What Happened There?

We have been trying to teach Avery to color ONLY on paper, and she has been pretty good about it. But tonight Josh discovered that she had colored on the coffee table when we weren't looking. He pointed at the green scribbles across the glass and asked, "Avery, what happened there?"

At first she just looked up at him, and after he asked her again, "What happened there?" She said back, "Hamen dare" (happened there) As in, "Yes, that happened there."

Needless to say, Josh tried to be firm with his discipline but had to grab a book to put over his face because he was practically hysterical.  When I found out what was going on, I tried to grab the camera to recreate the incident. It wasn't as funny as it was the first time, but you get the point...

VIDEO: WHAT HAPPENED THERE???

Tanner's Party

My friend Nikki's son Tanner celebrated his sixth birthday today at Bounce U.  His party was at Bounce U last year too, but Avery was only about seven months old, and was asleep in her stroller the whole time next to the generators. This year was a lot more fun for her!

The highlight of her day was when Lizzy and Juan showed up.  It is pretty safe to say that Juan (or "Manuel" as Lizzy and Avery call him), is Avery's favorite person on the planet.

Josh and I essentially become invisible when he is in the room.  She just adores him!  And Lizzy (who is her other favorite person) sometimes becomes invisible too, although she did manage to get a very nice goodbye hug from Avery.

But the highlight of my day was watching Avery try to set a balloon down on the ground.  I guess one year olds don't understand the properties of helium. She couldn't understand why it wouldn't stay down!

On the way home, Avery worked on perfecting her favorite word.

VIDEO: PRATICING IMPORTANT LANGUAGE SKILLS

Grandma's 60th Birthday

Today we had a big celebration at Yorba Regional Park for my Mom's 60th birthday. Due to my extreme levels of sunburn and exhaustion, I will keep this short and sweet...

Avery had a great day playing with uncles, cousins, doggies, et al!

She even marveled at the tiny ants on the ground...

Took a walk with Audrey...

And had the perfect ending to the perfect day,

with the sighting of this shiny red ga-cuck.

Firetrucks

It seems that Avery has developed quite an obsession with trucks lately, and especially firetrucks. If we are driving in the car or walking outside and she happens to see a truck coming our way, she will start shouting "CUCK!!!" at the top of her lungs. (Or if we are VERY lucky and we see a firetruck, she will scream, "GA-CUCK!"). And once it passes, she will wave and say "Bye bye, cuck!"

She was the proud recipient of this new firetruck this afternoon after being very well-behaved on our errands.

She loves the buttons that make the lights flash and the sirens wail.

Six bucks well spent.

"Bye bye, ga-cuck!"

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And since it is Sunday evening, I thought I would share what the close of my weekend always looks like:

Cooking, dividing up, cooling, and packing Avery's lunches for the week. It's one of the few Suzy Homemaker-y things that I actually do regularly.  I guess I just find it funny that I am so consistent with preparing good foods for her, yet I always find myself scrounging in the morning to pack a lunch for myself. (One day last week my lunch was 2 Hawaiian rolls, a bag of cherry tomatoes, string cheese, and a bag of Triscuits. Sad. And that's actually one of the more normal combinations I have thrown together). I'm not sure why I haven't figured out yet that I can just use bigger pots and make food for all of us for the week.

Autumn's 3rd Birthday

Today we attended Autumn's 3d birthday party.  (Autumn is my cousin Patrick's daughter). The party was Little Mermaid themed, and even Ariel came to the party to play games with the "princesses"!

Avery was a little uncertain about the bounce house.

There were some very rowdy boys in there...

Mama Bear had to come in and do a little protecting (and a little reprimanding of the wild boys) after Avery got knocked down a couple of times.

Autumn, the birthday princess:

Ariel entertaining the kids while Avery wanders aimlessly:

Spilling half of a water bottle down the front of her shirt:

Trying to strip in the middle of the party:

Inviting herself into the neighbors' garage to pet their cat:

Autumn, Avery and Audrey with Ariel (wow, lots of "A's")!

Playing in Autumn's room:

Stealing someone's sunglasses:

Aaaaaand exhausted and asleep by 6:30 pm, in broad daylight!