5 Months

Oh my goodness can you believe I have a five month old?!?Where has the time gone? I just love this little girl so much. Each month that passes I love her more and more. Here are this months stats:

Weight: 15 pounds 1 ounce 42 percentile
Height: 26 inches 73rd percentile

This month has been quite different in this little girl's life. There haven't been any huge milestones, but I will give the usual what happenins of Averie.

She started NOT sleeping through the night. No bueno. It has been a really hard adjustment to go from getting a full night's rest to waking up every 2 to 3 hours again. I am not sure what the cause is, but this little girl just won't sleep through. It is hard to manage because I am working and I am not sure what is going on at Daycare during the day. It's hard to work with her schedule when I'm not with her:( Oh well I'm sure she will get back on track eventually.
She is starting to enjoy rice cereal. I give it to her mostly in the evening to try to help her sleep-try being the key word. At first she hated the stuff now she eats the whole bowl. Yum yum!
She loves animals. Whenever Sergeant or anything fury gets close enough for her to grab, she reaches out and tries to grab hold. She has snagged Sergeant's ears a few times. He doesn't seem to mind though.She is fascinated by everything. When something has her attention, good luck getting her to acknowledge you, or getting her to look at the camera.She still isn't really rolling over. She rolled that one time, but that is it. She is perfectly content staying on her back or on her stomach. Probably because she knows mom will flip her if she starts to cry.She is getting very coordinated with her hands. If I give her a toy, she will grab it with out the bad depth perception looking grasps.
She LOVES to stand. She has always been this way so this isn't really new this month, but now when you let her stand she tries to start walking. It is the cutest thing ever. She starts kicking like a mad woman and leans forward hoping to get where she wants to go.She has outgrown her car seat head support thingy. Sad.

She has outgrown all her newborn shoes. Sad very sad!

She loves to be tickled. I love to hear the laugh out louds from her.Her hands must taste like chocolate because I can't keep them out of her mouth!She is getting to be quite the little chunky munk. I love her rolls. So cute. She has learned how to pull her binky out of her mouth and almost put it back in. she usually puts it in backwards. She is very close to holding the bottle on her own too.

She is very close to sitting up on her own. She is still a little top heavy but, I think by next month she will have it down.
I think she gets cuter every month! Look at this doll!Next month I will try to take more pictures. I was a little bit sad going through my pics that I didn't have pictures of everything I wanted. I guess that's what happens when you are living on less sleep!

Absolute Mayhem

So unless you have been living under a rock the past few days, you probably heard something in the news about the fire in Herriman. I thought I would post about our experience because it was pretty incredible. We live right on the border of Herriman and Riverton. We weren't in any danger of the fire, but we were close enough to get a first hand look of the tragedy.

On Sunday I was spending my afternoon enjoying a nap with my Averie girl. Yes, it was glorious. That is, until my room started to smell like campfire. Damn neighbors burning something I suspect. Anyway, I woke up and got ready to take Averie and Sergeant on a walk. As soon as I walk out my front door I stop dead in my tracks. Holy Crap! The mountain was erupting or burning or SOMETHING! I couldn't see any flames, but I just couldn't believe how much smoke was in the air. No wonder my room smelled like campfire.
I checked out the news to find out what happened and then went on about my day. I figured it probably wasn't that big of a deal. We have wild fires all the time and I wasn't very worried because I didn't think it was that close to us. Well after a couple of hours I heard on the news that they were evacuating people. At this point I started getting concerned. I went outside and it looked a lot like this. Like an idiot, I didn't take a single picture. Thank you KSL for posting so many pics. They will have to tell my story for me:) The air was so hazy and smokey. Ash was blowing and it would burn your eyes if you were outside for very long. I started to worry about Averie and we debated about staying at my parents that night. We ended up staying, but the smell was so awful. Just after being outside for a few minutes and I smelled like I had been camping for a week! As soon as it started to get dark, the fire had reached the top of the mountain. I was starting to panic a little bit at this point. The wind was blowing so hard and it didn't seem like they were getting the fire under control. The news reported more and more evacuations. I wondered if we would be evacuated because of the smoke.
This picture reminds me of a volcano. Its pretty much what it was like. Hot lava coming down the mountain burning everything in its path.This picture breaks my heart, I am not sure if this was one of the homes lost or not.
Just another incredible shot. This was taken at the Cove Subdivision I believe. Want to hear the ironic thing? Last week we were in this neighborhood looking at lots to build a house. We LOVE this subdivision. We still may build here, but unfortunately, it's not as pretty as it was before.

The fire burned through the night and three homes were lost. My heart aches for those families. I can't imagine the devastation. It made me think about what I would have taken with me if we were evacuated, not knowing if my house would be there when I got back. This experience really made me want to be more prepared for an emergency. We don't even have bottled water in the house. I guess we would just go to my brother's house. AmyLyn has food storage and 72 hour kits like you wouldn't believe. She is much better about that kind of stuff than I am.

