Avery and Dada and then more Avery

Avery loves to help in the kitchen and Travis loves spending time with his girls and I love to eat Trav's goodies, so this seemed like the perfect idea!

We also love going home and staying in real houses. I mean, we love our little town house, but nothing compares to our parent's lovely places. Their tub is a million times bigger and they took full advantage! Also, his parents haven't installed blinds for their new house, so the neighbors may have gotten a show, but still well worth it!

After Avery's first hair cut, we decided to tackle another hurdle and take her to her first real movie in the big theaters. We went and saw Tangled. I won't lie, I kind of wanted to see it, so I came up with the realization that maybe it was time for Avery to join this new world. We actually bought popcorn because we felt we had to make it a real movie experience, but we did pilfer the candy in my purse. Lets be honest, its just that time of year where everyone has ample sweets around, I wasn't going to pay 4 bucks for a box of Mike and Ike's. The movie was a hit, for the most part. She got ancy towards the end and probably sat in old gum off the floor, but I wasn't too worried. I think we will do it again some time.

Here are just random pictures of the little turd

She loves bathing with her friends

She also really loved egg nog this season, oh and she learned how to open the fridge... bad combination!

She is one funny girl!

We were home for Christmas for a minute

Travis miraculously got 6 days off for Christmas, so we got the crap out of Missouri and went home to Utah. It seriously felt like 5 minutes. I would have stayed longer with Avery, but I might pop any day now. I was a little nervous to fly home at 36 weeks, but Trav reassured me that he knew what he was doing if I were to go into labor on the plane... sadly, I was still nervous (love ya babe).

So I always have a plane story, and so I won't disappoint. We were flying on a pretty small plane from KC to Utah, one with only 2 seats per row, so our seats were 2 together and 1 across the row. That seat across the row had my name on it. I was ready to sit, read my book and relax and let Travis handle Avery. We get to the row our seats are on, and this guy is sitting in my seat. He wanted to sit by his sister and wanted to know if we could switch seats with him. It was kind of awkward, because we all wanted to sit by each other, and his seat was a window seat a row back that looked really uncomfortable to squish into, especially when you have a belly. I didn't want to be a jerk and tell him no, but I also didn't want to squish into that seat. So I reluctantly told him yes, then turned to Trav and said that he could go and sit in the cramped seat and that I would sit with Avery, we had brought a DVD player, so I thought it would still be relaxing, and that I would be able to read my book. When we got up in the air, I went to put the DVD player on, and IT WAS DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had to entertain a very busy 2 year old for two hours all by myself!!! This is what we did.

Don't ever fly without band aids, stickers and candy. There always needs to be a contingency plan in these situations. I'm happy to report that Baby Patty is alive and well today.

When we arrived in Utah, my parents picked us up and we went to see Temple Square. Avery is obsessed with temples and we had to show her the beautiful lights.

Good ole Utah!

The next day was Christmas Eve, so we went up to Park City to Tracie's house! She is due with her 3rd boy about six weeks after me, yet she still managed to host a party, make 15 different desserts,make dinner and have the place sparkling! The ambiance was pretty amazing, but I'm gonna have to say that I probably ate about 5 thousand oreo truffles, those are my weakness!!! Thanks Tracie (that was meant sarcastic and genuine)

This was the sweetest picture. Avery hasn't seen her cousin's since August and we came down and found her and Maddox cuddling. We sure love them all! And Maddie, if you never get a little sister, you can always beat up Avery's boyfriends!

That night, we drove back down to Draper and spent the night with my parents and Sadie and Devin. Santa remembered we were in Utah, and did his job. Avery must have been a good girl, because she got a pretty good stash! Seriously, we had to take a break from opening presents, because she was over it.

This is before we saw the tree

Avery loves her Grandma!!!

So Santa brought her some princess dresses because Avery is obsessed with dressing up. She does not play with them!!! She plays with her old ghetto ones that we have at home, and these amazing dresses just sit in the box. Is this normal? I called Santa up today in front of Avery and told him that he could come and pick up the dresses because Avery didn't like them, and she was cool with it. GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!! That trick didn't work!

The rest of Christmas vacation was fast! We went back and forth a lot, got Avery out of her schedule and she was very crazy the rest of the trip. It was tough, but well worth it!

Here are a bunch of random pictures... I wasn't really in the mood to take a ton of pictures, but Travis was #1 video taker.

Avery had fun with momo

One of these things don't belong, although she could be Maddox's sister, they have the same almond eyes.

We miss our cousins!!!

