{8 months}

well i completely missed avery's 7 month update. now its september and ave is 8 months old. can't believe it. i know i say it every month but she is growing up so fast. the past two months have been a whirlwind and she has learned so much. she had been scooting/army crawling for a few months now and just decided to start crawling for real a few weeks ago. however, she still prefers the scoot. she's had kind of a rough few weeks. she hasn't been sleeping through the night since the back packing trip (grrr) and she's been sick the past week. cold, cough, tugging at her ears. i don't know if its teething or just a cold/ear ache. everytime she has a bad week i blame it on teething. i guess that means she's been teething for a month now. anyways, the picture of her in the green is from a while ago. i haven't been able to get her to sit still or look at the camera long enough for a decent picture for her 8 month old shot. i kinda like this girl.

i've been kind of frustrated with the whole eating solids situation. she still doesn't love it. at all. i still try everyday. just a little here and there and nothing. she usually wants nothing to do it. every once and while she will devour mac and cheese, some PB & J or green beans and she always loves snacking on KIX but other than that i don't really know what to do. she'll chew on big kid foods and does okay with most finger foods when she's in the mood too. i guess i've got a stubborn gal on my hands and when she wants to eat she'll let me know. until then i'll keep trying.

this is how mobile she's getting. leave a box of diapers around and she's bound to find a way on top of it. the other day she climbed an entire flight of stairs by herself. (i was watching her of course but still. too early for that.) i dont think she'll be walking any time soon though. she has no clue what to do with her feet. the concept of one foot in front of the other hasn't clicked yet.



the rest are just cause i think she's cute.

as for other updates, trae is back in the swing of school. his last year! he's got a loaded schedule and is also prepping for the gmat that he is taking in january. with that on top of work, church, and family time i guess you could say he's pretty busy. he is such a hard worker and makes it possible for me to stay home with avery, so i am pretty blessed.

here's just a quick picture of my cute sisters (minus mckell) from labor day weekend at home. sure love these girls.

bon-d-fam-back

well. we made it through last week. whew. sure glad to be home. we left early last monday morning, drove six hours, about three of those on gravel road. we got there and started our seven mile hike. it was a hard hike. it took us a number of hours. but it felt good to do a hard thing carrying someone on my back. i guess i got lucky getting to carry avery since my pack weighed only like 20-25 pounds and trae's was double that. i was most worried about avery. what if she hated it. that would mean that i was hiking for three hours with a screaming baby on my back. but she loved the hike. loved it. she cried for like ten minutes, probably cause she was hungry, so i fed her while walking so that we could get there before dark. i was so relieved that she did so well. then came night time, which meant bed time. oh, i dreaded bed time. imagine a tiny mummy sleeping bag on a very rocky surface with a baby laying on your stomach all night . all night except for the 5-10 times i was up with her each night. i think the hardest part for me was worrying about waking everyone else up so i picked ave up everytime she started to cry. but that's okay cause morning finally came each day. and thank goodness for that. except that meant night time was coming again. ahhh. anyways, we ate great the whole time though. our first night we actually had steak and potatoes (yes, on a back packing trip). on tuesday the boys fished, we took some hikes, some went swimming. that kind of stuff. avery got pretty sun-burned this day. she woke up the next morning all puffy-eyed and swollen. she was not a happy girl wednesday morning. we got up, ate cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate, packed up camp, and headed out to camp at a different spot. Since ave was not so happy i was not looking forward to the hike but she did AMAZING. she loved it again. she took a few good naps in her back pack. i should have kept her in her pack all day. we hiked back to the trail head and decided to camp at the main camp site instead of hike to a different lake and stay the night. so, naturally i bagged the sleeping in a tent and decided to camp in the car. i set up avery's pack-n-play in the back of the subarban and was praying for a decent nights sleep. turned out that this was by far her worst night yet. she froze in the back of the car so she ended up sleeping on my stomach again so we both could stay warm. avery lost her voice almost completly. it almost made me cry every time she tried to cry. it was the saddest little voice ever. she is still trying to get it back all the way. anyways...it was hard with a little one. but overall we had a pretty good time. back-packing is not a easy thing. dont think that i will ever be an avid back-packer but i did enjoy it. the nights were difficult, but the expereince was good and made me really appreciate home. however, there are some absolutely gorgouse places hidded deep in the wilderness. i still can't get over how beautiful it was. that made it all worth it.

on thursday we packed up, again, and headed to mackay, idaho to go stay in a cabin. we were all looking forward to showers and toilets. 'roughin it' took on a whole different meaning to me after back-packing. the cabin was beautiful. my mother in-laws siblings and parents came up and we had a little family reunion. we had a good time. over the course of the week avery turned into an utterly and completly momma's girl. she certainly had an eventful week and enough stimulation to last her another six months. it is good to know she i loved and that so many people are willing to watch her and play with her all the time, however. we had a great time at the cabin but were certainly ready to come home. my father in-law dee had shirts made for us for our back-backing trip. he named our trip the "bon-d-fam-back". i really have to give it my in-laws for pulling this off. the planned everything so perfectly and went through so much hard work to make it fun for the rest of us. thanks!

we'll, thats how it went, kinda. avery is now sick so we are still trying to get back in the swing of things but our beds sure feel fabulous.

