Food

I've been working on some new recipes here and there, as I find the time. I am also working on a food blog - nothing fancy to compete with those well-known food sites, but just a place to document what I'm working on. I'll eventually put a link up here when I have a few posts going. Enjoy these photos for now.

Girlie

I picked up this cute little doll stroller at Target last week. She loves to push her baby in it, along with some of her other favorite finds of the moment. Like chip clips.

"Outta my way, Mom!" Perhaps she suffers from her mother's road rage?! I try really hard to hide it around her, I swear!

Avery loves to wear my wallet on her arm like a purse. And her dad's flip-flops. Everything is a bracelet to her. Perhaps I should get her some real bracelets instead, so the shoes can stay put.

Swim Lessons and Father's Day Weekend

We just finished up two weeks of swim lessons - Avery loved being in the water, as long as we were actually doing something. She didn't understand the importance of reaching for a toy underwater and was quickly bored. Once we finally got to the underwater lesson, though, she had a blast. She would kick and splash and bump as we geared up for the big dunk as we swam to the wall. Now that I'm comfortable submerging my child underwater, I won't pay for swim lessons again for her or any subsequent children until they're at least 3, where they really learn how to swim. Before then it's simply get-the-mom-used-to-this lessons. On the last day of class family members were allowed in to take pictures and video of their tots. Avery loved having her daddy to show off for.

We then headed to Houston to visit with Luke's parents for Father's Day weekend. Avery tends to get a little overwhelmed around a lot of people, so it's always an interesting time when the whole family gets together. But, she pulled herself together and had fun sitting at the kids table with her cousins.

Peyton was ever-ready with a goofy face for the camera while Emily refused to look at the camera. Avery is also showing off her new plate - I highly recommend this. She doesn't yet realize that the white tray in the center lifts out, plus she wouldn't be able to lift it since it's hard to get a grip on. The blue mat part is heavy and non-skid. We finally found something that she can't toss on the floor. Now to get her to learn not to toss the food out of the plate. She's also graduated to her own big kid table at home - no more highchair! She sits on a little bench that has a high back and high sides. This is so much easier to clean, as our heirloom high chair had a ton of nooks and crannies that she liked to hide food in. Yuck.

And look who learned how to drink from a straw on Father's Day!

14 Months (as of 2 weeks ago)

I forgot to put these pictures up, of Avery at 14 months. This is pre-mullet, when she had enough hair to pin back. Sigh.

And I honestly can't remember if I gave any details on her. So let's do this (again?):

Mealtimes are a challenge - most things end up on the floor. I'm waiting for the day for her to be hungry enough that she'll just eat whatever is there, because there certainly isn't much going into the tummy. She seems to graze more now. Toddlers are tough!

She has 8 teeth.

When she wakes up in the morning, she has to have a cup of milk before anything. Even a diaper change.

To get our attention, she bounces while pulling on our clothes. It's really cute.

Still no new words apart from daddy, mama, eye, and sometimes banana. But she does babble all day long, and she knows where her nose is. We've been working on other parts, but she isn't really interested in sitting still long enough.

She is fully walking and will fight to get out of your arms to walk anywhere we are. She refuses to hold our hand. She wants to be fully independent, as long as she can still see us. Which means, yes, we're still suffering from separation anxiety. I think we've managed to beat everyone in this department - we're going on 5 or 6 months now.

Summer has been busy so far, but really nice. My parents took Avery for a weekend so we could celebrate our 5th anniversary. We enjoyed the view after a tiny hike up Mt. Bonnell, went out to eat a few times, caught a movie, slept a lot. It was so nice to have some time to ourselves, but we missed our girl so much! We spent more time talking about her than anything else over the course of the weekend.

Shortcomings

I meant to just give this a trim. Just a smidgen off the bangs, so she could see again. She would go cross-eyed staring at it hanging in her eyes. I am a failure as a hairdresser. I got a little scissor happy. My poor girl is sporting the latest in baby mullets.

Junior Ag Day

During our recent visit to Navasota to see my parents, Avery and I took a trip to the fairgrounds for Junior Ag Day, where my mom was working with her Master Gardener's group. We saw so many great animals! And then we Purell-ed and washed our hands immediately after.

Baby ostriches - one of them was only 4 days old, I think. Maybe it was 2 days? A friend of my mom's raises ostriches, but she sells them to another gal who hatches the eggs.



We loved the baby alpaca! The owners said that they had the mom trained to keep the baby on the far side from predators at all times, including them (the owners).

So cute!!





Avery wasn't too impressed with the chicks. Or she was hot. Either way, not even a smile.

May 2010

What a busy month! I'm so behind on posting pictures, again. We did some traveling to visit family around the middle of the month - first to Houston for Mother's Day to celebrate with my mom, and then the following weekend for the huge paintball tournament at Luke's grandparents house in Louisiana. The boys and Luke's sister Haley played for two solid days, although much of the time on the first day was spent finding the perfect place and calibrating the guns, or something like that. I watched from a distance and kept my cool in the AC of the house.

At Grandmommy's house, sporting some new pigtails. They lasted about ten minutes, and we haven't tried it since then. She's too wiggly.

We of course forgot to take the camera to Louisiana, so no pictures or video of Avery mastering her walking...after two weekends in the country with lots of room to roam, she figured it out and just took off. She was DONE with crawling.

We also had a great playdate with Avery's friend Hadley and her sweet mom Kim. We love Hadley!! She was zonked out on her mom's shoulder upon arrival but quickly woke up and gave us a winning smile. Avery is used to running around with kids a bit older than her, so it was interesting to see how she would behave. She only tried to step on Hadley once (so sorry Hadley!) They decided to pass the paci-clips back and forth for awhile; as always, what someone else has is infinitely more interesting. It was great to spend some one-on-one time with Kim, as it's hard to wrangle all of the kids together in larger groups and still get to visit.

Memorial Day weekend we spent a quiet weekend at home. I was able to get out of the house one morning and do some much-needed shopping for a much-needed wardrobe pick-me-up. After church and nap on Sunday we ventured out to a new splash park not too far from home, and Avery LOVED it. That might be an understatement. Memorial Day - cooked dinner, had a friend over, Avery was a toot, and she promptly went to bed at 6:15. She was done with us, we were done with her. 13 hours of sleep later, we all woke up in better moods and she and I started June off happily.