying, "I see you!" I find it pretty hilarious ;).

6. I've had to do some minor disiplining already. She really likes to get the small rocks out of our fireplace (it's a gas fireplace with the fake logs) and throw them around. The pumpkins I have out for decorations right now also have caused some problems. When I get on to her, she smiles big, points those fingers at me, and jibber jabs while laughing. I guess it's her way of talking back and saying "ha ha mom! I knew I could get a rise out of you by doing that!". I can't wait for what lies in my future ;) lol.

7. She still nibbles on her food and formula. I can't get her to eat more than a few bites of food at a time and she is still at 3-4 oz at a time. She will take 2 oz here and there as "snacks" as I call them since she doesnt eat a lot at once. I give her some of those teething biscuits/cookies; she will gum them up and get them everywhere but she really likes them.

8. She is crawling really good and getting really fast. She seems to find her way around the house really good, too. The other day I was in the kitchen and I had put her down in the living room by her toys (the rooms are right next to each other) and the next thing I knew she was in our master bath sitting outside of the shower waiting on Jeff to get out. wow!

She is pulling up on everything and will get brave and let go, stand for a few seconds, then sit. I dont think it will be long before she is walking.

9. She is physically attached to her girafe print blanket. Within the past week she has decided that she can't go anywhere with out it. She reaches for it and fusses if you leave the room with out it.

10. She has started dancing. When she hears a song she knows she starts shaking her arms up and down. It's really cute! I've tried to get a video but as soon as she sees me and the camera, she stops. I'll get her one of these days!

This is one of my favorite pictures. She was really tired last night but it was a little early so we were trying to entertain her when she layed her head down on Jeff's shoulder, closed her eyes, and started humming. It was so sweet, I wanted to cry!

That's all I can think of right now. Everyday is different but so much fun! I am so blessed and couln't ask for a better life right now.

Weening and Sleeping

Avery decided randomly one day last week that she no longer wanted her Binkis (aka: pacifiers). It was quite possibly the easiest weening known to man! lol I didn't have to do a thing; in fact, I kept trying to give it to her at night to soothe her but she would just grab it and throw it away. So, that was the end of that....

Which leads me to my next point. Since the pacifier wasn't going to be any good anymore, the only way I could get her to go back to sleep at night was to pick her up, rock her, and sometimes even give her a few ounces of formula. On Saturday night she woke up every hour starting at about 1am. I picked her up each time and rocked her but she would wake up shortly after I layed her down in her crib. {She has also began to use her crib as a play-pin. She crawls around, stands up, sticks her arms through the rails to try and grab her toys outside of the crib... you name it. This was not going to cut it!} After about the 3rd time of rocking her I decided that she needed to learn the hard way. It was just as hard for me as it was for her I think. Around 5am I knew she wasn't hungry, hurt, or in pain from teething, so I went in there and layed her back down, rubbed her back and forehead for a few minutes, then left. I went in every 5 minutes if she was still crying but it took less than 30 minutes before she layed herself down and went to sleep. It was pretty awesome to hear her do that! She then slept until 7:30ish.

Sunday was better. She woke up 3 times but each time she only cried for less than 10 minutes and then went back to sleep. Monday, even better; she slept all of the way through until about 5 (when i heard the monitor I was shocked to see 5am on the clock!!) she started to fuss but I didnt rush in there. I gave her a minute, then went in and repeated everything and then left. She went right back to sleep. Tuesday, she slept all throught the night!!!! She woke up at 6:45 and I tried to get her down but she was pretty wide awake so we just got up.

I guess you could say that we let her "cry it out" as some call it. I had been thinking about it for months and talked to multiple people and read multiple books on methods for CIO. We had always been told that it only takes 2-3 nights and then you will be amazed at how well they sleep. IT'S SO TRUE! However, I never felt comfortable doing it because all it took to soothe her was her pacifier. I felt really bad taking that away if she still needed it. Some babies use their thumb, some use a blanket, and others a pacifier. The pacifier is so hard because if they loose it during the night then its hard to find and takes some coordination for them to learn to put it back in correctly on their own (being half asleep at the same time adds even more difficulty). Now that she decided that that wasn't good enough, I figured it was probably time to try something new. She is old enough now to know night vs day and is fully aware of her surroundings so I didn't feel as mean.

I really hope that she continues to sleep this good. We travel so much that that could put a kink in things; not to mention teething. I am just happy to say that it has worked and with hardly any pain and tears!