Well on Monday we had to go exploring of course. We probably should have stayed away, but its like a car crash, you don't want to look but you can't look away either. It was so SAD! Our beautiful mountain was this charred black pile of dirt. I love Herriman. It is so pretty up there. Now there is this big eye sore.We even found one of the homes that burned down. Amazing that all was left was the chimney. It was so amazing to me that there were several houses close to this one that were totally unscathed.
One of the neighborhoods we checked out had burned vegetation all the way up to their property lines. I think the only thing that saved these homes were the rock walls landscaping their properties. They were so lucky!And then there is this home.
What the?!? Someone must have been praying their little booties off! Ha ha. Just kidding, but seriously, how did this house survive?

I am very happy to report that there were several deer running the streets. I was very concerned about the wild life. Brian just rolled his eyes at me.
We are so glad that the fire is mostly contained at this point and that everyone has been able to return to their homes. It truly opened my eyes to just how lucky we are and breaks my heart for those that weren't as lucky. We are so grateful for all the hard work of the firefighters. They are our heroes.

You say it's your birthday?

Can you believe this darling little boy turned 30 today?!?

I can't believe it! When I met Brian he was 22. That is just weird to think about! Before you know it, my 3oth will be creeping up on me. I just love this man so much!How could you not? He has a great personality, he is a hard worker, he is such a good daddy and husband and it doesn't hurt that he is easy on the eyes!
I feel bad because I really wanted to do something extra special for his special day. I had it all planned out in my head. Well work was crazy and things didn't go exactly as planned. Brian was a good sport though and loved it anyway.Try not to laugh too hard at the wrapping job I did on his present. I realized at 5:00 that I had NO wrapping paper in the house and Brian was going to be home any second. I guess this masking paper will have to do :)
Averie was so cute and made her daddy a birthday card. It was messy, but she did actually do the coloring on the card. Brian loved it.So lets talk about the cake. Or lack there of. First of all, Brian didn't want a cake-he wanted brownies. No problem. Well I wanted to decorate it a little bit, but I am not crafty in the cake decorating art. Here is my attempt at just writing "Happy Birthday".Oh and don't mind the nasty stove in the background, it is more than overdue for a good cleaning. Brian didn't love the "cake"Or maybe it was the forest of candles on top? It sure was yummy though.
He did love his presents. I got him a new motorcycle helmet that has blue tooth capabilities. So he can talk on the phone or listen to music on his motorcycle. Not sure that it is the safest option, but I do like the idea of being able to call him if he is on his bike. Isn't technology amazing? I hope your birthday was great Babe! I love you so much!

John Mayer

Last night I went to see John Mayer in concert. So all you die hard fans out there, I just want you to know I got to go for free! My little brother bought his girlfriend tickets a while ago and forgot that he had class Tuesday nights. Well he called me last minute and asked if I wanted to go with her. Well duh! It was so fun. I have never listened to John besides when his songs are on the radio, but I was pleasantly surprised. He is very talented! He is very good live and he is one of the better performers that I have seen. I only have one problem with him. What the heck was he wearing?!? I tried really hard to find you a picture online (of course I forgot my camera), but I couldn't find one. Let me just describe. A white 80's wind breaker, floody khaki pants, converse sneakers, a bandanna, and really messy long hair. Seriously? Girls think that is hot? I don't get it. I have to admit his voice is very nice though. I just had to close my eyes and imagine someone cuter singing. I am sorry to those of you that think he is cute, just not my taste. Also, his facial expressions are priceless. These are not from last night, but I they looked exactly like what I saw.Even with the goofy ensemble and cracked out facial expressions, he was awesome in concert. Thanks Holly for the fun time!

Our Little Model

Let me introduce you to one of my addictions:

Every day babysteals.com features a baby product that they sell for half price. They have definitely made a killing off me. I have bought everything from bows, to blankets, to leggings, etc. It is a little bit addicting. Every day I get an email from them listing the item. At that point it is a race to purchase your "steal". Everything sells out pretty quick. Well the other day I went to their warehouse (they are based out of Utah) to pick up my order of cute bows and they caught glimpse of my sweet little Averie girl. They just thought she was the cutest and asked if they could use her as a model for one of the products they were going to sell. Of course I didn't mind. It was so perfect too. The bow she is wearing is actually the one that I went to pick up. It matched the blanket perfectly! Here is the webpage.

Miracle Blanket

$14.99 50% off Retail $29.99 There are a handful of things new parents say they couldn't live without, and the Miracle Blanket® consistently tops their list. Most understand how helpful swaddling is for calming babies, but knowing HOW to swaddle is another thing. Enter, the Miracle Blanket®. Super easy to use and highly effective, this ingenious blanket will save you and your baby some much needed zzzzz's!

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I am a little bummed because this mini page that they sent in the email doesn't show all the pictures that they took. They took another one of her laying in the crib. I will have to post it later. I copied and pasted the entire webpage and saved it on my work computer. It was so funny because we were trying so hard to get her to fall asleep in the blanket. She wasn't having it. She was kicking her legs and checking out her feet for most of the photo shoot. They finally said that they could use what they had taken, but I had no idea that meant I was going to be featured as well. Gees I would have taken my sunglasses off my head or something. Oh well! They asked me if they could ever use her again and I said of course. We'll see if they call. It's kinda fun to see your babes on a website. I was Mamma Proud :)