9 months!

Avery has officially reached 9 months!!! The age of "how fast can I put that in my mouth before mommy takes it away??" Also know as "how close can I get to (fill in the blank with some randomly dangerous item) before mommy stops me", "I'm going to throw myself backwards while you aren't paying attention and then laugh when you barely catch me in time" or "Yes I understand you are saying no, but I'm just going to laugh at you and do it anyway". Yep, we have reached that age! You know - where you are simultaneously excited at all they are learning and discovering and utterly terrified because you know they are dangerously close to out-smarting you.

Dear Lord, Please let us stay at least one step ahead of this one, because she is going to be a HANDFUL!!

Avery just started waving and gets a kick out of people waving back because she understands what you're doing now! We still have no teeth, but I get the feeling that will change VERY soon! Even though she doesn't have teeth that isn't holding her back from chowing down on solid foods. She will eat just about anything she can pick up (even last night when she was literally eating with her EYES CLOSED because she was so tired!). Her favorites include (but are not limited to) chicken, carrots, broccoli, cheese, those little baby poof thingies, and crackers to name a few.

She is also dangerously close to taking her first step. This is the part that terrifies me. At 9 months Mackenzie was just learning to stand/pull up and she didn't take her first step until right before her birthday. Mackenzie was also never this determined. Avery seems intent on learning, doing and touching. There is no distracting her! You have to entirely remove the temptation, something we didn't have to worry about with Mackenzie. Parenting Avery is an entirely new ballgame!

On the rest of the family front, Mackenzie is serving her last few days in Kindergarten before summer starts end of next week. She is excited to start a summer dance camp and finally get to do ballet. Her "most exciting" thing about dance camp is that she gets to be in Willy Wonka at the end of the summer - Of course when she told me that she couldn't remember the name and even when I told her she had no idea that was actually a movie...

On the adoption side, things are progressing with the Second Annual Pighetti Dinner and Silent Auction. We have a few donations already and are working on more. I'm hoping to get the website updated and revamped soon! If you know of anyone that would be interested in a little free publicity in return for a donation please send them my way!!

Avery's Dedication!

Wanted to hop on and post some pictures from this past weekend. Mother's Day was wonderful and we had Avery dedicated at church. She was so stinking cute in her Christening gown which is the same gown Mackenzie wore and that DJ wore before her. 

Post again soon!!

~Jeny

100th Post!! And Pighetti Dinner details!!

Date is set for the 2nd Annual Pighetti Dinner and Silent Auction!! For those of you that weren't around for the 1st Annual here are the details. When we felt that we were called to adopt, we had no idea where the funds were going to come from. All we knew was that God had the details. Through the generous donations of friends, family and total strangers we made it and brought our daughter Avery home in August of last year. Now that our need has been met we want to focus on helping others fund-raise, hence the 2nd Annual Pighetti Dinner and Silent Auction. (Sorry to those of you thinking we were on the track to adopting again -- not this year ;@)

We have tentatively settled on a date of August 25th. Still working on the location, but I'll let you know once we have that settled. We are currently looking for items to be donated for the silent auction. If you (or someone you know!) wants to donate an item or service please let me know! We will gladly display your promotional items at the dinner and give you a shout out on our website (more on that to come!).

So excited about what God is doing in our lives and can't wait to see how He will use this to bring new babies to their forever homes!!

Post again soon!!
~Jeny

Easter and some other stuff...

Wanted to hop on and at least share some pictures and a quick update since I haven't posted in forever!!!

Avery is 8 months old. She is crawling and pulling up and looking VERY determined to walk. I am SO not ready for that!! We are getting over another ear infection now :@( Luckily we are at the end of our antibiotics and finally feeling better.

Mackenzie is finishing up kindergarten in the next month. I can't believe she is getting so big!!! We are taking a break from ice skating for the summer and she is trying a dance summer camp. She's been asking to try dance for awhile and we thought this would be a good time to try. Her last ice skating class was this past Tuesday and she's already asking to go ice skating this weekend so we'll see how long the no-skating goes :)

Post again soon!!
~Jeny

Avery's Hair

Sorry it's been so long. Our "baby" girl has just turned 6 months old!! I can't believe it came around so quickly!! She is so close to crawling now. She will get up on her hands and knees and rock back and forth. She just can't seem to get moving. She doesn't let that stop her from getting around though! She drags herself across the floor, or just rolls from toy to toy. It's very entertaining.

We got our first hairstyle tonight. It was tramatic for both of us I think. She did not want anything to do with it, but I finally got it done! It looks pretty good for the first attempt, but hopefully next time will go faster with less tears :@)

Post again soon!
~Jeny

Forgot one!!

Not sure how I missed this picture from yesterday's post, but it is my favorite!!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, etc.

I posted the pictures in a separate post because I have not quite mastered the art of pictures and words without getting it all wonky. So to save my sanity and actually get this posted in a timely manner it is sans pics.

Christmas was absolutely amazing at our house. Mackenzie spent the day opening (and then playing with) Avery's presents and Avery spent her time trying to eat paper...which isn't abnormal since she has reached the stage where everything goes into her mouth! I had a moment at Christmas Eve service where her adoption really sunk in for me. I realized that Avery was seeing for the first time what she would see every Christmas for the next 18-ish years of her life, surrounded by her family, singing songs of worship and celebrating the birth of Jesus. Yeah, it got me.

New Years Eve was relatively quiet. We hung out at the house with our friends and put the girls to bed relatively early. New Years Day was even quieter. It's tough to believe that it is 2012 already!!! 2011 was a pretty awesome year and I pray that 2012 lives up to it :@)

Speaking of awesome things, if you look to the right you will notice that one of our little tickers has been updated. We got the phone call just before Christmas that we had gotten one of the grants that we applied for making our adoption fully funded!! God is Good!! When we started this process we had absolutely no idea where that money would come from but God had it all planned out. He called us to adopt and we listened. Looking back I can see His hand in every step of our process and it is amazing. So, reading that you may assume that our fundraising is done, but that would be wrong. We feel that God is calling us to continue raising funds to help others that are also called to adopt. We are still working out the details on the who and the when, but look for info soon on the Second Annual Pighetti Dinner and Silent Auction probably in April.

I'm still working on my resolutions but when they are ready I promise to share them here. Speaking of things I'm still working on, our Christmas cards is on that list as well. I bought them, but have yet to address them...or write them out...or take them out of the bag that I brought them home in... Oh well, better luck next year I guess, or maybe I'll send them out by February :@)

Post again soon!
~Jeny