7 Months Old!

Avery is 7 months old today...so strange to be on the down side of one year! She has started developing a little personality. She is such a happy baby and loves to smile and now LAUGH! It's different every day as to what she thinks is funny. For instance, this video below. All I was saying was "cool nuggie" (nuggie is short for nugget, her nickname per her father), and she thought it was the funniest thing in the world. So funny that she got hiccups. We had been doing this for a couple minutes before I decided to get my camera, so this is the tail-end of our laughing streak. It is precious. And please excuse my annoyingness (not a word, but appropriate) in trying to get her to laugh.

Fun with the Mesh Feeder

We were given these Mesh Feeder things as a gift. You can buy one for yourself at Target or here. I must warn you: if you have a weak stomach, these are not for you. In fact, if you have a weak stomach, you might not want to read this posting. Avery has been sick recently and in an effort to stick with a bland diet, I gave her a banana in the Mesh Feeder. Keep in mind that this child has never cared for bananas; she ate an entire banana yesterday. She got lots of the banana all over herself, hence no clothes. We were also trying to eat some Puffs (anything to get some sustenance), and those stick really well on banana slob. Here are some still shots of Avery with her banana. The posting below this one is the video of the after effect.

Please notice the disgusting slob going down my child's chest:

She seemed to have a good time though.

Such a horrific mess.

See the Puff stuck to her chest?

And now all is well in the bath.

Excited to see Daddy

Avery has been sick the past couple of days and hasn't had her normal appetite. We were given one of those mesh feeding helper things as a shower gift. They are completely disgusting, by the way. I put a banana in it and let her go to town. She ate an entire banana...well, most of it anyway. The rest of it was all over her. A bath was very necessary. While we were taking our bath, Daddy came home. Her reaction was so sweet. She loves her Daddy!

Happy First Birthday, Will!

Oh goodness....we tried to get a decent picture of Avery with the birthday sign for Will. Here's the best ones. In the first one you can see what the sign says, and in the second one, you can see why it was so hard. There is also a video at the end so that you can see our difficulties (sorry it's sideways...brain freeze this morning). HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY, WILL!! We will see you all soon!

Chatterbox at Breakfast

Avery is quite the little chatterbox at breakfast these days. Especially when Puffs are involved. I have learned that I can get her to eat anything (and eat it well) if we also involve Puffs. I suppose this is the first form of bribery. While in her highchair, besides eating, she enjoys looking out the window to see the trees swaying in the wind, propping her foot up on the tray, and trying to disassemble the padding from the seat part. Enjoy!

First Fall Bonfire

The Youth Group's Fall Bonfire was tonight. Avery got all layered-up in order to keep warm. The temperature was about 45 degrees, so it wasn't too bad. We were there from 5:30-8, so that included dinner and her evening nap. She loved all of the excitement, the little dog that was running around, and watching the fire. She took a nap while being passed around by everyone. She was such a good sport and had a great time! She had on 3 full layers of clothing underneath the outer purple shell. She was very reminiscent of A Christmas Story.

Here she is at home about to leave for the bonfire.
Here she is in her carseat. I had to let out the straps to go around the fluffy little package.

She was having a difficult time using her hands since she couldn't use her fingers. She's attempting to play with the Raspberry.

Here she is at the bonfire. She really liked the hay and wanted to play with it, but her fingers were inside the mittens. That's part of the little dog, Abby, that was running around.

Christmas Tree Time!

Avery had her first encounter with a Christmas tree today. We decorated as much as we could while she was down for her morning nap. When she woke up, Christmas had come to the Knierim house! She was very intrigued by the lights on the tree and the texture of a fake tree (many allergies to real trees in our household). Here are some still shots and then a video below. She's very inquisitive...

Tropical Storm Ida

We, once again, have been the victims of a torrential down pour. Tropical Storm Ida has been sitting over us for over 24 hours. She has left us with a flooded basement and leaking roof. We thought we had the basement issue fixed....apparently not!

Avery says, "Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day." At least we got to use her rain hat for the first time.

