Avery's Growing Up!

Last week Miss Avery turned 14 months old on the 28th.

She has changed so much since her birthday.

Avery is no longer a little baby, she's a feisty, adventurous toddler.

Avery uses sign language to say: more, please, milk, eat, and all done.

And Avery can say:

mama, dada, hi, nana (banana), chee (Cheese), deedee (baby or blankie), up and da (dog).

Avery is a lot more adventurous than her big sister.

Just yesterday she figured out how to climb up on one of our dinning room chairs.

She can now stand up in shopping carts,

it doesn't seem to matter how tight I tighten the harness, she still always manages to get free.

Avery is still the biggest Momma's girl you have ever seen.

If someone is moving towards her or acting like they are going to pick her up she screams

and runs to me or wraps her arms around me if I'm holding her.

Avery loves music and dancing.

If you say, "Avery dance." She starts shaking her hips.

She dances in Sacrament meeting at church to the hymns.
She also waves her arms and pretends to conduct the music at church.

Avery's favorite things are babies, animals and me.

.

She's such a fantastic independent player, just like Lexi.

.

Avery will eat anything she can get her hands on.

Just this morning I found her sitting on the floor chewing on a day old corn dog she found.

.

Avery gets really excited when Sean comes home.

She runs to the door and puts her arms up in the air for him to pick her up.

.

Avery goes to bed earlier and wakes up earlier than Lexi.

In the mornings, when Avery is ready for Lexi to wake up and go play in their room she'll knock on their bedroom door. And the second I open the door when Lexi is awake, Avery runs in saying, "Hi."

.

Avery is obsessed with phones. Whenever she gets her hands on one she runs aways with it.

And whenever Avery sees us talking on the phone she wants to talk too. She just says hi over and over and over. It's adorable.

.

Whenever Avery sees dogs she says "da" and starts panting like crazy.

.

Avery is so friendly. Whenever we go to the store or on walks she waves and says hi to everyone.

.

I am taching Avery her body parts. Right now we are working on: feet, belly, nose and hair.

She does a pretty good job recognizing them.

.

When I get out my camera, Avery will often stand up against the wall, look at the camera and say "chee." I hope that never changes.

.

Avery is one tough little girl. Sadly she is used to being pushed over and knocked down.

.

.

.

On a side note.

The day Avery turned 14 months old, June 28th, the girls got a new cousin.

Lyla.

She's the 7th Christensen grand kid and the fifth girl in a row.
Isn't she's perfect?!!!

More Pictures From Our Utah Adventures

Our first stop on our Utah tour was Sean's sister Michelle's house.

Andrea and Brandon came down from Idaho to see us.

Here's the whole group.

Lexi was so excited to see her cousins Halle and Parker.

While in Utah we went to my Briggs family reunion.


This first picture is of my my mom and three of her siblings and their families.



And here is a gathering for a mini Beck family reunion.


It was so good to see so much family that I haven't seen in years.




Next, we stayed in Midway with my parents.


Midway is nestled up in the mountains near Park City.


It's a gorgeous Swiss themed town.


I told Sean that I want to move there.



This is the view from our balcony.


It was so good to see my parents again.


While we were with my parents we had a mini early birthday party for Lexi.


The lady who made this cake has been on TLC cake off show four times!


Her bakery was amazing!

While we were in Midway we swam a lot. It was so good for Lexi.

She got so much more comfortable in the pool.

Lexi will now jump into the pool, even in the deep end, without anyone there to catch her.

She is always wearing her floaty jacket thing.

(If anyone wants more details on her floaty, tell me know.

It's not a life jacket and it's amazing, cheap and I got it at Target.)

We had so much fun exploring Midway.

They had adorable shops, one grocery store, no stop lights, and amazing homes.

Here are the girls at an ice cream parlor.

I was able to see my former college room mate Melissa, one of my all time best friends.

I hadn't seen Mel since before her mission. It was so fun hanging out and talking about old times.

