Twenty Two Months!

Yesterday, Miss Avery turned 22 months old!

Her eating is still strange. Lately it seems she doesn't want to eat much at all. Every now and then she'll have a really good meal, but they seem to be few these days. Who knows why!

She's still sleeping well-about 11 hours overnight and a nap in the afternoon. She's had a few late nights lately due to her napping later in the day (we wake her up by 5 if she isn't up yet). When she wakes at 5pm, she's just not ready for bed at her usual 7:30/8pm time. So, we delay bedtime until around 8:30 and she'll play in her crib until 9:30 some nights.

In fact yesterday was one of those days where I had to wake her up around 5pm from her nap. And I opened the door and she didn't budge...so I had to snap a picture of her! It's rare that I get to see her sleeping....and it's so precious! I love how she's gripping onto her bear! She's still in size 3 diapers for daytime and 4's for overnight. She is still wearing 12/18 month clothing too (yeah my little peanut!).

Avery is talking up a storm now. She's putting 3-4 words together now "Avery's got it!", "Avery do it", "Mommy all done". She does part of pat-a-cake and also sings "Ring Around the Rosie" by herself-it's so cute!! Avery also will say her name "Avery Rose" and attempts our last name as well.

She has an Elmo book that has a photo of space-it shows the sun and all of the planets. She always points to them and asks what they are so I named all of them for her. The other day she named 3 of the planets all by herself and pointed to them as well-I was amazed!

She is also starting to say some things without getting prompted. The other day she said "Thank you" to me without me prompting her to say it first. And on Easter, she told Gabe "I love you" all by herself-precious!!

Speaking of Easter, this year Avery went to her first egg hunt which was fun (and freezing!). She had fun searching for easter eggs at our house and at Pa and Grandma's as well! I think next year she'll really be into the holidays which will be a lot of fun!

The other thing this month is that just a few days ago, I noticed that Avery has her first 2-year molar coming in! It's very hard for me to see in her mouth, but the other day she had her head back and was laughing and I got a good look in there. She has one upper tooth that's about halfway through so I was surprised by that! No sign of the other 3, but I'm sure they won't be far behind! Maybe that's why she has so many tantrums lately!

Here are Avery's pics for the month (and I'll say that she loved having her picture taken this time! I took a few and thought I had enough good ones and she goes "more pictures!" so I had to take a few more!):



I told her to smile and she smiled at the floor!

Kissing the giraffe:

My favorites:

Wilton Course 1, Class 4

Last night was my last cake decorating class in course 1!

To prepare for last night, I had to bake, fill, and frost a cake at home (my only cost was for the cake mix). According to the book, I was supposed to make another 2 batches of frosting as well. I actually had a ton left over from last week's class, so I didn't make any new frosting for this week. And thankfully I didn't because I still came home with a whole bunch that was never used!

We started class by learning how to write on a cake. You use a different mixture for the icing (you add in some piping gel) in order for the writing to come out smooth.

Then we spent a lot of time learning the ribbon rose. We first practiced making a proper base for it, then learned how to create the petals. I'll admit, it wasn't easy! We made a bunch of roses to put on our cake (I dumped so many of them-I wasn't really happy with any of the ones I kept either).

Then it was time to decorate our cake. We pretty much had the freedom to do whatever we wanted. I chose to do no writing and just do all of my roses in the center of the cake. She showed us how to properly "stage" the roses so they have the right height, etc. And we learned how to transfer the created roses to the cake (not an easy task!).

Once we had the roses on, we could do whatever else we wanted with the cake. I chose to do a shell border and added some dots to fill in the empty spaces. I was pretty happy with my end result...again, one of the best things I've done with frosting!

Here's my final cake!


A close up of the shell border and dots:

And a close up of the roses:

I decided to sign up for the next Wilton course as well so I'll be starting that next week! Should be fun!!

Easter Overload!

Instead of doing numerous Easter related posts, I decided to do just one big Easter themed post!

