my girls

My 2 girls are soon to be 3! Most of you already know, but Char and I are expecting a baby girl in January. We are so excited! We have done quite a bit of work to get ready, especially with the nursery. We gutted our 3rd floor guest suite and transformed it into the nursery. All of the new furniture that was in there was moved to Avery's room, where we added a few new pieces and completed a full room make over while she was at her mom's. We donated all of her bedroom furniture to the Salvation Army. Anyhow, she was pretty damn excited when she came over to a brand new room.

In the nursery- since the room is so big we left a queen bed, added a chair rail, crown molding, new curtains, a crib, a changing table, and knocked out quite a bit of painting. We still have more wall decorations to add as well as the black leather rocker/recliner that is on order. We also had the flat screen TV mounted to the wall so it can be seen from the recliner and the bed. This room is plush!

So back to my ladies- Char is going in to her 27th week of pregnancy and so far everything has gone quite well. I have been to most of the major doctor's appointments up to this point, so it has been nice to be a big part of the whole experience. We have quite a few child birth classes on the slate in the next 2 months. We are also (I think...) close to picking our baby's name- maybe we can knock that off the list this week... Char has continued to workout (running & swimming) but just recently cut out riding. She plans to get back to serious workout stuff as soon as possible and I think she even has an XTERRRA offroad triathlon planned for the spring. I am eager for us to get back to training and racing in 2012 like the old days. At any rate, here is a shot of her and her bump at 23-1/2 weeks:

Miss Avery started middle school this year and so far so good. She had straight A's on her first progress report so hopefully that will set the tone from here out. She was extremely fortunate to get into one of the top 2 middle schools in Jacksonville, James Weldon Johnson College Preparatory Middle School. JWJ is a magnet school and has a heavy concentration on the gifted program, which Avery tested into coming out of kindergarten. The good thing about JWJ is that it feeds into 2 of the top high schools in the country, Stanton and Paxon. Aside from the academics, Avery has gotten somewhat serious about soccer. I posted earlier about the Academy soccer she has going on. She still plans to train and compete in triathlons considering it comes so natural to her. And aside from sports, Avery is just one cool kid. I absolutely love the time I spend with her and our daily interactions. She is growing into one amazing young lady!

One of my favorite soccer shots: