Keeping Up With The Wakens

Avery is now 18 months and is a complete ball of energy. She's always on the run and her curiosity and love for exploring has made her quite the little mischief.


She loves Sesame Street and can count to 6. Her favorite characters are Cookie Monster, and Ernie and Bert. She also likes Cars - Lightening McQueen and Mater. And recently became a big fan of Bolt. She loves to play in her red car that she got for her 1st birthday, and loves to push "Bug" around (a toy bug that you sit on and move with your legs).

She also is quite the little talker and always surprises us with little saying like, "I'm not ready.","I don't know.", etc. Her daily words are "Hi", "Bu-Bye", "Where is it?", "Sydney" (my parents dog), "Now", "Bolt", "Night-night", "Ball", "Waffle" and several other words.
She sings/hums the Sesame Street theme song, "Sunny day keeping the clouds away..."


She likes to run around on the trampoline, do head stands, read books, play with cars, roll around in blankets, jump on the couch, play the piano, pounce on Daddy when he's asleep, go for walks, play at parks, take baths, go swimming, turn all of our lights on/off, unload the dishwasher, sweep the floor with the broom, be our little helper, and get into Mommy's jewelry and purse. She's our little socializer and would rather socialize than eat and she loves attention. She also loves animals and is getting pretty good at making their noises when she sees their pictures.



She keeps us on our toes but we love her so much and are so blessed to have her in our life and look forward to many months to come.

Phill and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary on August 3rd. To celebrate we went up to Orchard's Town Center to walk around and go shopping. We went to a few stores and then went to the movies to see the Sorcerer's Apprentice - which we both really liked. Following the movie we went to 3 Margaritas for dinner. The service there was awesome and we got our food really quick, but I guess it doesn't really take a long time to cook Mexican food. After dinner we headed home. We thought about going to Fridays for our favorite dessert - the Brownie Obsession, but by the time we were done with dinner it was 8:00 pm, and we were both tired from one walking around, and two we ate too much at dinner. So we went home and Phill's parents watched Avery at their house overnight, and my sister left and took the family dog, Sydney, so that Phill and I could have the house to ourselves which was sooo nice! My family had been living with us for a month while their new house is being built, luckily my mom had a friend that asked if they could house sit so all of my family has moved out now except for my sister and the dog. Anyway we haven't had the house to ourselves for quite some time so we really enjoyed relaxing and having the opportunity to sleep in. Overall, we had an enjoyable time, we love the opportunity to go out on dates - especially our favorite date = dinner and a movie.

The third week of July, Phill, Avery, and I took our first road trip. We drove to Boise, Idaho to spend time with my best friends, and old room-mates, Angie Fugal and Crystal Burningham. We stayed at Angie's parents house and had so much fun visiting. It is so hard when your best friends live in different states. Angie lives in Idaho, and Crystal lives in Montana but she will be going to school in Idaho. I'm so grateful for the time that we were able to spend together and I miss them so much. Later in the week we drove to Yellowstone, Wyoming for Phill's family reunion. We drove through the Tetons and camped at Bridge Bay, Yellowstone. Yellowstone is beautiful and we visited the hot mud pits, and Old Faithful. I'd never been to Yellowstone so it was fun to see everything. On our road trip we also visited Rexburg, Idaho for Phill's sister's graduation from BYUI. I love BYU-Idaho. I miss the campus and it was so fun to take Phillip and Avery and show them the campus, and my old dorm, Chapman Hall. The campus is expanding and growing, the Manwaring Center has changed drastically but is very nice. We also walked around the Rexburg Temple, and also had the opportunity to stop at the Idaho Falls Temple and the Visiting Center. In the Visiting Center they have a Christus statue that you can actually touch and Avery liked sitting at Jesus' feet. We enjoyed our vacation and wish we could have stayed longer. The drive was long and a bit hard on both Avery and I but we survived and had a great time overall.