Pictures from Vass

These are a few pics from Vass and Avery's adventure.  The first thing that she wanted to do was ride her best friend Bucky.  We had been talking about him all week and she had been missing him, so I can only imagine how fast she ran down to the barn.

I am sure this picture is Stephanie squatting down to be the same height as Avery, then Avery mimicking her.

 Brushing her Bucky

 That smile...

 "I am going to brush Bucky with my new pink brush!" - Avery all last week.  Mimi and Papa got her her own brush and cleaning kit for Christmas, but took it away to leave at the barn.  Avery did not forget...

 Up and on

Mimi and Boogie.

 Rocking her cowboy boots.  I couldn't convince her to take her purple cowboy hat because she had to wear the helmet to ride Bucky.  She couldn't get her head around just wearing the hat...

 Good boy.

Trip to Vass

This past Sunday, I took Avery to Mimi and Papa's house for a few days with her best horse, Bucky and so that Avery could get a practice run of being away from us for a few days before we head off to Asia in April.

Avery was helping me pack and get ready to go on Sunday morning and after I came back from the garage, I noticed she had pulled the red bag off the bed and had zipped it up.  She stated that she was ready to go to Mimi and Papa's house and that she would carry the bag.  I thanked her for her help and we headed to the car.  After I returned home, I noticed that the diapers that I had packed were sitting on the floor close to where Avery was zipping up the bag.  So Avery either removed the diapers to make it easier to zip or removed the diapers to add additional toys to the bag as this was the bag with her toys in it.  

Either way.....Thanks and Good Luck Mimi and Papa!

Excited to go see her Bucky!

Avery's Big Day (part 2)

"My favorite color is red, just like my daddy's!" - Avery when being asked questions by a semi-stranger.

So still on Saturday, Avery and I went over to my friend Mike's house.  Mike has 3 kids that the youngest is in kindergarten.  My other friend Robert brought over his kids that have played with Avery before.  For those of you that hang out with Avery, you would be surprised to see her a little bit shy when she is around new people, but she eventually opened up to play with the group of kids, even though she was the youngest and her father is fond of run on sentences in blogs.

She put her baby (Q or Que) in the toy jeep and had a blast pushing it around as the older kids rode scooters.

 Big smiles for playing with other kids.

 Later on after eating cheese pizza at the adult table beside her daddy, she decieded that she wanted to show Lydia how to dance.  This is Avery showing Lydia how to "shake it", a move taught by her school (we think).

 Dance party with Lydia.

 Cuddles on the couch with Daddy after a big day.

Avery's Big Day (part 1)

This past Saturday we dropped mommy off at the airport so that she could go to China and "BRING US BACK CHOCOLATE!"  This means some good Daddy/Daughter times.  After dropping mommy off we went to the airport lookout to watch airplanes take off and see if we could see mommy waving. The lookout was closed and mommy surely wasn't waving as she just now (6pm EST Monday) landed in Shanghai after being dropped off at 8am EST on Saturday after multiple delays.

So instead of watching airplanes, Avery wanted to go see some big buildings where daddy works.  She enjoyed watching the cranes build a near by apartment complex and had a great time walking the streets.  She is still a little nervous around strangers, but since it was so early we had the park to ourselves.

 Big smiles for Big Buildings.

 The park had the bricks laid out in a criss-cross pattern.  Avery decided that was the only way she was going to walk around.  We didn't make it very far.

When we got home, Avery let me workout while she watched cartoons and then helped me wash the car.  She is pretty persistent at it, but not very good.  There were some pretty big streaks on the car.

 Lunch with my bestest buddy.

Avery Says.....

We didn't take any pictures this weekend.  We were just glad Daddy made it home safe with only a slightly delayed flight on Friday afternoon.

Avery has been talking for a while now and she still says something new every day.  It's funny the parts of our conversations she picks up on... you never know when she is listening and will chime in with her opinion.

There's an intersection near our house under construction and every time we go through, Avery screams "Traffic cones!!"  She gets really excited when we go down I-485 for the same reason.  If the traffic light is red, she says "Daddy, it's your favorite color!" and when it turns green... "Mommy, it's your favorite color!!"

