Memorial Day

We went back over to Gigi's house today since Avery's visit last week was cut short. Gigi had bought Avery a new swimsuit with an inner tube inside to help her float and learn to swim. It was a hit.


Pops had also bought Avery a Nemo kite, which she saw immediately upon arriving at their house. She said "wish, wish!" for 'fish,' but she didn't know it was a kite until we got to fly it later.

Uncle Tyler helped him off the ground, and then Nemo went up, up, up, and eventually crash-landed back down. Avery was amazed at the whole process. We'll definitely have to look into getting a kite for home, too.




Later, after eating ribs and corn on the cob, Avery got to have strawberries with Cool Whip on top. She said "YUMMY" with each bite.

Weekend BBQ

We had some friends over today for a BBQ. Avery got to hang out with her buddies Jack and Jacob. She hammed it up for everyone, as usual, and said some pretty funny things throughout the day. When Brad, Vickie, and Jacob were leaving, Avery belted out with a "Bye, Brad!" which shocked us all because we didn't think she knew Brad's name -- we'd only said it a couple of times to her over the course of the day.

First off, Avery had fun attacking Hope and hugging on Jack.


Then Rich took both Jack and Avery out to play with Murphy and Winston. He realized quickly that it was a two-man job, so I put the camera down and got to work.


Avery worked hard to entice Jacob into a game of peek-a-boo with the curtains. They played and laughed and had a great time together.



Here is some footage of the two of them playing peek-a-boo.

Later Avery decided to use Jacob's booster seat and pretend it was the potty. She would lift the lid (which really isn't a lid at all, it's a storage area), sit down, stand up, say "Bye pee-pee," and close the lid again. It was pretty funny. Jacob thought it looked fun too, so he came over to join her.



Rich, Hope, and Jack are moving to Henderson, NV in a couple of weeks, and we're very sad to see them go. We're sure we'll still see them fairly often, but it's been fun to have toddlers together and hang out every now and then. They're expecting another baby boy just a couple weeks after Baby Z #2 is supposed to come, so we were looking forward to having our next babies hang out together too, but I guess we'll have to do it long distance.

Visit to Gigi's House...

First off, Avery has a GramZ and a Grammy, but she's called Grammy "Gigi" for quite a while. Since I can't seem to keep them straight and keep calling them each other's name, we're going to stick with Avery's nickname instead. So Grammy (my mom) will now be referred to as Gigi. I know you all desperately needed clarification. I know I did.

On with the day...

Avery is gone for a visit to Gigi's house until Friday because my nanny (my sister Meredith) is in NYC for a couple of weeks. We went early in the day today so we could do some swimming and hang out for a while before I had to leave to come back home.

First we went to visit Summer, the horse. She let out a really plaintive whinny when we turned back toward the house to leave her. She actually belongs to the neighbor (my mom recently put her last horse down because she was deaf and blind, so we have no horses to call our own any longer).

To get there, it's a long walk, but Avery loves all the distractions along the way -- the first of which being the flowers:


Next are the dogs, Zoey and Nicholas. Zoey is a black lab mix, Nicholas is a beagle. Zoey is like a much nicer, but slobberier and older, version of Murphy (yes, dogs do get slobberier than Murphy) but Avery doesn't seem to mind. She went for a dip to show off for Avery, so Avery stopped to watch for a while.


Then there's the 40 years we have to spend in the desert, contemplating the meaning of life...


Finally, we got to Summer the horse, just before we reached Enlightenment. Because of the logistics of holding a baby, a camera, and trying to keep the baby's fingers from being nibbled, I found it easier to video tape this portion of the presentation.

Next we hit the spa. It was still really chilly in the pool, so Pops heated the spa for us for a while and we went in. Avery had a blast.


Avery even got to do some unexpected whale-watching. Thanks to Gigi for taking this picture...


And here is swimming video. Don't worry, no whales were caught in this footage.

Mud Girl

Here is the video of the muddy events from last week. I was waiting for Google to approve it since the playback is more or less instantaneous, and it's free hosting!

Dear Auntie Jodi and Uncle Leo

I have been looking at your picture and practicing your names. When you get back from Kazakhstan, will you please take me swimming and show me how to play a guitar? Uncle Leo, my mom is glad to see that you cut your hair, but she wants to know -- what is that thing growing under your lip? Auntie Jodi, please promise you'll teach me how to cook. My mom needs some lessons.