Intense game of scrabble

Sorry about the fake kiss and sneeze on your cheek Antie Titi

6 days were a whirlwind. I can't even tell ya what we did, but it went by fast and we are home now... wait I do have a recollection of one loco night of bunco at Sid and Tam's and gosh, did someone really start teaching Zumba? It's never boring when the Butler's are involved, I've got some pretty weird aunts and uncles!

We had a very good Christmas. We really tried to show Avery the real meaning. She knew that it was Jesus's birthday and she sang to him all by herself before opening presents. Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Santa

Avery went to see Santa Claus three different times.

Visit #1 We were in Parkville, she was so pumped waiting in line. We got up to Santa and I had the camera all ready to go, when all of a sudden my fearless girl wasn't so fearless anymore. I had to put the camera away and sit by Avery so she wouldn't cry. She didn't cry, but also didn't mutter a word (which is weird for this chatterbox). He gave her a candy cane and we left.

Visit #2 We went to our local library. She wanted to dress really pretty for Santa Claus, so she wore her Christmas dress.

This Santa wanted to rock out, so he pulled out little instruments for kids and they went to town. I think that helped lighten the mood.

When it came to sitting on his lap, she wouldn't look him in the eye, but she managed to tell him what she wanted. Our dang camera battery died, so we barely got any Santa footage, but she did get a candy cane!

Visit #3 We went to the Crown Center, along with the rest of Kansas City. It was packed!!! I knew this was probably our last chance to get a good pic with Santa, so I made sure the batteries were charged and our little girl was not scared! She sat on his lap and...

At first she would not take her eyes off of me or acknowledge Santa

Then she slowly got a little more comfortable with the jolly guy

A minute later, she was asking him for a candy cane... he gave her stickers and she felt she was jipped!

If you think about it, Santa is kind of creepy. He is this guy that is so talked about and then when you finally meet him its this stranger wearing red valore and a really funky beard and you have to sit on his lap. Anyways, I can't believe how much the Christmas spirit comes alive when you have kids. I've missed it this intense!

Jam Jam Jam a roos

Another fun and 'original' tradition we do is we like to open PJ's on Christmas Eve. We decorated empty paint cans and those cans sit under the Christmas tree until Santa fills them with our jammies. Since we were going to Utah this Christmas and my mom was going to be doing the PJ's, we decided to keep our own little family tradition going and open the PJ's in Kansas City before going home to Utah. The only problem was that Travis was working every night up until we left for Utah. Well, the solution was, if Trav can't leave the hospital for the PJ's, then we would bring the PJ's to him.

So there I was, 35 weeks pregnant, packing in a laundry basket full of huge paint cans, chow mien for dinner and a 2 year old in tote. We got to the doctors lounge with Travis and then the man just started to get page after page. It was a full moon, so lots of women go into labor (Oh, OB is his rotation right now). He put on a movie for Avery and told me that one lady was fully dilated and that he had to go deliver her at that moment. He really didn't want us to leave, so he said he would hurry. I was a little skeptical because sometimes women can be pushing for hours, but he reassured me. About an hour later he came back, baby delivered and hopefully washed hands! We ate our Chow Mien and opened our PJ's.

Oh yeah, Trav and I gave each other PJ's as well, but we only care about filming and taking pictures of Avery these days, maybe we should work on that.

Ornaments

Christmas is fun for a lot of reasons, but one of those is traditions. I'm sure we are the first one's to ever do this, but every year we buy an ornament to represent the year in action that we had. We pick the most significant thing that has happened to our family. Travis and I go out every year on a Christmas date. First we go to dinner, then we go to the crown center to find the perfect ornament. This is what we have so far...

2006- We got married, hence the first Christmas together ornament

2007- We moved to Kansas City so we have a KC Chiefs ornament (hey and they don't stink this year!)

2008- We had a baby, so babies first Christmas ornament

2009- This must have been a really lame year because we could not think of anything exciting that happened to us, so we picked out a garden ornament, because we grew our very first garden that Summer. Seriously we needed to get out more that year.

2010- The year Trav graduated med school so we got a doctor one

Next year we will have a baby, so at least 2011 will seem like a cool year, seriously 2009, what happened?

Its a fun little tradition that we all look forward to!

Cut it!

Is 25 months a long time to wait to get your daughter's first hair cut? Because that's how long it took before Avery got hers. Given, she didn't have hair until she was about 6 months, but still it was time. Just look at this rats nest!

I knew that this day was coming soon as every morning Avery would have screaming fests as I tried to rake through her snarles. I decided to talk to her about a possible hair cut. She shut it down immediately. I kept mentioning it to her, and little by little she decided it would be OK. I'm not going to lie, I had to convince myself as well because I didn't want to cut her first little baby hair off, but we were both just gonna have to do it!

