Holly Geollie Christmas!

This past weekend some of our very best friends, Geoff and Mollie (hence their celebrity nickname Geollie) got married in Abingdon, VA.  We were so excited to be able to share in their big day! Thanks to my parents/Ashley for watching Avery for the weekend so M and I could enjoy all of the wedding festivities without one of us being at the hotel with little Nug.

Geoff and Mollie, we are so happy for you!  We love you both and cannot wait to watch and support you while you begin your new life together.

Rehearsal dinner at a local restaurant called The Tavern.  Amazing!

Bridal Brunch

I hate that this turned out blurry!

Mr. and Mrs. Moeck!

So thankful for these wonderful friends!

Tubes

As all 5 of our frequent readers may know, Avery suffered her 5th ear infection over the Thanksgiving holidays.  After being back a few days, I had this nagging feeling that we should go ahead and take her in to see an ENT to get a second opinion about going ahead with a myringotomy.  After discussing this with M, I called and was able to get an appointment for the week after Thanksgiving.  I was able to get the first appointment of the day, 7:45 am, which ended up being a blessing, because when I left the office 2 hours later the waiting room was packed.  Avery first had to do a hearing test and check for fluid in her ears.  The audiologist told me that both ears had fluid build up and that she was performing a little below normal on her hearing reaction times, which surprised me. I have never noticed her having problems hearing us before, and she has definitely not had any trouble developing language.

We saw the Nurse Practitioner first, who after taking a brief history, took a look into her ears.  She asked me as she was looking when her last ear infection was, to which I replied a week and a half ago and that she had just finished her antibiotic 5 days earlier.  She said, "Wow, that's amazing, because she has another one in her left ear... it is bulging with pus."  I literally about fell out on the floor in the exam room. At this point, I was over it and just wanted our sweet baby girl to get some relief.  After seeing the doc who reiterated everything the NP said, she needed tubes and she needed them ASAP.  His nurse came to schedule the surgery and told me that the NP had asked how soon we could get in for surgery because her ears looked so terrible, and the nurse told her it wouldn't be until January.  The NP basically begged the nurse to find something/anything because she needed them so badly :(  So, surgery was scheduled for 2 days later; his nurse just decided to overbook him, which was so very nice of her.

Fast forward to surgery day, we were thankfully the first case of the day for our doc and got to the outpatient center at 6AM.  Now, being a former OR nurse, I know how routine this surgery is.  I know that it takes all of 5 minutes, that they don't even have to intubate, just mask them down, etc. etc.... That being said, also being an OR nurse, I know risk exists for every single procedure, albeit a very small, teeny, tiny, minuscule risk.  It didn't help that we were able to carry Aves to the OR door and hand her off to a a tech who was to carry her to surgery.  Broke my heart as she kept reaching out for us, saying, "Mommy? Daddy?" as she was carried down the hallway.  Bless her bones.  Doc came by 10 minutes later to tell us she was great and already in recovery.  He asked, "Has she been sleeping?"  I told him she has always slept fine except when she has had a fever with an ear infection.  To which he replied, "I really don't know how, her ears looked terrible."  All in all, she did great, and was mostly upset after surgery because she was so hungry ;)

All that being said.  We are so thankful that it is now done and that this will hopefully prevent our baby girl from getting sick so often.  Now we can look forward to a sick-free (fingers-crossed) Holiday season!

So thankful to Children's Hospital for having so many toys to play with while we waited in pre-op.  She got to ride this around the hallways!

Home and happy that she was finally getting something to eat!

Thankful

We had a wonderful week last week getting to spend Thanksgiving with our families both in Cincinnati and Lexington.  This year I felt overwhelmingly thankful, mostly because we are just so incredibly blessed.  This Thanksgiving I am particularly thankful for:

- Living in Birmingham (being so much closer to both of our families)
- Our church family at Homewood
- Matthew's new job
- Living literally 5 minutes away from J, K, and the boys.  It's nice being able to say, "Oh yeah, we have family here too!"
- Thankful for all of our friends in Birmingham, Nashville, Decatur, Houston, Denver, Missouri, Ohio, etc... We are blessed by an abundance of lifelong friendships.  Something Matthew and I hold very dear.
- Being able to have the opportunity to stay at home with Avery almost full-time and go to graduate school.  I am very thankful for a husband who works so hard to provide for our family and support me in anything and everything.
- Our wonderful parents and grandparents
- Our siblings
- And last but most certainly not least, our sweet baby girl, who is a constant source of pure joy.  Our little family of 3 is the most perfect blessing.

Here are the pics from Thanksgiving.  Ashley, Buddy, Matthew and I went to Lexington first on Wednesday to go to the Kentucky game with David and Sandra.  Thank you David for providing all of us with tickets.  We spent Thursday and part of Friday in Cinci with my side of the fam. and then back to Lexington to celebrate with M's parents.  It was a crazy few days of travel (Avery got her 5th ear infection), but well worth it in order to spend time with our loved ones.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

*Anyone else guilty of not decorating for Christmas yet?  Whoops.  Hoping to remedy the situation tomorrow.

What's a trip to Lexington without pizza at Joe B's?

We honestly all wore polka dots on accident.

