Other Toddler Stories

"I see the star mommy! It is in outer space. We need a rocket ship to get there.  I will turn daddy's car into a rocket ship with my magic wand." - Avery on the way home from Grandma's Party

On the ride up there the sunshade kept on falling off of the window...

"The sun is looking at me right in my eyes!"

So Avery decided that the best way to deal with it other than sunglasses and the heavy tinting in my car was to hold up the sunshade in front of her face while we rode.  She said it was much better.

Happy Birthday Grandma Marshall!

"I had fun.  I love my family" - Avery after the party

As you may have read on Sara's blog, we went to my Uncle's house to celebrate my Grandmother's 85th birthday.  There was food, cake, and lots of family.  Our family doesn't do a lot of things together outside of Christmas so it was nice to see everyone in the same place.

All of the grandkids and great-grandkids.

Avery cuddling with her favorite GiGi.

 She had a lot of fun running around with Uncle David.  She even said "I love you" when we left.

 Taking Uncle David for a spin in the yard.

 Taking Gigi for a nice jog.

She also got to spend some time playing with baby Anna.  She did a good job helping Anna reach for toys, telling her stories, and talking to her.  In previous encounters she has kept her distance, but now that Anna is moving around a little bit, Avery seems more open to playing.

Brrrrr... #tbt

It's just too cold outside today.  I miss the days of summer so I thought I would throw it back to Avery's first summer.  It's Throw Back Thursday (grandparents, that's what #tbt means).

Doesn't this warm you up?

It's Hump Day!

Avery loves hump day.  She caught on to the saying from one of her teachers and cracks herself up when she yells it out.
I asked her what she did in school yesterday and she "played with her Lillybear and Abbybear" aka her 2 best friends in class.  She plays with Chargerbear at home and can get us to do anything by calling for her Mommybear and Daddybear :)  Smart girl.

Here are some pics from the week so far.  Daddy is working in Dallas, Texas so it's just us girls and of course our fearless Charger.

Zoo Trip

I asked Avery if she had a backpack like Dora.  She said, "No, but you can buy me one. I like purple backpacks, daddy."  

On Saturday we went to Laura's company family outing.  Since Laura helped plan it, she picked something that Avery would enjoy and picked a weekend we didn't have a football game.  Win-Win.  We went to Lazy 5 ranch in Moorseville for a wagon ride and lunch.  Basically this place is a huge piece of land with 1000's of animals roaming around.  There were Llamas, Emu's, Ostriches, all kinds of goats, deer, and cattle.  When we pulled up we saw Llamas in a field and Avery nearly jumped out of her car seat in excitement.  It was pretty hard to keep a hold on her the rest of the time as she wanted to see "MORE ANIMALS!!".

This is the first part of the wagon ride through the animal area.  We didn't get a lot of good pictures of Avery's face as we were packed in pretty tight on the wagon and everyone was laughing as she identified all the animals.

 As you can see, the animals come right up to the wagon.  Avery fed a few small ones out of her hands to begin with, but got a little shy as the bigger animals came up to eat.

 We also got to get really close to some giraffes.

 Avery decided that she would hold the food and daddy would feed the animals.

 A really big cow with really big horns that is really close.

 These particular deer are from India.  She heard the tour guide say that and made everyone around her say "India."  When we showed her this picture this morning and asked where these deer were from, she said "India, say India mommy."

 Looking at the big Macaw.

 Feeding a donkey.

 "I want to go back to the animals!!!"

School Days

This morning I was taking Avery to school and she saw the garbage truck.  She does not love the garbage truck like her daddy did when he was little.  She told me it was loud like a dragon and we should go inside so it can't get us.

She really enjoys her classroom (the cherry trees) - they sing songs, dance, do puzzles, some trigonometry, and there's always room for Avery's favorite thing... reading.  She was sharing the chair with her friend Abby, but before I could get my phone out, Abby jumped up and a little boy slid in the open spot.  It didn't phase Avery, she prefers books over boys :)

Happy Birthday Gigi!

