Changes...

The past few days have been crazy! Avery is starting to show a lot of interest in crawling, has started to pull herself up from a sitting position and has her first tooth poking through. Wow! My baby girl is growing up way too fast!
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Playing

8 Months

Luke and I both had to travel for work this week. Luckily, Grandma Greene volunteered her time to watch Miss Avery while we were gone. Of course, Avery and her grandmother both had a great time. When I returned from my trip, I suddenly realized how grown up my little girl has become. Sometime over the past few months, Avery has transformed into a little person with a huge personality. She is just so much fun to be around.

While I was in Chicago, Avery learned how to feed herself. I seriously almost cried when I saw her new trick. You see, we started feeding her those Gerber puffs a couple weeks ago, but she didn't seem to understand the concept of putting them in her mouth. Instead, Avery would pick up a puff in each hand and keep a death grip on them until Luke or I pried them out of her hands. When I got home on Thursday night, I put some puffs on her high chair while I was defrosting her food. To my surprise, she immediately picked one up and put it in her mouth. Yeah, Avery! Now, Avery likes to shove as many puffs into her mouth as possible. She is definitely Luke's daughter.

As of eight months, Avery continues to sport her adorable toothless grin. It's funny because her pediatrician has told us that teeth are coming, "any day now", every time we have seen her since Avery's four month appointment. I keep checking, but still no pearly whites!

Avery is finally starting to grow out of her 0-3 month clothes. About time! Her pants still fit, but I had to pack up most of her shirts, onesies and pajamas.

Avery loves to jump and dance. Her favorite toys are her activity jumper, Elmo activity table and balls. She LOVES animals! Every time Avery sees a cat or dog, she squeals and giggles. It is absolutely adorable. She has very little interest in crawling, but is starting to scoot backwards. In the morning, she usually wakes up doing push ups while singing. Again, adorable! Avery has started pulling herself up and likes to "walk" while holding someones hands.

Unfortunately, separation anxiety has started to set in. The good thing is that it only lasts a minute or two before Avery forgets why she was upset. Avery loves cheesing it up and flirting with for new people. She is the queen of different faces and she especially likes squinting her nose. In fact, the teachers at her school send me picture messages of her various faces on a regular basis.

Luke and I couldn't be happier with our baby girl. Who wouldn't love this face?

Playing in my new toybox that Grandpa Greene built.

Our First Family Vacation

Back in January, Luke, Avery and I boarded a plane for Florida to set out on our first family vacation. Although we had a few speed bumps, I definitely consider our vacation a success. Avery did pretty well on the flights. On our flight down to Florida, Luke made friends with an eight year old girl. To call her annoying is an understatement! On our return flight, we were sitting next to a pilot and the first thing out of Luke's mouth was, "don't worry, she doesn't cry or fuss." Can you say, "kiss of death"? Ugh... I love my husband!

We flew into Orlando and spent the first day shopping. Surprise, surprise! After that, we headed to Melbourne to visit my Aunt Sherry and Uncle Hank. This was their first time meeting Avery. I think they immediately fell in love with her! While in Melbourne, Avery got sick, but was a trooper. We had a great time catching up with family. Luke was excited because he got to go out on my Uncle's boat.

After our visit to Melbourne, we headed across the state to visit Luke's Grandparents in Bradenton. While in Bradenton, Luke suffered an allergic reaction to something and had to make a visit to the ER. I could go on a long rant about that ER bill, but will simply say that it cost us more out of pocket for Luke to get a prednisone prescription than the TOTAL cost of giving birth to Avery. For the record, I am usually pleased with my personal healthcare situation. I guess nothing is perfect! The rest of our visit to Bradenton was nice. The highlight was taking Avery to the beach for the first time. Although it was a little cold, (70 degrees) she loved the sand and ocean.

