A Little Punkin in the Pumpkin Patch

Avery and I took a trip up to the Cal Poly Pomona pumpkin patch this afternoon to meet up with Paula, Julie, Haylee and Audrey.  Patrick and Melissa were selling caramel apples at the festival, so we stopped over to their booth to see them and Autumn too. 

It was hard to keep Avery clean without Josh there to help me. I really wanted some pictures of her next to the pumpkins, but she was mainly interested in the dirt.

I Heart Kitties

My mom got Avery this cute outfit a couple weeks ago:

What is so funny about it is that Avery DOES "heart" the kitties, but the kitties do not "heart" her!

When Avery was much smaller and could not chase after the kitties yet, Piper was a little more willing to be friends with her, or to share a lap with her.

But after having their fur yanked out one too many times, 
both cats have concluded it is better to hang out in places that are out of Avery's reach.

(Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5TL7Ou6rsc)

When I was pregnant, many people asked me if we were going to get rid of our cats when the baby came. Of course I wouldn't dream of doing such a thing, but I guess there are a lot of old wives' tales about cats climbing into the crib to suffocate the baby, or biting/licking the baby's face to get some milk.  These tale-tellers should know that the only time the cats are within 10 feet of the crib is when the baby is nowhere near it! 

Latest Trick

We worked on a new trick this weekend. (We are so proud). Watch the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pperipwesI

 



A Day in the Life

So this morning we had our second meeting with little Sophia before her return to Washington. I am regretting not getting my camera out sooner! Avery took a little nap in her stroller, and then when she woke up, I got the camera so I could get a cute picture of the girls together, only to find out that Sophia was now asleep on her mom's shoulder, and they were about to leave! So although I didn't get a cute smiley picture of the two of them sitting together like I had hoped, I did get a very sweet picture of Avery giving the sleeping Sophia a gentle hug goodbye.

Ok so it wasn't all perfect and innocent... Avery of course tried to steal Sophia's headband. (Stealing is much easier when your victim is asleep).

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Since I got a little behind on blogging this week, I thought I would offer a breakdown of our daily schedule.  It's tough to squeeze in a blog post during the week sometimes, because I am pretty thoroughly exhausted! Here's why...

5:45 am:  Alarm goes off, get up and shower, pack my lunch, eat breakfast

6:30 am:  Avery wakes up, Josh changes her and makes her a bottle

7:20 am:  Josh puts Avery in the car while I haul all her stuff and my stuff downstairs

7:45 am:  Arrive at Lizzy's, sign Avery in and kiss her goodbye (the worst part of my day!)

8:00 am:  Arrive at work, where I will spend the next 9 hours

1:00 pm:  Workout at the gym

2:00 pm:  Back to work

5:00 pm:  Pack up, leave work

5:15 pm:  Pick up Avery at Lizzy's (the best part of my day!)

5:45 pm:  Arrive home (Often Avery is asleep, so I try to get prepared for the next day before she wakes up.  This entails handwashing all the bottles from Lizzy's house, packing a fresh change of clothes for her, packing up bottles for the next day, packing up my gym clothes, feeding the cats, changing the litterbox, taking out the trash, etc.  All the while I am running down the stairs and out to the car every 2-3 minutes to make sure Avery hasn't woken up)

6:15 pm:  Avery is usually awake by now, so I bring her upstairs and change her, then play with her on the floor of her room or in the living room

7:15 pm:  Try to get Avery to eat some baby food in her highchair

8:00 pm:  Bathtime (sometimes this happens earlier if she is especially cranky)

8:10 pm:  Get Avery lotioned up, comb her hair, put her jammies on, and make her a bottle

8:15 pm:  Rock Avery to sleep

8:45 pm:  Put Avery in her crib, start getting myself ready for bed

9:30 pm:  Target bedtime, which usually ends up being 10:00 or later... Drop into bed and pass out, so I can do it all over again in 8 short hours!

Lemons & Giggles

Yesterday we attended a reception to welcome the newest member of our family, Sophia.  Sophia is my cousin's daughter, so according to this chart on wikipedia, that makes Sophia and Avery second cousins.  We were very excited to meet her and I was hoping to get some cute pictures of the little girls together, but we were off to a rough start...  I put an adorable ponytail and bow in Avery's hair and a new pair of boots on her, and she was determined that she was not going to wear either.  She has figured out how to rip out ponytail holders and bows, so my efforts were futile and resulted in my flattening her hair back down with a napkin and a cup of water. It was then even more difficult to snap the perfect shot because Avery was trying to be a thief and steal Sophia's jewels and headband. 

We will see Sophia again before she flies home, so I will try one more time for my perfect picture before they leave. 

Later in the afternoon we decided to try for a funny picture of Avery tasting a lemon for the first time. I sampled it first to see how tart or sweet it was (VERY tart), and then we gave Avery a taste... But the joke was on us because she never made a face! She kept going back for more, and chewing and sucking on it to get more flavor out! So.... apparently raspberries, strawberries and bananas make her gag and vomit, but lemons are delicious.

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Josh is at school this evening, so I am on my own with Avery. Avery considers Josh to be the funniest comedian in the universe, so typically I can't get her into hysterical fits of laughter the way that he can.  Tonight, however, I tried out one of his "jokes" (saying, "Eewwww, gross!" right in her face), and she had a gigglefest.

New Highchair

So we finally made it to Target at 6:30 this evening to get Avery a highchair. Better late than never I guess.
I wanted the full-sized, big sturdy highchair, but Josh was being cheap and wanted this smaller one. It came in the same print as her bouncy seat, and I liked the idea of having a matching set, so I caved in easily. It is actually a pretty nifty "space saver" highchair that straps onto a regular dining chair, and is easily portable.  After pulling it out of the box and spending more time reading the instructions, we found that it converts to a booster seat for when she gets older. (At which point Josh boasted, "See, it pays to be cheap").
But there is only one opinion in this house that really matters when it comes to rating baby products.  And that would be the opinion of Miss Avery, who quietly enjoyed having a larger tray on which to smear her food around. So it seems the queen bee has been appeased, and the highchair gets a passing grade.

Naturally, far more fascinating than the highchair was the box. 

(In fact, all three of our "babies" thought so).

Weekend Eggstravaganza

I'm trying to get back on track with the blog... After Avery got a little cold last Wednesday, of course we all got sick. It's the kind of virus that just hangs on and does not want to seem to go away. But we slowly seem to be getting back to normal.

Despite the runny nose, Avery has been up to her usual T-Rex tricks, which prompted the purchase of another baby gate this week.  This afternoon we will be making a trip to Target to get a new highchair. The bumbo chair has a tray and is great for feeding, but Avery can almost flip it over when she is sitting in it, so I think it's time to retire it to the garage.
Avery found a new cabinet this week; one of the few we haven't baby-proofed yet. We decided instead to just leave it unlocked, and only keep things in there that are okay for her to play with, since it will keep her quiet for an unusually long period of time.

This morning while I was making popcorn, I opened the fridge to get the butter out, and of course T-Rex crawled over immediately to touch all the items in the door.  Pretty much everything within her reach we have determined is too heavy or awkward for her to lift, so we have made it a habit of letting her play in the open fridge while we prepare food. Today, however, she threw us a curve ball.

(Needless to say, this prompted an "uh-oh").