High Five

Daddy taught Avery how to give high fives he other day and it's pretty funny. You put your hand up and say, "Give me five," and then she puts her hand up and slowly pushes your hand. After she does it everyone has to clap and cheer, "yeah". She gets really excited and starts clapping too. Usually after you do it once she'll grab your hand because she wants to do it again. Too cute. I haven't gotten a good picture of this yet but I thought I'd include some other pics of her. She wasn't very smiley this day. It was getting close to bedtime.

Grouting

We finally did it. We grouted our tile! It took us most of the day Sunday but it's done and I can hardly believe it. We started Sunday when Avery went down for her nap at 12:45 and with the exception of a 45 min break for dinner it took us until 9:30 that night. My hands, back and thighs are all aching today but it was so worth it. We have to wait until tomorrow to seal it but then we can move the appliances back in. Yeah. I can't wait to get my kitchen back. I'm really happy with how it turned out. I totally understand why people who lay tile charge so much. What a crappy job.

Sledding

On Saturday, before the arctic front moved in, we invited some friends and their kids over to sled down our backyard hill. It turned out to be a pretty nice day. Even though it was only in the twenties, when the sun came out some of us even took our coats off. Marshall pulling Lucas.
Courtney going down with Cooper.
Daddy taking Avery down. I'm not sure if she enjoyed it as she started to cry at the bottom. I think she'll like it more next year.
The little angel.
The crew, Teresa, Jeff, Lucas, Sarah and Marshall and you can barely see Cameron holding the orange sled in the background. We're missing Marcus, Courtney and Cooper. Plus Brownie the dog is in the front and Newton the dog was probably having a stare-down with Miles our cat.
Playing on the snow.

Where did my baby go?

My little one is getting an attitude and I have to say I love it. I'm guessing in a few years it won't seem so cute but right now it's fantastic.
She's very independent. She won't let me feed her so we make sure to do dinner close to bath time. That way she can get as messy as she wants and believe me she usually ends up with food everywhere including her hair.
Speaking of bath time, her new thing is standing up in the tub. She gets a stern, "Avery sit down," to which she usually stands right back up and then smiles at me. We go through this charade about twenty times each bath. I've decided that this weekend it's time for me to buy the little runt a bath seat. I'm a little bummed about this since I love the blow up Winnie the Poo tub that fits her so nicely but again what do you do. I've figured out that there really isn't any way to make a ten month old listen to you. Plus it's really hard not to laugh at her when she's so proud of herself for standing up.
She's starting to hate the car seat. Maybe I should rephrase, she's starting to hate Mommy putting her in the car seat. As her Dad so eloquently noted to me, Avery doesn't mind when he puts her into the carseat. The look I gave him after that comment could have wilted flowers. We're still toting her around in the infant car seat. For some reason I have an aversion to buying her a toddler one. Maybe it's because it means she's growing up or maybe it's because toting her around in that thing is just so easy. I'm really not looking forward to having to take her in and out of a seat every time we get into the car, however, her feet are starting to hang over the edge and she's getting ever so close to the weight limit. I'm guessing in the next month I won't have a choice.
The scooting has begun. Avery doesn't crawl and I really don't think she ever will. Actually she probably doesn't need to as she's become a champion scooter. She sits on her behind and pulls herself wherever she needs to go. She's getting pretty good at it too. She's finally at the age where you can't take your eyes off her for a minute. The playpen comes in handy even though she's less than thrilled when she gets plopped into it. We've created a kind of barricade out of luggage and larger toys in our bedroom. This morning she breached the barricade and started scooting towards the door. I think we're going to invest in another playpen for upstairs. It's so funny how three weeks ago we could plop her in the middle of the floor, leave the room and when we came back she'd be in the exact same spot. Aaaa the good old days. I can't believe how fast things change.
Even though I love all these new changes I can't help but be a little nostalgic for the infant that no longer exists. I'm guessing this is why people choose to have multiple children. My little Avie is growing into a little girl right before my eyes. Even though I miss that little baby I had even a month ago, every single day I am thankful that I get to be a part of her journey to become a little girl. It's the most amazing thing watching her personality emerge. I can't wait to see where it takes her. Sometimes I just wish it wouldn't take her there quit so fast :)

I think home improvement projects lead to alcoholism!

