Two

Happy Birthday Avery!! Our sweet girl turned 2 on Saturday, and we celebrated by taking her on her first zoo trip. We traveled down to San Antonio for a little nostalgic trip (I frequented this zoo as a kid) and met up with family who drove in to celebrate with us. Total number = 17 people.

Leading up to the trip we read as many zoo animal books as we could, hoping to familiarize her with what she was about to see. She would eagerly run up to the fences and glass walls, trying to get as close as she could to everything. The first exhibit was a bear, which was cute, but she was more interested in the water the bear had, so we moved on down the line.

This crocodile just sat there, staring at the kids, thinking, "You'd make a great snack."

It ended up being a brutally hot day, but we toughed it out and saw the entire zoo, and she was a champ for missing her nap, though we rigged up her wagon with the canopy, a blanket, and a pillow, and she did have some downtime just laying there.

any crossword puzzle fans out there? This is an OKAPI.

The trainers were out, having the "elphunts" show off their tricks

My brother got the female lion to roar. Awesome.

Perched on D-Dad's shoulders, with my brother David in the background

post-lunch, ready for cupcakes

She picked off each sprinkle and ate them one by one, and then licked off all the frosting. She left the cake behind.

meet Girl, her new bath toy

showing off her cool hat and fancy new backpack

"Nonnie, all the cool kids wear their hats backwards."

Some recent favorites from our funny girl:
-She has always been one to match her shoes, no matter who the shoes originally belong to, but she's started experimenting with a different style on each foot, and sometimes she ends up with one high heel and one flip flop. It makes for awkward walking.

-She loves for us to read books while she is taking a bath - for awhile she was fighting bathtime, but this seemed to solve the problem.

-During one story/bath time, we pulled out a new book, a collection of Babar stories, a gift from my sweet brother J who sends her the best books on her birthdays and Christmas. We forgot that two elephants died in the first story, and as we're reading, we quickly had to make a decision on how to break this news to her, since she's showing empathy left and right these days. I told her Babar's mommy got a big ouchie and layed down to sleep it off; perhaps avoidance isn't the best parenting technique, but we'll tackle murdering of elephants when she's a little older. :) She still cried though, because Babar was crying.

-She started bawling one day, and I ran into the other room to see what had happened. She was watching VeggieTales, and apparently there was a fire in the theater and she thought all of the bunnies had gotten hurt. Oops!

-She tells me at least 6 times a day when something "huts" (hurts). "Hut toe", "hut knee". She makes this squinty pouty face and it's just too cute.

-This morning, while looking in the pantry, "Chips. YES."

-She is using more common phrases, like thanks instead of thank you, and she is copying our exact words now, like good-night (very emphasized) instead of nigh-nigh, and she is such a little parrot...anything that comes out of our mouth is fair game for her to repeat, and she usually is able to repeat it pretty accurately. So, daddy taught her "meditate" and "aescetic", though those haven't been repeated again.

-She wakes up happy most mornings, and I love to hear "Hi, Mommy! Mommy, hi!" on the monitor.

-She gives the baby in my belly kisses, and she likes to poke her belly way out to look like me.

-If we mention one family member, she always asks about the other person that is paired with him or her, like Nana and Papaw or Nonnie and D-dad or Aunt Dell (Michelle) and Uncle Nick. Everyone has a match, and she makes sure we don't forget them. The same goes for her friends and their siblings.

-Some of my favorite names that she's coined are Aunt Ju-ju (Julie), Aunt Bean (Brittany), and Aunt Dell.

-If she sees something "ucky", she says it in this really raspy, disgusted voice. And she loves to announce "ucky poo-poo" when we enter a public restroom.

-"Whoa!" when something cool happens, or when she almost falls but catches herself

-Has to finish a book before we go somewhere...if she still has a ton of pages left, she'll flip through as fast as she can until she reaches the end. Only then can we go.

-Has officially reached the temper-tantrum twos. She gets frustrated so easily at the smallest things and just screams. I'm still trying to figure out how to handle these.

-Is funny and sweet and makes us laugh constantly

-points out every single school bus we see on the road, and we happen to live by 3 schools, so we see a LOT of school buses

-says "page" before she turns each page when we read together, and she has to turn the pages herself.

-doesn't like cake (!) but loves frosting

-we don't usually keep cold cereal in the house, but I had a craving for some Kashi Heart to Heart this week, so we've tried it for breakfast a couple mornings, and Avery is loving it.

And, it takes me at least 3 days to finish a post. I really should start 3 days before an event, in hopes of posting it on the proper day.