Christmas Time is Here Again!

Sorry for the lack of posts. Trying to get ready for another person in our house and Christmas, all while keeping up with a 3 year old is exhausting! Especially a 3 year old who can't decide if she's going to be happy or frantic from one minute to the next. We have been trying to have fun with all the work we've been trying to get done. We had one failed visit to Santa and one semi-successful visit (see below). We decorated ginger bread houses with our best buds, and last weekend we got to ride the Santa Train with Maeve and Shauna (minus the actual visit with the big guy, per the girls' request. I wish that I had the thought process to write things down when Avery says them, as she says something priceless on an almost daily basis. One great Christmas quote this year, as we were listening to Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas, is You" , Avery asks, "Is this song about me?" Of course it is! Then we heard it on the radio again and she says, " she's singing about she wants a person for Christmas! That's so silly!". I just love the things that come out of her mouth. Here are some photos of our recent happenings.

On the Santa Train, searching for Santa?

Exploring one of the old engines at our Santa Train stop.

The Santa Train is exhausting!

Getting ready to decorate the houses (or eat all the decorations, aka candy)

Ginger bread houses!

Hard at work.

The semi-successful Santa visit. At least Bennett had fun.

Fun with iPhoto. Trying to get the perfect head shot to put in her princess book.

Happy Birthday Avery Grace!

Happy birthday beautiful girl. I can't believe you are 3 years old. I was watching a video of you the other day from when you were about 3 months old. It brought tears to my eyes thinking about how fast this time has gone. You bring so much joy to our lives every day. I can't imagine our lives without you. The last year has been filled with so much fun, laughter, frustration, excitement, tantrums, learning so many new things, sleepless nights, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I can't wait to see what this next year holds for us! Mommy and daddy love you so much!

Starting off her 3rd birthday with a gift and Top Pot donuts!

We celebrated Avery's birthday on Saturday with a princess themed party, with most of our Seattle friends. There was much fun and even more chaos to fill the day. We started with some tiara decorating, which was very tidy, as one can imagine with 4, 2 1/2 to 3 year olds. Then there was lots of playing before we had dinner and princess cupcakes. I think Avery was still not totally sure what to think about all these people singing happy birthday to her, but she definitely enjoyed it. She did a great job of blowing out all 3 of her candles by herself (with a little help from Maeve). Then there was a pinata (knowing we would be inside, I found a more tame version, where the kids each pull a string until it breaks, much less injury). They kids were so excited when the candy came raining down on them. I think this may have been the hightlight of the party. Then there were lots of gifts to be opened, with a few meltdowns thrown in, because what good 3 year old party doesn't have a few of those? All in all, I think it was a success, and Avery had a lot of fun. Below are a couple photos from Shauna. I have a few more to post once I upload them from our camera. Happy birthday princess!

Pinata fun!

Enjoying her princess cupcake, with a giant pink frosting flower!


Blowing out the candles (Thanks for helping Maeve!)

Harold and the Purple Crayon.

Shauna and Maeve had extra tickets to the Seattle Children's Theater, and invited us to join them. It was so fun, Avery watched every second of it. I think we will be returning for another play in the future. We saw Harold and the Purple Crayon. I had no idea that this is a series of books too. I think we may be checking these out soon. Here is proof that the girls had a great time. Thanks Shauna and Maeve!

Summer Fun

We've had a lot of fun this summer, perhaps the reason for the lack of updates to the blog. Avery is fully embracing becoming a big sister, she loves her baby brother and gives him hugs and kisses constantly. She continues to say the funniest things, keeps us on our toes, and exhausts us on a daily basis. The terrible 2's were nothing! I've heard 3 is harder, people were not kidding. Hopefully she gets the worst out of her system before baby brother arrives!

Driving practice at the fair.

She and Bennett had so much fun on the rides!

Fun in the petting barn. The goats were her favorite.

Getting ready for her first haircut!

The first cut!

Sleeping in the tent with mommy.

One of her many new talents. She loves to hang, climb, be upside down, anything to give me a small heart attack! Pardon the underpants shot. I had to explain to her why we should do this trick while wearing pants.

First day at "Big Girl School" (aka, preschool/daycare)!

First night in her big bed! She's been doing great, with the exception of waking up at 6 and not napping anymore!

Beach combing at the Pinneo beach house.

Bathing beauty. We had a great weekend at the beach house with Chelsea, baby Liam and Janey. They are such wonderful hosts.

First face painting experience at the kid's carnival at Magnuson Park! She got a butterfly. Sadly, I didn't get a good photo of the actual artwork.

Breaking the pinata at Ella's birthday party.

