Things are going well around the Ustick house these days. Brent and I enjoyed our first Christmas with Avery. Both our families got together on the 25th for a nice brunch here in Chesapeake. It was yummy! Us old folks had fun watching Avery and Addison (her cousin) open and play with some new toys. Well Avery didn't so much open the gifts, but she loved munching on the bows!

Avery loves playing in the jumperoo... we're glad her cousin Addy was willing to share it for a while!
The pediatrician said we can try the sippy cup with Avery.. so far she thinks it's a chew toy- much like everything else these days! It's rare to catch Avery without something in her mouth! Maybe she'll be like her cousin Henry and use a bag of Sweedish Fish to teeth on. :-)


Here Avery is after we got home from the doctor having just gotten her 6 month shots.. poor thing!!
Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks..

Here's Brent feeding Avery the other night...

And here he is holding Avery when she was one week old.. look at how much she's grown!

She has mastered sitting up!
Chillin' with her feet up while daddy feeds her:

What do you think?

I think someone needs a nap...

1/32nd of the way there

Yep.. as Brent says, Avery is 1/32nd of the way to driving. Yikes! Yesterday she turned 6 months old. She celebrated by sleeping 9 hours straight for the second time last night. Too bad I had the worst time falling asleep myself! Brent & I are thrilled she is finally getting the hang of sleeping soundly for long stretches. It only took 6 months for it to happen!

In other news, Avery likes peas, carrots, and sweet potatoes. Ok, so that's everything I've given her so far solids-wise, but she LOVES it! She gets really chatty when I'm feeding her and she loves putting her feet up on the highchair tray. Avery is really interested in our food when we're eating these days. If she's sitting in my lap she will crane her neck to follow my food from the plate to my mouth. When we put a cup with a straw up to her mouth she really tries to get it and start sucking! This girl is done with the baby stuff.. bring on real food, she says, enough with the bottles!

She loves to grab her feet and just stay there nowadays. It's so cute. Babies are so flexible!

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I'm loving the sleepsacks by Halo. The one Avery has on is fleece and it keeps her nice and cozy during the night. It zips closed from top to bottom so baby can't get out of it at night. It's like a huge blanket, but there's no risk of it covering her face. This is good because Avery still holds her breath when something is covering her face! Yikes!

Peek A Boo

Wait, what time is it??

This post will probably only mean something to parents out there...

Avery slept from 10pm-7am last night!!!! This is such a victory! (don't worry.. we know it might not happen again for a while)

We've been waiting 6 months for her to sleep long stretches and last night she did it!

Ok, I'm done.. just had to share!

My First Christmas

So I think my Mommy and Daddy like this place called Williamsburg, because they keep bringing me up here -- sometimes on weekdays with just Mommy, and then on weekends with both Mommy and Daddy. Apparently there's some famous couple named William & Mary up in Williamsburg that they talk about quite frequently. I don't know what that's all about. Grandma and Grandpa Rudy live in Williamsburg, and Grandma always has something special for me when we arrive...whether it be a pretty pink sleeper, or a new purple outfit, or a fun new toy for me to stick in my mouth.

And we're all up here this weekend to celebrate Christmas, which apparently is a VERY BIG holiday - so big, in fact, that Daddy and most other families put up giant conical trees with shiny lights in their living room for reasons I'm completely unaware of. Mommy told me we're celebrating Christmas early this year, because Aunt Krista and Uncle Matt and Cousin Henry have to drive back to North Dakota soon. I hope Henry has a comfy car seat. I'm gonna miss my cousin.

Speaking of car seats, the drive up to Williamsburg seemed to take FOREVER last night...apparently I'm supposed to sleep during the car ride, but my infant car seat is getting way too small for my growing legs. I'd like to see Mommy and Daddy try and nap for longer than 20 minutes in my infant seat. They said that they'll put in my bigger moo-cow car seat as soon as I stop spitting up after each meal. I hope I get better at that soon. But believe me, if I knew how to say "shotgun", I'd be sitting up front in the 4Runner passenger seat next to Daddy.


