36 Weeks Old!

Hi All,


We had another great week with John's parents in California. Avalon continues to have a fabulous time with her Aussie grandparents!


John's mom went with me and Avalon to our Mommy and Me class. She had fun seeing the babies play together and watching Avalon explore the fun toys in the room.


Avalon showed us this week that she can climb up the two stairs from our living room to our dining room! We were impressed that she put it all together and was able to get herself up the stairs...we are less impressed that she crawls (fast!) directly for the dog's food bowl once she gets up the stairs!


Avalon doned her Halloween costume - a pumpkin! - so that she could have some pictures taken. She looks soooo cute in it. I also took John's parents and Avalon to the park in Hermosa Beach to take some photos of the three of them.


Avalon's grandparents flew out of Los Angeles on Thursday night. Luckily there didn't have to be a tearful goodbye since we will see them next week in Sydney! I knowthat they are looking forward to enjoying more time and cuddles with Avalon.


Over the weekend, we went to a pumpkin carving party. John carved an awesome pumpkin!!! Avalon may not have been able to participate this year, but I'm sure that she is going to love it when she is a little older. She even put on her pumpkin costume for a little while...needless to say, she was the cutest pumpkin of the bunch!


Here are some photos from the week:


#1 Avalon with a little mohawk!






#2 Avalon and Grandma Kim



#3 Avalon loving the new toy from her grandparents.

#4 Wearing her Halloween jack-o-lantern shirt...

#5 Grandma is so happy...

#6 Finally a huge smile from my girl!

#7 Photos in the park at Hermosa Beach...

#8 All smiles!

#9 My in-laws!

#10 My little pumpkin..

#11 How cute is this?

#12 She must be wondering why she is dressed like a pumpkin!

#13 I think she's waving at mommy!

#14 Avalon does love having her photograph taken...



#15 I framed the image from the Avalon wine in Napa, California that we got for Avalon's baptism and hung it in her nursery.



#16 Avalon's new car seat has arrived. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Kim! Look at how big it is compared to Avalon's infant car seat... I may have to get a bigger car just to fit this one in!!!!



#17 Close up of the new car seat...a Recaro G2!



#18 Beautiful Bronte...

#19 Ghosts from the pumpkin carving party in Santa Monica.

#20 Some pumpkins before the carving started...

#21 Avalon looking cute in her new sweater!

#22 Drew, Trey, Scott, Todd and John

#23 The boys carving the pumpkins!

#24 The family!

#25 John and the finished product!



#26 Our little pumpkin.

#27 I love these gords.

#28 All of the jack-o-lanterns...

We hope that you are all doing very well. See you in the next installment! :)

All our love,

J, J + A

35 Weeks Old

Hi all,

Another exciting week for us!

John's parents arrived in Los Angeles finally...a much anticipated visit all around, and their first time meeting Avalon. At 8 months, she is certainly different from the tiny baby that she once was, but now she is interactive and more fun!

Avalon and Grandma and Grandpa Kim really enjoyed each other. Avalon took to them right away. After a couple of days in LA, John's parents went to Las Vegas for a couple of days to celebrate the 60th birthday of John's dad. They had a great time.

While they were in Las Vegas, Avalon and I flew back up to Seattle for a few days to spend some additional time with my friend, who is not well. It was an important trip for me, and Avalon did great traveling again. My parents and sister were excited to see Avalon crawling all around!

Back in Los Angeles, we had a birthday dinner for John's dad and invited several of his friends from Anaheim, California. I think that 16 guests turned up! Avalon was a little nervous from all of the people and did a little crying, but everyone else had a great time.

Avalon is saying "ma ma" alot now! She crawls towards me saying "ma ma ma" over and over...it's adorable and she definitely knows how to melt my heart! We are excited to hear her say "da da" soon...I'm sure it's not far off!

Avalon also has new activing on the teething front. She has a third little tooth on the lower jaw, and a teeeeny-tiny one on the upper jaw that is just starting to show itself. She is still having fun tasting lots of fruit and vegetables. She doesn't usually eat too much, but is good at having little tastes.

