Avery the Model

I've been doing a little bit of stock photography lately and last week, Avery helped out by being my model for some studio shots. I thought they were worth sharing :)

PS - If you're not familiar with stock photography, iStockphoto is a great place to find high quality images that you can use for any project without paying royalties every time you use them.

Fun with iPhone and Poladroid

Photo ops are a little sparse in the dead of Wisconsin winter, so today I decided to go through some of the photos I've taken over the last few months with my phone. I'm not sure it's possible for any kid to be cuter than Avery. See for yourself through the eyes of iPhone & Poladroid:

In case you're wondering, no, this is not forced child labor. It only takes about 5 seconds of watching us do something before Avery is ready to try it out for herself.

Avery's first Halloween costume:

Avery with a "bah!" (snowball)

Tiger needs a role model substitute. We're getting Avery started early...

Apparently, a woman's love for shoes is by nature, not nurture.

"You're gonna share that snack with me, right?"

The hat, glasses, and tutu were all Avery's idea.

Beautiful Morning

This is what I saw when I first opened my eyes this morning :)

A Day In the Life of Avery

Just a quick little video to shamelessly show off my daughter. This is how Avery spends much of her time these days - standing, dancing, and rolling around on the floor...she also tends to make a lot of noise, but I guess I'll have to save that for a future post!

Spring is Here!

We are so blessed to have a backyard. It's so amazing to be able to walk outside and have a little square of nature to enjoy on a nice sunny day. Since our new house was vacant for the last couple years, the lawn is a wild mixture of grass, dandelions, little purple weeds, thistles, mushrooms, violets, and a whole lot of rabbits. The funny thing is, I actually enjoy the wildness of our backyard. It feels real.

Avery's latest trick is being able to stand all by herself. She gets so proud of herself and she gets so excited about taking it to the next level by trying to walk. Meanwhile, she still hasn't really crawled, and doesn't really care to.

Cousins

I like this picture and thought it would be a good one to share. This, I believe, is the first picture taken of all these cousins together. On St. Patrick's Day, Avery and all her cousins were together in Monroe. Even though Easter was almost a month away, cousin Rilian had his heart set on having an Easter egg hunt, which they did, as evidenced by the basket in the picture.

Naked Baby!

Today was officially naked baby day. It all started late last night when we suddenly realized we were completely out of diapers. But I'll let Kelsey tell you the rest of THAT story! Later on this evening, I decided it was time for the naked baby photo shoot that I've been wanting to do before Avery gets too big!

The milestones keep coming for this cute little girl. Yesterday Kelsey made Avery laugh for the first time. It was a quick awkward laugh, but a laugh nonetheless! And today, she said her first Spanish word! Sometimes when I talk to her, she watches my mouth and repeats what I say and today she said "hola"! Only 2 months old and little Ave is already well on the road to becoming bilingual...

I don't know if she was enjoying being a model or being naked, but whichever it was, she wasn't happy after the photo shoot was done!

The Girls

Last weekend, Lauren came up to visit us, in part so she could watch Avery while Kelsey and I shot a wedding together. During her visit, we enjoyed a quick little photo shoot!

This was Avery's second "official" photo shoot. The brisk fall air made it a bit harder for her to cooperate for this one!

Kelsey and I call this face Avery's "old man face". It appears often in two situations: when she's upset and when she's...pushing. This particular time, it was the former!

Thanks again, Lauren, for helping us out! Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Go Vote!

It'll make you feel good!

Avery Speaks!

At some point, I plan to take all my footage of Avery and make a really cool video out of it. That might be a little while in coming, so for now, here's a quick little sneak peek! Recently, Avery has been smiling and "talking" quite a bit, which has made her one very fun baby! Here's a little excerpt from our footage:

Avery Abelle

After nearly 41 weeks of growing in preparation for the world, Avery was ready. On September 9th, Kelsey and I walked to Subway for dinner and then came back and played some Wii. About this time, the contractions started, but we didn't think too much of it, because it was about the gazillionth time Kelsey had experienced contractions. Three hours later, we started taking it a bit more seriously. We left for the hospital around 2:30am, and after Kelsey's epidural, we actually got a short bit of sleep. Around 9:15, Kelsey started pushing and at 9:44am Avery arrived! These first 4 pictures were taken during her first 5 minutes.

Check out that beautiful new mom! After delivery, we all stayed in the hospital for 2 more nights. We enjoyed some postpartum Papa John's delivered right to our room, Kelsey drank about 2 gallons of water per day, and Kevin was so tired that he slept soundly on his pull-out couch. Kelsey was just as tired, but she was more attuned to Avery's cries, so I'm not so sure she slept as well...

Avery is a very energetic girl. She is also very strong and stubborn. She is almost always wriggling around, flailing her limbs in every direction. From Day 1, she was able to hold her head up without any support. She likes to fight sleep, she loves being held, she loves her books, and she loves music - she gets mad when we take either of the latter two away.

Happy baby, angry baby, sleepy baby - Avery rotates quickly between the three personas, and often in that order. Hungry baby also shows up often, scattered among the three!

Avery was about 2 weeks old when we brought her along to Afton Apple Orchard. She liked picking raspberries a lot more than picking apples - probably because the breeze made it feel much cooler around the raspberries.

Our beautiful little girl.