Welcome Aidan!

AIDAN JAMES KELLY AVERY
Born: May 9, 2007 @ 2:35 pm
5 lbs 12 oz, 18 1/2 inches long.

On May 9th, my nephew and the newest member of our family was born a healthy 5lbs 12 oz, just a few ounces under where our Miss Makenna weighed when she was born. Mom and Dad (Erin and Ben) are doing just fine and was able to celebrate the wonders of life this past week. Erin went into labor in the morning of the 9th and apparently when it came time to push, it was a whopping 3 pushes and she was done! Seriously, I wish it had been that easy for Kimi! Aidan has all of his fingers, toes, legs, head, etc, and Ben informs us he has a healthy appetite too! Ben's a proud dad, as he should be. So much fun... Ben, congratulations bro, Kimi and I are so happy for you guys. :)

We got to meet Aidan right before we left for vacation and here are a few more pics we took. He's such a cool little guy! We can't wait to see him again.



"Opening his eyes wide open."


"Just looking at his mommy!"


"Look how small he is compared to his dad!"


See, I told you he was cool. :)

Jason

Makenna's 10 Months Old!

Tears welled in Kimi's eyes as she held up the 0-12 month clothes in front of her. She had come to the sudden realization that her little girl was growing up too fast and it was a little too much for her to handle at that moment. It was especially sentimental because she was having to pack away all of Makenna's infant clothes that she no longer could wear. All of those little onesies... with the little feet that was at one point too big for our little girl. It was enough to make Kimi question if it was time to start on our next baby just so she could hold a little one once again... I quickly assured her that we weren't ready yet but it was little consolation for her. At that moment, Makenna quickly crawled by with a look of determination, heading off into the living room to see what new things she could discover... we just looked at each other and sighed.

Miss Makenna turned 10 months old on April 29th and we could swear there is miracle gro in her formula. She is just amazing us all the time with how much she is learning and developing. Over the past month or so, it's been so much fun. The biggest thing that happened though is her firth tooth started to pop through the gums about a week or so ago. She won't let anyone near it at all but you can see it when she does her wide open smile. :-0 It was actually pretty painless as far as her being grumpy goes so that's good. We'll see about the rest...

She has an adorable snort laugh that you can't help but eat up when you hear it. She is getting easier to get to fall asleep at night and has (finally) started to sleep longer into the night as well before waking up. She will wave bye-bye at you now which always gets a laugh from her subject. She is still pulling up on everything in sight but now she will walk and push her toys around the room at the same time. That's been tough on her with the slick floors but on carpet and grass she's been awesome! Check out the video below for a quick shot of her pushing her new toy around at Grandma's house. :) On the day she turned 10 months old, we took her to the park for the first time. She went down the slide but wasn't sure about it so we went over to the swings instead. You can't tell from the picture but she was quite terrified of the swings at first. But after some reassuring from her mommy and daddy, she realllly started to love it. She was bouncing back and forth doing that snort laugh that she does! It was priceless. :)





As I alluded to in my last post, we installed laminate floors in our living room and hallway earlier this month. It was the most time consuming project I've been a part of in a very long time. Installing that metal building last year was rough but this project was much bigger and required using a saw instead of a screw driver. Different beast entirely. That metal building project took 15 hours to complete. This one took over 25! Geez...

Hunter, Helen, Dad, Brenda, Kimi and I all worked our tail off on the different parts of this project. At first my dad and I tore up the carpet and the padding underneath while trying to avoid the doggy pee-pee stains from Hudson's younger days (ewww). The concrete had a TON of sand and dirt everywhere, which just shocked me! I spent the rest of that night and the better part of the next evening just getting it all cleaned up. Anyway, Dad and I fixed all of the holes in the concrete and got the place ready to go for the floors. Helen and Hunter volunteered to come over to help out... not knowing that they would take the lead on the flooring project! They jumped to it and took it on with gusto! Kimi and Brenda took off all of the baseboards and repainted them in the garage and restitched parts of the couch that had torn. Since only two people could work on the floors at a time, and with Helen and Hunter doing such a fantastic job, Dad and I decided we'd put in ceramic tile in the bathrooms and utility room. So we took out the toilets, washer, and dryer and laid down tile while Helen and Hunter continued precisely cutting boards and laying them with perfection one by one. All in all, the project took 25 hours to complete over two weekends and it was a complete success! The place looks beautiful, Makenna doesn't have to crawl on that dirty carpet anymore, and Kimi FINALLY GOT HER FLOORS she's been wanting for years. I just want to say thank you for all of your help Helen, Hunter, Dad and Brenda. We know how valuable your time is and we appreciate all of your hard work and fantastic attitude you guys brought with you. We couldn't have imagined it looking better! We love it! If you want to see more, you can view the entire set of pictures here.

