Pictures

Not much new to say really.  I love that the weather is changing!  We made vegetable soup the other day, it was delicious!  We were disappointed to lose to Texas on Saturday.  Since I began my time at K-State, I had never seen us lose to Texas.  That's ok, though.  This is a rebuilding year for us.  We still need to see which quarterback is going to step up.  My house is a mess, as it usually is.  We're going to have to start cleaning to get things ready for Avery's party.  We still haven't decided yet if we're going to get the carpets professionally cleaned, or do it ourselves.  Avery really needs a toybox for Christmas.  That may have to be what Michael and I get her.  Her toyroom (which will eventually be her bedroom when she hits 15 months and is old enough to sleep in her big girl bed) is getting pretty messy with all the toys.  We need a better organizational system!  I want to start getting out my fall decorations, but the house needs to be somewhat together first.  Maybe I'll get motivated today.  Alright, that's about all I have.  Sorry for the random, train-of-thought style post.  Now here's the part you've all been waiting for!!  Lot's of pictures of Avery!  :D  Enjoy!

Cute Story

So last night I wanted a little time off to myself to just rest.  So instead of watching Avery while Michael went to Winds of Worship practice, he took her with him and put her in the church childcare while he practiced.  On WOW nights there aren't a lot of other babies in childcare, but more small children.  So instead of being in the nursery, she was with the other kids, most of whom were at least 5 or older.  Here's the cute little story Michael told me about Avery's night at church.

The kids were playing with Duplos and Megablocks.  The woman in charge of the kids explained to them that Avery was still a baby, and that she didn't understand sharing or that she wasn't supposed to mess with their toys.  This way the kids didn't get upset if Avery walked right through their area of play and/or took their toys.  Well the kids built their houses and towers, not aware that Avery has those same blocks at home and plays with them often with her Daddy.  As the kids built their towers, Avery came over, knocked them down, and tore them all apart.  (And here's why I love church kids...)  Instead of being upset, the kids took it and said, "Oh no!  The baby's destroying the factory!"  :D  And this was the game they played for the rest of the evening.  The kids would build as much and as fast as they could and Avery would come over and knock it all down.  They had a blast!

I thought it was such a sweet story, that I needed to share.  ;)

Also, on Michael's way out with Avery, one of the kids caught sight of her and said, "Hey!  It's Avery!  Mom, Dad, that's Avery!"  Apparently she was quite a hit!  ;)  She also wow-ed everyone when she ran all the way from the back of the sactuary to the front where she saw Michael standing.  :)  She is just the sweetest thing!  I'm glad she had a good time and I'm glad I got an hour of quiet time.  It was a very nice evening for everyone.  :)

Manhattan recapped

So here's how our day to Manhattan went this weekend!

We tried to sleep in, but Miss Avery was up at 7am on Saturday morning.  We got up and ready for our trip.  We played and had some breakfast before we laid Avery down for her morning nap.  She slept for about an hour and a half.  Then, when she got up we pack things into the car and drove to Manhattan.  Unfortunately, I forgot the headphones to keep Avery's ears safe during the game.  So we stopped at Dick's sporting goods on our way out of town to pick some up.

Once we got to Manhattan we stopped at the Scenic Overlook.  It's a beautiful place to overlook the Flint Hills, and it's also the place where Michael asked me to marry him.  It's a very special place for us and I love stopped there when we go to town.  Last year we stopped there and took pictures of my huge 36 week pregnant belly.  :)  This year we had a sweet almost 1 year old little girl to take pictures of.  It was very special having Avery in Manhattan with us.  :)

We got into Manhattan and were hoping to go to Aggieville to get Avery a new outfit.  However, we didn't realize that it was band day (which starts with a giant parade of the bands through town).  So our route to Aggieville was blocked and terribly crowded with parents and other students watching the high school bands go by.  For this reason, we decided to skip Aggieville on this trip and headed to campus.  Campus was very busy too, but then again, it usually is, and a gameday is no different.  When we finally found a parking place on the other side of campus we explained to Avery that this was what college was all about, parking forever away and walking most of the way.  I love that campus so much.

