Fall Fun!

Avery is getting so big! Right now her favorite thing is playing with baby dolls....her mother's day out teacher told me today though that she would not play with the boy baby doll. Oh well. She is as busy as ever. I think she says "lily" 500 times a day....because she loves our dog so much. She has gotten used to Mother's Day out. Apparently for about the first month and a half she didnt really speak...which is totally unlike Avery who is a motor mouth. It kind of worried me at first, but one day I sent her without her passy and apparently the real Avery came out! I picked her up that day and her teacher...Mrs. Wanda said she talked a mile a minute. She has even named her stuffed lamb "wanda" after her teacher which is kind of funny. When I take her to Adventure Kids they told me she loves to help the teachers take care of the little babies. Probably because she loves her cousin "E uh" so much. That is what she calls Olivia. Avery is just always happy, which makes me happy. She has started shaking her head yes more often, but her "no's" are becoming a little more emphatic.

Avery has also picked up on the fact that my real name is Jenny. She still calls me Mama but if you ask her my real name she says "Jenny"...pretty cute but definitely don't want to reinforce that.

Halloween was lots of fun. We were in Chicago and Avery loved "roaring" like a lion. I didn't really think she would know what to do trick or treating. But we went to one house and it was on! She loved it. She would just march on to the next house and look through the candy and pick one and put it in her pumpkin sack. It was pretty funny. We let her eat some of her candy and as you can see below she couldn't decide which flavor sucker she liked so she ate both of them at the same time!

Fall has arrived!

Also...

The other pictures of Avery at school are when she went to meet her Mother's Day out Teacher for the first time. Her first day is Tuesday and she met Mrs. Wanda on Friday. She just jumped in and started playing with all the toys...I am pretty sure she will love it!

Summer Fun!

Well...I guess summer is officially over...so sad! We had the best summer! Lots of playing and lots of fun. We took Avery to Colorado where Nathan and I love to go in the summer...and where we got engaged. She put her toes in the extremely cold water and thought it was fun...until the really cold water got way too cold...she had a great time playing all over Colorado and with the triplets. We ate at Beano's cabin (the triplets' favorite place) and she sat in the rocking chairs like one of the big girls. She played all over the pirate ship and loved running in the fountains. It was very special for Nathan and I to take her to Vail since it is a special place for us.

Avery and I also discovered the Walnut Hill Rec Center and the Dallas Gymnastics team practices there. Every Wed. they open the gym to 0-3 year olds to come play with all the balls and jump on the trampoline and walk the balance beams and just play on the mats. Avery is obsessed with all the balls. She always has to have a ball in her hand. She had to take a "timeout" break...when she wouldn't share her ball with another little girl and got in a tug of war over the ball. The balls are coveted! Its a crazy place on Wednesdays but she loves it. She gets to run all over and just have fun! And its indoors too...which is great since it has been 107 here. She has been knocked down a few times and is still kicking!

Avery absolutely loves animals! In the last two weeks she has learned sooo many of the animal sounds. She knows what a dog and cat say....she knows what a lion and bear say and tonight she just learned what a sheep says because Mom and I took her to the zoo today and she finally learned that a sheep says "Baaaaa". Today at the zoo she rode a pony all by herself...we had no idea how that would go...but she LOVED it and tried to "pat pat pat" the pony. We also had a wonderful experience with the lions. We couldn't find the lions and someone told us to go into the restaurant and you could see them from the glass window in the restaurant. Boy could you see them! All 5 or 6 of them were pressed up against the glass...I guess they could feeling the AC from the restaurant....Avery was sooo excited! She just kept saying "roar roar roar roar" over and over again. She was literally face to face with them. Mom and I asked her several times if she was ready to leave and she said "no" and shook her head no. She absolutely had a fit and cried when we put her in the car to leave. Apparently, we will be going back to the zoo again! The Dallas Zoo was not nearly as bad as people have made it out to be. Avery loved it and that is all that matters.

Is is so much fun with Avery right now. She is such a sponge and mimmicks all the words we say...which is ok most of the time! ha ha....The other day I told her we needed to change her "poop" diaper and she went around the house saying Poop for 30 minutes. She didnt know what she was saying but it was pretty funny! She has learned so much in the last two weeks it is amazing. The triplets started school and havent been here for two weeks and tonight when avery made all of her animal sounds on the phone for them they were in shock!

We love you Avery...our little Butterfly

p.s. I just realized several of these pics are duplicates from prior posts but I could not delete without deleting all the pics...so I just left them!

4th of July!

Avery had a fun fourth of July celebration in Chicago with her cousin Olivia...We stayed a week which was nice to get away and just relax. Olivia is growing so fast and so alert and Avery is just so in love with the "bay bee". She love to pay the baby and play with her. Olivia probably gets a little scared but Avery loves her. We had a great trip to the Brookfield Zoo was wonderful! It was Avery's first trip to a zoo and she LOVED it! Olivia, Daddy, Nick, Anna and Kay Kay went with us. It was hot and we were worried about Olivia and Avery getting overheated so we just saw the elephants, the rhinos, a few monkeys, the giraffes and some really smelly sea life - penguins. She really got to get up close to some and she loved it! At the end we let her ride the carousel and she "ohhhhhhhhhed" the whole time around. It was really cute. Again...my little thrill seeker! Uncle Nick bought her a panda bear to remember her first trip to the zoo and she loved it! She wouldnt let it go....she picked it out among all the animals in the store. we even gave her more options and she went back to the Panda! Thanks, Uncle Nick! Unfortunately, Avery came down with the same stomach bug Daveo and Kay Kay had. She got a little sick about an hour before the fireworks show at the Golf Club...we thought she was okay to go...but as soon as we got there she starting throwing up again. Poor baby didnt know what was happening! Nathan and I took her home and she missed her first fireworks show! I was so sad for her....She got to have pedialyte popsicle...which she loved and we all had to fight about who was going to take it away from her because we knew we would be the bad person! What a great trip! She learned so much about the animals and enjoyed family!

Happy Birthday Avery!

Happy First Birthday Avery! It is so hard to believe she is one! We had such a fun butterfly birthday party for her...and she loved her cake...she probably would have eaten the whole thing if we let her. She had many people who love her come visit her including her very special cousin Baby Olivia. She was very into opening the presents and "oohhhing" about them. It was pretty funny. She started walking right before her birthday at about 11.5 months and then there was no looking back. She has learned the words Duck and Dog and everything is a "Dog" to her. The triplets bought her a gold fish for her birthday and she immediately learned the word fish. We bought her a kitchen for her birthday and I thought she might not know what to do with it....boy was I wrong. She grills, and washes hot dogs and opens the fridge. It is pretty histerical! We love you Avery! What a wonderful first year we have had with you and we look forward to many more....

New Pictures

Our makeshift highchair at Anna's! She loved it! Turkey and cheese are some of her favs.

Avery thought it was soooo much fun to lie in the dog bed at Anna's house. Belle and Wrigley were not too amused.

Swinging at the park in Hinsdale!

Trying to see Olivia in the bouncy chair which was inside the pack n play so the dogs would not bother her! Avery is ready for Olivia to play!

On our way back to see Olivia...the plane wasn't full so Avery sat in the seat by herself the whole way and surprisingly sat there the whole time....Such a big girl

Cousin Olivia is here

Olivia is here....weighing in at 7 pounds 6 ounces and 21.5 inches long. She is healthy and so is Anna! All is well....She is just precious!!! Avery - you have a new best friend for life!