Gray Animal Farm

2 weekends ago, Lisa, Gavin and I took the girls for their first trip to Gray Animal Farm. We hadn't been there since we were little kids, but not much has changed. It was really warm that day, but I thought the girls did pretty well. Sofia called every animal a dog or a cat which was pretty cute. We tried to get some animal pics as well, but they don't come out too good with a cage between you, although I am pretty glad the cages were there because some of those animals would probably have loved to get ahold of Avery or Sofia....luckily for Avery I think they would find Sofia to be a more suitable meal!:-)

Loves to ride on Daddy's shoulders. Sofia got a turn too and loved it
The cutest bears you have ever seen, huh?:-)

Sunny Sunday

Ask and you shall receive.....

Funny I should mention Marin/ Bennett in my blog today. Well that name can now be shortened to Bennett! I am an Auntie to a BEAUTIFUL (yes, boys can be beautiful!) 3 year old boy. I cannot wait to meet you Bennett! We've been waiting for you!! You are already so loved little boy:-) Congratulations to my awesome, wonderful big brother and my best friend sister in law! You and Bennett will be so lucky to have eachother!

8 months!!

My little baby is 8 months old now. I can hardly believe it has been that long since she arrived! She is the happiest baby I have ever seen and I am not just saying that because she is mine. She has a very easy going personality and only cries when she needs something(food, nap, diaper). She loves to sit up and play with her toys now. She isn't crawling yet, but is working on it. She feeds herself puffs now(even with no teeth!) Have I mentioned how gorgeous she is? She could be a little baby model! She just gets prettier (and smarter!) every day. She is such a joy. I love her so much....I feel privledged to be her Mom!

We're still anxiously awaiting news on Marin/Bennett. Every time my cell phone rings during the day, I think it is "the call" where Dan or Tiff is going to tell me I am an Auntie! We're all on pins and needles waiting for you Marin/Bennett! Especially your Mommy and Daddy. If you only knew how much you are loved (and spoiled!) already and we don't even know you. I cannot wait to see your beautiful (and smart!) face and squeeze you! All this wait will be so worth it for us all in the end, I know but it doesn't make it easier!

Life is Good

Are you a Swinger, Baby????

Oh, come on...I didn't mean it like that!! Avery got to experience the playground for the first time last weekend at Deering Oaks. I think in future we will frequent a different playground. There were people camped out, smoking 3 feet away from the baby swings and unattended children getting into our stuff! Anyway, Avery still enjoyed the swing...I think she liked me sounding foolish and saying "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" every time I pushed her!

100 Things about me

Ok, I got tagged by Tiff a while ago and am now just getting to it. This may be a waste of time since I don't think that many people even read my blog, but here I go!