John, Avalon and I also went to an Oktoberfest celebration in Alpine Village in Torrance with some of our neighbors this week. It was not quite like the real thing (which I've been to twice when I was living in Germany!) but was still fun. I'm not sure that Avalon knew what was going on...but she seemed curious about the oom-pa band.

Here are some photos from the week:

#1 The Kim's finally have arrived in California!

#2 John's dad and Avalon getting to know each other.


#3 Avalon and Grandma Kim!


#4 Avalon crawling over to her fun toys...


#5 John's mom and Avalon playing hide-and-seek.

#6 Happy to finally meet each other...

#7 Visiting Seattle...Grandpa Nagel and Avalon!

#8 Auntie Emily enjoying her neice...

#9 Mr. Kim's 60th birthday cake

#10 About to blow out the candles...

#11 Posing with the Birthday Boy...

#12 Avalon's Grandparents bought her a cool new toy...she lives her Mickey Mouse ride along truck!!


#13 Oktoberfest at Alpine Village...

#14 The Oktoberfest band, straight from Germany...

#15 Avalon and Daddy enjoying the Oktoberfest celebration.

#16 Avalon and her best friend, Bronte!

We hope that you are all doing well. More soon!

All our love,

J, J + A

34 Weeks Old!

Hi All,


Things have been a bit crazy here...so I've been behind on getting the blog updated. Here is Avalon's Week 34 entry...I'll post the Week 35 entry (when John's parents arrived in LA) later today!


Week 34 was a fun week. We started with the Manhattan Beach Diaper Derby - which is a crawling race for babies. Since Avalon has just started CRAWLING (!!) we decided to enter her in the race! It was hillarious...

Here are some pictures from the race:

#1 The sign showing Avalon in Heat 2 of the race...

#2 With Coach Daddy, getting mentally prepared for beating the other babies! :)

#3 Avalon spent most of the race wondering why everyone was cheering! But she finally started moving down her lane towards Mommy.

#4 Go Avalon! Unfortunately, Avalon didn't make the Winners Circle in this race...but Mom and Dad were still proud of her. :)



After the race, we hung out at the Manhattan Beach Hometown Fair with Juan and Stacie and their daughter, Taylor. Avalon and Taylor had some fun playing in the grass together. They were in hot pursuit towards Dad's mobile phone, which was sitting on the ground. Both babies have a cell phone interest already. Guess we spend too much time on our phones, and the babies have noticed!

Some photos of Avalon and Taylor:

#1 Avalon and Taylor in their sun hats.

#2 Taylor really liked Avalon's hat! Taylor took it off and then Avalon lost her balance, and rolled backwards and burst into tears! :)



This week I had a little baby playdate over at our house. Nicky and her baby Lexi, Chelsea and her baby Stone, and Gina and her baby Carter, all came over to play with Avalon and I. Now that 2 of the 4 babies are crawling and the others are doing equally cute things, it was much more interactive and adorable.

#1 Avalon looking cute while hosting her play date...she even had a bow in her hair!

#2 Carter and Avalon after raiding the toy box!

#3 Avalon and her friend, Lexi.

Avalon loves to help Mommy open the mail these days. Eating and ripping paper are big favorite activities.

#1 I decided to give Avalon an envelope hat....she wore it for a while!

Avalon and I went to another Mommy and Me Class this week. Fun times for babies...

#1 Avalon sitting in the rubber ball pool...

#2 Now that Avalon is crawling, she can check out the different toys in the playgroup room. Here's she looking at the slide - she hasn't gone down it yet though.

Avalon and I also went to the baby music class this week.

#1 There was a cold wind blowing, so Avalon debuted her red wool hat from Sydney! (Thanks Samantha and Peter!) She's also wearing her cool Adidas shoes from Auntie Liz!

#2 Avalon holding her mini maracas!

And finally...Bronte LOVES Avalon now that she can crawl! They are always hanging out together...Avalon is a big fan of stealing Bronte's doggie bone toys right out of her mouth!

#1 Bronte and Avalon chillin'.

Hope everyone else had a great week. More soon!

All our love, xo

Johanna, John + Avalon