Happy Birthday Dad and Jason!

Because Dad Carter and Jason have the same birthday, we celebrate it together every year, and our favorite birthday tradition is Benihana's! It was Avery's first Benihana's experience, and she did great. Both she and Harrison sampled many of the yummy foods they prepared right in front of us. Harrison even used his chopsticks!

Another favorite tradition..........the balloon birthday hats!



Back at the house for birthday cake.



Make a wish!



Harrison is drinking some of Papa's milk after having his own piece of birthday cake, yum!

A Lovely Easter Weekend

2009 saw the first Easter for Avery and Owen. We had a wonderful holiday weekend with the Eschens and the Grimes' while everyone was on Spring Break. It also didn't hurt that the weather was beautiful and the Masters had an exciting finish on Sunday!

Harrison's had a great time coloring Easter eggs.

Taking a nice stroll in the wagon on Saturday afternoon.

Easter morning! Harrison was the first one up, so Jason and I took him on an Easter egg hunt to his Easter basket.

Jackpot! One guess what the Easter bunny left him.............choo choos.

Then Avery got up and had fun opening her first Easter basket!

Finally, Baby Owen checked out his loot from the Easter bunny.

My kids had to check Owen's toys, of course, and make sure they were fun enough to play with. How nice of them.

The cross at church was so pretty with all of the flowers.

The Grimes Family.

The second Easter egg hunt of the day, this time outside!

Avery had fun watching all of the hunting outside.

Eleven Months Old

Avery was 11 months old on April 1st, and it must have been April Fools' Day because we feel it's impossible that she's already this old! I can't believe she'll be a year old in her next chair picture. It's a good thing we only have one chair picture left, because it is extremely difficult to keep her still in the chair long enough to snap a good one. As you can see below, she is waving her arms and legs wildly, making it a little blurry!

She climbs into and on top of everything now, you really have to keep a close eye on her. She is SO close to walking, and even took her first steps last weekend, but not many since. Avery is almost off of the bottle now too, she is such a "big girl" with her sippy cups and table food. She'll try pretty much any food, but her favorites include crackers, strawberries, grapes, raisins, and cheese. She even tries to wrestle Harrison, and is already so good about standing up for herself when he tries to take toys away! Avery is definitely pretty aggressive

When I got Harrison's hair cut last weekend, I had to have the lady take a swipe at Avery's bangs too since they were getting so long and in her eyes. I don't count it as her first hair cut, though, since there was so little to save!