This is a little late...

Our good friends the Wallentine's moved from Athens the end of May and we were sad to see them go.  The Wallentine's and ourselves were both married in 2006 and moved to Georgia, then had our babies around the same time, and have had many more things in common so we were really sad to see them leave.  When I worked at Regis, Kristen watched Avery when she was 6 months old!  Thanks for all the fun times; you are already missed greatly!!! Here are some pics of Avery and Aubrey's last play date!

     Avery's fish face :)  It cracks me up every time!  & the girls playing in the toys

We had to have one last Waffle House run!  Its fun to laugh about now, but when these two were little neither one of them would sleep through the night!  It would drive Kristen and myself crazy (especially to hear some of our other friends whose babies were the same age as ours were sleeping 8-10 hours through the night).  So, when they wouldn't let us sleep we'd go to Waffle House and take the babies:)  You'd think I'm lying but twice we all packed the kids up at 2AM and went to order an All Star Breakfast at the Waffle House!  We have some good memories:)

An A+ visiting teacher

On May 13 this week my visiting teacher proved to be the most AMAZING visiting teacher of all time..... She celebrated my birthday with me for the second time this year:) Here's the story:

I get a knock at my door to find my visiting teacher (Sister Whiting with gift in hand) and her husband greeting me with the Happy Birthday Song! My birthday is actually March 13, so I nervously smiled and awkwardly (but gratefully) said thank you. She then got a confused look on her face in response to my not-hidden-so-well reaction and asked, "is it not your birthday?" I didn't know what to do; I didn't want to embarrass her, but felt a little guilty for celebrating and taking a gift for a birthday that was not really mine. I then told her that my birthday is March 13 and she said she must have misread her vt-ing sheet cause she had just quickly glanced at it. Mar and May do look very similar! We got a good long laugh out of it and she said she just really didn't want to miss my birthday! So, I reaped the benefits of having 2 birthdays this year and a new beach towel to take on our fun trips over to Sandy Creek. This is what I call an A+ visiting teacher and we will get some good laughs out of this now and for years to come! Sister Whiting & Charis (you were missed while you were in Cali)-- ya'll are the BEST visiting teachers I could ever ask for!!! (& not only because you gave me a 2nd birthday this year)

Just some FUN STUFF!!

Little Miss Avery and yes, she thinks she is Hot Stuff!

Fun times coloring with Uncle Jason. She gets so excited when he comes out to see us on the weekends, but lately if Hannah is with him, she is all Avery wants!! After our relay marathon and Joey's softball game, Roman and Kayla invited us up to the Lake house and it was a ton of fun! Avery loved the boat:)
It was such a perfect day to be on the lake! (still a lil too cold to be in it)
Cute Cody with his mohawk and Avery playing on the boat
With the semester ending we headed over with Tenille and her two girls to Sandy Creek and let the kids play. Here is Avery and Sadie playing in the sand.
CONGRATS to Mama Graham!!! Not only did she finish her nursing degree this year while raising kids and having a large family she was awarded the Spirit Award for all of Georgia Highlands College and we are so proud of her!!
Grandma and Grandpa Yates with Mom. We played games after the awards ceremony and I beat Grandpa by 4 points in Oh Heck. This is a big accomplishment. I am going to frame the score sheet!
Hannah and I after the Lake Hartwell Dam Run 10K! She placed 2nd and I placed 3rd in our age group...(there weren't many in the 20-24 year age group) Cause Hannah's time was somewhere around 51 min and mine was around 64 min. It was funny when they called out my name I swore there had to be another Rachel Graham :)
After finals we drove out to TX for a quick visit and surprised my mom for Mother's Day! We had a great time and Avery loved TX and did pretty well on the 11 hour drive. Above: Avery and Uncle Ryan (he's "Texanizing" her with some authentic cowboy boots)
Avery with Daddy and Grandpa on the piano. The piano, Scruffy, and trampoline were some of her favorites at Grandma and Grandpa Grebe's. She had a blast!
Avery and her shoe fetish. In Grandma's church shoes.... she walked pretty well in them.
I just love her!!!

CoUdAwGaToRs!

This past weekend a bunch of people from our Ward got together and ran the Chicken Mania Marathon relay. Each member ran a 4.3 mile leg on a VERY hilly course! If you are wondering where Joey is, he was back in Athens with the other half of our ward playing in a softball game. Come to find out Joey hit a home run over the center field fence and I was sad I wasn't there to see it.

We left for Gainesville early in the morning for the race and afterwards they had a chicken- cook-off. It was so much fun & I hit a personal record with a time of 39:15! (I know its not amazing but a year ago my goals were just to complete a 5K without walking so this is major improvement) The name Cou-dawg-gators comes from the fact that on each team there were Alumni or current students from BYU, UGA, & Florida. Trust me we were not thrilled to have Gators as part of our team name but for the Westfalls we were willing to make an exception:)
Coming around the last corner and up the hill to the finish line!
Here is our girls team that finished 1st place in the Women's division with a time around 3 hours and 40 min. left to right: Amber Westfall, Tenille Bowser, me, Hannah McClain, Emily Robertson, & Alyson Haslam (who got lost and added about half a mile to the course and still finished with an amazing time) The men's team did awesome as well and placed 2nd in their division (they had a lot more competition)!

