Pool

Any time we have a few hours at home, Avery's favorite thing to do is go to the pool!  We load up the wagon and head to our spot on the shady side of the pool.  She knows sunscreen comes first and always claims it's dry about 3 seconds after it's applied.  She puts on the life jacket and starts "swimming" from one end to the other.  After a few laps, she easily convinces her daddy to join in the water play.  I really don't want summer to end... I sense a meltdown when the pool closes for the year.

Lakefest w/kids

In prior years, we used to have our college friends over to my parent's lake house once a year for a weekend of fun, but had to stop this tradition when we moved to Charlotte because of the great distance to travel and that all of our friends were having little ones.  This year we tried to get a few together so the kids could play together.  The adults still get together at football games and on our canoe trip, but it was fun to see all our little kids "playing" together.

Each of the kids had their favorite cartoons that they liked to watch, but Peppa on the ipad with the Sawyers was a hit with Avery.

 Cheers with their little apple juice bottles.

 The Jessup family.  This may have been the only time Austin wasn't holding his ball.

 Avery has started to enjoy the jetski more and more.  Now she wants to go fast over the bumps.  I am more than happy to oblige.

 Austin with his ball.

 The "fun" thing about having 5 kids in the same spot at the same time, is that one of them is always unhappy about what is going on.  Avery took more than her fair share of turns at being the unhappy one.  This face is a great summary of how that afternoon went.

 Ava is looking at Avery like "What's your problem?"

 Austin and his yellow ball.

 The Sawyer family.

 The best picture of the rugrats all together.  Ava, Austin, Morgan, Macey, and Avery

Art

Posted in Avery's classroom.  This is going in the memory box :)

Throwback Thursday - at the lake

This past weekend we invited some friends to the lake.  There were 5 kids total, from age 1 to 4.  It was crazy and fun!
Here's a throwback to some of Avery's early trips to the lake.  She loves it there!

More and More Kids Say

A couple more Kid Say Posters.

The teacher said that Avery wanted to put cookies as healthy food as well.  Basically because her diet consists of cheese, straweberries, milk, and fig newtons.

 I think they came up with this short story when it was Robot week.  I am glad that Avery knows what a screwdriver does.  I can just imagine all the kids shouting over each other as they came up with this.  God bless those teachers.

And a picture of our princess.

Preschool Mad Libs

Avery's class made up a story about a trip to the farm.  She thought it was funny.

Fireworks

Since we live a mile from the south carolina border, I crossed across and got some fireworks for the kids (including myself) to play with at the family reunion.

All of the kids (including the big ones) enjoyed the sparklers.

 I love the way that the sparkler lights up her face in this picture.

I also bought a few boxes of fireworks that shoot rockets up into the air.

 Avery was pretty excited about them.  I don't know how Laura feels about them based on the face that she is making.

Gibson Family Reunion

July 4th weekend we made the drive to White Lake for Laura's family reunion.  

Avery with her Mimi and Papa.  Avery has her Tips and Bibi in the picture because about 15 minutes before this, she was stung by a wasp right between the eyes.  After a few tears and a lot of swelling, the magical powers of her Bibi were able to get her calmed down.  

She is a tough little cookie.  That's a pretty good smile for not feeling so well.  We gave her some benadryll, but her face did swell up a bit.

Avery and Harper.  These two were side by side all weekend long.  They are just a couple weeks difference in age, but I don't think could be any different in personality.  Avery is a chicken, while Harper is a daredevil.  I guess having an older sister gives you a bit more confidence.

 "SAY CHEESE HARPER!"

Laura and her cousins.  If you look in the background, you can see Harper running at a full sprint.  She would be playing with something or Avery, then all of a sudden go into a full sprint in the opposite direction.  Her parents are going to be in great shape if she keeps this up.

Time to go to the Lake.

Swimming with her daddy.

 Sitting in her chair as calm as can be, eating her snacks.

 On the ride home.  I think you can see how much her face swelled up between her eyes from the bug bite.  Poor little thing.

July 4th

The Gibson family reunion was last weekend, but before we left we decided to hit the pool.  Since Laura gets off early before long holiday weekends, we decided to invite over Avery's "sissy" Lily to come and swim with us.  Those two are absolute nuts around each other and when you throw in Lily's older sister egging them on, it is complete madness.  After the pool, we went back to the house and ordered some pizza while the girls pretended to have a sleep over.  These were unfortunately the only pictures we took as the kids were bouncing off the walls, but I think you can tell how much fun they are having.

Before we headed to White lake, we had to get up and make some dirt cake.  Avery was pretty excited to help having gotten up at 5am that morning and had been watching cartoons while we got to sleep until 6:30.

 Intense focus.

 Smashing up the oreos to put on top.

Sleeping on the Blog

We are still here.  We have had pictures spread across multiple cameras for the last couple weeks and will have a few good posts in the next couple days.  In the mean time enjoy this picture of our sleeping princess.

It's my Daddy's Birthday!

Saturday was Robert's birthday and he decided to start the celebration early by splitting some logs.  We had a dead pine tree removed from the backyard and kept the wood for our awesome new fire pit (almost complete..just after Rob's b-day... great timing).

So while he woke up the neighbors, Avery and I made a trip to Publix.  We HAD to get Daddy a chocolate cake and party balloons.  She was sooo excited when she saw the little carts.  "Look Mom, I can reach the handle!!"  (She usually gets bored from riding in the cart and wants to help me push, but has to walk on her tippy toes to reach the handle).

It was good that the store wasn't busy because she was steering all over the place, full of excitement and eager to have me put things in the cart.  When someone would smile at her, she would quickly tell them it was her daddy's birthday today and she was getting him a cake and balloons.  Just precious :)
Side note:  Lately, she likes to clarify for people, that Daddy is her Mommy's husband.

This pic was snapped on our way to the potty.  Girl is on a mission.  I think I may have to go to Publix from now on, it's just too cute.