Love, Avery

A new friend...

Avery finally got to meet Sidney, who belongs to my college friend Lee. Sidney and Lee live in San Diego, so we don't get to see them as often as we'd like to. We've been trying to get together for a couple of months now, and finally we made it work. Sidney is so, so cute -- she looks just like her mom! She was born 5 weeks early, so she's a little bit on the tiny side, but just as cute as can be.

Cheapie Pool

I saw the cheapie $5 pools were out for the season and I picked one up. Avery is eternally grateful. The only problem is now her vocabulary mostly consists of (in an extremely annoyingly whiny tone) -- "Swimming?" "Water?" "Pool?" "Swimming?" "Water?" "Pool?"

Another eye-opening moment...

(I know, I know, ad nauseum)

Last night, we were driving home from having dinner with Uncle Tyler, Grandpa Fred, and Auntie Meredith, and we drove past our local Target, which Avery and I frequent all too often.

She was looking out the window of the car and saw the Target sign and said "Remember? Remember?"

So I asked "Remember what?"

She answered "Statue? Remember?"

The day before, we had roamed around Target for an hour because I mistakenly thought her Gymboree class started earlier than it did. We were in the garden section for a long time because Avery was obsessed with the statues -- all kinds of buffs and ladies holding water jugs and even Buddha's heads were everywhere. The rest of the time in the store she kept saying "Statue? Statue?" and wanted to go back to that section.

The idea of "remember" is a little wild to me -- I say that to her all the time, but if you ask her if she remembers something, she usually thinks you're offering it again. Like when Pops asked if she remembered going out and feeding the horse, she thought he was asking if she wanted to and exasperatedly said "Okay! Okay!"
Maybe she is starting to understand "Remember?" Who knows!

New phrases...

Well, the little mimic has expanded her repertoire even more in the last week.

Her newest phrases are:
"What happened?"
"Who is it?" (if you knock on the door -- she loves this game)
"What do you mean?" (if I ask her something and she doesn't understand)
"Wanna wanna ______" (milk, water, juice)
"See em?" (when we're looking at something)
"Oh look!" (when we're looking at something)

Something amazing to me that she knows is that we eat breakfast in the morning and lunch in the afternoon (she doesn't know dinner yet). In the morning when we wake up, she'll immediately say "eat bettis," which means "eat breakfast," and then later in the day, around lunchtime, she'll say "eat lunch."

She can also count to thirteen now, except when we get to thirteen, she says "turkey." That is her pronunciation. Then, I'll continue up to 18, she'll hear the "eight" in "eighteen" and then she'll say "nine, tunny!" So we're not really in the double digits, but we're getting close. I just love how she pronounces 13 "turkey."

She also loves to sing and fill in the blanks while we sing a song. For example, we'll sing "Old MacDonald," but I'll leave the part of which animal he had on his farm blank. She will say "cow" or "chicken" or "goat" or whatever, and then we'll continue with the part of the song with the animal sounds. When we get to that part, I'll sing "With a 'moo moo' here and a 'moo moo' there, here a 'moo,' there a 'moo,' everywhere a ______ _______" and she'll fill in the appropriate sound. Sometimes the animal she'll suggest isn't really a farm animal, but we're not concerned with that ;)

She even had her Pops living on a farm and one point, and so I asked her what sound Pops said and she didn't know. We decided that he said "Oh boy" and then sang the song accordingly. Grammy and Pops and I were laughing soooo hard when Avery filled in the "Oh boy" at that part in the song.

It started innocently enough...

At first it was just splashing in a little puddle of water. I thought how bad can it get? It got pretty bad, pretty quickly. I can't even show you a progression from dry and clean to wet and dirty -- that's how quickly things changed.


43 seconds later:


Then we moved on to picking up a hunk of mud and walking around with it. Finally, it ended up being plopped in front of Murphy, who thought about eating it for a moment, and then decided against it.



The hose seemed like a fun, quick, and easy solution to the mud problem, so off we went.



And the final product:

This place is the for the birds!

(and the squirrels too!)