1. Being a Mom is the best job I have ever had

2. I'm going to be 27 in 3 weeks

3. This will be my first birthday that I am starting to feel old!

4. My middle name used to be Marie, but now it is Engelhardt

5. I like to tell everyone I am 5'5" but I am really only 5'4 3/4"

6. I am a control freak

7. I'm afraid of not being a good Mom to my daughter

8. I like my job, but I wish I could be a stay at home Mom

9. I like tall and goofy guys

10. I married a tall and goofy guy

11. I wish I didn't have to constantly worry about weight

12. I would rather be plump and pretty than have a great figure and be plain

13. I feel frumpy since having a baby

14. Other than my husband, my Mom is my best friend

15. My sister in law is my other best friend

16. I worry way too much about what everyone else thinks of me

17. I regret not going to college

18. I cannot go under water without plugging my nose

19. I cannot wait to meet my niece or nephew Marin/ Bennett!

20. I get teary eyed thinking about the moment my brother and sister in law will finally become parents.

21. I am bossy

22. I could watch Dirty Dancing over and over again

23. I love reality television

24. High school was the most miserable part of my life

25. Giving birth to Avery was the best day of my life

26. Getting married to my husband was the second best day of my life

27. I saved my positive pregnancy tests in my night stand

28. I think that I am hilarious, even if no one else does....

29. I think my brother and I are closer than most siblings

30. I am proud that my brother and I are closer than most siblings

31. I love to garden, but don't know the names of most of the stuff in my garden!

32. I have no athletic ability what so ever

33. I wish I could flip houses like on those TLC shows

34. I think Gavin and I would be great at flipping houses on those TLC shows

35. I love to go to the beach

36. I don't love to wear a bathing suit at the beach

37. I admit that I can be kinda materialistic

38. I love my dog Sydney

39. I haven't been as good of a Mom to her since Avery came and that makes me sad

40. I hate to vaccuum up all of Sydney's dog hair

41. My favorite store to shop in is Ann Taylor Loft

42. I despise going to the grocery store

43. I hope that my daughter will be a stronger and more confident woman than I am

44. I'm afraid I will pass some of my hang ups onto her

45. I think swearing sounds so unintelligent

46. I am guilty of swearing:-(

47. If it weren't for missing our family, Gavin and I would like to move to Europe

48. I think that we should have Universal Healthcare in this country

49. I love Michael Moore movies

50. I prefer Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama, but will vote for whichever one gets the democratic seat

51. My least favorite part of having a baby is having to clip her fingernails!

52. My favorite part of having a baby is watching her grow and learn and smile

53. I wish my husband didn't work so much

54. I have a husband that likes to constantly be busy and cannot sit still!

55. I love to wear skirts and dresses

56. I wish I had more chances to get dressed up

57. I love to dance

58. I worry that I am not a good dancer and people are looking at me funny!

59. I want to travel to Italy and Greece with my husband

60. I want to go on a big family Disney trip with my family in a few years

61. I wish I didn't have to worry about money

62. My favorite TV show is Grey's Anatomy

63. I hate my hair

64. I love most flavors of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream(more than I should)

65. I love Sunday dinners with my family

66. I think my daughter is the most beautiful child in the world!

67. I am excited for her to start swimming lessons in a couple of weeks

68. I am so thankful for her

69. I wish we went to Church more often

70. I love to read gossipy magazines like People and US Weekly

71. I worry too much

72. I pride myself on being a good speller

73. I love to read, but don't do it often enough

74. I have a crush on Avery's pediatrician

75. I don't really understand why I have a crush on him

76. I miss my baby right now

77. I hate cigarette smoke

78. The last time I threw up from drinking, I was 21

79. I feel so blessed to have the life I do

80. I can't wait to go see Sex and the City with Tiffany and Lisa next month!

81. I want a sapphire ring for my Birthday/Mothers Day/ Anniversary

82. I will probably not get one! (too much $$)

83. I need to get a pedicure

84. I love to wear sandals and flip flops

85. I get a 3 day weekend this weekend

86. My next vacation isn't until August and my baby will be 10 months old!!

87. I feel like I am coming up with some random things, but its hard to come up with 100 things!

88. I love to watch Gavin be a Dad to Avery

89. I love to watch my parents with Avery

90. I can't wait to go visit my friend Kim's twin girls soon

91. I want to take Avery to Gray Animal Farm this summer

92. I love Diet Pepsi

93. One of the first things I notice about a person is whether they have straight teeth

94. I hate my dog begging for food

95. I am very guilty of giving her my food

96. I haven't slept past 8am in the last 6 months

97. I don't think I could sleep past 8am if I had the chance!

98. It is now lunchtime and I have no idea what I am going to have

99. I am having trouble thinking of 2 more things

100. This was hard!!

SKUNK!

This past Wednesday morning started off as usual. Gavin awoke to go deal with all the snow in the driveway before leaving for work, but something interrupted his shovelling. Our lovely dog, Sydney came around the corner, sneezing and rubbing her face in the snow. Then the smell came, skunk, very close by. Gavin quickly put Sydney in the garage so she wouldn't get sprayed, but when he went to check on her a few minutes later, he learned it was too late. The garage reaked of skunk! He came in and woke me up to tell me that Sydney had been skunked! We both ended up calling out of work to bathe her. We bathed her twice in a recipe I found online. What a mess! Our clothes stunk, towels stunk, the whole house smelled so bad. Luckily our little angel, Avery stayed asleep through part of this fiasco! Sydney and the house still smell a little skunky, but hopefully it will fade with time. Hopefully Sydney has learned her lesson, but something tells me probably not!

