Christmas with family and friends

We had a great time visiting home for Christmas! It was a special time with Avery celebrating her first Christmas- so many fun moments and laughs. Of course we dressed her up as much as possible (I'm sure she'll appreciate the moments we've captured when she's older!). We were so blessed to be able to see both sides of Christie's family, as well as Guy's parents and sister's family. There were also special visits with friends. There's never enough time, but we were grateful for the time we had. Avery continues to grow and thrive each day- it's hard to believe she'll be 8 months on January 3rd! We hope you all had a Merry Christmas and Happy new Year!

Videos from Christmas visit

We just returned from a wonderful week-long visit down to southern california to see family and friends for Christmas. We are fortunate to have so much extended family living so close together- we were able to visit both sides of Christie's family, as well as Guy's sister's family and his parents. Avery had a great time meeting some family for the first time and seeing others again so soon after Thanksgiving. We took tons of pictures and a few video clips so I'll post the video first and make another entry with some pictures. This first video is on our drive back home this past Sunday. We do a ton of driving on these trips and Avery is a champ! I was sitting in the back with her and discovered a new noise she loves. it completely cracks her up! She was belly laughing and then making me laugh- too cute!

Nana Judy's December visit

This past weekend my mom came to visit and help me with Avery while Guy was out of town at Young Life camp. It was a great weekend- we had a fantastic time and mom was a huge help in so many ways. She helped me finish decorating our Christmas tree and our house- she has that interior decorator's eye. We filled our days with little projects around the house and just had fun catching up. The best was mom watching Avery while I got a little more sleep- such a luxury! Mom and Avery had a lot of laughs together- they found a new corner of the living room to set up as a play area and avery giggled every morning. She helped mom fold laundry- see how helpful she was in picture attached. We even walked our neighborhood at night to see the neighbor's hard work with decorating. The weakness of our weekend was the giant tub of Nestle Tollhouse cookie batter that Guy and I had gotten at Costco. with the rainy, wintery weather it seemed perfect to make a dozen cookies each day and eat almost all of them! Holy cow- oh well, I kept telling mom she was on vacation. Overall a great weekend. here are some fun shots!

Avery's First visit with Santa!

It's been a fun first Christmas season with Avery. We've had a great time sharing all of our traditions with her from putting the lights on the house to putting up a tree and decorating the house. I always thought it would be fun to find our first Christmas tree as a family and a friend recently told me about a tree farm up in Petaluma. Last weekend Guy and I headed up there with Avery, stopping for lunch at our friend Chris cheney's restaurant along the way. It was a great, cold wintery day and we all bundled up for our outing. I had been told that this Christmas tree farm "Little Hills" was great because there's a Christmas shop, you can visit with Santa, see farm animals and cut down your own tree- how fun! I had high hopes to get a great family Christmas picture so we dressed Avery in a red, velvet outfit and took the camera. We did have a great time at Little Hills Tree Farm, but we underestimated how long Avery could stay excited about this outing. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't get our normally-very-smiley darling daughter to smile for a family shot. We started with her first visit to Santa. Mommy was definitely more excited about this than Avery. I put her on not-very-jolly Santa's lap and she took a long look at this strange looking man and then proceeded to stick her hand straight into his fake beard. Her hand got tangled up so I crawled on the stage and tried to get her hand out while trying to get the best picture of her I could. Check out her reaction to Santa here. We did love Little Hills- the property is gorgeous and it's fun to saw down your own tree. after numerous attempts to get nice strangers to take our picture and help make Avery laugh we headed for the animal farm and the rest of the property. It was definitely a fun afternoon and we'll be going back next year, but we'll time it right and hopefully get a great family photo.

Thanksgiving with the Valenzonas

We had a great time at the Valenzonas for Thanksgiving this year. It was lots of crazy fun with 15 family staying at the house, 7 kids under the age of 8 and incredible food for days! Avery had such a good time getting to know her cousins and being held by everyone who had a free hand. Thanks to Patsy and Gilbert for hosting and cooking and cleaning for so many. We had a great time!

Family time with Avery

Avery's dedication day was very special for us. We had the opportunity to dedicate her to the Lord as well as share her with most of our extended family. Avery loved meeting so many of her cousins, aunts, uncles and great cousins/aunts/uncles! She was a trooper with smiles and giggles for all. Here are some fun pictures with family

Avery's Orange County Dedication

It's been awhile since we've updated and alot has happened! We had a great week away for Thanksgiving, visiting Orange County for Avery's dedication with family and then back to Lompoc with Guy's family. Avery was a champ with all the driving and meeting so many new people! We had a great time seeing so many special people and celebrating Avery's life together. There are lots of great pictures from her dedication and I wish we could post them all, but there is only room for a few. I'll do a few posts to get in more pictures. Avery's dedication was on Sunday, November 22nd at the chapel at St. Andrew's. Our dear friend from Young Life, Twiggs Reed, led the dedication and we shared the time with 25 dear family and friends. It was a wonderful celebration with our sisters reading scripture picked out for Avery, our parents reading blessings they had written for her and a time of group prayer over her life. The dedication was followed by a gathering at Christie's parent's house where we enjoyed food, drinks and laughter with Avery. One of the highlights from the day is that Avery wore two family christening outfits- one from each side of Christie's parent's families- handed down over generations. Here are a few pictures from that special day.