My little Avery was such a good sport!
She's not used to getting up at 6am and by 10 she was knocked out on the lawn with loud music playing and people running around everwhere cheering on their team mates.
& Who knows how much they paid this guy to dress up in this Chicken Suit with tights while it was 85 degrees outside?! Avery loved it though and anytime he'd walk by she would point and say, "chicken, bawk, bawk."

Easter Weekend!!

Easter Weekend started out with a fun time at the G-DAY spring game. Although Avery only held out for 3 quarters we had a great time and I ran into one of my old friends from high school (yes all the way back from TX). She married a Georgia boy as well and is living in Gainesville, GA and her brother is drum major in the Georgia Red Coats band(its a small world)! Here is Avery with "THE UGA VII" ... He is a big deal and attends the Georgia football games. UGA VI passed away last summer and they had a big funeral for him in the stadium and the tomb of all the former UGAs is also inside the stadium. I was pleased to hear that amongst the NCAA coaches to call and give their condolences to Mark RIcht and bulldog nation, Mac Brown (longhorns head coach) was one of the first to call:)

When we saw kids heading down to get their pictures taken with the UGA bulldog I told Joey Avery had to have her picture with him, since just this week she has learned to say and identify "Ugga!" Unfortunately, she would not look at the camera but wanted to play with the "puppy."
Avery with Daddy between the hedges and dying to get down and see UGA again!
When we got home we dyed Easter Eggs and Avery thought that was pretty fun
Avery with her eggs!
With mommy dying more Easter eggs to take to Aunt Jill's tomorrow for the Easter Egg Hunt!
Look what the Easter bunny brought!!!
Avery and her Easter outfit! Joey's dad did some professional ones that I'll post later but this is a quick after church picture. Quick story: I had been dying to get Avery a little pettiskirt that I had continued to see in boutiques back when I was home in TX shopping with a friend and that I had seen in online boutiques but they were ridiculously priced... $85.00 (not gonna happen). I was driving by a Children's boutique in Watkinsville (outside of Athens) and happened to notice these pettiskirts out on the porch and a big sign that said SALE. Of course I stopped and got the skirt for $12.99! I then got online to see what kind of shirts they put with it and after looking through a few sights excitedly went on my way to Micheals. I already had the white shirt so I got some stuff to decorate it and made a bow to match! It was a fun and simple project that helped make me feel like more of a homemaker :)
And she prances around in it just like a little princess:)

Playdates and the Color Queen!!

Last weekend we went to Marietta for Conference. By The Way so many good talks; I normally can pick out one favorite but this time I could count out 4 or 5 of my favs (Holland, Snow, Uchtdorf, Monson)and not be able to choose between them. We have made a little tradition that when the guys go off to the priesthood session, us girls head over to Bruster's for some ice cream:) Here is Avery on our way out the door... she was persistent in bringing daddy's birthday balloon! & if you don't have enough hands to carry it all... carry it in your mouth!!! We left early so we could meet Joey's best friend from growing up Roman Hackett and his little family. His little boy Cody is less than 2 months older than Avery and they play together so well:) He is such a little cutie!
More pictures of them at East Cobb Park. It was so crowded, but its a Super Fun park!
Avery has had so many fun playdates lately!! Cynthia came to get her hair done and she brought Kayden and Addi to come play! Avery was so excited!!! They loved the bubbles and would scream and run to pop them as soon as they were blown! I love playdates because she sleeps better afterwards:)
Avery has been quite the artist... I have a container full of crayons and had taken all the markers out. At least once during the day Avery will reach for the container saying Co-wers (colors) then Peas, Peas (please, please). I already have one work of art on my wall with orange and yellow crayon... So I was sure to put the markers up so she could not get them. She pulled a chair over in our room helping her to reach the markers and before I knew it had it on her face, hands and shirt. The good news is she had also reached a blank piece of paper that she drew on with the marker (instead of the wall), it was a washable marker and I caught her fairly early in the process!
They're still so cute even when she is mischievous! My little "Coloring Queen"

Girls just wanna have FUN!!

Last weekend Joey went to Birmingham, AL for a conference with the research lab group he is in at school. We missed him so much and it helped remind me how grateful I am for him and all he does. Although we missed him greatly, Avery and I had some fun! I was in the bathroom in need of a brow wax so while I was doing that I put Avery in the sink and apparently she has watched me enough to know how to put on makeup! Before taking the bronzer from her I had to get a picture. After that I turned on some Disney channel music (yes, I'll admit I love Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana) and we were jamming out to her songs! I think Avery may have thought her mommy had gone crazy cause I'm always stressed with school that unfortunately this side of me does not come out often enough. But I LOVED it and we laughed and danced (by Avery dancing I mean rocking from side to side and jumping up and down) and laughed some more until I was worn out!!!

I love these kissable cheeks!

SO DARLING!!!