Avery is 6 months old!

On December 17th Avery turned 6 months old. She weighed 17.7 lbs at her appointment and was 26 inches long. She fell between 50 and 75th percentile for height and weight. She rolls over all the time now and is starting to sit up really well. She loves her brother! It melts my heart to see the way she looks at him every. time. The minute she hears his voice she starts looking for him and she cranes her neck until she finds him. He can always put a big smile on her face. Alex will say, "She's smiling at me!" He kind of likes her too, I think. It makes it hard to feed her and change her diaper because she is always squirming trying to watch him. She still laughs and coos alot! It is amazing. AND she is sooooo nosy-I'm sure lots of you are shocked to hear that considering she is my daughter! Example: today we were in Chick fil a and of course there was a lot of noise. I undid her buckle on her car seat to feed her while Alex played. She immediately propped herself up on her elbows and stuck her head up and looked around so she could see what was going on. She just has to know and see everything. It's hard to give her a bottle because it is like her neck is on a swivel and she's constantly turning it to see what's going on. She is very happy and still smiles alot. She sleeps great...well...we just got back from Pasadena (more on that later) and she woke up at random times in the early morning crying while my parents were here. Strange...but for the most part she does pretty well. She goes down anywhere from 6-8 at night and is usually waking up about 6:30 but will hang out until 7am usually. I'm working on her naps trying to get her more close to 9 and 1 so we'll have more of a set schedule. She is so sweet and happy. I thank God for her everyday!

She got this tiara at a friend's birthday party. It left a bad mark on her head when I took it off of her but she didn't mind. Alex called her a "beautiful princess." She loves her bath time! She likes to kick her legs and splash. Eating her prunes. With Uncle David. She loved trying to get his glasses. Paige is 9 days younger than Avery. I brought Avery out of her room and the minute she saw Paige she started smiling and talking. She was soo happy to have a friend:) She sat up for the first time really well on December 15th. I now pretty much trust her to be able to sit up all by herself. Playing with her toys.

December, so far

Avery enjoys Kindermusik! Especially now, that she can sit up better. Saturday, December 5th, we had Breakfast with Santa at church. Me, Jimmy, John, and Parker all left after this to go to Atlanta for the SEC Championship game. I was so sad when I thought I was going to miss this with Alex and Avery, but thankfully, it all worked out:) Caden and Alex playing doctor while Avery supervises. Mom, is that ok? This video is from Kindermusik. Alex was not really in to it on this day. He was really mad that he left a santa toy at home and was really upset all through class. Avery enjoyed ringing her jingle bell though and watching Mrs. Laura and all the other kids skate!

Thanksgiving

Now, I know it's the day before Christmas Eve and I'm really behind because I'm just doing Thanksgiving:) Bear with me! Thanksgiving Day John was off and we went to Mimi's for lunch. It was delicious!
Playing ball with Uncle Parker.



After lunch with Mimi, the kids and I drove to Nashville to see my parents for Thanksgiving. When we finally got there Avery was ready for her grandaddy to feed her.

She loves her feet! Every time she is on her changing table this is the position she is in. Attractive, I know!


We found a lost puppy and mom and Alex hung out on the porch reading books with it until the owner came.

Saturday we had our Thanksgiving with Russell, Nan, my Aunt Tammy, and Nan's mom, Dot. Alex, as always, wanted to play the piano the whole time!

Mom and I had to take a picture of Avery in this dress that Mom and I both wore as babies. I meant to put it in black and white but it didn't happen:) Enjoy the blue background.

Big Al Kids Club

Alex is an official member of the Big Al Kids Club and he loves it! Free cookies at McAlisters, a t-shirt with Big Al on it, tour the football locker room AND he got to meet Big Al and play on the field. So one Sunday after church we went out to the field and got to hang out and meet Big Al. I am not exagerating when I tell you the boy, and I mean Alex, not John, ran the full length of the field probably 10 times easy. He didn't want to stop.
He got Big Al to sign his book for him. He liked him but didn't want to go up to him by himself. We had to pull him away from him some though. He wanted to go over and see Al every time he paused for a moment and saw him close by.

He looks like he is running for his life! This is probably the time Big Al pretended to chase him. Alex turned and saw Al and immediately ran over to John.
In the tunnel where the players come out.

Chasing Dad.

Playing in Big Al's bouncy house.

