a visit from
''a-ra''
(my sister rachel)

a couple of weeks ago,
rachel came home for a little visit.
we had so much fun!
we love you!!

Beautiful at
17 months

Avery has started looking like a little girl to me, more than a baby.
Her vocab has started to sound more like a little girl too!
It's like a switch went off on her 17th month mark.
She repeats almost every 1 syllable word
or sound, whether we can understand it or not.....
She now actually says please instead of bee-yo.
She points to me and says mommy.
I feel like she knows I'm her mommy now that she does that!
I've loved every stage Avery has gone through
(except for teething...)
and am so excited to be having little conversations with her.
I can tell that she's trying so hard to understand what I'm saying.
Even though she's starting to get the tantrum-throwing down
pretty well, she makes up for it by making us laugh
99% of the time.
She's so much fun!!!
I LOVE HER!

NEWS:

Ever since September ,when Scott and I went to Spokane
for him to take the LSAT at Gonzaga....we pretty much fell in love
with the idea of living there to go to Law School.
We've just been assuming that's where we'd go.
We've looked at apartments online, scheduled a campus tour over spring break,
and have gotten really excited about moving there. We've even looked at
the moving costs and have begun to save for it...
We figured it would be a nice change, bigger city, close enough to make
weekend trips home. We've heard about others who love living there
and have made good friends, which we were really are looking forward to.

Well yesterday, we got our first rejection letter. Guess where it was from.
Yep, Gonzaga.
We're both kind of in a state of shock. We thought FOR SURE that's where we would go.
After all, Scott's GPA is higher than the range they accept. His LSAT score is right where they want it to be. We've heard that they love returned missionaries,
we even thought we'd get a great scholarship because of Scott's good grades.
Bummer.

So now we're wondering where we're going to end up.
Could be:
Oregon, Idaho, Las Vegas, Seattle, North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, Texas, Connecticut, or Arizona.

Guess we won't be where WE thought we were supposed to be...but
we're keeping in mind that Heavenly Father is looking out for us
and we'll end up where HE knows we're supposed to be.
We should be hearing back from other schools starting in April.
Guess we'll know then.

Who knew I was such a
Domestic Goddess??


I've had SO SO SO much fun this past week with
sewing and crafting!

My mom-in-law "helped" me with sewing (pretty much did most of the sewing for me....)
these ADORABLE
pillows for our
NEW COUCHES!



And I've gotten tired of trying to find cheap & cute hair accessories
for my little princess....
so I decided to become all domesticated and
make them!
All it took was some hot glue, alligator clips, $.99 flowers, ribbon and gems!
I never thought I could be so
crafty.


Avery has bangs all of a sudden, and I don't want to cut them
quite yet, so we pinned em' back with these super cute, hand-made
barrettes, love them!

well.

our life just got a little more interesting....
guess there's no more quick runs to the bathroom for mommy....
or taking my eyes off of her for 1 second to do anything.
avery decided that
CLIMBING
is her new favorite
hobby.
i was warned that my hubby & his brothers were climbers....

it started with climbing on the recliner....






then, i was doing homework on my computer and looked up
one minute she was standing on the ground & the next minute
this is what i saw!


no big deal....i'm just watching curious george.....
ON THE COFFEE TABLE!

she gets so proud of herself!

i wonder how long it will take before she figures out the
CRIB
then our life will really be over.......

**please disregard the bed-head**

lately this little
STINKER
can't eat unless she's feeding herself...

at least she's a
pretty cute
stinker.

for the past
16 months
we've been putting avery in bed with us whenever she woke up in the middle of the night.
it's become a very bad
habit
of hers....
and she always sleeps in way longer when she's cozying up to us,
so it's becoming a bad habit for us too.
and
we never get a good nights sleep when it happens.
plus she's given her daddy a couple of
bloody noses when she head butts him in the middle of the night.
so, we're cutting her off!
i hate hearing her scream herself back to sleep,
but it's time!