Weekend Pictures

Avie and Sophie

These next 2 are when she realized my mom was here!

Sitting on the ground at the Visitors Center watching the girls in their pretty dresses

Avie at River View's Promonde

Welcome Lily

Congratulations to Nathan and Renata Skelley! They had their beautiful baby girl, Lillian "Lily" Jane Skelley yesterday at 5:26 pm. She weighs 8 pounds and 11 ounces and is 21 1/2 inches long. We went to see her tonight, and let me tell you she is a doll! She has lots of dark brown hair and is just beautiful. Avie LOVED her. I didn't think Avie would pay much attention to her, but she was very much into her. She kept giving her kisses and trying to touch her. She mainly tried to touch her eyes, she now knows where eyes are so she points to them on everything. At one point Lily started crying and Avie started busting up laughing! She was really good with her. We are so happy for the Skelleys!!! What a blessing :)

Dress-up and the funnies

Monday Mom dressed up Avie in this bowa (spelling?) and this hat. I think the hat was one of mine from high school. I am getting old, hats like that were in style when I was in high school, not so much anymore! I also thought this picture of her reading the funnies was cute. She is just sitting there looking like she is reading :)

Family Updates

AVIE: Is very much into walking. Since she was about 9 1/2 months old, she started walking while holding onto our fingers with both hands. At about 10 1/2 months old she progressed to just holding onto one hand while walking. About a week ago, she started taking her first steps towards us. She can go like 3 or 4 on her own. Well this morning I had her standing on the floor holding on to our recliner. I walked to our front door (probably 4 steps away) and was checking on our dogs outside when I heard a "thump - thump - thump - CRASH!" When I turned to look, I found her face first on the carpet, much like a belly flop in the pool, screaming her head off. So now she is apparently getting brave and walking towards us when we aren't looking.
She also LOVES eating. She will eat her baby food until she notices we have "real people" food and then she wants ours. I am slowly trying to get her off of her bottles, so now for breakfast she has oatmeal and toast. She loves toast!
On the 22nd she will be 11 months old. Hard to believe in like 2 weeks I will be sending out invites to her FIRST birthday!

CHARLIE: Is busy like usual. He is almost done with his firefighters classes. Those consume his every Tuesday and Thursday night as well as his Sunday's. I will be happy when those are over, so we can have him back home. He has been steady with work and is getting pretty full for the summer. The Lord has blessed him with his business and we are so thankful. He is also busy remodeling our house in his spare time. We are getting ready to cut a hole in our floor for our stairway. He has done such a great job!

JACIE: I have been busy with writing IEP's at school. I am very ready for summer. I often say I love my job, but I love being home even more. I just finished reading Twilight... I am addicted! I hate to read, but this book is so good! I just finished it while Avie was napping, and I want to go to Walmart this evening and get New Moon, the sequal.

That's what is going on in our lives right now. Hope you all have a wonderful week!!!

First Kiss

"Avie and Parker sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G

first comes love, then comes marriage,

then comes Avie pushing a baby carriage"

Ok so we are far from marriage, and even further from a baby carriage, but Avington Lynn did have her first kiss (other than mommy/daddy/grandparents/dogs) last night! Who is the lucky man you may ask......... Parker Loomis! It was so adorable. Beth and I went to Scott's baseball game in New Phila and after the game the babies wanted out of their strollers, so they were toddling around. It was like love at first sight, they went towards eachother as fast as their little baby legs would let them and went right in for a kiss. Then to top it off, at one point Parker turned away, and Avie was grabbing for his jacket and screaming at him to come back. When he did, she went for another kiss. It was so funny! I know I know, I say that now but in 10 years it isn't going to be nearly this adroable!

Have a great day everyone :)

Avie's Easter Basket, the Easter Bunny found it a Pottery Barn Kids :) The Easter Bunny came!!!!

Love the ears!
Mamaw got Avie this dress on her trip to NYC. Isn't it beautiful?!

So done with picture taking

Uncle Ryan

Above is Avie's first Egg Hunt

Below is Avie and Maddie

We had a wonderful Easter! I think that the Easter Bunny thought it was Christmas (thank you so much Mamaw and Papaw and Grandpa and Grandma Dee) We are so fortunate and blessed to have such amazing families. Happy Easter everyone :)

First Steps

Well, our little girl is growing up... she has started taking her first steps. On Tuesday (April 7th) Avie took 3 independent steps towards me from my mom! Since then she is really liking this walking thing and wants to be on the go all of the time. She used to need both of our fingers to walk, but now she is getting pretty good with one hand. Tonight she used a little toy thing to push and walk behind all by herself. She went pretty far, until the wall/couch/and-or table stopped her. She doesn't quite have the turning part down. I have a feeling it wont be long until she is on the go. Seems like she always hits those milestones around a holiday. She sat up by herself on Christmas and now close to Easter she is taking first steps. Hard to believe she will be 1 next month!!
HAVE A HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!
I will post new pictures soon, probably after the Easter Bunny visits :)

Remodeling continues

Ok this was my old hallway with the old bathroom behind that wall that you see to the right. Avie's room is the first one on the left, then ours, then our new bathroom straight ahead. This was our old bathroom, across from Avies room.

This was demo yesterday (old bathroom)

This is how it sits now... all walls gone and almost ready for the hole to be cut in the floor for stairs

So the bathroom is done (minus the floor and some minor touch-ups), and we have moved on to the dining room. Here is a before and after of the work that was done this weekend. We ripped out the old bathroom and are making stairs to our basement. If you haven't ever been to our house you may be confused on what you are looking at, but for those of you who have you should understand. Off of our old dining room we had a bathroom and a hallway that led back to our bedrooms and new bathroom. We demolished the old bathroom and hallway and now we have on huge open space. You would not belive how much room we have now! We are going to put in stairs to our basement (right now i have to go through my garage) and expand our existing dining room. After all of this is completed, we are going to do some remodeling of our kitchen.... one mess at a time :) You would not believe the amount of dust this remodel generates! Makes me wanna gag literally :) A huge thank you to our parents for their help! They have helped with the remodel as well as helping with Avie so I can do what I can to help Charlie. We are making some great progress!!! Oh, but in the process of demolition, we somehow have messed up our heat... so currently we are keeping warm with space heaters. So please pray that Charlie/Chuck/Dad can figure out how to fix it!

Getting in the Easter Spirit

LOVE THIS PICTURE!

Here are some pictures my mom took this morning. At the beginning of the week while Avie was napping, my mom put out all of her Easter decorations. Avie notices EVERYTHING, so when she woke up from her nap, she found all of the Easter bunnies and eggs. Mom puts some change in some of the eggs and Avie just shakes and shakes them. Its amazing what a little personality they develop!