Avery turns Two!!!

This Saturday was Avery's second birthday. I can hardly believe how fast time flies. This year I decided to start a new birthday tradition, door decorating. So Friday night after Avery fell asleep I decorated her door. It looked so cute.
So in the morning when Avery woke up we weren't sure what her reaction was going to be. I had gotten in the shower and just before I got out she woke up. She opened her door and this is how it went. "What happened to my door? What did you do to my door? What happened to my door, Mom?" Dave got out of bed and when he went to get her she was headed down the hall looking for me in the other room. So at first she was quite concerned. Then when I got out in the hall she seemed to be warming up to it. I explained to her that it was special for her happy birthday. After the explanation and once she realized that it was for her she was more than ok with it. She didn't stop talking about her "happy birthday". She was so excited about the candy and the balloons. The rest of the morning she wanted us to hang out there by her "happy birthday".

We had her party in the afternoon so that all those who were traveling could make it. We live next to the Safford Stake center so we like to utilize their facilities. They have lots of picnic tables and grass for the kids to play in. It was rather windy, but all in all it turned out pretty good. Avery wasn't very fond of the singing she ended up crying for some reason when we sang happy birthday to her, silly girl. But she enjoyed her cake, and really enjoyed her presents. It was a long day, but a lot of fun. Thanks to everyone who helped make her day special.

Two Peas in a Pod

Avery & Emmabelle have become quite the pair. Avery just loves her little sister and always wants to be with her. When I have to get things done in the kitchen I put Emmabelle in one of her bouncers, and Avery always insists on sitting by her, and when I say by her I mean as close as she can get without being on top of Emmabelle. If you try to scoot her over even the slightest bit you get an earful. It is actually pretty cute. Here are some pictures of the girls.

Emmabelle is a pretty stingy laugher, but when she decides to laugh she does such a good job of it. Avery is really good at getting her to laugh. She just has to talk to her or sometimes even look at her. The other evening Avery was playing with a ball and Emmabelle just thought it was the greatest thing. She just laughed and laughed at it. So we got a good video of it. Hope you enjoy it.

Random Updates

I just thought since it has been a while since I last posted that I would try to take some time and update everyone on our family.

Dave's business is still trucking along. I do believe that at times he is very overwhelmed and streched to thin with work, school, scouts, and his demanding wife and children. Poor guy doesn't stand a chance, but he is hanging in there. He continues to get a steady flow of orders, if only we could get people to pay up. That is our only hang up. In reality they can wait until the property closes before they send Dave his money, so that keeps us waiting quite a bit. It will just take some getting use to. All in all he is becoming a very successful business man.

If it is possible Avery gets more spunky and smart every day. She is always catching us off guard with her quick whit and her shinning personality. Last night she was able to go with Dave to scouts. This is one of her favorite things to do when Dad can actually take her. She loves to go and see the boys. Dave was incharge of the combined activity and he made a miniture golf course in the church house. One of the holes was in the nursery and when they got there Avery got so excited and said "This my room" Dave actually had a hard time getting her to leave. She is becoming a very good helper. One of her favorite things to do is to help me with the laundry. She gets her own basket and enjoys sorting her and Emmabelle's clothes into the correct piles. She is actually pretty good at it. A few days ago we had a pretty good storm roll through the valley and afterwards Avery and I went outside and played in the puddles. It took a little coaxing but once she got in she loved it and was covered from head to toe in mud.
Grandma Mortensen came to visit us last weekend and Avery had been doing so good on the potty that she decided to buy her some Big Girl Panties. I will point out that HAD is the operative word here. I think I have missed my window, because now I can't even get her to sit on the potty. I didn't want to push it and I really think I should have. That dang hind sight. So what do children that don't intend to wear panties do?That's right they become head ornaments. Needless to say the panties have been put away and we are full fledged diaper girl again. What a bummer.

As for our little Miss Emmabelle, she is just growing like a weed. She had her four month check-up this week, and she weighs in at 13lbs 7oz, and is 24 1/4 in long. She is holding steady in the 50th percentile. Her doctor even called her an over achiever since she hasn't even faltered on the growth curve. She also cut her first tooth a couple days ago. Thank heavens. She was getting pretty cranky. And eventhough I am "not suppose" to start her on solids for two more months we decided to just not hear that part. I do have to say it was getting pretty ridiculous. She was waking up every two to three hours wanting to eat. Now I am glad to say that with a rice bottle before bed she is waking up only once. I even tried spoon feeding her the other day and she did a pretty good job. Dave was sad to see her in her high chair eating from a spoon, but I thought she looked pretty cute. She has also found her feet, so she has reached a few of her milestones this past month. Our baby is growing so fast.

