Cake Smash and St. Patrick's Day

I was planning on writing this post over a week ago, but we had another death in the family.  Grandpa Low passed away just 13 days after his wife.  It was sad to hear the news, but happy that he is with his sweetheart now.  We were joking that Grandma figured out who to talk to in Heaven to get Grandpa there asap.  I really didn't want to miss another funeral, so we headed up to Canada last Thursday.  Here is the photo of Grandpa and I at Christmas.  Even though he had dementia, he did say "Joanie" when I came to see him -- which is pretty neat considering he has lost most of his memory.  He was such a sweet and loving grandpa.  He was always making jokes and making us laugh.  I appreciated it when he bore his testimony of the gospel to his grandchildren.  I miss him already, but am looking forward to the day I can see him again.  Love you Grandpa!

Now here is some catch up from the last 2 weeks. It has been starting to get nicer in Texas, so we have been taking the kids to the park.  Jaxson and Avery thought this swing was pretty fun together, although it was a pretty tight fit.

Love those eyes!

Ok, so these pictures crack me up.  One night after bath time, Jaxson said "Let's put Avery in my clothes!"  I don't think really appreciated it, but we all got a laugh out of it.  Kinda look similar eh?!







There is the Avery I know and love.  Has a sweet tooth like Mommy - Chocolate chip cookies being my favorite!

Must have been a pretty tasty cookie - just look at that face. 

Jaxson asked me to tie him up with this blanket.  Done.  After about a minute of trying to get out, he got pretty mad :)

Happy St.Patrick's Day!!  I don't have a lot of green clothes for Avery, so she was sporting a green shamrock headband. 

A leprachaun left us a box of lucky charms and green milk for breakfast.  Jax thought this was pretty funny!

We also ate key lime cookie sandwhiches with key lime frosting to help celebrate the green day. 

She still loves crawling into the toy basket and playing. 

Then as soon as Jaxson see's me pull out my camera, he jumps in too BUT will not look or smile at the camera. Nice one buddy! (not)

Another day Jaxson was excited to show me his "rocket ship"  (or maybe it was a boat or a car?)  He made the shape and tucked himself in all by himself.

Birthday Girl!  Avery was actually running a fever still on her birthday, so she was cranky for quite a while.  We ate sprinkle pancakes anyway.  Normally she shovels them in her mouth, but she didn't eat very much - poor girl!

I tried so hard to get a good photo of her wearing her b-day shirt/outfit.  These 2 are the best I got - this girl is hard to take photos of!



I had been looking foward to doing a cake smash with her ever since she was born.  Because the photographer wanted several hundreds of dollars to do it, and we already had family photos/picture people photos set up, I decided to do it myself.  Once again, SO HARD to take a photo of this girl.  She wasn't feeling super well, she wouldn't look at the camera and smile, and she wanted to sit in my lap instead of eat the cake (which was frusterating, but cute). 

Here is the set up

She didn't do much eating of the cake.  She touched the frosting a couple of times and put it in her mouth, then walked over to me and plopped in my lap.  I put her over by the cake probably 20 times. 

Wish I got more photos like this one.  She only smiled in a couple of them!

The "eating" of the cake.

Not too bad.  But then she got obsessed with the candle and wouldn't touch the cake...

Love this one.  She is actually kind of smiling at the camera!  Happy 1st birthday Avery Girl!

Blowing out the pretend candle?  Or she just does this "oo oo" noise once in a while - it's pretty cute actually.

Then she got obsessed with the balloons and kept batting them.  Also pretty funny (and annoying cuz I wanted her to eat the cake) to watch.

This is when I forced her hands in the cake a bit. 

Finally I called for backup.  I thought maybe if Jaxson came and started eating cake, Avery would too.  Well, Jaxson just played with the icing, and Avery kept getting up and walking away. Lame!

I thought maybe if I gave her a slice in her high chair, she would eat it.  Nope!  I am thinking if she wasn't still sick that day, she probably would have been more responsive (but I didn't have a better day to do the shoot).

She didn't want the cake, so I gave her some cheese.  She loved it and went to town.  Guess I should have made her a cheesecake :)

Another attempt to get a photo of the b-day girl in her outfit.  Unfortunately, I had to leave the paci in, and give her something to play with in order for her not to scream.

We are so glad when Daddy comes home!  Jaxson is learning that song right now.  That night we went to Chic Fil A to celebrate Avery's big day (will post those photos later - I haven't uploaded them to the computer yet and am unable to do so right now).  We are very grateful to have her in our home and we just love he to pieces!!