Before the lake

Before we headed out to the lake/canoefest we took a couple pictures of Avery in the backyard carrying around her blankie.  She is starting to become more and more attached to items.  Most of the times it is books that we have to read 10 times in a row, but we had her blankie out for her to sleep with in the car ride up to Greensboro and as soon as she saw it, she had to have it.

Weekend At The Lake

So this past weekend, while Laura and I went on our annual canoeing trip with college friends, Avery got to spend a long weekend being spoiled by her grandparents up at the lake.  She had a great time in the swing, swimming in the lake, and being read all kinds of new books.  My parents taught her some new colors and she is learning how to flip the pages in the book to find the color that we ask her for.

Playing on the beach with Granddaddy and Charger, although she didn't like the sand.  Apparently her bucket had to be washed out clean of dirt before she would play with it.  

 Avery has her own chair to sit in the water and splash in.

 Granddaddy found this awesome slide for Avery to slide down...(with Gigi's help)

 Avery even go to go on a boat ride.  Supposedly she just soaked it all in.

 New books!!

 Thanks Granddaddy for holding me up so I can splash all the water out of the lake.

Pool

So after a trip to Greenville and a trip to Moorseville, we decided that Avery had not had quite enough stimulation for the weekend so we decided to take a quick trip down to the pool to burn off a little more steam.  We were excited to see how she would react since last summer.

She seemed ok in her pool floatie, but she was desperately reaching for the water.  She was kicking her feet hard and was trying to crawl out of the float.

Once we got her out of the float, she proceeded to try and splash all of the water out of the pool.

She did not stop splashing until we pulled her out of the pool.  She was kicking with her hands and feet so it made it pretty difficult to hold on to her while all this was going on.  Time to go shopping for a float that allows for splashing and keeps her above water.

Mess o Kids

After leaving greenville, we headed to Mooresville to hang out with BP and family.  All of the old Trinity Village crew brought their kids to hang out.

Someone (Laura) thought it would be a good idea to put all of the kids on a couch and take a picture.  Amazingly there was a picture that had 3 of them smiling.  From left to right; Morgan and Macey (Matt's), Hudson (BP), Avery, and Eamon (BP).

Ash hanging out with Macey Ann aka Missy Jr.

 Avery taking full advantage of the 1000 different toys that BP's mom had spread out for the kids.

 Avery flashing her smile.  She did actually cry at some point during the afternoon which made Matt happy to see that she does not smile 100% of the time.

Greenvilletown

This past weekend we went to Greenville, SC to hang out with Mary, Jimmy, and Easton.  I got to play in a charity bocce ball tournament with Jimmy while Laura and Mary talked about babies.  You might ask, "why are there no pictures of you playing bocce ball?" Good question.  It is hard to both play bocce ball and take pictures so I depended on Laura to take pictures.  Unfortunately we lost so quickly that the girls did not make it out in time to see us play.  However, we did have a fun day hanging out at a park with lots of people.  Of course Avery did her best to meet and smile at every person in attendance.  She also got to play on a big kids playground and run around in a field.

You saw the excitement in her eyes looking down the slide, but she didn't want to go down by herself.  Mommy was more than happy to go with her.

 Avery had a blast going down the slides.  She was not too happy when she got down to the bottom though because she couldn't walk up to the top to go again.

  Hanging out with her friend Easton.

 Not pictured....a big fluffy dog behind the camera.

 I was not present in this bath time, but I assume everyone was wearing swim trunks below the waist.

Weekend

Lots of pictures and stories to post, but I have to go to work.  Here is a preview of the happiness.

Reading Books

Over the past couple of month's Avery's favorite toy has changed from the various noise makers that you guys have purchased to torture us with to books.  Thankfully our friends and family have also graced us with a  huge pile of books for Avery to enjoy.  

Avery definitely has her favorite books that she likes us to read to her, but will patiently sit and work through an entire stack of books flipping the pages and studying them.  The funniest is when she reads them out loud. Sometimes it is grunting, sometimes baby talk, sometimes making animal noises.

The teacher says when it is time to read books, Avery is the one that picks the books for the teacher to read.  One day I saw the teacher pick up "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and Avery went bananas.  In this picture the teacher is reading a book that Avery brought from home, because that is how we keep her occupied in the car....with books.  Avery refused to leave it in the car so she made it show and tell day.

 This was taken this morning.  Avery goes over to the corner where the books are and is pulling them out flipping through the pages.  Laura says that is what she is doing about half the time when she gets picked up from school.

Pool Day

This weekend for Mother's day we decided to take a trip down to the pool to relax and let Avery get some pool practice in before we sent her to the lake for Memorial Day weekend.  Unfortunately someone forgot to turn the heater on in our pool, so the water was freezing cold.  Also someone forgot to purchase and install a heater in our community pool.  So we packed up all the stuff and hauled our butts back to the house to hang out in the backyard instead after taking a few pictures.

Avery showing off her new bathing suit from Lindsey.

 Showing off her chunky legs.

Day Care

Some of you know that our day care has a camera in it that we can check in on Avery during the day.  It makes her mother feel better about leaving her and often provides us with a good laugh.  I have a bunch of pictures that I have downloaded.

So in this series of pictures, I have tried to capture the times when avery pulls all of the toys out of the box and climbs in it like a canoe.  You will notice she has multiple outfits on, so this happened over the course of a couple weeks.  She has since moved on, but we had a few laughs around it.  The teacher would pull her out the first few times she did it, but Avery would end up crawling right back into it.

 She even taught a friend how to get in there.

Avery's view of Graduation

I know what you are thinking..."There is no way a 13 month old is going to sit still for 2 hours during a graduation that takes place during her nap time."  You would be right.  Luckily it was the good Avery that couldn't sit still and not the screaming, I want to take a nap Avery that showed up.  

After a looooong drive on Friday night, we got to the auditorium right when Avery is supposed to have lunch.  So while we waited for the party to start, we fed Avery a stream of junk food to keep her occupied. However, once the show started, it was much easier.  Everytime the crowd would clap, Avery would clap and smile.  There were plenty of people around her to smile at and make noises to.  All in all, it worked out about a 1000% better than we expected.

Waving her bag of goldfish around over her head like a helicopter.

Running around after the ceremony while Stephanie was taking pictures

 Showing mommy where we should walk to with her chunk legs.

 Thinking about going swimming..

 Showing off her walking.

The Marshall family's feelings on ECU...

Congrats to Aunt Stephanie

This past weekend we drove to Greenville, NC to watch Aunt Stephanie graduate from college as a nurse.  She didn't do it the easy way by going to 3 different schools and choosing to have ECU as her alma matter, but she knows how to use a needle so I won't say anything else bad about ECU.  In this post.  

 Shaking someone's hand.

 Congrats to Stephanie!!

 Avery doing her pirate hook impression for Aunt Stephanie...

  Proud Family.

 Proud Mother.

Proud Grandmother.

 Proud Dad.

And of course Harpo!

Tunnel Time

What time is it?  Tunnel Time!

So Stephanie got Avery this dog training tunnel for her birthday.  We got it out for her last weekend and she has had a blast with it.  She crawls inside and starts going crazy happy inside of it.  She loves pretending to hide in it and popping her head out with a big smile as if to say "Here I am!"

I am in a Tunnel!

 Doesn't look like a happy face, but this is her go crazy face.

Walking Outside

Outside Pics

This is the followup to yesterday's modeling session.  Just in case you though Avery was all business and didn't know how to smile.

Working on my golf swing...

I think she looks much older in these pictures...maybe it is because she is standing.  Older kids tend to stand more then they crawl.  Just an observation...

 Could this baby be any happier?

 Look who knows how to walk!!!