High Chair Cover

I decided a while back that I needed to get a new high chair cover. I have this one (but in the green toile print), which is awesome as a grocery cart cover but its so fluffy and big that it doesnt really fit on a restaurant's high chair and the bigger Avery gets, the harder it is for me to fit her in the high chair with it on. Therefore, in true "Suzie Home-maker" style, I decided that I couldn't buy one, I need to make it. I found a pattern from McCalls but I changed it up a bit (again, just like me to do that!) lol. It called for some straps to tie toys onto. These are really nice but Avery doesnt really play with those kind of toys that often anyways, and I always end up taking them off the ties anyways. I can still go back and add them if I decide, but for now I am going to leave them off.
Also, I added some velcro so that I can fold it up and carry it by the leg seperator strip. It folds up perfectly into a little square, so why not?

I think that if I ever make another one I might add a pocket or two, just for the heck of it. :) I love it; I hope you do, too!

My little Rockstar!

Avery was PINK for Holloween this year! :)

Like the mohawk?! lol

Learning A New Trade...

As you may know, if you've ever been ot my photography website (click here to see it. There's also a link on the left side of my blog) you would know that I focus on still life and landscape photography.
I have always admired people who can photograph people and babies, like Kelley Cook who did Avery's newborn and 6th month photos. It has always seemed too daunting and difficult in so many ways that I just never really gave it a shot.

Since my neice Ella was born this month, I thought it would be fun to give it a shot to see what I could come up with. Luckily, my sister was happy to let her be a model for as many photos as Ella would cooperate for. :)

I have to say that it was just about as hard as I expected. Because I am used to still life and landscapes I do not have to work nearly as fast as I do with a baby!! There were a few issues that I ran into:

1. Emily and I had our other two little ones running around while I was trying to take pictures. BAD idea! haha. Avery is abnormally curious of other babies and has to be right on top of them! Annie is almost 2 so she was running around and knocked over the backdrop a few times and would walk between the camera and ella. She obviously didn't realize what was going on but it would have been nice to have someone there to take those 2 in another room.

2. I obviously do not know my camera as well as I thought. By the time I would get the settings figured out how I wanted them, the scene set, and then Ella into position, something would go wrong and I would have to change my camera settings, background, lighting... you name it. I would get so flustered and ended up working up a sweat from trying to get everything to coordinate. I guess it just takes experience and doing it over and over to learn some tricks; I ovbiously know the basics but I really need to dig into my camera to learn more about it. Right now, it is WAY over my head.

3. Skin tones are the hardest thing for me to get looking right!!! I can't say that enough. I really want to look into getting some filters for my camera that can help in that area. Photoshop is good, but isnt the same.

4. Photoshop... I need help there, too. Kelley was able to help me a little on one of the photos. She was kind enough to give me a few pointers, but I really can't live up to her standards! lol

All in all, I ended up with a few pictures that turned out ok. They are not wonderful, but they are a start. I doubt I will ever do this professionally since it is not my forte, but it can be a useful trade to know since I plan to have more kids in the future. I hope to be able to take great photos of kids and people on a regular basis of every day things, too.

Here's a few of my favorites:

The best part of carving a pumpkin...

...Roasting the seeds after its all done!

Pumpkin Carving

We finally got out the knives and spoons tonight to carve the jack-o-lantern for Holloween. I've never really liked those real scary ones with horrible faces or gross spiders on them... yuck! lol I normally like to think of something unique and pretty to do. This year, I thought I would be clever and do a fleur-di-lis, but then I began to see them all over town! I was so sad to find out that my idea wasn't as unique as I thought. Oh well, we still did it anyways. Here's some pictures:

Avery was very excited to help out! :)

Then she discovered the ooy gooy stuff on the inside... she was a mess!

Can you tell where there was a mess up? We hit a rotten part of the pumpkin and broke part of it.
Here's Jeff, being Jeff... lol He was very proud of his carving job; as he should be. He even fixed the piece that broke off with some nails! lol

The finished product :)

An Email I Received Today...

Glenn Beck had been trying for weeks to get a military fly-over with fighter jets to start the event, but the White House blocked it saying it was "restricted airspace." The rally started at 10:00 am, but at precisely 9:59am...

Pumpkin Patch

Avery's first pumpkin patch... She had a blast! Really, she loved hugging all of the big pumpkins and of course wanted to eat all of the little ones. We got one of each color (gray, white, stripped, and orange), some small ones for around the house, and one to carve for Holloween.

I am so ready for the holiday season this year!! :)

Dad even had fun picking out the best carving pumpkin, lol ;) :