Since buying bird seed for the bird feeder and hanging it up just outside the livingroom window, Avery and Jed and I have had lots of wildlife to observe. It's mostly birds, thankfully, but the squirrels are also taking advantage of the seed that's fallen onto the ground. Avery keeps a close eye on the activity and lets me know by shouting "Oh look!" everytime a bird is sitting at the feeder, which is pretty much all day long at this point. The word in the bird community has spread and we've got birds there until sunset. Avery hasn't quite grasped the idea, though, that if she pounds on the window to say "Hi" to the birds or to get their attention, they fly away. She also doesn't understand why they don't want to come and hang out when we're out there playing. She keeps pointing to the feeder and say "When away?" which means "Went away?" or, I guess, "Where'd they go?"

On Friday I left for Albuquerque for the weekend and the feeder was full. Monday morning, it was half empty. I guess they've been busy. Here are some terrible pictures of our furry and feathered visitors through the window. Notice how much food they'd eaten in three days' time!

Today's Events

Roggy got cuddled a lot. Her nickname, not mine. He's a frog, by the way. A frog that all of a sudden, she cannot be without.


The Weebles put their shoes on. Or shoe, since they each only had one. I suppose it doesn't matter much that they didn't have two each since Weebles don't even have feet.


Bought bird seed for and hung the feeder that I bought, oh, four years ago? Avery is always scouting for wildlife to observe, so I thought I'd make it easier. I wanted to buy a hummingbird feeder, but Target was fresh out. I guess everyone had my same idea. (By the way, the tree in the background is a Japanese Maple. They go through a reverse fall sort of thing... very strange).


Chased a lizard. Unfortunately he went under the sago baby fronds and wasn't spotted again. Avery did get to chase him back and forth for a moment first, however.




Painted with watercolors. Trust me, it got much messier. Hence the lack of clothing. Notice, too, that Roggy is IN her hand. I'm scared of this newfound attachment.


And, of course, the gratuitous video...

Seis de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo wasn't good enough for us, we had to take it one step further.

Yesterday we went to see our friends Mike, Windy, and Marylin. They made steak fajitas, homemade guacamole, and Avery and Marylin practiced dancing and talked at length about their impending Quinceañeras.

Thanks to our friends for the awesome dinner! Can't wait to see you again soon!



Here are Avery and Marylin entertaining the rest of us (click picture for video):

Rockin' out -- igneous style

Avery has a new obsession. It's actually not all that new, but it's hit new levels. She loves to rock hunt. She finds them and collects them. She puts them in her sandbox. She puts them in her pockets (why, oh why, did I show her what a pocket is and what it does?). She creates a collection by the sliding glass door for me to step on and trip over. She attaches herself to one rock in particular, usually a big one, and carries it around for hours. She feeds them to do the dogs. She hugs and kisses them.

She is not normal.

Today I decided to chronicle her rock love. These pictures were taken over the span of about an hour. Eventually it got too chilly outside and we had to call it a day. The rock collection is still assembled by the door for more fun tomorrow.

In the top right picture you'll notice that three of the rocks are suspended in mid-air. Part of her fun is throwing them, picking them all up in her hands at once, and throwing them again. I tried to capture it on camera, but this is as close as I came.



Below is a short video clip of Avery rocking her rocks. If she grows up to be a professor of Geology at Yale, this video clip will prove her obsession was a long-standing one.

ABC's

Avery and I have been talking about the alphabet this week. It's been pretty comical. Here's how it usually goes:

Me: "A.... B....."
Avery: "Bzzzzzzzzz"
Me: "Yes, a bee does say 'Bzzzzzz'"
Avery: "Bee?"
Me: "Yes, B. Now, C.... D.... E.... F...."
Avery: "G!" (for some reason she remembers 'G' and where it goes in the lineup)
Me: "H... I..."
Avery: "Nose?"
Me: "Yes, a nose is right by your eye. J...K...L...M...N...O..."
Avery: "P!" (she remembers this one too)
Me: "Right, P!"
Avery: "Pee-pee?"
Me: "No, not 'pee-pee,' the letter 'P'"
Avery: "Ok"
Me: "Q...R..."
Avery: "S!"
Me: "Yes! T...U...V...W...X..."
Avery: "Y, Z!"
Me: "Good job!"
Avery: "Now I now I now I" (she begins the ending song)
Me: "Now I know my ABC's, next time won't you sing with me?"
Avery: "YAY!"
Me: "Yay!"
Both of us: "Yay!"

The end :)