We took tons of pictures of Avery on campus!  She looked great and had lots of fun!  Since campus was pretty much empty, we let Avery walk and lead us around.  She seemed to be having a good time.  :)  She even found an acorn and some leaves to carry around.  ;)  What was especially funny about our walk around campus was seeing squirrels.  Avery would look at them and point and say "dog".  We tried to explain to her that they were squirrels and not dogs, but it was a much harder word to say, so she stuck with dog.  :P  We went to the Union and downstairs to Varney's.  We figured we'd look for something new for Avery since we weren't planning on making it to Varney's or Ballards in Aggieville.  Avery liked a little K-State football and carried it around the store with her.  Michael and I looked for some new shirts for us, but in the meantime, Avery found a stuffed puppy in a K-State shirt that she liked as well.  So we decided to forgo our new appearal for a couple new toys that she picked out herself.  We figured we had truly arrived as adults/parents when we decided not to spend money on ourselves to save money, but bought 2 new toys for Avery instead.  ;)  We also found an Alumni license plate cover that we got for Michael's car, since he's never had one.  He was very excited!

After campus we stopped at Tim and Kylee's house to say hi and meet Tim for the first time.  We figured we should at least say hi since we'll be in town and be helping with their wedding in 3 weeks on Avery's birthday.  ;)  It was nice to see their place and visit with them for a few minutes.  Avery loved playing with their cat Oliver, who seemed less than thrilled about her.  ;)

After leaving Kylee and Tim's place we went to the Agronomy Department parking lot across the street from the north endzone where we met up with Melissa and Travis for the tailgate.  We ate and drank and talked and listened to music.  It was a pretty standard tailgate party.  :)  We had a great time!  We brought the pack and play with us for Avery, and she did GREAT in it!  While Michael and I chatted with people and helped ourselves to some snacks Avery played in the pack and play.  She had a who bag full of toys, a bag of snacks (that she quickly upturned and dumped all around her), and a bottle to drink.  She was a very happy camper.  Normally, Avery likes for people to pay a little bit of attention to her.  But in the pack and play with toys, food, and drinks, she was happy as a clam to be hanging out by herself.  She truly is the greatest baby in the world.  :)

When game time was drawing near, Travis and Melissa gave us our tickets.  We packed up the diaper bag, put Avery's headphones on her, and began our treck across the street to the stadium.  The new expansion to the stadium is AMAZING!  It's so impressive and HUGE!!!!!  We had a great time exploring!  Finally, we got to our seats.  We were in the southwest corner of the stadium, on the 14th row (out of about 50).  The seats were great!  We got to our seats with about 25 minutes left before the game would start.  Avery was way more interested at looking at the people around us than she was at watching what was going on on the field.  ;)  Finally, the game started!  We got through most of the first quarter before Avery was getting restless from sitting in the same place for so long.  Now, mind you, she's been sitting patiently in one place for 45 minutes or more.  I was pretty impressed and thought she did a great job!  But with just a few minutes left in the 1st quarter, I took her back out to the tailgate to spend the rest of the game out there with Melissa and Travis.  (I worried that she would be fussy for them, since she'd only taken 1 nap all day and showed no indication of wanting another one, but they said she did GREAT the entire time she was with them!)  :)  Back to the game, Michael and I cheered on the Cats, but past the 1st quarter the looked much better.  It was a great game and we had lots of fun!!  We spent some more time at halftime checking out the expansion.  If we'd had the right tickets we would have explored even more, but everything has another pricetag.  ;)

After the game was over we went back out to the tailgate.  Avery was asleep in Melissa's arms.  She said that she'd fallen asleep around 8pm and had been sleeping for about an hour.  After I left the tailgate in the 2nd quarter Avery had eaten and played with Melissa, Travis, and Travis' sister (and friends).  She behaved well and when she began getting tired, had reached for Melissa.  Melissa made her a bottle and held her.  Avery finished it off and fell right to sleep (which it to be expected because she had a VERY long day with VERY little sleep.  We gathered up our stuff and our sweet sleeping baby.  We thanked Melissa and Travis for the tickets and for watching Avery so we could enjoy the game.  It was a great day!!

On our way back to Topeka we took hwy 24 and went through Wamego.  Marianne Steen, one of my coworkers from when I worked at Washington in Junction City, lives there.  We stopped for a bit and caught up with her and her husband, Tim.  It made for a VERY long evening, but it was good to see them.  :)  We got back to Topeka around midnight and all 3 of us crashed.  It was a wonderful trip!  Can't wait for the next time we get to go to Manhattan.  :)