Christmas 2010

Warning: LOTS of pictures to follow :)

We had an AMAZING Christmas! I had to work Christmas Eve till 7 pm, but my mom, Uncle Ric, Jake and Angela came up to spend the night with us. Here is Avery and Angela before church. She was a happy baby!

After they got back from church we had ham, peas, macaroni and cheese and potato salad for dinner. Then we all jumped in our pajamas to get ready for Santa. Avery and I read "How the Grinch stole Christmas"

Then we all opened our gifts to each other.

Avery got the CUTEST hat and tutu from Jake and Angela.
We got Avery to bed, then started on her Santa toys. This was the "start time" for the cozy coupe construction.

Josh looking optimistic :)

Despite missing hubcaps and gas tank cover, he FINALLY got it all together.

And it only took an hour and a half :)

Santa Came!!!!!

Poor Avery felt so puny this morning. She had been fighting a chest cold all week and woke up just moaning. She cuddled with Grandma for a little while. Then she was ready for presents.

I had gotten this little race car set for Cole, but it was rated for ages 1+ and I didn't want to give him a "baby" gift. So I got him a new toy and Avery got it. She is a cool girl.

Here she is opening her stocking gifts. Josh's Grandma made her stocking by hand. It took her FOREVER, but I love that Avery will always have something made especially for her by her Great Grandma.

Even the dogs got new toys. Here is Jake and Angela's puppy Brondo.

Jojo

Izzy

And Lucy with the remains of her toy...she kind of destroyed it :)

Avery LOVED her Cozy Coupe. We would push her around the house in it, then open the door and ask her if she was ready to get out. She would shake her head "No" and hold on to the steering wheel.

Texting and driving

No hands!

No dogs allowed

drinking and driving!

I think she had a great Christmas morning. She especially loved having all the dogs at the house. She kept saying "pup pup"

We had a huge breakfast of biscuits and gravy, sausage, waffles, and mimosas. Then the family headed back to Denham Springs, and we all took a nice nap. After we got up we headed over to Josh's Grandparents for their Christmas.

Avery looked SO cute in her Christmas outfit, but was too busy to look at the camera.

Loving on her Mimi

and her mommy

Sweet Caroline looked adorable in her Christmas outfit and bow.

The chaos of Christmas! I love how big and happy and loving Josh's family is.

Then Avery got to open all of her presents from Josh's side of the family.

She was pretty worn out by the end of the day and got some cuddle time in with her Great Grandma and Great Grandpa.

Like I said we had a GREAT Christmas this year. It was so nice to be able to spend quality time with both sides of our families. It is also so much fun starting and continuing our family traditions with Avery.

Where a kid can be a kid

Last Tuesday Avery went to Chuck E Cheese's to meet Ms. Aleta, Meredith, Caiden, Cole and Caroline for lunch and playing. Here is my baby girl before we left. The hat stayed on for about 0.2 seconds!

Here was our troop at Chuck E Cheese's. 2 strollers, a walker, 4 kids, and poor Ms. Aleta who can't walk on her foot!

Caiden wasn't too sure what to think of the big mouse!

Cole had a great time! He went non stop!

The girls got to know each other a little bit.

And Ms. Aleta got to spend time with all of her grand babies.

We had a great day! Of course there were "no nap" melt downs at the end, but I think everyone had a great time.

We went on down to the Audubon Zoo!

That was our gang at the zoo this past weekend. Meredith and the kids are in from Germany, so we got the WHOLE family together for a day at the zoo. It was a great day. We couldn't have asked for better weather, its was a little cool and overcast. The zoo wasn't too crowded and all of the animals were out to play. Including all of our little animals. We had 7 kids under the age of 4! They went nonstop!

Caiden loved all the animals, and he definitely knew the difference between dinosaurs and lizards!

Summer, striking a pose with a snake!

Drake loved the Ratatouille Rat!

And Avery loved the petting zoo! She didn't do any actually petting but loved all the BIG "puppies" (Her face is priceless in this picture)

Caiden's favorite part was this Tortoise. I think he walked with him around most of the zoo.

Avery got to go down her first slide!

Weee! Get me off of this thing!

She even climbed the monkey bars!

Kayla's little girl, Jamie, had a great time at the playground too.

We were so glad the Dichiara family met us out there.

Caiden loved all of the animals, he even knew all of their names.

All of the kids were so happy all day.

My love :)

We ended the day at the sea lion exhibit. There wasn't anyone there, so I let Avery crawl around a little bit.

It was so nice to have most of the LeBlanc family together for the day. We definitely missed Drew, but it was nice to spend time with his wife and kids. I love how close our families are.

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I LOVE the Christmas season. It takes everything I have to wait until after Thanksgiving to get into the spirit of the season, but I like to enjoy each holiday as it comes. So the weekend after Thanksgiving we starting getting our house ready for Christmas! Avery was helping Josh set up the tree.

I packed up all of our fall decorations.
and got out all of the Christmas stuff

Our little angel even helped put the little angel up on the tree. I am so excited to start all of these little traditions with her. I want her to grow up with them and love them as much as I do.

so beautiful!

Here she is playing with the ornaments. funny story: I thought these ornaments were plastic, UNTIL, she started banging them together and shattered two of them! I guess they were just thicker glass. Thankfully she didn't cut herself or anything!

"Here momma"

All done!

I have more decorations around the house, and our outside lights are up now too. I need to get some more pictures of those to put on here to. I am so excited for Avery's first Christmas, and I like I said, I am looking forward to starting our own family traditions for her to do for years to come.

Thanksgiving 2010

We were lucky enough to have 2 Thanksgiving celebrations this year. The first one was on the 14th of November. It was while Josh, Jonnilin and Julian were still in town. We went to my mom's house for the feast. Here is Avery all dressed up and ready to go with daddy. I, unfortunately, had a 24 hour bug that day, so I didn't get to enjoy the food :( But we had our traditional Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes and rolls. Angela brought dirt cake and pecan pie. It was a great time to spend together with the Danford crew.

Our next celebrations was Thanksgiving day with the LeBlanc's. Josh's grandma had everyone over and cooked up a storm. I contributed cake balls to the array of food.

Avery was NOT a happy camper before we left. (I figure I post so many pictures of her cute and smiling, its good to see some of her being fussy every now and then)

We were able to get a few good pictures before we left.

Ms. Aleta had a little photo shoot with Avery. Here are a few of her MANY expressions...

Thanksgiving dinner was great. The guys fried up a turkey.

And we had all the casseroles and fixings to go with it.

We were very lucky to be able to spend time with our families for both Thanksgivings. I have so much to be thankful for this year, and I hope God continues to bless us and our families.