I also got to see another one of my former room mates, Hannah.

She and I were room mates and also lived in Chile together.

Needless to say, we have some amazing memories together.

While visiting Provo one day, I met up with one of my best friends from high school, Shayla.

Us and three other girls called ourselves the Lively Fively. We had a lot of fun back in the day.

We also got to see our amazing friends Buck and Aubery (Buckery).

We were best friends when we were all newlyweds.

We now each have two little girls.

On our drive back to Albuquerque we stayed the night in Moab.

I really want to go back to Moab.

Though we weren't there long. we did go to Arch's National Park.

I can't wait to go back. It was gorgeous!

FYI I posted HUNDREDS of pictures from our trip on Facebook.

Our Utah Temple Tour

This past Sunday we got back from a 10 day Utah trip.

We decided to make it a priority to stop and see several temples during our stay.

I think it's so important to make the temple as much as a part of my kids' lives as possible.

Our first stop was the Monticello temple.

Monticello is a little town with one stop light and two restaurants and

one of them is a Taco Time in a gas station.

But Monticello has it's own little temple.

Around the temple was a big open field.

A perfect spot for pictures.



Next stop was the Jordan River temple.

This is the temple closest to Sean's sister Michelle's house.

Here are our girls with their cousins Parker and Halle.

Lexi was sooooo excited to go see some of her cousins.

And here's Lexi and Parker dancing together in front of the temple.

Here is Sean with his two sisters, Andrea and Michelle.

Here's Michelle, Justin and their kids.

We love just hanging out with them.

Our third temple was Salt Lake.

We went to Temple Square with my parents who met us in Utah.

Lexi loves the Salt Lake temple because it looks like a castle.

What my girls didn't love was posing for all the pictures that I wanted to take.

I don't blame them it was crazy hot out.

While we were at Temple Square we went to the Tabernacle.

We also went and looked around the several visitors' centers.

Our fourth and final temple was the Provo temple.

I have some many more pictures from our trip.

So many infact, that it overwhelms me. I have a hard time figuring out which ones to put on my blog.

But I did already put HUNDREDS of pictures from our trip on Facebook.

Plus, Blogger is being annoying and only letting me upload 2 pictures at a time which

is horrible when you have tons of pictures. Plus it's also making my pictures all pixelated.

For now, I'm done though.

Goodbye Jaylen

The week before we went to Utah we found out that our friends, the Edgley's,

were moving to Seattle.

We also found out that they would be moving while we were in Utah.

Yeah, they moved really fast.

I knew Lexi would be so sad to see Jaylen go. He's her best friend. We saw him everyday.

...

Everyday at noon we get together with several women from church and eat lunch.

The school district does free lunch for all kids 1-18 years old.

So we all get together, the kids eat lunch and we hang out. It's awesome!

Here are all the kids in our group. I should have got a picture of us five moms too.

This was our last "picnic lunch" with Jaylen, his little brother Gavin and their mom Cera.

The night before we left for Utah, we hung out with the Edgley's and said goodbye.

And of course, took pictures...

Cera really was one of my best friends here in Albuquerque.

She lived in the apartment complex next to mine.

We would take our kids on walks together several times a week.

If I ever needed someone to watch my girls she was there and I would watch her boys for her.

We worked in the Young Women's program together at church.

And our husbands Sean and Aaron worked in the Young Men's program together.

We did picnic lunch together and swim lessons for our kids.

Saying goodbye to Cera felt like being in Rexburg all over again,

where our friends were always moving.

But unlike many my Rexburg friends, I know I will see Cera again because

every time we go back to Washington to visit our parents we will be able to go see them.

The night we went to say goodbye, Lexi and Jaylen cuddled in bed together.

They really do like each other but perhaps it's best we spilt them up before they are teenagers.

Haha.
Since Jaylen has left Lexi has referred to him as her best friend and even been quoting him.