The video below isn't very good but it is a glimpse of what he did the whole time.


**Just a side story. We still play football around the house all the time. Alex is still Julio, John is now McElroy and I'm Ingram (sometimes) and when I ask him who Avery is he says she is "Bryant-Denny Stadium." I don't know where he gets this stuff:) Sometimes, when he won't let me be Mark Ingram, I am Alabama. We try to explain that we are all Alabama but he doesn't listen to us.

Riding Horses at Katie's Farm

In November, Katie, Parker's girlfriend, let us come out and ride and see her horses. Alex was so excited! Avery stayed behind with Mimi and Granddan. I put him in "dirty" clothes so it wouldn't matter how nasty he got. They were actually just clothes that were too small for him. We laughed because it looked like he had skinny jeans on with his cowboy boots.:) Riding with Grammy He loved going in the barn and sitting/playing on the hay Riding with Katie Riding with me
He always wanted Parker to follow him around to go in the barn.
Katie let us feed the horses treats. Alex loved the thought of it but not so much holding the treats out for the horses to take from his hand.

The Crash

Three weeks ago tomorrow was one of the scariest days of my life. We were driving along and a light turned yellow. I went through it and a lady turned left in front of me on her yellow light. I was probably going 45 or 50 mph. I had Alex and Avery in the car. All I remember seeing and thinking at that moment was her car was in front of me and I knew I was about to hit her. The airbag deployed from my steering wheel and we spun and came to a stop. I was fine, but Alex was crying in the backseat. I looked back quickly and knew he was ok. I got out, taking a quick look at Avery knowing she looked fine but wasn't making any noise. I grabbed Alex out of his car seat and immediately saw red scrapes on both sides of his neck where his car seat straps went over his shoulders. He was scared and kept saying, "mommy, our car just broke, but Daddy can fix it." Sweet boy, I don't think he can but we'll see.:) We ran around to Avery's side and looked at her and she just smiled. At that moment, I thanked God and was relieved we were all ok. At least it seemed at the moment, but I wasn't going to be 100% reassured until we were checked out at the hospital. There was a girl walking across to the river walk who saw it and called 911. She came and checked on us. A lady we know from the bank came and took Alex to her car to read some books that we had gotten earlier in the day at the library. I looked at the car and knew it would be totalled. I called John who came immediately and my brother was in town on business. He came also. The paramedics came over and looked at Alex and Avery. We didn't even take her out of her car seat because she was just grinning at everyone and never even cried. My chest was beginning to hurt. The lady in the other car was taken out on a board with a neck brace. She is thankfully, ok too. Having my kids in the car made it so much scarier for me. I'm so thankful to God everyday for protecting us all and just wished I hadn't gone through that light. I have learned my lesson and hopefully it will not be forgotten.:) I don't go through yellow lights anymore. Our children are so precious to John and I and you hear people say how quickly it can be taken away but you don't really think about it, until, of course, it happens to you. Avery doesn't have a mark on her, Alex's marks fade a little more everyday and my bruises and pain are gone completely. And I know that I can only thank Him for watching over us and protecting us.

November happenings!

It's been a long time since I've posted so here are a lot of pictures to document what has been going on here. He got his first taste of the binoculars at the football game and has loved them ever since. The binoculars accidentally got left in our car one day. He uses them a lot. He'll say, "momma, you look for the library, I'll look for church." He cracks me up! Eating his turkey cookie. I saw these on Nick Jr. and decided we would try them. The turkey is Alex's hand print. They were fun to make, but of course he lost interest when it was time to ice them. The final product. We were gonna take them to all of the grandparents on Thanksgiving but I forgot to take them to Nashville and to Mimi's.:( Russell came to stay a couple of nights for business. He had an interesting visit...more on that later. I love this picture of them. Alex with his scary Halloween teeth! With his cousin, Elly. She came in town for her grandfather's birthday party. They had such a good time playing together. Can't wait to see them over Christmas. At Kindermusik with Jack Glyien and Caden. Reading with Granddan. Caden and Alex in their LSU/AL clothes!:) Roll Tide! Playing in the leaves! I raked as much as I could and he loved jumping in it:)
I love sleeping pictures because kids are just so cute asleep!:)

Video of Alex in swim class. He is doing so good! This was the first time I wasn't in the pool with him and his last three lessons I haven't been in the pool with him. We are going to continue these in January because he is doing so well.