We are Thankful

This past Friday at school, Avery and her class got a chance to help some children who don't get a big Thanksgiving meal.  A team from Servants With a Heart came to the school and let the children help pack bags of food.  They made meals from rice and dehydrated vegetables that when boiled, will provide six servings of food to a family.

Luckily, they were doing this when I went to pick Avery up, so I got some quick pics with my phone.  Everyone in the room (including me) had to wear a hairnet.  Avery's job was to weigh the bags and add a bit more or remove a bit to get it on target.  Then she handed the bag to Lily to be sealed up.

It was nice for them to learn about and get a real chance to help other children around the world.  It's never too early to learn about giving back and realize how lucky we are this Thanksgiving.

Dirt or Daisies?

This past weekend we had some family and a couple friends to help us find out if we were going to have a sister or brother for Avery.  When we had Avery, we found out at the doctor's office and it was a bit impersonal; so for this baby we wanted to share the moment with our family and not find out in a dark ultrasound room.  The way we were going to reveal the sex of the baby was to cut into a cake that was dyed pink or blue based on the results of the ultrasound.  We didn't know what was inside because we had the nurse write in an envelope and Laura took it directly to the baker without peeking.  

Sara made us this poster of old wive's tales and what they predicted we would have that was split down the middle.  Based on voting from the audience, there was about a 60/40 split toward boy.  Avery was hoping for an older sister, so she was only going to be half right at best.  

To say that Laura was a bit nervous would be an understatement.  Avery was pretty excited as well, but maybe just that we were having cake.

Laura's reaction is pretty awesome.  I think it is pretty clear that Laura didn't know what she was having.

I love how excited Laura is and how curious Avery was at what it would be.

ITS A BOY!!!!

Air Show

This post is completely out of order, but I found pictures on the camera from where we took Avery to the Monroe airshow.  We had done this the last couple of years, because she loves watching the airplanes and you get to be pretty near them.

There is a lady on top of this plane.  In the air.  

Pretending to be an airplane.

 Little girl, big airplane.

 Pretending to be an airplane under the big airplane.

More Bucky

Since we did the last football weekend from Vass, Avery got to spend some time with her other best friend, Bucky!!!

She loves cleaning and taking care of Bucky probably more than riding him.

 After Mimi puts on the saddle it is time to hop on from the mounting block.

 A happy girl and her horse.

 Big smiles.

 A happy toddler.

Google put together this panoramic picture from a sequence of shots and edited Mimi out of them so it looks like Avery is riding the horse by her self.

More Football!!! GO WOLFPACK!!!

We may have missed a weekend blog from last week, but I think this one will make up for the absence.  We took some friends to the game last week and told Avery that she could come to the football game this week.  The temps were going to be pretty low and the tailgating was going to interrupt nap time, but we thought her love for NC State football would overcome the obstacles and would have felt bad if we denied her her favorite thing in the world.  

We got her bundled up before the game including this awesome 80's hat from Mimi and Papa.  On the way up to the game we stopped twice; once to get ice and once to get some caffeine.  When I stopped the second time she told Laura, "If we keep stopping, we will never make it to the game!"  When I got back in the car, she said "Daddy, no more stops until we get to the football game!!"

The favorite part of tailgating for Avery is meeting Mr. and Mrs. Wuf and watching the band play before the game.

Giving Mrs. Wuf a hug.  She didn't really want to hug Mr. Wuf.

She struggled to do the wolf sign with her mittens on, but tried her best.

Waiting on the band to start playing.  She kept on asking, "Why are they playing" and "Why won't they play the NC State song?"  At one point she yelled out "GO WOLFPACK!!" and pretty much all of the girl members of the band in unison went "awwww."

Once the band got going, there was a very happy toddler taking it all in.  She said she would play the drums when she was in the band, but preferred to be a cheerleader.

 On daddy's shoulders going in to the game.  As we were walking to the game, she was pulling on Laura's hand and trying to run to the stadium.  I stopped at a porta-jon and Avery was willing to leave me there.  I told her I had the tickets, and she said "DADDY!!! Give us (her and Laura) our tickets, it's time to go to the game!"