Happy Birthday to Gigi!  Our first meeting was rough, but we are best buddies now!

The Zoo

"There are two people missing at this table.  Sara and Mark!" - while sitting at my parent's table.

"Charger is soft like a bunny!" - Avery, fresh from the petting zoo.

This past weekend Avery went to the Greensboro Natural Science Museum with Gigi and Ru while mommy and daddy went to a football game.  

She enjoyed the stingrays and told us multiple times that you can only touch them with 2 fingers.

 Looking at the penguins with Ru.

 Apparently she spent a great deal of time watching the fish.

 The sharks were her favorites.

 Watching the meerkats.

More Talkin'

Avery has been eating lots of "Dora yogurt" lately - it's just strawberry yogurt with Dora the Explorer and her sidekick monkey named Boots on the container.  Good move by Yoplait.  She finished the last cup last night.
When I picked her up today from school, we were walking to the car:  "Mommy are we going to the store?  I want to go, we need to buy some yogurt."

As we are coming downstairs, Avery sees Charger:  "That's my charger bear, he's not a gummy bear, he's a charger bear."

As I'm putting Avery to bed:  "Mommy I need a fire truck to warn all the people and water the flowers.  The cars need to get out of the way."  I had her repeat that one just to make sure I heard right.

Sometimes we have a tea party after bath time.  So far, Avery has served me a pita wrap, peas, and cupcakes.  She told me she got the cupcakes at Target.  Of course she did, she knows it's the best store ever :)

Randoms Part 2

"I don't want pancakes, I just want bacon!" - Avery

A few more randoms:

A trip to a Monkey Joe's knock off.  It was more for bigger kids so Laura had to help Avery on and off all the toys.

 So we went to the park instead.  Tips had a good time on the slide.

 Playing with her buddy...

 Tablet time with daddy.  We play memory games together and squish ants.

 Another hair cut!

Happy Birthday Laura!!!!

Happy Birthday to the best mother and wife that we could ever want!  We love you so much!  

Mr. Mom

"Daddy look at the door going up.  We need a ladder to get to it.  You get on your ladder and mommy can get on her ladder (stepstool).  I will get on my big girl ladder."  Me: "Where is your ladder at?" Avery: "At Easton's house...."

So Laura has been in Colorado the past few days counting paint or whatever she does.  Tuesday was School Spirit day at Chick-Fil-A so most of the teachers were encouraging the kids to ask their parents to go to Chick-Fil-A.  I asked Avery if she wanted to go and she was very excited about it.  She was a bit scared of the cow in the costume, but we had a pretty good dinner of chicken nuggets (that I ate), fruit, and milk with a straw instead of a baby cup.

The one nibble of a chicken nugget.

Later on riding her truck to go get the mail.  Not seen later: Me walking the dog, carrying the mail, carrying the tractor, and pushing Avery to walk back to the house for a bath.

Randoms

Found a bunch of good pics on Laura's phone from the past few weeks that we haven't used so here they are.

Being cute in the backyard.

 We went to the mall one day and she wanted to ride a couple of the toys.  They were kind of lame from what I remember as a kid, but we had to drag her kicking and crying from them.

 The helicopter was both of our favorites.

 Playing golf in the back yard.  Notice her backwards hand grip.  We will keep working on it.

 She also got to do to the dentist.  She was pretty calm and ok with it all.  She DID NOT want to go back to school after it though...

Weekend Fun

I won't include any funny Avery quotes in this update, but only because we recorded possibly the greatest video in history.

We set off this weekend headed to Vass so that Mimi and Papa could watch Avery while we went to the football game.  She was pretty excited about seeing her Bucky and wanted to wear her helmet on the car ride.  It didn't end up lasting very long because she couldn't get the buckle snapped.

Feeding her bucky.  

Playing on the trampoline.

 Being the happiest person in the whole wide world.

 When we got home on Sunday it was clearly a day that we play golf inside wearing a tutu and calling herself a princess.