My Avery Baby!

It's hard to believe that my baby is already almost 18 months old! She is so fun and is full of attitude! She has been really sick with croup. We had to take her to the emergency room Friday night because she was having such a hard time breathing. She is doing pretty good now. She is coughing a lot and her voice still sounds pretty hoarse. It's so funny to hear her talk because she just has this little squeaky voice. I have to either sleep in her room or she sleeps in my room because otherwise, I won't hear her cry in the middle of the night. We slept with the windows open for a couple nights so she could breathe in the cold air, and during the day, we made frequent trips outside when she got congested. On one of those trips, I put her in her little tutu and took some pictures of her when she was walking around the yard. I bought these tutus (one for avery, and one for Mackenzie) a couple months ago with the intention of taking their pictures together and I just havent done it. I'll get to it one of these days!

Mackenzie playing on her bed with all of her stuffed animals. She has a TON of them and loves every one!

Finally!!!

After 2 weeks of sleeping on the couch our bedroom is finally done!! Dallas completely gutted our bedroom. He replaced the cieling, and the sheetrock on the walls. We were living in complete chaos! I thought I was going to go crazy! But, it was well worth it! All we have left to do is the door, the closet doors, the trim. and the floorboards. We are going to have the bedroom door and closet doors custom made, then Dallas is going to make the trim. Hopefully it won't take too long! We also got new furniture, new curtains, and new bedding. Dallas and I have never had a very nice bedroom so I am so excited to have it done! And I was happy to get rid of the log bed!

The only thing i'm not sure about is these pictures that I hung up. Not all of the frames have pictures in them yet! I think I need an interior decorator bacause I am not sure what to do! I like it, I'm just not sure if I like it there. any suggestions??

Little miss Dance!

The dance team at the high school does a fundraiser every year where they teach the little girls a dance and they get to perform at the girl's basketball game and get their picture in the newspaper. This is the first year we have been able to do it and Mackenzie had so much fun!! Also, this week in school is "pig out" week. Each child has set a goal for the week to read so many books. All of the first graders have the goal to read 10 books. Well Mackenzie is my little over-achiever. They started logging their books Friday night after school and as of Sunday afternoon, Mackenzie had read 37 books. She has been reading to Gavin, to Avery, and Friday night she had a friend over here to play and she sat and read to her too! She loves to read! At school, she will even stay in from recess to read. She has a love for learning and I hope that never goes away!

OUCH!!!

Gavin has been having little trouble with his eyes lately. It started out one day when he poked his left eye with his finger and it watered for hours. The next day both of his eyes were watering and red. The next day, his right eyelid had a sty on it and his left eye was still looking pretty red and swolen. It almost looked like he had a black eye. My friend told me that a sty can be caused by an allergic reaction to something so I assumed that he was allergic to the puppy so we kept him away from it for a few days and his eyes cleared up pretty well. He complained about his left eye hurting a bit then after a few days he started being really sensitive to the light. He wanted all of the lights off all of the time. We ate dinner in the dark a couple times! He knew exactly what the problem was... He was allergic to Avery! Problem solved! Anyway, last night it was really bothering him and he was rubbing his eye so much that it swelled up so today I took him to the eye doctor. What we found out was that he had a small piece of black metal right in the middle of his cornea. I can't believe he's been walking around like that for 2 weeks! I feel horrible! When it started out, he was having problems with both eyes so I never even thought it could be something like that. I have no idea where it came from! They had to numb his eye and remove it. The doctor was so nervous because of the location of the metal and the fact that Gavin is a 4 year old boy and 4 year olds do not always cooperate so I called Dallas thinking it was going to be a nightmare to get him to hold still. The doctor said that a lot of times with kids that age, they hve to put them under anasthesia to do procedures like this becuse they wont hold their eyes still but Gavin did great! He listened and did exactly what the doctor asked him to do so they were able to get it out pretty quickly! He is pretty sore tonight but they said it should heal very quickly so by morning he should be feeling better. The doctor felt so bad about what he had to do to Gavin and he was so impressed with how well he did that he gave him this M&M candy dispenser as a prize. Gavin was so excited and has been carrying it around with him all night. I hope his eye gets feeling better quickly and I hope this is something we don't ever have to do again!

