Twenty-Four Months (TWO Years!)

It's official-my baby girl is now two years old! (When did this happen?)

This will probably be the last of the monthly photos I take-I started doing it because I had the onesies that said "X months" on them and then I decided to continue them for another year. But I said I was going to stop at 2yrs old so we'll see. Of course I'll still take a ton of photos of her, but just not on the actual date, in the same chair, etc. It gets to be a chore sometimes!

Avery still eats like a typical toddler-some days she packs the food away, and other days I swear she must be starving. Give the girl her fruit though and she's happy as a clam!

Her sleep is still pretty random. It seems like if she naps one day, she'll nap a few in a row. If she skips a nap one day, she might skip it a few days in a row. No nap = earlier bedtime which usually does the trick unless she gets overtired then it takes her awhile to finally pass out. I will say that she rarely cries up in her crib so for naptime, I'll leave her there a good hour and a half before I "give up" on a nap and go get her. She happily plays away and amuses herself which is good. If she were crying the whole time, it would be very hard to leave her up there.

She still loves to sing her songs and comes home with new ones from daycare all of the time. She recently started singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" all by herself! In addition to saying "please" on her own, she also says "thank you" a lot without us prompting her. She also has said "bless you" to me a few times when I sneezed which is so cute! She is a little chatterbox and talks up a storm constantly. She pretty much says full sentences (or close enough to it) and for the most part we know what she's saying. She does have a few quirky words that only Gabe and I can decipher ("seahorse", "lollipop", "ketchup", etc) but for the most part she speaks very well.

She's still in size 4 diapers for day and we did bump her up to size 5's for overnight. Clothes are mostly 12/18mos still-although like I've mentioned before....she's so skinny that she needs a smaller waist size. She does have some 9month shorts that she wears and some of the 12/18 month ones are way too big on her! She'll grow into them eventually!

Avery went to her first parade on Memorial Day and loved it!

Another first this month was eating corn right off of the cob! She had to eat it like Mommy and Daddy and she did really well with it!

Mid-June I spotted tooth #18-another one of her upper 2yr molars peeking through. She still has 2 more to come in! They are taking their sweet time, that's for sure!

Also by mid-June Avery figured out how to jump! It's funny how hard they try to do it too. I think she figured it out when she went into a bounce house-I think the bouncing and watching the other kids made her finally get it. Since then, she does it quite a bit! She doesn't jump high or anything, but she definitely gets off the ground!

Another big milestone this month was that she went pee-pee on the potty for the first time! We were on our way home from Gabe's parents' house and the whole car ride she said "pee-pee" and "diaper off". Sure enough when we got home, she beelined to her potty! Gabe took off her diaper and she went! Very exciting!!

Here are the pics I took of her this month:

(yeah-this is her new smile now!)
I asked what she wanted to do with the giraffe and she told me "hug giraffe":

Then she said "give giraffe kiss":

I asked her to show me her teeth:

And a close up of the big girl:

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

Yesterday was Avery's actual birthday! Her daycare was closed Mon/Tues of this week for a short summer break, so I decided to take her birthday off and be home with her.

We had a pretty good day! We opened a few of her new toys (a "bike", her bubble lawn mower, and Dora bubble set) and pretty much spent the day playing outside. She had a blast using all of her new stuff!

After dinner, we gave Avery a cupcake leftover from her party and we had to sing to her of course!

Here she is posing with her lit cupcake (love the smile!):
And I actually got a shot of her blowing out the candles this time. And she did it on her first try again! Yay!

She was really enjoying the cupcake!

Chocolate?! What chocolate?!

After dinner, Gabe and I gave her our gift. I distracted her while he brought it up from the basement and covered it up. Then we told her that her gift was in the back room. She went running and was looking all around for it! I think it took her a good minute before she realized that something was covered up!

Taking a peek under the blanket....what could it be?!

A new art desk!

And she sat down to use it right away! As soon as she figured out what it was, she ran around saying "crayons" until we found them!

I think she had a really great birthday!

Happy 2nd Birthday baby girl!

Avery's Birthday Bash!

Yesterday was Avery's birthday party!

It started at 4pm thinking it would fit around her naptime. Of course she decided not to nap for us! I ran out around 2:45 to pick up some balloons for her and when I got home, she greeted me in her diaper and shirt and of course wanted to hold the balloons! We did an Elmo themed party this year because she really likes Elmo. We tried keeping it relatively small....just invited some relatives and a few friends-everyone we invited came so we had about 25 people (20 adults, 5 kids).

I did favors for the kids which I think turned out cute! I did the hard plastic (reusable!) Sesame Street cups, a Sesame Street coloring book (both bought at party city), a small box of crayons, a bouncy ball, and playdoh (bought at Target). I think the kids liked them!

Once Avery carried her balloons around awhile, I took her up to get her party-ready! She was not in picture mode, so this was the best I could get of her cute outfit:

A quick family shot before guests arrived:

Dining room set up:

We kept snacks easy-chips & salsa, pretzels/carrots and dip, and chex mix. Of course I bought double what I needed (guess what we'll be snacking on?!).

People started coming shortly after 4 and I think everyone was here by 5 or so. We had quite a few travelers coming from Buffalo so it was great they made the trip out for us!

Then it was time to eat!!

