Merry Christmas

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. Avery enjoyed all of her presents and this was the first year Santa came to her house, the last few years Santa came to PaPa and MeMe's. Being Santa came to Avery's house we had to do lots of running around. We went to the Christmas Eve service with Mom and Dad on Wednesday evening and then went out to Robert and Deborah's for the Hodde Christmas. We then came back to Humble, got home around 12:30 a.m. Santa came to the house and by 9:30 a.m. Christmas morning we were on the road to Brenham again for Borchardt and Schulz Christmas. Thank goodness it isn't too far away.

Putting Reindeer food in the yard, so the Santa knew he had to stop at Avery's house.

Avery is not a morning person, but you would think Christmas morning would be different, not for Avery she saw all the presents Santa had left her and then goes and laying on the couch.

When Avery sat on Santa's lap she told him she wanted a baby doll. Well, a week before Christmas she changed her mind saying she wanted a race car. After seeing the four wheeler she again asked for a race car and we asked if the four wheeler was ok and she said yes. Thank goodness.

Look what else Santa brought.

Enjoying her four wheeler. She needs lots of practice.

Christmas Cookies

We baked Christmas cookies yesterday, we did this for the first time last year. It went smoother this year, however we still had a huge mess. Avery enjoyed decorating the cookies. She really liked using the pink sprinkles, can you tell?

Our Medalist

Avery had her last gymnastics class on Wednesday and at the end of the class she was presented a medal. She was not too sure about having all the attention on her when she was getting her medal.

Hula Hooping

Hop Scotch (together, apart)

I am a monkey


Testing her balance

Do I really have to do this.

I got a medal like Michael Phelps

Let It Snow, Let It Snow

I was in a meeting at work around 4 and all of a sudden everyone outside of the conference room was saying it's snowing outside. We all ran out of our meeting to the window like we have never seen it before. I guess it is because it doesn't happen very often in our area. By the time we got home it was dark, but I did get a few pictures of Avery in it. I am hoping the ground will be white in the morning and I can take a few more. It will probably be 70 degrees Christmas Day.

Look at me, I can catch snow on my tongue.

My slide has snow on it. BRRRRR

Is that snow I am catching?

Happy Turkey Day!!

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Beat the hell out of t.u. (fingers and toes crossed)

Miniature Golf

We took advantage of the beautiful day and took Avery to play miniature golf. She had a great time playing. Alan was disappointed because they didn't have a putter for her size, so next time we know to bring her putter. =) On most of the holes she would place the ball right next to the hole and either tap it in or kick it in with her foot.

Of course Alan wanted to have a competition. We played a match play “tournament” and he won, but I will add it was only by one stroke. I think I played pretty well since he plays way more than I do.

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Dewberry Farms

On Sunday we met up with Kari, Lisa, Loralyn, Stephanie and the kiddos at Dewberry Farms. The kids had a great time running around and going from one thing to another. We had a great time, maybe we can make this an annual trip!! Enjoy the Pictures.

Avery on the Fort

Avery posing as a Farm Lady

It is very hard to have 6 kids 4 and

under to look at the camera and

smile at the same time. Out of the 3

pictures I took, this is the best one.

Avery with a bouquet of flowers we picked

Happy Halloween

Hope everyone has a SPOOKY Day. Happy Halloween!!

Happy Birthday Avery

We can't believe she is already 3 years old. She is growing up way too fast, but were are enjoying every minute of it.

We celebrated her birthday yesterday and she had a great time playing with her friends. This morning we had to open the majority of her presents so she could play with them. She is loving them all. We just need a bigger house, which will always be the case.

Avery's Princess Cake, she was so proud.

Blowing out her candles, apparently I was trying to help her.

As you can see Aunt Ali and Uncle J teach her very bad things. This one is for you J.

A bracelet from Great Grandpa and Grandma Borchardt. Grandpa gave it to Grandma when they started dating.

Gymnastics

Avery gets so excited when Wednesday's come around as she gets to go to gymnastics twice. She has gymnastics at school on Wednesday morning and then a class in the evening. When I took gymnastics and dance as a kid, there was only one class going on at a time; however where Avery's class is there is 3 classes going on at one time in the same room. The first couple of weeks she was more interested in what the "big" girls were doing rather than what she was doing. She has gotten a little better as the weeks past. Here are a few pictures from her class.

County Fair

Since we evacuted to Brenham for IKE Avery was able to enjoy the fair 3 of the 4 days. Her enjoyment of the fair revolved around Riding Rides. She had a blast going from one ride to the next. She rode with her cousin Maggie and Dawson on Friday night. Anytime you mentioned the fair she wanted to go there to ride rides.

Cheesing with Dawson

Smiling pretty with Maggie

Chilled Out Not paying attention to the road weeeeeeee

I'm holding on tight

This was her favorite

Those of you that went to the fair growing up, you are not seeing things. The fish and race cars are the same ones they had when we were little.

We Have the POWER

I called the house around 6 last night and the phone started ringing, up until this point is was either busy or wouldn't go through, and then the answering machine picked up. I was so excited, but before packing up and heading to the house I had a co-worker go by the house to make sure. After getting confirmation that we did indeed have power, I packed up our stuff and headed back home. The house is a wreck as we just carried everything into the house, but we were able to sleep in our own beds, it was so nice. The next task is getting our refrigerator replenished. I think we will work on that this evening.....

IKE

Avery and I headed to Brenham on Thursday around noon as I did not want to have to sit in traffic like Alan and I did when Rita came in 2005. The roads were still open and it took us 2 hours to get to Brenham, not bad at all as the normal drive is about and hour and 20 minutes. I have a co-worker that lives 3 streets over from us and their power went out around 10 p.m. on Friday night. We got a generator from Grandpa B on Saturday, so we plug in our freezer at the house. I then got word from my co-worker that their power came back on around 8 p.m. on Saturday, so I immediately thought we had power too as we are only 3 streets apart. Alan went to the house Sunday morning and when he got there he discovered we still did not have power. He stayed at the house for about 5 hours to give the freezer some juice to keep the stuff in it frozen. When he was packing up to head back to Brenham he decided to bring all the freezer stuff back to Brenham with him since we don't know how long we will be without power and how many trips we will have to make back and forth. We will be hanging out in Brenham until our power comes back on. I am hoping that will be today or tomorrow, but who knows.

I hope everyone stayed safe during IKE.

Schlitterbahn Trip

Mom, Alison, Avery and I took our 2nd Annual trip, that is with Avery, to Schlitterbahn last week. Avery had a really good time and mostly enjoyed playing in the water shoots and going through the "Car Wash".

I will try to be a little better with updating, but nothing interesting has really been happening.

Until next time.......

Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus -- NOT

I thought it would be a great idea to go to the circus, but Avery did not like it. She was fine until we saw clowns, and this was at the pre-show. After seeing the clowns all she would say is "No see the show". Alan and I kept on trying to distract her, pointing things out for her to see. It worked for a little bit, but not for the whole performance. She was so scard that she was shaking. We actually left at the intermission, we tried really hard to brib her into staying, but it didn't work. I personally was enjoying the circus, I don't think I have been to one since elementary school. I don't think we will try the circus again until she is atleast 5. Hopefully my ideas will be better in the future. Note, the pictures are all before her seeing the clowns.