Christmas Do-Over

We had quite a weekend!

Friday I had the day off, so Avery and I had a "park day" while Josh was at work. Unfortunately it was ice cold outside, (I think it was 56 degrees while we were at the park), so we only stayed for about 20 minutes.  Avery loves the swings but also really enjoyed the slide this time, and would not even get all the way down the slide before she was trying to turn around and climb back up again. Since I was alone with her, I had to hold onto her so I wasn't able to get pictures of her coming down the slide with a big grin on her face.  But I did get this picture of her, resting peacefully at the bottom of the slide after about 20 consecutive trips down.

On Thursday afternoon, our New Year's Eve plans changed at the last minute.  We were supposed to get together with my cousin Julie, her husband Darrin, and their daughter Audrey. They had planned an early evening/game night for some of their friends with kids.  But Audrey came down with a cough, so instead we joined my mom and brothers for NYE at my grandparents' house with a home-cooked dinner and a few episodes of "Modern Family." It was nice and low-key, and we were happy to be in bed by 11:00 pm (I know, we are such hardcore partiers). 

Here is Avery on NYE in the chair that Richelle Dante photographed her in last summer (Click HERE to see the blog post from the photo shoot).  This chair was hand carved for my Grandmother's father by his father...  So if you followed that, it was made by Avery's Great-Great-Great Grandfather.

On New Year's Day, we had our "Christmas Do-Over" at my mom's house, since Uncle Aaron was finally over his flu.  We had a wonderful waffle breakfast, and a fun day together with Grandma Mel and Uncles.  We were joined for a delicious macaroni & cheese dinner later that evening by Avery's Great Aunt and Uncle (notice how we try to maximize our opportunities to enjoy my mom's cooking!).... Here is a Where's-Waldo-style photo of Avery showing off her beads to the boys while they were trying to watch "Inception."

I also had to share these photos of Avery. They are some of my all-time favorite pictures of her.  These were taken exactly one year ago, on New Year's Day 2010.  We were trying to get in bed late that night, and we had bundled her up, fed her, and put her in her infant bed. We quietly brushed our teeth, and exhaustedly looked forward to getting under the covers and crashing for maybe 4 hours, or 5 if we were lucky.  But right as we were about to get some much-needed sleep, I peeked into her bed and saw that she was wide awake, quiet as a mouse and just staring up at me.  Ah, the torture of those sleepless nights!  But she looked so cute, it was impossible to be frustrated. I am so grateful that I had enough energy (and functioning sleep-deprived brain cells) to get these photos.

I am SO thankful for the 10 to 11 hours she sleeps now!

Today we got rained in (again).

So we stayed inside and Avery played with toys while Josh and I took turns turns playing with her, running loads of laundry, and playing my new Wheel of Fortune game on the Wii.  But even though it was a lazy Sunday, Avery did a lot of new things today, including:

- Typing her first email (of which Auntie Brandi was the lucky recipient)

- Doing the Hokey Pokey (or at least the "turn yourself around" part)

- Saying "ha ha" (which she picked up from me after I would beat the Wheel of Fortune game.  I would say "ha ha" to the other contestants on the screen, and she would copy me. I guess we really do have to watch what we say now! Josh found this really funny though, and has now made it his mission to teach her to say "Booyah."

Right now it still sounds like "Baba.")

- Eating pizza

She also learned how to knock on doors this week, so there has been a lot of knocking going on too (on doors, walls, shower doors, etc). I tried to get a video but of course she didn't want to knock when I asked her to.  I will keep trying!

Happy New Year!