Avery often asks for milk and she has various approaches:  

"Mommy bring some milky up here!" yelling from her crib.

"I need some milk to watch Dora.... Now I need a little milk to get in the car."

"I want my favorite thing Mommy.  It comes in a cup and it has a lid and it's white"

"I want my favorite thing to eat.  It's a circle and it has holes."  - referring to Ritz crackers.

Here's one photo of our cutie - nightly routine: milk and cartoons before bed.

Another Day in Wonderland

We had another snow day today.  Yesterday's layer turned hard and new snow fell on top.  By the time Avery was ready to go out, the temperature was above freezing and things were getting slushy.  We walked down to the mailbox and saw a few people driving around.  Avery was careful to avoid the water spots and of course the yellow snow.
Again, she was pretty excited about her footprints following her.

We sure do miss Daddy.  Shoveling the driveway was a lost cause.

You Know It!

I think everyone knows what we did today.... snow day!  Well first we snuggled in bed and watched cartoons for a bit.  Robert is in sunny Florida for a work thing so unfortunately he's missing out on the snow of the century.  Our backyard got about 4 inches of the fluffy white stuff.  So we layered up and headed out.  Charger only stayed out long enough to do some snow coloring and headed back inside.

We tried redneck sledding in the laundry basket, but she was done after the first spill, which didn't take long.  She kept walking around saying "this is really deep" and "look at my footprints, they are following me." -- see photo below :)

The snow was good for throwing in the air and making snow angels, not so good for snow castles.

Bestest Cousins

My family came to visit this past weekend so that my Mom could see her two granddaughters.  My sister brought "Baby Anna" even though she is less and less of a baby.

She helped Avery build a lego airplane by taste-testing each of the pieces before handing them to Avery.  Needless to say, Avery did not like this.

 A stinker of a smile.

 Anna did enjoy watching Charger.  Apparently Charger will get a little bit closer than her doggies, so anytime he would come around Anna would start chasing after him.  And if you don't know Charger, he likes to smell your eyes to say hello.  Anna thought this was the funniest thing in the world.

 Anna also enjoyed the large amount of books that Avery has.  Oh....and she is wearing a purple cowboy hat.

After lunch, the girls went on a wagon ride through the neighborhood.

 For some reason Anna was staring right at me the entire time as if she didn't trust me.

 When it was time to go, I gave Anna a hug and asked Avery if she wanted to hold Anna.  Surprisingly she got all excited and said yes.  This is her taking care of her favorite little cousin.

Sleep Stories

These pictures are a collection of screen grabs from the camera we have in her bedroom to keep an eye on her when she is sleeping.  I tried to pick a few of the funnier ones.

I think she has a problem with the softness of her mattress as she has been building a pile of blankets and pillows to sleep on every night even if it means hanging her feet outside of her crib.

Sleeping sitting up on her pile of stuff.

The result when she falls off her pile of pillows, blankets, and stuffed animals.

 A request to put 4 blankets on top of her to sleep...

  I think it might be time for a softer mattress...

 

 She's in there somewhere...

 

 The next three pictures I think were from a naptime where she asked to put on pajamas for her nap.

First she got them off...

 She is laying them out to try to get back into them...

 Unzipping them to try to squeeze back into them...

Is it Spring yet?!

The weather was so nice on Sunday.  Forget spring, it almost felt like summer!  We opened our windows and spent some time in the backyard.  Well, Avery, Charger and I went outside - Rob was stuck in the kitchen preparing our Super Bowl feast.
The sunshine gave our kids some energy, they barked/yelled at the birds,other dogs, and cars.  Rob could hear Avery yelling from inside "Mommy, Charger is barking!  He won't be quiet!"
We all 3 went to the grocery store on Saturday after Avery's nap.  Avery wanted to jump / gallop / go fast down the aisles.  She likes to call out what number aisle we are on and let Daddy (who is on the next aisle over) know we found the corn meal!  A lady we had passed a few times told me "she certainly has a big personality" - I took no offense and no care if that comment had a hidden meaning or not.