At halftime after the band played, she convinced Mommy to take her to the second level so she could see better.  When Laura told her they weren't our seats, she told Laura to go find Daddy to get us some new tickets.

Her good buddy Daniel was there to make her laugh.  She was the life of the section, cheering and clapping the entire game.  The cold didn't bother her much.

In the second half she took off her over coat, because she was hot and wanted to make sure everyone could see her wolf on her jacket.

HALLOWEEN!!!

Work was a bit rough this week, so I didn't get around to posting Avery's halloween pictures until......now.  Halloween started early with a costume for school.  She reprised her role of a purple butterfly from last year so that she had a manageable costume to go to school and so that the teachers wouldn't hate us forever.  

Laura painting on her cheeks.  I think the outline of the circles still can be seen.

 Our cute little bug...

 Avery also had to decorate a pumpkin for school.  She used a ton of glitter paint and one of the 45 pumpkins we have at the house now.  And the pumpkin came back home as well....

At the school party with some her buddies

So the entire month of October, Avery was set on being a purple butterfly again.  That is until searching through the Target Halloween aisle, she came upon a Rapunzel dress.  After watching the movie "Tangled" (Rapunzel) a least a thousand times and naming her future sibling Rapunzel, she decided that she would like to be Rapunzel.  Take the dress, buy a wig, and some accessory donations from her BFF Lily; we have a full Rapunzel costume and one happy toddler.

I think it turned out pretty awesome.

 Mommy dressed up as well.  Daddy dressed up as a guy carrying a camera and then later a tired princess.

 We hit the houses in the neighborhood as soon as Avery got home from school.

 Since it was relatively early in the night, not many folks were home.

Overall the night was a blast.  Avery walked around the neighborhood ringing on quite a few doors and coming away with a good haul.  About 3/4 of the way around she said "My bag is too heavy to carry, I want to go home."  That is when I got to carry a toddler dressed like a princess on my shoulders the rest of the way home.  Once we got home she probably had the most fun handing out candy to the kids passing through.

She would yell from the porch, "COME GET YOUR CANDY! WE HAVE CHOCOLATE (snickers), CANDY (twix), AND M&M'S!!!"  The next day she sat outside during a snack hoping more kids would come by.  I think she is going to enjoy having a sibling.

Carnival

Last Saturday, we decided to take Avery to a local carnival because neither of us felt like driving to Raleigh for the State Fair.  The fair was pretty small, but it worked out pretty good for having a toddler.  It was very kid friendly and you could buy an "All you can ride" pass which saved a ton of money, so we didn't have to have a fight each time we pulled her off a ride, because we could go to the next one.

First up the ferris wheel.

 Then this dangerous looking kite thing.

 I should have checked the weight limit before getting on it, but Avery thought it was a blast.

And a bouncy house that was limited to 5 minutes at a time for $5.  So for $20 for all that you can ride, we made our money back several times over in the first hour.

 There were several rides that Avery could go on by herself for the first time.  The limit was 36" which is pretty much exactly how tall she is.

 Thumbs up for a motorcycle.  While it was going around she was turning the handlebars left and right so much the guy running it was laughing.

 My two favorite girls on the Ferris wheel.  We told Avery that Baby Rapunzel didn't like the rides because it would make her dizzy, so I got to go with Avery on most everything.

 "Hoist the sails, matey!!"

 Bumper boats!!

 Her favorite thing was probably this ball pit, climbing ladder, and slide contraption.  The lady running it thought she was the cutest thing and would keep people from going on it so Avery had enough room to do it since she was so small.  She would do this maybe 10 times in a row and want to come back to it between all of the other rides.

 Thumbs up for driving a car.

 Not included was a silly carnival game.  We successfully steered her away from this fishing game many times, but towards the end of the night she wore us down.  Thanks Uncle David and Ru for teaching her a love of fishing.  Now I have a plastic light up princess sword with feathers in my house.

 "Driving that train..."  She rang that bell about 1000 times.