Avery is 5 months old!

I cannot believe Avery is already 5 months old. It has gone by so quickly, but on the other hand I feel like she has been with us forever. We certainly cannot imagine life without her. She laughs outloud all the time now, rolls over occasionally and is very chatty. I took her swimming for the first time last weekend with Lisa and Sofia and she really loved it. She is really going to enjoy her Nana and Papa's pool this summer.

It's been way too long!

People keep saying that we need to post another blog, but it has been hard to find time lately! I think my last post was early November, so I should back track a bit. We had a great holiday season this year. Having Avery made it even more fun and although I am in no hurry to have her grow up, I think each year will get more and more fun for us.

Lisa and Felipe got married at the end of the year in a very non-traditional, but creative and fun ceremony at Dunkin Donuts. They decided to get married there because it is where they met and got engaged, so it seemed like a natural spot to get married in. Felipe's coworkers really did a good job putting together the store for a wedding, they closed the lobby and had flowers and a cake for everyone. We're really happy to have Felipe in our family now, he fits in quite well!

An unhappy part to the end of the year was my return to work:-( I came back on January 2. Luckily I really like my job and the people I work with, so that made it a bit easier, but I had really adjusted to being a stay at home Mom over those 3 months with Avery. We're fortunate enough to have Gavin be home with Avery a few days a week and he seems to really enjoy his one on one time with her. On the other days, she goes with Auntie Gretchen or Uncle Mike who she seems to have warmed up to quite well.

As always we have had house projects going on. Since oil prices have sky rocketed, we decided now would be an opportune time to replace the windows and the furnace in our house. We have certainly noticed a big difference in the warmth of the house. Now we're excited to see how much more efficiently our house is functioning the next time the oil delivery man pays us a visit. Gavin is also in the process of putting up drywall in the basement in preparation for our Billiards room. My parents decided to turn their basement into a master suite, so we were lucky enough to inherit their pool table. This whole downstairs transformation will probably take a while, but will be a nice addition to our home.

This past weekend was very busy. On Saturday Avery went to her first wedding. She was so well behaved. She really seems to enjoy music and dancing already. On Sunday, our little Avery Grace got Christened at Cathedral. She wore the baptism gown that all of her Aunts and Uncles(Stone side) and several of her cousins have worn. It is almost 40 years old. She looked so adorable and was surprisingly well behaved in church! When they poured the water over her head, she seemed to like it and even smiled a little bit. We were so lucky to have a large amount of our family there to witness it. We had everyone over for a nice lunch after and Avery got some great little gifts(lucky girl!).

More about Avery: She is 4.5 months old now. My oh my how time has flown! It seems like just a couple weeks ago that I had her and now she is babbling and laughing outloud and blowing raspberries! She is such a wonderful, beautiful, happy, and easy to please baby. We're very lucky! She even sleeps through the night for us. We love this baby so much!

We're getting so anxious to have our Niece/Nephew Marin/Bennett come home! I think my Mom already said in her blog how weird it is to think that this baby has already been born and is not with us yet. I cannot wait until Dan and Tiffany get their referral and we can welcome Marin/Bennett to our family. Not that I didn't know it already, but seeing them with Avery I know more than ever that they're going to be such good parents!

Anyway, thats plenty for now, hopefully I will start blogging more often so I don't have to put so much into one!

Cousins

We wen't to Gigi's house a few Friday's ago to celebrate Victoria's 15th birthday and Avery was very popular with the little girls, they all wanted a chance to hold her and play with her. It was very cute! Some of the pics I took of the girls attached:

Avery is almost 8 weeks old!