Don't let the face fool you. She really did enjoy it.

Her feet have become one of her favorite toys. The only problem is she gets upset when she can't get them to her mouth.

As for me I continue to try and focus on the many blessings in my life. I find that if I look at all the wonderful things in my life the bad things don't seem so bad. Faith is becoming a bigger part of my life and I am grateful for the trials that test my faith daily. I love being able to stay home and raise my children and I hope that I can do the job that my Heavenly Father would like me to do. Somedays it seems impossible, but then there are days that Avery does something little that lets me know that she is learning and I am getting through to her.

Emmabelle Talking

Here is a video of Emmabelle talking. She loves to talk and is so cute when she does.

Labor Day Weekend!!

Well Labor Day weekend was quite and eventful one for us. My parents, brother & his family, and Dave, the kids and I all decided to taked a needed trip to the wonderful cabin in Alpine, AZ. We all arrived at different times on Friday. From Safford it is about a three hour trip so if you leave at the right time the girls will sleep most of the way which makes it nice. We really didn't have much of an agenda other than Dave was going fishing on Saturday morning. We just enjoyed each others company and the nice weather of the mountains. Here are some pictures.

My cousin Trachel and her family were also there so we enjoyed spending time with them. She has four girls. Paige who is nine, Marley who will be six, Ali who will be four, and Preesley who is 6 weeks old. Marley and Ali just love Avery to death, and so they entertained her the whole weekend. It was so nice to have a little break. Ali also loved Emmabelle.

(Trachel, Ali, & Emmabelle)

It is a tradition to take a bath in the sink at the cabin. I have a picture in the sink, Avery has a picture in the sink, and now Emmabelle has a picture. For reasons unknown to me she didn't like this bath. She usually loves to take a bath, but the sink just wasn't her cup of tea I guess, but I just love her face.This is the girls and I before we left for church. That is also a tradition that we have for some reason. We always have to take pictures before we leave for church. Dave ended up not going with us to church. He stayed home to get some much needed sleep since we had some rough nights and also to make lunch. We had to leave to come back to Safford as early as we could after church and lunch so he wanted to have lunch ready when we got home from church.Grandma Mortensen is so good at keeping the humming birds happy at the cabin. It is so much fun to sit out on the back porch and watch them feed. There are always so many of them. I don't know if the pictures do it justice, but there are usually somewhere around 15 or more birds just going crazy around the feeders. They have no problem with people being out there and watching either.

Upstairs is a favorite place for the kids to play and this is one of the reasons why. The just love looking down at the living room from the loft and scaring their parents to death. We had to make sure Avery knew not to stick through the rails. I am very sure she could have slipped right through.

Avery was also able to take her first four wheeler ride. She called it a motorcycle though and in the beginning was afraid it was going to get her, but what isn't she afraid of. She warmed up to it though and really enjoyed taking rides with her daddy.The reason we had to come home on Sunday was that Dave's family was coming to Safford for a visit also. For those of you who aren't hunting buffs, Sept. 1 is the beginning of dove season and a big day in the Hartman household. Dave looks forward to this day all year. It is probably more important to him, no I take that back it is a bigger holiday than Christmas to him. So he got up at about 4 or so in the morning, that is if he really ever did go to sleep, on Monday morning and went out with his Dad, Grandpa, Uncle and two brothers. He was able to shoot his limit for the day, which is 10 birds if you didn't know, unfortunately the rest of the shooters weren't able to do as well. I think only a couple more birds came home. After they are done shooting it is tradition to go to breakfast so they invited the women to join them. Of course there isn't much selection for breakfast in the town of Safford so we went to The Manor House. I will have to say that I much prefered their breakfast over their dinner.

(Tom, John, Grandpa Hartman, Grandma Hartman, Avery, Great Grandpa Hartman, Dave, Me and Emmabelle)

We were also able to get a four generation pictures with the girls. This is the girls, Dave, his dad Clay, and his grandpa Clay.

This is Emmabelle's Great Uncle Kern. He was also there he was just the one behind the cameras, but we wanted to get a picture of him and Emmabelle. This is Grandpa Hartmans brother.

All in all we had a great weekend together with family. It is not every weekend that you get to see both sets of Grandparents and Great grandparents. It was a lot of fun. Avery just gets so excited when she gets to see her Grandma's and Grandpa's. She always says two grandma's mom or two grandpa's mom. It is just so amazing to her that there are two of someone so wonderful.

Thanks to everyone who made the weekend so special and wonderful.