I did catch a few winks, though!

Aside from waking Mommy and Daddy up at 4:45 am because my paci was hiding under my neck, the best part of "Christmas" day so far was gathering around to exchange gifts. My other cousin Addy has an Elmo stuffed animal, and I really wanted a Cookie Monster stuffed animal to cuddle and play with (because Mommy always makes cookies that smell so yummy, even though I am not old enough to eat them). And I was so lucky to get Cookie Monster from Daddy.

Everybody was so generous to each other...it was all so much fun that, except for photo-ops, I played on my back the entire time with my feet kicking up in the air, and while staring intently at the gift-giving extravaganza. I loved the sound of the crinkling wrapping paper.

Some other highlights included:

Daddy and the rest of the family gave Mommy this super-nice Nikon DSLR camera (I don't know, and I don't think even Daddy knows what those letters stand for) and an extra zoom lens so she can take even cuter pictures of me than she already does, from close up or from far away. Mommy was so excited.

Mommy gave Daddy some new running shoes -- they are so big, you can almost fit my entire body in one of them. At least now Mommy and I don't have to hear Daddy complain about achy feet and bruised heels after a run. Phew! And they smell much better than his old running shoes.

Uncle Matt got a cool remote controller for his Wii. One Wii is a video game, and two Wii's (WiiWii) is something I do in my diaper...I don't understand.

And the popular gifts my parents were giving out were framed 8 X 10 pictures of me on my tummy in my birthday suit. I hope those don't make my high school yearbook many years from now...that would be embarrassing. Although I must say, I do look pretty cute in it!

Aunt Krista opened up a little package that was really sparkly. Apparently Uncle Matt went to Jared!

Such cool presents all around...although I don't understand why Mommy didn't gnaw on her camera and why Daddy didn't stick his shoes in his mouth. When I get my hands on anything cool, I immediately try to put it in my mouth. I guess I don't understand adults.

Daddy whispered to me a few other surprises he has for Mommy on the other Christmas Day in three weeks. But I can't tell you those...it would spoil the surprise. I'm so excited! I like it when he whispers in my ear...it soothes me when I'm getting cranky.

My Great Uncle Don and Great Aunt Pam cooked a ham for Christmas dinner. It smelled so yummy. However, since I only have two little teeth and don't hold down my formula and rice cereal all that well, I wasn't allowed to partake. Yet I get the last laugh...cuz Mommy and Daddy hold my bottle for me and I get to sit in their lap while eating. It's a good life.

Cousin Henry loves to do laps of the island in the kitchen. He will literally walk around and around and around it, clinging on to his matchbox "cuh-arrrs". It's like he's pretending to be Joshua and the island is Jericho. Mommy and Daddy read me that story from my Big Picture Storybook Bible.

OK, I gotta go -- it's time for my nap. I'm wiped out from all the festivities.

Oh, and Mommy's got one more gift to unwrap...and this one is in my diaper. :)

Just call me Curious George...

Just a quick post here... I'm starting to get real curious to see who (if anyone =) is reading our blog. If you could just write a real quick comment and say 'hey' that would be awesome!!

Thank you!!!

Cousins! And Christmas!

I spent 2 days up in Williamsburg this week visiting my family. Henry and Avery had fun playing together. It was so cute to watch how Avery always kept her eyes on Henry when he would walk around and Henry started sharing his toys with Avery!



Brent surprised me when I was gone by going out to get a tree this year.. and lights! It's a white tree with red and white lights. I LOVE it!



Brent and Avery played while I put the lights on. I think she liked the bright lights! She would start to fuss when I took a break from stringing the lights. Silly girl!

Baby Dedication and more...