On Friday, both Gabe and I had off for the day. In the morning, Gabe and I met with our first vendor for our new house. We met with the guy doing our windows and doors. He showed us what we were getting and also some of the upgraded things we could pick out if we wanted. It was a pretty quick meeting and went very well.

After Avery napped, it was time to dye easter eggs!

Avery helped me mix the colors, then she used a "magic" crayon to color on the eggs (it was a clear crayon that showed up after you dye the eggs): More coloring:

And she helped me drop the eggs into the dye:

Every time we put one in the dye, she would peek over the glass to look at the egg:

Once they were dry, she put some stickers on the eggs too!

Avery's egg!

Our finished eggs!

On Saturday, we had Easter in Buffalo. First stop? My Dad's house. We relaxed and ordered pizza for lunch! Avery had fun seeing her Papa!

Then we went to my Mom's house. I tried getting a good shot of her cute outfit....this was the best I got!

Aunt Pat and Grandma each gave Avery some Easter gifts!

My girlfriend Katie and her son, Roman, stopped over. They were in town from MD so it was great seeing them and catching up!

At one point, my Mom turned music on and Avery and Roman held hands and danced around! It was so cute!

Katie and I:

Mom and Aunt Pat made us a yummy lasagna dinner, then afterwards, Megan and Noah stopped by for a quick hello! Noah was wearing a vest and Avery was obsessed with it! She kept unzipping it and rubbing his chest-we were all cracking up over it! They gave each other hugs too! (sorry the pic is turned)

And some vest playing:

On Easter morning we had plans to go to Gabe's parents' house around 10am. I wasn't sure if we would do Avery's basket and egg hunt in the morning, or after her nap. With all 3 of us having to get up, showered and dressed, I didn't know how things would pan out and if we'd have enough time.

It ended up that when Gabe brought Avery downstairs, she immediately started spotting eggs and stuff, so we ended up doing the "hunt" right before we left. I caught most of it on video and because of that I don't have any photos of her hunting!

Here is her basket though! The Easter Bunny left it right on her chair! She got some coloring books, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, lollipops and chocolate!

Avery posing with her basket:

Then it was off to his parents' for breakfast. We had a yummy spread of food as always! And we finally got a good family photo of us:

Avery diving on and hugging her bunny:

Trying again to get a pic of her outfit:

I asked Avery to strike a pose for me and this is what I got!

After breakfast, the kids got baskets from Pa and Grandma and we did another egg hunt for them as well!

Here's Owen and his basket:

Avery trying to drag her basket over to me:

And Avery with her basket-I told her to smile for me!

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday! We sure did!

Avery's Garden

On Tuesday, Avery came home from daycare with the cutest thing I've ever seen! They had the following things all bagged up in a spring themed bag: flower seeds, a ziploc bag of dirt, a spoon that says "happy planting", a part of an egg carton decorated with lace and flower stickers, and a wooden tulip glued to a popsicle stick that said "_____'s Garden". It seriously was so cute and a very creative idea!

Since the weather wasn't nice yesterday, we couldn't go outside to play. So after Avery napped, we pulled out the stuff to get her garden going!

Avery was all about doing it herself, so I let her dig in the dirt a bit (until we made a mess)...then Mommy took over from there!

Avery planting the seeds! She loved this part!

After another layer of dirt, the garden was finished! We watered the seeds and now we just wait! I'm hoping that something grows so we can show her what happens!

Yeah, did I mention we made a mess??

Avery of course helped me vacuum after!

Wilton Course 1, Class 3

Last night was cake class #3 for me! For last week's class, we made a cake and with the extra batter, I made the cupcakes for tonight's class. It saved me from having to bake again! I did make 2 batches of frosting for the class though and had to color it as well (green, light blue, dark blue, purple)-the only cost was for the powdered sugar for the frosting (about $2).

We started class by practicing some new flowers-we did drop flowers, rosettes, and the shell border. I found the shell to be very difficult for some reason-each one came out totally different and it was very frustrating for me! Then we worked on leaves, which were also not easy to do.