Betcha think I'm going to say that the floor is done. Think again! Let me first just say that laying tile sucks. Yeah that's right, sucks the big one. In retrospect our first tile project should have been say the bathroom or one of our closets but probably not half of our first floor. It's all my fault too. In my quest for home perfection I wasn't satisfied with linoleum oh no I needed ceramic tile. And Jeff being the ever obediant husband blindly agreed with my mania. If only we had known what a pain in the ass this project was going to be we'd - well we'd have probably still done it. Who am I kidding it's going to look awesome (as every single person we've told our story of woe to has said). I just wish that getting to the awesome wasn't such a pain in the ass!! So here's the scoop. We haven't grouted yet. All the tile is laid and the plan was to grout tonight except that this morning we discovered one tile that hates us and didn't lay properly so it had to be pulled up. Just when we thought we were done with the laying part. Am I surprised - no. I was surprised when we found out that we had laid 1/3 of the tile with a flat trowel when we needed a toothed one (thus we had to pull up multiple tiles and scrape morter away (not as fun as it sounds.) I was surprised when we discovered the chipped tile that had already been laid and I was even surprised when one of the tiles laid on the edge of a transition cracked in half when Jeff stepped on it. So I really wasn't surprised this morning when another little bugger came up. I'm almost tempted to postpone grouting a few more days to make sure no more of the little shits work themselves up. The only problem with that idea is the longer we wait to grout, the longer I have to wait for a functioning kitchen. Yikes. I'm guessing we'll be grouting tomorrow and hopefully I can move the stove and fridge back in early next week. I can always hope right! Jeff and I have officially decided that after this project is done - we still have the bathroom to finish - we are taking a hiatus from house projects for at least a few months. Or until I've forgotten how much this project sucked and start thinking about how aweful my kitchen ceiling looks (that's a story for another time.) So maybe you'll see finished product pics next Monday and maybe you won't. If you don't see them you may want to call the loonie bin to see if my husband has been admitted. I really think I've pushed him to the brink on this project. Oh and did I mention I've resorted to drinking a glass of wine every night. Maybe home improvement projects cause alcoholism. That's a theory worth looking into.

It's begun!

The bathroom in it's current state, except we have the floor and toilet ripped out.
The start of our tile. The color looks darker since I took this picture at night. I'll post another one when we're done which will hopefully happen next weekend. It'll probably take another week or two to get the bathroom done.

I have no kitchen. I'm not kidding, I literally have no kitchen. The remodeling has officially begun which means I currently have a fridge and a stove in my entryway. Everything else that used to be in the kitchen is in my dining room (or other various areas of the house) and anything that didn't get thrown out from the fridge is either crammed into our small chest freezer downstairs or sitting in a coolor on my back porch. We only have hot water in the kitchen sink and the bathroom sink is unusable until we fix the plumbing to the sink in the main floor bathroom. So I'm on my way after work to pick up plastic forks, plates and pizza. I have a feeling we've got a few days of eating out in our future.
Don't get me wrong I'm super excited to get going on the project but that doesn't mean I'm also not excited to get it done. I'll post pics tonight of the before and the progress and when it's done I'll for sure post the finished product or mostly finished since we've got a few weeks of touch up work after the tile is laid! Wish us luck.

The Holidays!

Avery and Ryley. She's in her second Christmas dress which was a little big on her.
Christmas Eve sitting on Uncle Jess's lap.
The hat Aunt Mary made her.
Opening gifts.

Is that my belly?

Before the dress came off.
(PICTURES OF RYLEY AND AVERY TO COME!)

The Kline family had a fantastic Christmas. It was crazy busy but a ton of fun. We spent Sunday night at Grandpa and Grandma Kline's house eating great appetizers and drinking hot buttered rums. Christmas Eve was spent with my parents and family. We had about 16 people over. Avery had a blast eating banana pudding with vanilla wafers that GG Darlene made, I think more of it got on her than into her mouth. We had prime rib - yummy.

Avery got sick of her Christmas dress so we stripped her to her diaper and just let her play with ribbons and wrap while the rest of us opened gifts. She got so many nice things from everyone, however, I think she preferred the ribbons and bows. That night Avery stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Lucero while Jeff and I went up to his Moms house and hung out with his family. The next morning Avery opened up her stocking that Grandma Kari made her (thanks again Mom). Again I think she liked the stocking better then the toys. We went that afternoon to Grandma Lori and Grandpa Dave's house and had a fantastic dinner. Avery played with her cousin Ryley, although she really didn't want anything to do with the poor guy. We thought it was the fact that she was just being a girl and it was late in the day but we later found out that she had a double ear infection which would explain the cranky mood. Poor Ryley, who is a super happy baby, couldn't figure out why this cranky girl wouldn't play with him. As long as we left her alone she seemed to be ok. We got some hilarious footage of the two of them. The next day I did some shopping with Avery and my Mom (I had gift certificates to spend) and then we drove back to Butte. I had the next few days off (except for a few hours on Friday that I had to do payroll) so that was great. Avery got pretty cranky on Friday and wouldn't drink her bottle. I got her into the Dr. on Monday and that's when we found out she had the ear infections. We started giving her antibiotics and she perked up by that night.
Jeff and I just hung out on New Years Eve, eating appetizers and drinking wine. We watched, "An Evening With Kevin Smith" which I highly recommend for Kevin Smith fans, it's very racy but hilarious. On New Years day Avery was the perfect kid again and we had a fun day being lazy (resting off slight hangovers) and watching her play. I spent a lot of the day reading my book "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follet (it's a wonderful book) and Jeff watched football.
Happy new years everyone!!!
The weekend before we had started tearing up our floor and are about done doing that. We're hoping to have everything ready to lay tile this weekend. Wish us luck. I'm pretty excited to get it done and see how great it looks! I'm also excited to have a fully functioning kitchen.