Sometimes I look at my baby and I think she is so beautiful, it makes me teary eyed, I know I sound queer, but I think most parents have experienced this with their babies. I love her so so much! Ditto for Gavin, we can't imagine our life without her!

She is quite a little ham now too! Lots of smiles and talking(cooing). She is very alert! We like to say she is nosy and needs to look around and know whats going on, I wonder where she gets that from?:-) She will be 2 months old on 11/26, we have her Dr appointment that week to get her first shots, yikes!

Friends visit

My good friends Michelle and Kim came up from New Hampshire to visit Avery and I last weekend. They were able to meet Avery for the first time and I was able to see Michelle's son Logan for a second time. He is about 5 months older than Avery, future boyfriend material?:-) My friend Kim is expecting twin girls in early April, so Avery will have plenty of little friends to visit in NH! I really miss seeing both of them. We go back to High School days when we all worked at the Windham Hannaford. We definitely had some good times! We seem to be on the same track too, we all got married within the same year and had/are having babies together as well. We'll have to set up some play dates!

Happy Halloween

Wednesday was Avery's first Halloween and although she did not go trick or treating for candy she did help Mom carve a pumpkin and dressed up in a frog costume. Sydney was a little scared of the Jack-O-Lantern.

A Month Old?

Melissa and I got into a little debate today as to whether Avery could be considered a month old on Wednesday because that will be 4 weeks since she was born, or if she would be a month old on Friday because that will be Oct 26. Anyway, you be the judge, here are a few pictures of Avery at a month old. Oh and this is a picture, also of her first bottle.

New Shed Roof and Gutters

This may not be as exciting as the baby pictures but they can't all be award winning posts. I am almost through with my month long paternity leave from work. It has been very enjoyable being able to be home with Melissa and Avery during this first month of our babes new life. I will miss being able to see all the new things Avery is doing everyday and hope she'll save any milestones for my days off.



I have not spent the whole month holding the girl, however. I've been able to wrap up a bunch of outdoor projects I hadn't had time to get to previously. I had a few bundles of shingles and other supplies left over from the roofing projects so I figured I'd re-do the shed roof to match. I also finally got around to putting up gutters, another project I had left over from the roofing project we did this past summer. There were about a dozen other little minor jobs I did, including painting my garage floor but these are the two that stand out... Next project, hum... maybe new windows?

Avery Week Two

Avery has continued to do well at home. A visiting nurse came to see us on Wenesday and Avery was back up to her birth weight of 7lb 5oz. Here are some recent pics.

Here she is

The long awaited arrival of our daughter has come. Avery Grace Stone was born to us on September 26th, 2007 at 7:37am. She was 7lb 5oz at birth and 20.5in long. We came home from the hospital on Friday. Here is a sample of some of the pictures we've taken.

Sofia Mae is here:-)

We were so excited to meet my new little cousin(I know it sounds weird!) Sofia Mae Andrade today. She was born early this morning (9/09) her due date and weighed in at 7lbs 14oz

Here is the new little family!
Sofia was sleeping the whole time we were there. She is such a cute baby! Gavin and I both enjoyed holding her and it truly made us both so so excited about Avery coming! It's going to be so hard to wait now! We're very happy for Lisa and Felipe, luckily Lisa had a fairly smooth delivery, so I was not too scared off by her story. Hopefully I will be lucky enough to have such a nice experience with my own. Congrats again guys!

More Baby Showers!

This past Saturday night, Gigi and Matt threw us a Jack and Jill shower/BBQ. It was really nice to make it a co-ed event. We had a great time, a great meal, and got some great gifts for Avery! We appreciate everyones generosity, we cannot wait to use everything with Avery. Also thanks to Gigi and Matt for hosting the event. We really had a great time. Don't mind the lack of pictures with me in them, I am now realizing how fat my face has gotten toward the end of pregnancy...oh well! While we were at the party, we also learned that Lisa was on her way into the hospital to have little Sofia! It made it much more real for us that our little baby is not too far behind!!