Once we practiced those for awhile, it was time to start on our cupcakes!

First, we learned how to fill a cupcake (I used pudding for my filling). Then we learned how to frost them using the pastry bag. Once we had them all frosted (in white icing), we learned two more flowers-the pompom and shaggy mum. The mum was fairly easy to do, just a little time consuming. The pompom was a little more difficult and takes quite awhile. I couldn't imagine making a ton of them, that's for sure! I suppose once you're a "pro" at it, it's quicker to do, but they took us awhile to finish!

I was pretty impressed with how mine turned out-and they tasted really good too!

How about some pics??

Here's the pompom flower:
and the shaggy mum:

The teacher used one of my cupcakes as her demo for how to frost it and put on the leaves. I had to save it because it looked so pretty! Mine looked nothing like this! Haha!

And here's my box of finished cupcakes...very spring-like huh?!

Palm Sunday

Yesterday was palm Sunday.

Gabe and I returned from our overnight getaway around noon. We fed Avery lunch, then put her down for her nap. Since I didn't get much sleep, I also took a nice nap myself (which I haven't done since Avery was a baby!).

As soon as she woke up, we headed to my in-law's house for a palm sunday get together. Our Aunt and two cousins were there as well as Molly and her family. We had a nice dinner and before having dessert, they had an egg hunt for the kids.

Here's Avery collecting her eggs: And Owen with his bucket: Avery got a little distracted by the Dora tent and was having fun tipping it over! The kids had fun searching for eggs again! Avery and Bianca were all about the candy and Owen was just excited to have as many empty eggs as he could! It was pretty funny! We didn't stay too late since Avery was tired and a little under the weather. Of course we tried getting her to bed early, but that didn't happen at all!

Egg Hunt

Yesterday we took Avery for her first Easter Egg Hunt! Gabe's sister and her family joined us, and one of Avery's friends, Amelia, and her family were there too! Unfortunately, it was the worst day for an egg hunt...it was raining and freezing cold out! Luckily most of the festivities were inside. We started out with some crafts-Avery colored a picture of a bunny and we cut it out and glued it to a paper bag. Here she is sitting with Gabe: And coloring her bunny: While she was coloring, the Easter Bunny showed up! She went right up to him and gave him a high-five!! We tried for a hug, but that wasn't happening! She kept talking about him all day though!

They also had lunch-some subs, watermelon and water (not very much really). We didn't eat much because we had a late breakfast. Around 11:45 they lined the kids up for the egg hunt. Here's a shot of all of the eggs:

And all of the kids/parents lined up!

Go!!

Avery picking up some eggs:

Owen with his bucket of eggs: I have to say it was pretty organized. They had the kids go out and get 5 eggs, come back to the starting line, then get 2 eggs, etc. I think it was pretty fair so it made sure the little kids (like Avery) would get something too. It was so cold out that we didn't finish the hunt-Avery wasn't really into it after the first few rounds so we just came inside to see what she got! A bouncy ball on a string! She got a lot of stickers, some bouncy balls, some candy. They had a few big prizes included as well, but we didn't get any of those.

After our egg hunt, Avery napped while Gabe and I met with our builder. The blueprint is officially done now and tomorrow the builder goes to the town to get the permit to start digging!! It wasn't a very long meeting, but it gets us more excited!!

Once that was over, Gabe and I went out for my birthday....Gabe got us a night away! I have never been away from Avery overnight since she was born, so I figured it was about time we did that! We went to Woodcliff and had an overnight package with dinner and breakfast included. The room was nice-nothing overly fancy. Dinner was really good-I was impressed with the food! The only bad thing was that we didn't sleep very well. It was so windy out (not sure if it was everywhere or just the hotel since it's up on a hill) that it sounded like a tornado in our room-I swear I got 3 hours of sleep! Not fun!! So we were up relatively early today, had breakfast (a pretty decent buffet), then I got a massage which was heavenly!! After that, we headed home to see our little girl!! It was a lovely birthday celebration!!