Christmas with the Hatch's and Williams's

We had such a fun time with the Hatch and Williams families over Christmas!

First here are some fun pictures from
Christmas Eve with the Hatch's...

Cute Beth with cute Taizley

Avery loves sitting in the "big kid chairs" with her cousins

Grammie read a Christmas story to all the grandkids

Avery with Grampy

Avery with her bell, right before being jingled to bed on Christmas Eve!

Cutie!

Again, sitting in the big kid chair by Tommy and James

This wasn't with the Hatch's or Williams's, but here is Avery all ready to go to see Zoo lights one day with mommy and daddy. 

Now here are some pics with the Williams's the week after Christmas when everyone was in town...

At the City Creek food court

Love the temple where we got married!

The lights on temple square were beautiful (and it was freezing!)

The Christus statue in the visitor's center

City Creek with the kiddos all bundled up!

The boys with their boys

The girl Williams cousins: Sadie, Abigail and Avery

The grandkids lined up, waiting to go into the living room Christmas morning

Singing on Christmas Eve "under the Christmas tree"

We borrowed the red snow suit from Ty and Elisabeth because Avery had never played in the snow before! (What kind of parents are we?) She had so much fun while Bryn pulled us around the yard on a sled!

New Year's kiss!!!!!

You can't really tell from this picture, but Avery was freaked out by this big stranger with a huge white mane. She started bawling the minute we put her on his lap. This was in Daybreak at Ivory's Gingerbread Festival.

Hooray for holidays and spending time with family!!!

Thanksgiving Hatch Family Reunion

This was such a great trip, and we were SO grateful Bryn was able to come for the whole weekend! Months ago, Bryn switched rotations with a Canadian gal who doesn't celebrate our Thanksgiving. So he was doing a rotation where he just normally worked Monday through Friday (which is great any time), but because of the holiday, he got off Thursday through Sunday!!! It was an amazing blessing, especially because it allowed us to go with his family down to St. George for the weekend, for the first ever Hatch Family Reunion!

We drove down Thanksgiving morning, and got there in time for the Blake family lunch (his mom's side), which was DELICIOUS, of course. Then we checked into a little hotel where we stayed through Saturday. The next few days were filled with fun and quality time spent with his siblings, parents, and darling nieces and nephews. We played games, went to Zion's National Park, went to a family fun center, went swimming, and visited Snow Canyon on the last day before driving home. Here are some pics of the fun we had and the beautiful scenery:

Grammy Blake and Grammie Hatch with all the grands

Self-taken pictures are usually unsuccessful, but oh well. ;)

 

First picture of the entire Hatch family that I've been in!

Silly faces :)

I love the beautiful contrasting colors with the red rock and deep blue skies

At "Weeping Rock"

Reach for the sky!

Silly daddy making Avery giggle

Avery wanted to run off and explore everything herself!

At Zion's visitor's center

Avery's egg from the hotel's continental breakfast... which she didn't want to eat- just hold.

She loved playing in the soft red sand (which got everywhere!) at Snow Canyon

In front of the St. George temple, which is special because it's where Bryn's parents were married and where his grandpa was temple president for many years.

Here we are at the end of a hike to this little arch.

Loving the sun and the warm weather down south!

Walking and Talking

Avery took her first step (just one) on September 24th, at 13 1/2 months. Sadly, Bryndon was working and didn't see it. Then took 3 steps at church on September 30th, which Bryndon missed again. :( She continued to take a few steps here or there for a few weeks, then she officially started walking on October 25th, when she was 14 1/2 months! It was very exciting because we were getting impatient to see that girl walk! All her friends and relatives that are her age or younger had been walking for months already, so we set a goal (not that we really made it happen) for her to be able to walk by Halloween, and she did just in time! :) Here's a video of her just after she decided she'd do it (I really think it was a decision or else a realization that it wasn't that scary). She's a champ now, and is all over the place (I see why people said not to be in too much of a hurry to get her walking...). But it definitely is cute to see her little body waddling around the house. :)

She's also talking quite a bit, which is very fun. She started saying some words when she was around 10 months or so, and has learned about 30 words now! It amazes me-- she learns new words every week. I thought I'd document her words at 15 months, and the funny way she says them. And by the way, some of these words she'll say without any prompts from us, but others she says on her own--I'm just counting all of them because she really does know what they mean or represent.