I'll end this post today by asking for your prayers concerning several things. Kimi's dad is going in to the doctor very soon for something serious and he needs all the prayers he can get. My brother-in-law, Ben's baby boy, Aidan, is due in 2 weeks and my best friend BJ and Wendy's baby girl is due in June though I'm not sure of the date b/c that's still up in the air. Anyway, both of these pregnancies have some bits of complication already attached to them so please remember them in your prayers. I hope you all have a wonderful week and enjoy the spring before the summer heat takes over! :)

Jason

Arboretum Trip: Flower Power!

Makenna turned 9 months old on March 29th! Just look at that smile, she was especially happy this day for no particular reason. Well, maybe it was because she got to eat ice cream (just a spoonful) for the first time and she loved it! That might have been a mistake though b/c she didn't want her food afterward... oops. Anyway, this past week Miss Mak went to get her 9 month checkup and here are the new numbers: She's now 29 1/2" tall in the 95th percentile and 18.3 lbs which is only 25th percentile. So still tall and skinny and WAY more active than ever! :)

THE DALLAS ARBORETUM
We took a trip down to Texas for some great pics.
Watch this video to see Makenna crawling! See the story below...


Can't view the video? Click here to go to the site.


On Friday March 23rd, my dad, stepmom, wife, daughter and I all took a road trip down to the Dallas Arboretum which is a beautiful 66 acre flower park. As you can see from the pictures below, it was absolutely gorgeous! All of the tulips were in bloom which makes for stunning backgrounds. The sky was a little cloudy that day but it was perfect for pictures because we weren't squinting and it gave us a chance to take great shots without over-exposing the images with too much sun.

Brenda was using the slightly-out-of-my-affordable-range/camera-of-my-dreams Canon Rebel XT and I was using the camera-that-I-can-afford-right-now Sony DSC-H1. Both cameras took exceptional pictures but I think Brenda's had a bit more artistic capabilities than mine. The theme was "Flower Power", a tribute to the 60's. You can see all of the pictures we took that day (at least the good ones) by going to our Arboretum Flickr Set or check out the ones below.

Makenna had a blast. Actually, we all did. I've been to this flower park a few years back around the time Kimi and I got married and it was very pretty then. Now that we've got such an easy subject that smiles ALL THE TIME, it just made the whole experience that much better. As you can see from the pics below, we were able to take some amazing pictures. I would absolutely say there are some, that when printed out, will look like a professional photographer took them. I guess we were bound to catch some good ones when we took about 500 pictures combined! Haha! Check them out and let us know what you think about them! If you can't make a post on the Flickr site (you need a Yahoo Id), you can always make a post on this one. Just click on the comments link at the end of this entry. Hope you enjoy the pictures!




"Hello Mommy!"




"Jason and Kimi"




"Makenna with Tulips"




"Makenna standing in a field of flowers!"




"In front of the Fish Fountain."




"Our Family, in a field of flowers."




"One of my favorite pictures of us three!"




"My new computer background at work! So pretty..."




"Daddy's little girl!"




"Nonnie, Poppie, and Makenna in front of the Fish Fountain."




"My first attempt at putting color in a B&W."


What did you think? Weren't they wonderful! Hopefully we'll be able to go back again sometime soon. This week is going to be a busy one for us. We are putting in those laminate floors this weekend so say a prayer for us! Also, Easter is on Sunday so make sure you remember! I'll write again soon. God Bless!