Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We had a nice trip up to Pocatello, ID to Merrick's Grandma Smith's house. We arrived Wednesday evening and left Friday afternoon. Thanksgiving dinner was with Merrick's extended family on his dad's side and we had around 25 people there. Avery learned how to put olives on her fingers and eat them off. We had fun visiting with family and showing off Avery's sign language and limited vocabulary. We saw two movies while we were there - Enchanted and Dan in Real Life. They were both really good! Uncle Tanner babysat Avery during the first movie and Avery slept most of the second so it was really nice to be able to sit through some movies comfortably.

Aunt Lindsey took this picture of Avery this weekend and edited it. Isn't our little girl cute?!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving too.

Bye bye Uncle Jordan!

My brother Jordan - now Elder Haws - entered the MTC this morning to learn German in preparation for his two year mission to Zurich Switzerland! It was really emotional saying goodbye to him since he seemed to get a lot more choked up than my sister Ashley did when we took her to the MTC 6 weeks ago. We kept an eye out for Hermana Haws while we were there but with no luck. She's doing really awesome, by the way, and can't wait to depart for Chile on December 3rd.

Brother and sister will get to be in the MTC together for a few weeks but the rule is they're not even allowed to hug if they see each other. We're hoping they'll be able to see each other at least a few times before Ashley leaves.

Jordan got to stay at our house for Monday and Tuesday before my parents and Katie arrived to escort him into the MTC. It was nice having him around to get to know Avery a little better and have her try to say his name. He even got to learn a bunch of her signs!

As a side note, we tried to teach Avery how to say Katie, her aunt's name, and she just kept trying to do the sign for cat - or "kitty cat" as we call them. It was so cute!

We'll miss our Uncle Jordan!

Halloween Fun

Hope everyone had a good Halloween! We had fun taking Avery trick-or-treating, or in Avery language "chi chee" (similar to the word "choo choo" for train) - which she only said about 5 times and of course never when a door was opened to her. She really liked that people gave her candy whenever she knocked on a door though!

Doesn't she look so cute as a little ladybug? We went around the neighborhood with our friends the Vigues and the Tams. Avery was a little more anxious to eat the candy rather than to accumulate a large quantity.

After visiting a few places we came inside and Avery pointed at the door like she wanted to go out again! It was so fun!

We got a surprise visit from Merrick's family - Grandpa and Grandma Smith, Aunt Lindsey and Aunt Taryn, and Lindsey's friend Dave. They liked seeing Avery in her cute costume. Below is a picture of Avery with her Grandpa.
Hope your Halloween was fun too!