Avery's words (the first 8 are in order of when she said them and the rest are mixed up):

Dadda
Momma
Baby
More
Milk (Mell - said with tongue out to the side)
No 

Banana (Nanana)
Book (Boo)
Pumpkin (Boppees)
Crackers (Dedders or Daddis)
Bread (Bebb or Ba)
Cheese

Ball (Ba)
Up (Pah)

Down (Dew)
Meat (Meee)

Stairs/upstairs/downtairs (Tews)

Apple (Bappis or Po)

Outside (she only whispers it- it's hilarious)

Keys

Bib (Buh or Bee or Bubba- I try to pronounce things clearly, so to her it sounded like I was saying "Bibba" with the two b's)

Beans (Bees)

Beads (Bees, and yes, she knows they're different)

Socks (Soss)

Shoes (Shoosh)

Big Bird (Buh Buh)

Dearie (her grandma Williams - Dee)

Papa (her grandpa Williams)
Fishies (the crackers - Sheees)

Help (her latest word - Hhhh)

?Please (the only time I've heard her say it is when she surprised me after I asked, "Can you say 'more please'"? and she said 'more please', and did it again when I asked her to later. But she may have been just repeating what she heard. The funny thing is that she knows how to sign 'please' so I'm just not sure.)

Grace (I was telling her one day that we were going to go over to see Auntie Grace and she said "Dace" or "Deece" a couple different times), but hasn't said it since. :)

Jesus (Jeez)

She also does a few signs:

More

Please

Food
Thank you

(See a theme here? She's motivated to communicate when it comes to food.)

She loves animals and makes a few of their sounds:

Dog (her favorite - she says "ruff" and pants with her mouth wide open)

Duck (she also loves and makes a high-pitched squeaking/squawking sound)

Kitty (she sticks her tongue out to the side and says "meh" which is supposed to be "meow" whenever she sees a cat or a picture of a cat)

Snake ("sssss")

Monkey ("eee eeee")

And she knows how to fold her arms when we pray and says "Men" at the exact time (or even before) we say Amen. She also says "Beeeeeeep" when the microwave beeps - usually when warming up her milk.

So that's it for now! She's a lot of fun (when she's happy). :) 

Avery is 1 year old!

Yes, it's been much too long since I updated this blog with pictures of Avery.
So here are some fun ones, starting with a few from her big BIRTHDAY celebration.

Birthday Girl, ready for her first taste of pure sugar... birthday cake!

Checking it out, digging in

First bite!

LOVING it, scarfing it down

What!? No more??? Where did it all go?

(After finishing it she actually rubbed the chocolaty plate on her hair - and yes, we got it all on video.)

Bath time and bedtime with daddy

Fun afternoons this summer with the neighborhood playgroup!

Playing in the backyard with momma

Got up too early on the 4th of July for smiles

With Auntie Grace at the East Millcreek Parade

Fireworks in her PJs with Auntie Em

A fun day up at Holiday Park on the Weber River

On a beautiful hike being carried by Papa

Chewing on bamboo and being silly with Momma

More bedtimes with Dadda

Hair finally long enough for topsie-tails

Going up to visit Em and Nick in Logan and seeing the dams in the canyon-- beautiful!

Playing with her friend Caroline in the tunnel she got for her birthday

"Swimming" in our mini pool with Caroline... being nice most of the time :)

Not sure how she feels about Caroline (what a ham) having the other half of her blue egg...

And more to come later! Believe it or not, I still have quite a few to share because I need to upload all the pictures off my phone still.
So to my vast audience of about 5 people: stay tuned!! :)