3 years later

and i'm still in love. Trae is such a amazing husband and father. He's perfect for me, really. I am so lucky to have such a patient, hard working, loveable, good looking husband. Can't believe its been three years. looking back we've been through and experienced quite a few new things. so glad it was all with him. 3 years down... forever to go.

little sister mckell is living with us right now which means we have an automatic babysitter tonight. we haven't been out just the two of us too many times since miss avery greeted us so i am totally looking forward to a few hours without the little babe.

p.s. back packing trip was, for the most part, a success. so so happy to be home however. avery slept 17 of 24 hours yesterday. i think she was worn out. post coming shortly.

wow...its been a while.

okay, so it's been over a month since my last update and i am way behind on everything thats been going on this summer (which is coming to an end way too quickly might i add), the internets been crazy at our place and we've been busy. avery is over 7 months old, we've been to a few family reunions, meag and i put on a volleyball camp, had a little sisters trip and tomorrow we're leaving bright and early for a week long back-packing trip/ weekend at a cabin. we're taking little miss avery with us due to the fact that she won't take a bottle so it should be quite the adventure to say the least. wish us luck. promise i'll get this blog back up and running when i get back. until then... goodnight

family reunion garrard style

i'm aware that the 4th of july weekend was a week ago but i had to post some pictures of our annual Garrard family reunion. i am once again reassured that i have the greatest family on earth. its nearly impossible to be together and not a have ball. i just love them. here's a little recap of what we do.

we roast hot dogs. we have a tent setting up contest. we make jewelry.

and messes. we play the name game til 1 am. we go golfing.

we play hopscotch. and our new favorite game...swedish twister

we lounge around. and eat way too much food. we take pics of cute little girls.

and we think about how lucky we are to be a part of this craziness.

we do lots of other things too but one thing's for sure, this family sure knows how to have fun. this reunion was a blast. i can't wait for next year.

6 months

Dear Avery,

Why do you have to keep growing up so fast? i sure do love you but am a little bitter at the fact that you are six months old already. before i know it you are going to be running around and talking to me. i love how your little personality keeps changing and growing everyday. i dont think dad and i have smiled and laughed so much as we have the past six months. you are so full of spunk already. please keep sleeping through the night and taking good naps. i'd really appreciate that. also, maybe you could try to like baby food a little more and perhaps take a bottle once and a while, that would be real helpful. and could you maybe stop growing for just a little while. i really like this stage you're at. other than that, i think your perfect. thank you for being such a wonderful little girl. we are so lucky to have you. i hope you always know how much
i love you.

love, mom

6 months stats:
weight- 16 lbs 8 oz (62%)
height - 26.3 inches (63%)

things avery loves this month

• her tongue.
• the swimming pool
• sitting up
  
• mashed potatoes and popsicles
• her dad
• playing with toys
• chewing on anything and everything
• being outside

the young and the restless (our team name)

8394 (ish) runners
710 teams
188 miles total
37th place!
31.06 hours of running
18.4 miles(that i ran)
12 girls
3 legs
2 awesome drivers
lots of potty breaks
1.5 hours of sleep
a few blisters
1 REALLY SWEET RACE!!






i was a little bit skeptical going into this race. maybe it was because i didnt feel prepared enough. maybe it was that i didn't know what to expect. either way... it ROCKED

loved the girls who ran with us. loved that i had to push myself harder than i ever have before. and LOVED that we finished it. i was the very first runner on our team. kinda intimidating i'm not gonna lie. best part about going first is that i was done first and had pretty much all of Saturday to relax and cheer on our runners. i think i want to do this race every year. we had such a fun car of girls. two of the girls i didn't really know at all and the were absolutely hilarious. i miss them. i ran my three legs 1- 5.1 miles, 2- 8.5 miles, 3- 4.8 miles. yep, thats a lot of miles combined. 18.4 to be exact. i feel like i did a little better than i had expected, (nope, i'm still not as fast as meag). i only ran into a few minor challenges along the way... (note to self: if you are nursing a little baby and exercising and burning a ton of calories.. DRINK TONS OF WATER or you'll get dehydrated while running). other than that and the lack of sleep and sore bodies, it was a BLAST. my parents drove our car and were super fun. i was so grateful my mom was there to help take care of Ave. Trae took Avery to stay at our Ogden house Friday night and they met up with us the next morning. they were both good sports for following us around all day (thanks!!). we were just there to finish the race and have fun while doing it. mission accomplished. but let me tell you, there are some pretty serious runners out there. we ran through some of the most GORGEOUS parts of Utah. i've seriously never seen prettier country. if you think you never want to run this race, at least go drive the course. it wont disappoint. anyways. i loved the wasatch back so much.

so, who wants to run it with me next year?