Two Sundays ago Avery was dedicated at Church. Funny thing is that neither Brent nor I remember ANYTHING that happened!! Avery was very uncharacteristically quite squirmy in my arms. Normally that's her favorite position- me standing while holding her. Oh, and she spit up, too! So between the squirming, crying, and spitting up, Brent and I were focused on her and not making a scene while Brett talked and prayed over the children. Whew.. is it bad to say I'm glad that's over with?? Ahh, the joys of having a little one!

This past Sunday Brent and I went up to Williamsburg to see Avery's cousin Henry get dedicated at my parent's church. It was great! And Avery did wonderfully up on stage in Brent's arms. I suppose she figured she was an old pro at this now. Here's a picture from that day.

Avery did a little Jumperoo action while up at my parent's house. She liked it more than last time. She could reach out and play with the toys. She didn't jump in it, but she liked standing in it. It's always great being at mom and dad's where there are fun baby things to try out!
We spent Thanksgiving up in Williamsburg with my parents, my aunt & uncle, my sister & her fam, and Brent's dad, sister, bro-in-law, and niece! It was lots of fun! No pictures to post. We had a wonderful meal thanks to a joint effort by all and lots of time hanging out and enjoying time together.

Avery's been learning how to sit up on her own.. she doesn't do it often. It usually ends in a face-plant to one side!

She'd much rather do this instead:

These two pictures were from last night: Brent was reading Avery Cyrus the Unsinkable Sea Serpant, one of our childhood favorite stories. She actually sat still for a few minutes! Then it was time to dance a bit.

5th Folder.. 5th Picture

Seems like I got tagged twice to do this! So here it goes... this is the 5th picture in my 5th picture folder:


This was June 17th sometime in the early afternoon, seeing as I'm not looking too tired yet! Pardon the extremely pale, pale white legs. ;-) So yeah, this picture was taken the day Avery was born.

Now I tag Krista & Sarah to do the same!

A post directly from Avery

Can you see my tooth poking through?? It's in the middle on my bottom gum. I've been a bit cranky the past few days, but Mommy and Daddy are hanging in there and taking good care of me. I'm excited to be growing up! My parents aren't as thrilled... they say it's happening too fast. The doctor said I wouldn't get teeth until I was at least 6 months old. Whoops! I tricked them!

Mommy kept poking her finger in my mouth to see my tooth, but I just stuck my tongue out instead! It was a fun game. See?

Teeth!

Thanks to Aunt Kennan, we discovered Avery is cutting two bottom teeth! She and Travis were taking care of her Saturday night while Brent & I attended the Access Singles Meeting at church and they told us when we got back that Avery had at least one tooth coming in. Brent and I had been thinking since Friday that she wasn't her usual happy self when we were out and about. No wonder!! The little girlie had something going on in her mouth. Today I can see two teeth coming in. She's chewing on anything she can put in her mouth these days! I know people say that baby's sleep habits get disrupted and messed up while teething, but hey.. Avery isn't really sleeping much anyway! She actually did a TAD better the past week. And by that I mean she didn't get up at 12:30am every night! A few nights she went at least until 2 or 3am before crying. I guess a bedtime of 10:30pm will make her go longer before waking. AND she will go from a meal at 10pm to 5 or 6am. Yay! No more 3am meals for this little one! I consider that a small victory... now if only I can persuade her to not wake up every 30 minutes from 3am until morning!

Kennan and Addison came over Friday afternoon to hang out and lo and behold Avery turned over 3 times from her back to her tummy! She did it with absolutely no help from anyone. She had randomly done it once earlier on with a little help getting started, and she's rolled over a few times from tummy to back, but that's a rare occasion. This girl is reaching lots of milestones lately. Just in time for her 5 month bday!

A Day at the Park

Avery and I went to Oak Grove Lake Park earlier this week before the rain hit. It was a beautiful, crisp November day.. I loved it! I bundled Avery up and we walked around the lake as far as we could. The stroller didn't go off-roading very well on the rocky, dirt path. I didn't want Avery to fly out! She was holding on tight to the links that were attached to her stroller. Here's a few pictures from the day. The trees were gorgeous! I love it when they change colors in the Fall.