29 Weeks Old!

Avery is 29 weeks old today, or roughly 6 1/2 months. I can't remember if I have blogged about this or not, but I am happy to report that we are "successfully" on new schedule. Of course, there are days when it runs smoothly and other days when it does not run so smoothly. After going to the doctor a couple weeks ago and finding out that our little runt isn't so little anymore, we (Matt and Lauren) decided to drop her early morning feeding; Avery has decided to drop the feeding about 75% of the time. When our schedule goes as planned (usually 4-5 days per week), here is what she does:
8-8:30am: wake up
10:30am: nap #1
12:30pm: wake up
3:00pm: nap #2
5:00pm: wake up
6:30pm: nap #3
7:15pm: wake up
8:30pm: bed time
The next thing that we will work on is dropping that last nap (nap #3). Sometimes she takes that nap, and sometimes she doesn't take that nap...it all depends on when she wakes up from nap #2. Over all, I LOVE this schedule!!

She eats very well these days, also. She eats 1-2 "jars" of baby food each day (along with bottles). She can drink water out of her sippy cup, and she can feed herself Puffs (no teeth yet, but a friend of ours had some the other day, and Avery really liked them; plus, they just dissolve...no chewing with teeth required).

New Proofs

Avery's latest photo session is up if any of you are interested in looking at it. It was very windy that day and pretty frigid, but I think we got some keepers!
Website: www.mollybridgesphotography.com
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Gallery Name: Knierim 2009 - 6 Months
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Please excuse my bad hair day!!!

Happy Birthday, Papa!

The weekend started off with an Alabama win over LSU....ROLL TIDE!! We are in between sizes with our Alabama gear, so we had to improvise. Our plain tights were in the wash, so we wore our Christmas tree tights. They were really cute....thanks, Gigi!
Happy Birthday, Papa! We celebrated Papa's birthday today.

At church, Avery fell asleep while sitting up. She started to fall over, so Matt is literally holding her head up (while pretending to be asleep). It was pretty funny.

Avery is the best birthday present ever!

Watching Papa open his gift from her....Alabama gear, of course!

Photo op with Daddy. Can you tell it's Fall outside??

This is a new smirk thing she's doing...looks just like her father.

Sweet baby girl trying to get Papa's attention. I'm pretty sure it worked.

Fun With "Big Girl" Toys

Avery LOVES her new toy. She has so much fun with it and really interacts with it. It is so much fun to watch. I consider this her first "big girl" toy since it requires actual interaction for it to function.

If the toy is singing a song, she opens her mouth. Practicing karaoke.

Notice her "concentration dimple" above her eyebrows. This is the face she makes when she is really studying something.

She really likes the guitar part.

Reaching for the lights at the top.

She is such a big girl now!! She is growing up way too fast...this was not part of our agreement.

And, yes, she is wearing Christmas clothing. Today was Christmas Village, so we had to be dressed appropriately :)

It's time for Fall!

Happy November!

Good morning....this is my new favorite toy: my wipes box.

We love our fall colored clothing. So glad to finally be able to wear this section of her closet!

And this is how I watch Sesame Street now....on all fours while rocking back and forth and babbling. This is such a fun age!

Halloween Weekend

We ended up spending the weekend in Nashville with family and friends. Little Avery was a duck for Halloween. She did not mind the costume at all. Actually, I think that she liked it!

I really like this picture because it shows how fat the costume was. She was a little ball of fur (I know, weird for a duck to be made of fur) and so warm. The head piece was almost too small, so we waited a little while to snap it.

She has started liking to play during bath time. She has some new little ducks from Nana that she really likes.

She also thinks it's fun to eat the washcloth and suck all the water out of it. Yuck!

She also likes to put her foot in her mouth while in the bath which makes her go under, but she doesn't seem to mind. I'm afraid she's going to be a dare devil like her father.

She also really likes to watch the puppies play. They both love her so much. Maggie is still a puppy and won't sit still long enough for a picture, but Jackson seems to be aging and loves the opportunity for a photo opp with Avery.