Hunger Games

18 Months!

We rocked jammies all day today.. Cold and rainy, didn't even leave the house.  Avery insisted on wearing her rain boots all day regardless :)

Avery turned 18 months on Nov 8.  I am late in posting because we had to reschedule Avery's 18 month appointment due to yet another ear infection... For those in the peanut gallery that are counting, that is the 3rd one in 10 weeks, and 4th in a year....  Our poor child is well on her way to becoming antibiotic resistant.  I think there has been a total of a few weeks that she has not been on an antibiotic in the last 2 months.... Ugh, anyway, enough with the sick baby talk.  On to happier topics!  We can't believe our baby is now closer to 2 than 1!  These past 6 months have flown by. Avery is now a little sponge, learning something new everyday.  This is the most fun stage!

Avery here are your stats at 18 months:

Weight: 24 lbs (almost 50th percentile)

Height: 32.25 (about 65th percentile)

Sleep:  You had a minor setback when daylight saving ended, but you are now back on your normal schedule.  You go to bed usually between 6:30 and 7:00, and sleep till 7:00-7:30.  Most days you are a great napper, about 2 to 2.5 hours, but about once or twice a week you will only go about 45 minutes to an hour.

Likes: playing with Lexi, doing ANYTHING with Daddy, story time at the library, going to school (you now cry when you have to leave school), reading books, drawing, playing in the kitchen cabinets

Dislikes: ground beef for some reason, drying off after a bath or being pulled out of the bath when you are still playing.

Favorite Toys: Honestly, your favorite things to play with are books.  You love reading.  Also, give you a pen (not a crayon for heaven's sake) and paper and you are happy for a good 25 minutes.

Favorite Books: Night Night Birmingham, Papa Loon, Where's Spot?, Goodnight Moon,

Diaper Size: 4

Clothes Size: You have grown out of most of your 18 month clothes except the smocked stuff, everything else is too short for you.  So, most of the time you are wearing 24 month, and a few 2T.

Favorite Foods: Pancakes, avocado, turkey, cheese, green beans, green peas, and almost anything that you can attempt to use a fork with.  You are not a picky eater, and we pray that this continues!!

Words: I stopped counting them up a few weeks ago.  At best guess, you easily have 40 if not more.  It seems that you learn a new one everyday...  Our favorites are the way you say pancake (ka ka) and avocado (cado),

Milestones: It is fascinating to me how much you are picking up on things.  You understand SO much more these days.  Just the other day I asked you to bring Mommy a diaper... off you went running down the hallway and appeared a few minutes later with one.  Mommy's life just got easier!  Also, just this month you started stringing words together, "Hi Mommy, Bye Bye Daddy", etc... You are also picking up on things you learn in Sunday school; just the other day you pulled down a book and started patting it saying, "Bible, Bible" and "pat pat".  It made Mommy tear up for sure.  You also fold your hands and place them together whenever it is time to pray.

Personality: Your teacher told me you are the sweetest one in your class. Shh, we won't tell the other mommies. :)  She said you give the best hugs, which makes Daddy and me so happy to hear. We think you're the sweetest too! On the flip side, you can be a drama mama.  You throw little fits every now and again, but it's usually nothing that can't be toned down quickly with the threat of a time out.  You're hilarious, and we wouldn't have you any other way.

We love you so much Little Nug.   We pray that you continue to grow up as a happy, sweet, caring, funny little girl.  We know that as you grow you are going to bless others just like you have blessed us.

Pictures from the last 3 months:

Sick baby girl.

Zoo day!

School picture

Not happy about being at the pediatrician's office.. again!

New favorite thing is taking selfies.

While Mommy was in Houston

Farm Days

Last weekend we took Aves up to see her Great Granddaddy Wayne and Great Grandma Eva in Columbia, TN.  What's a trip to Columbia without a visit to Happy Acres!  Avery had a blast riding the tractor, mooing at the cows, running after the cows, throwing rocks into Carter's Creek, playing silly games with Granddaddy Wayne, and eating pretty much EVERYTHING Grandma Eva brought to the table... We are very thankful we have a good eater :)

Thanks to Matthew's grandparents for hosting us for the weekend.  It was a nice, relaxing weekend full of good company, and wonderful food...and I'd be remiss to not mention all the dessert.  It's not a full meal without dessert according to Granddaddy Wayne, even at breakfast! :)

Sweet girl loves her daddy.

She LOVED the cows; kept running after them.  Didn't faze her a bit that they are 10 times bigger than she is!

And just think.. Almost SIX years ago we were at the same place getting engaged.  Amazing how time flies.

Halloween 2013

We celebrated Halloween twice this year with our little Nug.  First at our church for the annual Trunk or Treat, and then on actual Halloween over at Jonathan and Kristen's house for pizza and trick or treating with the kiddos.  Avery had a blast at both.  It rained pretty much the whole time at Trunk or Treat, but she was happy as she could be running around from booth to booth, stuffing her face full of corn dogs (broken into tiny pieces mom!), and even tried her very first piece of chocolate candy (Snickers, one of her Mommy's favorites).

All in all, it was a great Halloween.  10 times more fun with a toddler.  Out of the 7 Halloweens M and I have celebrated together, we went to a party and dressed up together one time, and I wouldn't for a second go back to those days!

The sweetest strawberry that ever was!

Our attempts at getting a good family picture failed... Avery was not in the posing mood, and decided she would rather try and stick her finger up her nose every time Aunt Kristen tried to take a picture.  

Like I said... Not in the mood.  But at least Cousin Sammy is smiling!

Uncle Benj and Aunt Morgan came too!  Aves still being difficult....  This stubborn child must really be mine :)