Life lately

Where does the time go? I can't believe it's Christmas next week. We are leaving tomorrow to fly out to Denver to stay with my family for 3 weeks (and go skiing for a whole week!!) and there is lots of packing and cleaning to do before we leave, but I thought I would take a minute to put up a few pictures since I haven't done that for a while.

Tyler finished his last Shelf exam last Thursday and he has one small test tomorrow morning that is not stressful, so he has been hanging out around the house with me and Avery a whole lot and it has been the best! This morning we went to the library together, yesterday we went for a walk around campus, on Sunday we made cookies... We get to do all sorts of fun things together now! It's really fun to have a whole month of time together. Avery has really started to love her daddy now that he is around a lot. Last week I had to work 2 long days over in Angleton and I left before Avery got up and didn't get home until the afternoon so it was just Avery and Daddy all morning. I think it helped her a lot to have to depend on him for everything without having me around and he's been home a lot more ever since then so she finally is liking her daddy! Horray! They are really sweet together. Tyler is the best dad.

Anyway, in the last couple months, Avery and I went to Broomfield to help celebrate my mom's 50th birthday....

And we had to get a coat since it has never been cold enough in Galveston for her to need one.

We spent some time with Great-grandma Chandler. 

Here she is holding her 2 great-grandchildren. Avery and Rhett. 

She read some books with Grandma.

Bryce, Jessie, and Kent also came over to celebrate Mom's 50th and it was fun seeing them for the weekend. Uncle Bryce feeding Avery.

Avery got to play in the leaves.

And sit in her new high chair.

When we got back to Galveston I had to get some sand for our YW in Excellence program. So Avery came along and I let her play in the sand.

I really hate the sand, but it was worth it for this face.

She did multiple face plants as she tried to eat as much sand as possible.

Avery went to her first birthday party!

Avery looks cute on a daily basis.

Avery is also learning to stand. Lots of times her legs start to slide out from under her and she hasn't figured out how to get them back underneath her.

I think this girl is going to walk before she crawls though. She has zero interest in crawling and she is not happy unless she is up holding on to the coffee table or making someone walk her around the room.

I wish she would figure it out already. It is exhausting!

We had Troy over to play.

Avery helped me put up Christmas lights.

We went to our ward Christmas party.

My friend Kim who serves in YW with me. Her little boy Benson is just a week younger than Avery. 

Avery got to meet Santa!

 Avery was checking Santa's beard to see if it was real.

Family picture with Santa.

And now... off to Colorado!