For the final stop on our Florida vacation, we headed back to Orlando for a couple days to visit Mickey and Minnie. Since we flew in and out of Orlando, we couldn't resist taking Avery to The Magic Kingdom and Epcot. A college friend of mine works at Universal Studios and generously offered her time and employee perks so that we could take Avery on her first Disney adventure. I'm sure it will be her first trip of many! We really had a great time experiencing the Disney parks with Avery. It amazed me how much she seemed to enjoy the lights, colors and characters. Avery wanted to grab at everything. It was so much fun! I honestly thought we would spend a few hours at the parks, but we spent the entire day. Avery was an angel.

My Baby Kitty

Yesterday was a sad day in the Musselman household. We had to put my sweet Baby Kitty to sleep. About a month ago, we came home from vacation and Baby Kitty had suddenly lost over two pounds. It turned out that Baby Kitty had tongue cancer. Unfortunately, as one would imagine, tongue cancer is not treatable. We tried to keep Baby Kitty around as long as we could by hand feeding her and keeping her pain under control with pain medicine, but, over the weekend, I just knew it was time. Baby Kitty was no longer interested in attention and it was getting difficult for her to take her food.

I "adopted" Baby Kitty over 11 years ago when I was a junior in high school . She loved attention and never stopped acting like a baby kitty. When my parents had a house fire my freshman year in college, Baby Kitty went missing for over a week. Somehow she knew I would find her. After college, she followed me to Des Moines, St. Cloud, Omaha, Winston-Salem and back to Columbia. She was quite possibly the best cat ever.

You will be missed, Baby Kitty. Rest in peace.

Ugh...

The Musselman household has been sick lately. It all started last Thursday night. Luke was out of town and I was about to head to bed when Avery woke up screaming. I thought nothing of this as I headed to her room to put her pacifier back in her mouth. Unfortunately, she needed a little more than a pacifier. Avery had caught her first case of the stomach flu. It was awful! I felt so bad for my poor little girl. I immediately scooped up my little girl to comfort her and give her a much needed bath. Next, I stripped her sheets and decided to put her back to sleep in her swing. The swing lasted about five minutes before it was covered in vomit at well. This called for yet another bath and the replacement of sheets on Avery's crib. Flash forward two hours, six baths and every sheet in the house and my little angel was peacefully sleeping in her bed. I used the baby monitor for the first time, but still didn't sleep at all because I was worried Avery would get sick and aspirate. By morning, Avery was starting to feel a little better. She began eating, but spent most of the day sleeping. I have never felt more helpless in my life.

By Sunday morning, I was starting to feel a little under the weather, but decided it was just because I needed something healthy to eat to soak up all the butter and sugar from the cinnamon rolls I made for Valentine's Day breakfast. By Sunday afternoon, I was spending the better part of an hour throwing up my healthy salad in the Dillard's bathroom. I spent Sunday afternoon and evening getting sick and running a fever. When it was time for Luke to go to bed, I suggested sleeping in one of the guest bedrooms. He declined and said that he, "never gets sick." That was the kiss of death. Luke woke up around midnight asking if my stomach was really crampy. Two hours later, he was on the bathroom floor.

On Monday morning, we were both running fevers and feeling like we had been run over by a car. We took Avery to daycare the earliest she had ever been and didn't even bother to change her out of her pajamas. Luckily, some good friends, The Kinney's, offered to keep Avery for us last night. It was a lifesaver. Luke woke up feeling 100% this morning. I'm a little jealous as I am still running a temp, but beginning to feel better.

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Here is a belated Valentine's Day picture of my two loves. Aren't they cute?

And a couple of my sweet angel. Enjoy!

Avery's 6-Month Photo Session

We had Avery's 6-month pictures taken in Kansas City on December 30. It was a cold, snowy day so we had the majority of her pictures taken indoors. Of course, we couldn't miss the opportunity to have a few pictures taken out in the snow. While I was freezing, Avery didn't seem to mind the cold at all. Thanks, Julie for continuing to document Avery's first year.

Swimming Lessons

Avery started swimming lessons a few weeks ago. She does such a great job and I LOVE helping to teach her how to swim. She is such a water baby. I think she is a natural.