Jen, our neighbor across the street, has a little studio in her basement. We walked over there with bribes of suckers if she was a good girl. And a good girl she was! I have never seen her sit so still in my life. Maybe she should get a hair cut every Sunday at church?

Here are the after pics

A well deserved sucker (for both of us!)

Twas the nightmare before Christmas...

And a nightmare it was!







This is the dog...



Kijo



This is the friend who asked me to watch her beloved dog while she underwent labor

A little background:

Alisha and Orson have been our really good friends throughout medical school. They are amazing people. They have had Kijo since 1st year of school and honestly, they probably treat that dog better than most people treat their kids.

Back to the story:

I was happy to help when she asked if I'd be on call for when she went into labor. Kijo is the easiest dog on the planet to watch, she's almost like a cat (I'm sure Alisha would kill me if she reads this comparison). She never barks, she is calm and is content to just be. She is a little on the shy side though, and a couple of times Kijo would go up to my bedroom and hide under the end table by our bed. So when the call came from Alisha I was ready for the easy task.

Sunday night:

Travis was working that day so it was just Kijo, Avery and me. It was getting close to dinner time and also close to walking Kijo time. I decided to kill 2 birds with one stone and put dinner on the stove then take Kijo for a walk. I know you are probably thinking what is coming next, but you are wrong. No, a fire didn't start in my house. But yes, when we got back, I had burned the noodles that had been cooking on low. It stunk pretty bad so I had to open all the doors and windows (they all had screens mind you.) I think you can see where this story is going. Travis gets home from work, we eat dinner (don't worry, I didn't serve burnt noodles). We hang out for a couple of hours, go visit neighbors, etc. When we get back to our house I decide to take Kijo out for a walk. Kijo is not in the living room. Kijo is not in her usual hiding spot in our bedroom. Kijo is nowhere to be found. We search the house for several minutes. I start getting a panicky feeling.

I have to start telling this story in 3rd person perspective because I felt like I was having an out of body experience:

Travis points out that the screen door was open. Milli really starts to panic, she hadn't seen Kijo since Travis came home 2 hours earlier and it was about 3o degrees outside. Travis walks down to the Bangert's house to see if Kijo is there. Kijo isn't there. Travis comes back. Milli breaks down and starts to sob. They search the house again. Travis leaves to go and look for Kijo. Milli stays and puts Avery to bed. Avery keeps asking why Mama is so sad. Mama and Avery say a tearful prayer on Avery's little toddler bed.They pray that they can find Kijo. Milli shuts the door and asks Jana to monitor while she goes out to help Travis. Brandi and Jim join the search party, along with Chris. Travis borrows their dog and brings her into our house to see if he can smell Kijo hiding somewhere. They search the perimeter twice and nothing.

Brandi and sobbing Milli get in Brandi's car and drive around the small town of Riverside. They don't see Kijo. They do see a police car at the gas station and get them involved in the search for Kijo. They drive back into the neighborhood and Brandi does a double take. "Is that Orson's car that just pulled into their driveway?" She asks. Milli gets a sinking feeling in her gut. "Oh crap, now I have to tell him the news, wait, why is he here, isn't his wife in labor?" They pull up to Orson and Milli tells Orson everything. Orson just looks at Milli and says, "yeah Travis called me so I thought I'd come and help search." Ummm....... he left his laboring wife to find their dog that Milli had lost. Milli has another breakdown, this was supposed to be the best day of the Bangert's life, and now she has not only lost their dog, but she is going to make the husband miss his wife's labor! Orson reasurres unstable Milli that he is only 6 minutes from the hospital and his wife is only at a 5.

The search goes on for another 45 minutes. Finally, everyone meets back inside the Charles household. Orson decides to look around the house because Kijo is an amazing hider. Orson searches for about 15 minutes and nothing. He goes upstairs and comes back down and asks if Kijo could possibly be in Avery's room. "Its not likely, we searched the closet and behind the armchair, there is no other place that dog could hide, but do what you need to do." We open the door, and excuse my language, but that damn dog walks out of her room.

Back to 1st person point of view:

What the crap Kijo!!! That dog had scrunched into a little ball and was hiding under Avery's toddler bed. Look how little the bed is...



There are about 6 inches between the floor and the bed. I about killed that dog after we found her, but the relief was amazing! The crazy thing about this story is, remember that part where I had said a prayer on the bed to find Kijo, she was probably licking my feet!

Orson's job was done and he made it back to the hospital to witness the birth of his first born (he had plenty of time, his wife was in labor for 30 hours!) Congrats to them for having a beautiful baby boy!

I fully recovered and slept very well that night.

This is what I found the next morning


Maybe this is why Kijo felt the need to really hide?

We love you Kijo!

Oh and thanks to all of my good friends who helped with the search! You all were lifesavers!