12 months

Avery at 12 months:

* Avery loves to cover her face with a blanket/clothes and then pull it down to play "peek-a-boo"

* When you give her a brush, she will comb her hair.

* Says "hi"

* Is walking!

* Loves to climb on top things: the love sac, the computer chair, toys, the exersaucer (she can climb all the way into the seat, and then she gets mad because she is stuck there), the dishwasher, and she can climb into her stroller. She started climbing long before she started trying to walk.

* Will fall asleep in church, but only if Clark holds her. She will not go to sleep for me.

12 month stats:

Weight: 18 lb.-------8%

Height: 29 inches---50%

Head: 18 inches-----60%

Avery is 1!

Avery turned 1 on 11/1/11!! A pretty awesome day to turn one, if you ask me. We had a little family party for her. Here are some pictures of the festivities.

When Corbin turned one, he had a "1" shaped cake, so I made it for Avery, too. Who knows, maybe it will become a tradition.

Avery LOVED eating the cake and ice cream!! She ate a big piece of cake, in no time at all! And she fussed until I gave her half of my ice cream :)

Clark and I gave Avery a baby doll, and a stroller. She likes to feed the doll a bottle. But she thinks it is a lot more fun to climb on top of the stroller, rather than walk behind it. I wasn't too surprised. Avery is definitely a climber.

Happy birthday, baby girl! I love you, and I am so happy to have you in our family!!

Halloween

Carving the pumpkins we grew in our backyard

Corbin LOVED playing with this skeleton toy that he got from Grandma and Grandpa G.

We went trick or treating at the fire station. For a while, we were the only ones there, and so we basically got a personal tour. The firemen were really nice. I think Corbin asked them to open every door and cabinet on the fire truck.

trick or treating!

Avery is the red angry bird, and Corbin is the king pig from angry birds. I made the costumes using this tutorial.

Avery walks!

Avery took her first step on Friday, October 28th! She can now take about 5 steps at a time. I'm so glad that she waited for us to come home from Costa Rica, before she starting walking! I would have been so sad if I had missed seeing her adorable first steps. The videos below were taken on Sunday, October 30th.

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Costa Rica - Day 5

Our last full day in Costa Rica was spent soaking up the sun, on the very beautiful black sand at Hermosa playa (beach). It is currently the rainy season in Costa Rica, so there were hardly any tourists on the beach, or in Jaco. In fact, we actually had the beach all to ourselves for the couple of hours that we played there. We stayed at a beautiful resort called Los Suenos (A big thank you to Clark's hotel reward points. They made the stay practically free.)

This is the view from our hotel window. The hotel had it's own beach, Herradura, within a couple minutes walk.

Such a pretty hotel

A crab I found on Herradura beach

The following beach pictures all come from Hermosa beach. It is such a beautiful, beautiful beach! I loved it. And the weather was perfect. It was the first sunny day we had on our trip, and because we we were so used to having lots of cloud cover, we ended up getting quite sun burned.

"Hey, Clark. I'm going to do a handstand. Tell me when to go."

"Okay....now!"

Thank you, Clark, for the wonderful timing. I got completely soaked :)

And below is a picture of the sunset, as seen from our hotel, the last night of our trip.

At dinner. Look how nice and burned we got at the beach!! And here is a cute video clip of a little band that came around and serenaded us during dinner.

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And then, the next morning we left for the airport super early, and we slowly made our way back to real life. As we left San Jose, we got to see this great view from the plane, of Arenal volcano.

A BIG thank you to my mom, for watching the kids for us!! The kids loved spending time with grandma, and Clark and I enjoyed having a kid-free vacation! However, I must add, that the minute I left my house the first day, I couldn't stop thinking about my kiddos. I missed them like crazy. And my mom told me that Corbin prayed every night while we were gone, that Clark and I would be safe from the volcano's lava. What a sweet boy!

Avery, on the other hand, was mad at me for leaving. When we finally walked in the house Tuesday night, she wouldn't even let me hold her! The little rascal! Luckily she warmed up to me again by Wednesday morning.

Costa Rica - Day 4

On Sunday, we said goodbye to Arenal Volcano, and we drove about 3 1/2 hours south to Jaco, a very beachy area.

Our tire was quite flat, so Clark and Milan changed the tire before we left Arenal.

About 45 minutes north of Jaco, there is a river where tons of crocodiles live. We took the opportunity to get out of the car and watch them from the bridge over the river.