Party Hardy!!!

Mackenzie had a great birthday! She was so funny! She had a half day of school so she got home early and she wasn't content just knowing that it was her birthday, she wanted to know exactly what time her birthday is. I told her she ws born at 1:36 and she was counting down the minutes. When that clock turned to 1:36 she started jumping around and laughing. She was so happy to finally be 7 years old! This year she had asked for a "slumber" party for her birthday. We don't do sleep-overs so we compromized with a Pajama party. We had the kids come over, eat, play, watch movies, and then sent them home at bedtime. I think they all had lots of fun!! Mackenzie's cake that she made with a little help from me- She was so excited!

The cool thing to do was to stick your nose in your cake and ice cream. They were hilarious!

Even Avery got in on the action! She was laughing and screaming with the rest of them!

She got lots of fun presents- some new clothes that she wore to school, a cowgirl hat, a princess wii game, Zambi the elephant, a wow-wee alive puppy, a pet shop toy, make-up, lotion, play dough, a little kitty in a purse, stickers, and a cute glass cube with her name on it that matches her room perfectly!!
They finally settled down a little bit and watched cloudy with a chance of meatballs. The girls were all sprawled out on the floor and the boys were on the couch. The best birthday surprise didn't come until the next morning... She lost her first tooth!! She was so proud!! She came running into my room this morning screaming- I thought that maybe something was wrong.. Nope- she was just excited! It won't be long and the one next to it will be gone too. She told me that she feels lots bigger now that she is 7!

Happy Birthday!!

Today is Mackenzie's 7th birthday. I can't believe it!! She is getting too big! she brings so much joy into our home and I don't know what we would do without her. She is such a sweet girl and is very eager to please. She is always very helpful and wants to be involved in everything. She loves school and is very smart. She picks up on things very quickly and she loves to talk. She can be shy at times, but at home, she never stops (I guess she is related to me!). she loves her brother and sister very much and she LOVES LOVES LOVES stuffed animals. She also loves to do crafts, read, sing, play games, dance, and help me cook. I am so proud of the person she is and I can't wait to see what she will accomplish in the future- I just wish that time would slow down a little bit. I kept telling her that I was going to cancel her birthday because I want her to stay six forever- she didn't think I was very funny. I hope she knows how much we love her. Happy Birthday Mackenzie!!!

The Girls' Room and a belated chritmas gift

It has taken me forever but I am almost done with Mackenzie and Avery's room! Mackenzie said she wanted bright colors so that is what she got! It is not completely finished but It's getting close. I still have to paint the trim and the ceiling, replace the blue blinds with white ones, and hang the closet doors. Plus, we are going to put up a chair rail to separate the 2 colors of the walls. I also have some shelves and pictures to hang but I am having a hard time deciding Where to hang them. We found this cute rug to match the polka dots on the wall. Plus, it will help protect the carpet

My friend made these vinyl letters with their names across that I put up over their closets. They turned out so cute!

This is Dallas's contribution to this year's christmas. It didn't get here until the 27th and the kids were so excited. He is an Australian Sheperd and the kids named him Tucker. When we bought this house I said that we would NOT get a dog. We haven't had very good luck in that department in the past and no one wants to take care of them so the responsibility always falls on me, and I DO NOT like dogs AT ALL. Apparently no one listens to me and I lost that battle pretty quickly. The kids just want him to be in the house all of the time but I can't stand having dogs in the house so he will be outside most of the time except when It is cold outside, he can come in the laundry room to sleep. He has been pretty good so far - It is fun to watch the kids with him though. Avery LOVES him!! She gets so excited and tries to feed him her binki and brings him toys and blankets. Hopefully we will have better luck with him than we did with the last one!