A plate of her very own steamed clams. This is her new dinner of choice when we go out for dinner. She LOVES them. She can have them all, we do not share a love of clams.

An update in photos.....

It's been way too long since I've updated. I started a new job at the beginning of June. I am now an outpatient clinic nurse in the chronic pain clinic at Children's. This means I have shorter days and am not required to work weekends or holidays! I'm also still picking up some hours on my old unit until Chris gets a new job. In July, Avery's Nina came to visit for a week. It was a wonderful visit, and very helpful, as I was in Boston for 3 days for work. The Hopkin's Johnstons came to visit last week and got to stay for a whole week! We packed a lot in and had so much fun. We enjoyed a pig roast with friends, went camping for 2 days, Avery got to ride the ducks with them, we went to the top of the space needle, and so many other fun things. Here's a little glimpse into their trip......

Uncle Jt spotting her on the zip line.

Our little bathing beauty.

Love this photo!

Enjoying a smore

More photos to come, once I finally charge my camera!

Accents

Avery recently watched Wonder Pets for the first time. If you know this show, you know that a couple of the characters have a bit of a speech impediment; they say a "w" sound in place of their "r". So now Avery has decided that it's fun to talk this way also. Now her name is Ave-wee, can I have a "dwink". Most kids start out talking this way, ours has decided to start now that she knows how to talk. She is so exhausting sometimes!

Long Overdue

A few things have happened since the last post. We visited Michigan and lots of family and friends, a new member of the posse was born, and we celebrated Father's Day. Avery still amazes us and exasperates us every day. She's always asking questions, "what's her name?", "what's that for?", "what are you doing?". You can't sneak anything past her these days. Oh, and any little person about her age is her friend. It doesn't matter if we just met them, if they looked in her direction, they are her friend! Her favorite music is pretty much anything from a hymnal, but then she also loves "Little Lion Man" by Mumford and Sons, which is pretty much the opposite of hymns. She knows a lot of the words, with the exception of a couple of choice words that we bleep. The newest addition to our posse is little miss Clara Jane Jones. She was born on June 1, and is so adorable. Avery loves her already, and asks to go see Clara often, so she can hold her. Clara weighed in at 8 lbs, 14 oz; more than 2 pounds bigger than her brother! For Father's Day we celebrated Avery's amazing daddy with a homemade breakfast, followed by some homemade bread pudding (one of his favorites). We then packed up and headed to the Washington Brewer's Festival. It's kind of a carnival for beer lovers. There were over 200 beers to sample and even a root beer garden! It's was a perfect way to spend the day celebrating Chris. Avery and Chris even got to have a toast with their respective beers. Tomorrow we are headed to Bellevue to enjoy a little premier party of sorts for the movie, Cars 2! This will be Avery's first movie experience, so we'll be sure to document the moment and share.

Happy Father's Day!

The highlight for Avery was the kid's area.

Welcoming her newest friend, Clara.

Enjoying a sunset boat ride with daddy

First time fishing at Grandpa and GB's

Our little ballerinas!

A girls needs her lipgloss!

Rock Climbing

Sorry for the lack of posts.... Here's a video for now. Avery has learned to "rock climb" on the rock wall at our local playground. She's gotten pretty good at it, and is quite proud of herself, and so are we! Pardon my booming voice, I didn't realize how loud I would be. But listen for Avery's adorable laughter!

ummm.....

Avery and I were spelling names and words with her bathtub letters tonight in the tub. We spelled Avery, Chris, Duck, fish; we were having lots of fun. Then she says, "mommy I spelled Amber!" and this is what I see.....

Good thing she has this cute face!

I will say that these letters were randomly stuck on the tub, but she did put those particular letters together all on her own!

The big race...

Last weekend was beautiful, so we took full advantage of the sunshine. Avery participated in her first race, the Top Pot 1k kid's dash. We talked about it all week and she was really excited going in. When race day came, however, she wasn't so sure about all the hoopla. Luckily, there were doughnuts and a Caspar Babypants concert to dangle to get her to the finish line. We also made some homemade ice cream (courtesy of The Pioneer Woman) in honor of the sunshine coming out.

Ready for the big race!

Catching a glimpse of "Caspar Babypants"

Enjoying our homemade ice cream

Happy (belated) Easter

We had a nice Easter week leading up to the big day. The weekend was even better when I got the day off work to take part in the Easter basket and egg hunting activities. We colored lots of eggs, talked about church and Jesus (she's a big fan) and chose the proper attire for the big day.

The "girls" ready for Church

Putting her new puzzle together

Ready for the egg hunt!

Thinking to herself... "you're suppose to color the eggs, not your hands!"

Showing off her eggs

Look at that concentration