We did sub trays from Wegman's, and my Mom and Aunt made a pasta sald and a fruit salad-again, kept it pretty simple. I will say that everyone was pretty full though after eating!

Here's Avery ready to eat her dinner:

After dinner, we took a food break and let Avery open her presents...lots of clothes:

Showing off her Dora bubbles:

And testing out her new bike from Grandma!

She received a ton of nice gifts: clothes, the bike, bubbles, some puzzles, a Dora towel, coloring books, a ride on toy, a musical train, a bubble lawn mower, an "Avery" doll (FAO schwartz) with a stroller/highchair/playpen set, and a sand/water table!! She'll be having lots of fun with the new toys for sure!!

After presents, it was time for cake!

I decided I wanted to make her cake this year (hence me taking the Wilton classes). I baked the cake and cupcakes on Friday, then spent about 3 hours on Saturday coloring the icing (which took FOREVER!) and decorating everything. The actual decorating took less time than I thought and I was really happy with how it turned out!!

And the cupcakes:

And them all together (sorry pic turned):

At Avery's daycare they made her a birthday crown so I put it on her before we sang to her!

I have been practicing blowing out candles with Avery the past few weeks here and there. To my surprise, she blew them out on her first try! And we haven't practiced in about a week either, so she did awesome at that!

Of course she enjoyed a cupcake and some ice cream:

Carly and Brayden:

Once again, we were lucky enough to have my Grandfather in town from Las Vegas for Avery's birthday! So we always have to do our 4 generation photo! Last year's photo is here.

We all had a really great time at the party and are so happy that so many people came to share her special day with us!! Thank you to everyone who joined us-we really appreciate all you do for us!!

Walk For A Cure

Today Gabe, Avery and I took part in the Crohn's and Colitis walk. Our friend Richie has Crohn's disease and we were asked if we were interested in doing a fundraising walk with them.

We took part in the walk two years ago as well (it was 2 weeks before my due date with Avery!). Last year we all weren't able to go for some reason, so this year we all met up to do it again!!

Julie ordered us some custom t-shirts and they turned out really cute!! You can sort of see them in the pics-on the front it said "It takes guts to live with Crohn's. Support the cure." On the back it said "Richie's Potty Posse" which was our team name.

Here is Avery and Brayden before the walk started: And Avery and Carly before the walk:

The walk went well. Avery of course only tolerated the stroller for a short time, so then we took turns carrying her, trying to get her to walk, etc. So we got behind our group here and there. I also think they cut the walk short because of the weather. I remember it being longer last time for sure. Luckily it didn't really rain-just misted here and there, but it definitely did not look nice out!

Once we finished the walk, Avery had to go and say hi to some of the characters that were dressed up!

Showing off her marracca:

and giving hugs:

She could have stayed with that guy all day long! It was cute! They did have a cookout after, but we decided to go elsewhere for dinner since it wasn't the greatest outside. It was a nice time though and we really enjoyed it!!

Updates

Today Avery and I drove by the new house. It was later in the day and it had been raining on and off during the afternoon. When we pulled up I wasn't sure if we should even get out since it was a huge, muddy mess. But Avery was not thrilled with being in the car, so I took her out and we walked around for maybe 5minutes-of course my shoes got caked in mud!!

It's amazing to see how fast the house is going up! It's actually starting to look like a house now!

This is the front-garage is on the right. This is the back of the house-morning room far left, family room to the right

This is the back entrance which is off of the garage. They actually have each room framed now so all you can see is wood!

We didn't go inside because it was pretty wet, but through one of the "windows" I could see stairs!!

I can't wait for the second story to start going up!


Tonight at dinner we had corn on the cob. I always cut Avery's off of the cob for her. Well, she ate about 2 bites of it then said "big corn"! She wanted to hold it and eat it just like we do! So, I let her!

I have to say, she did pretty well getting most of the corn off! It was so cute watching her do it too!

Father's Day Weekend

We had a very nice Daddy's Day weekend.

On Saturday, Avery and I went to Buffalo for the day. First, we met my Dad for lunch at Famous Dave's BBQ which was very good.

Then we went to my Mom's house and hung out. My friend, Renee, stopped by for a few hours. When she left, we had dinner then went to my Mom's friend's house for a short visit. I brought my camera, but only took this one picture of Avery wearing my Mom's rosary (haha!): On Father's Day, we woke up and I made us chocolate chip waffles for breakfast. Avery and I played outside while Gabe cleaned out his car a bit. When she napped, Gabe went grocery shopping and I got cleaned up. When the princess woke up, we went to his parents' house for dinner. Avery and Owen had a blast playing with the covered wagon!!

Love how Avery is peeking out of the side trying to see the dog down the street:

She of course thought she was Hercules and could pull the wagon...she did ok when it was empty, but if someone got in, it was too heavy!

We left there around 8 and on the way home, Avery kept saying "pee pee on the potty" and "diaper off". Now I'll mention that we've had the potty seat out for a few weeks and she has very little interest in it. She has more fun taking the thing apart and playing with it than she does sitting on it. The few times she has sat on it, she sits for 2 seconds and then says "all done". So we get home and she beelines to the potty seat. Gabe strips her down and she sits. (In the meantime, I'm unloading things in the other room). Apparently she had some toots, and then I hear Gabe say "you're going! you're peeing!" Sure enough, she peed on the potty for the first time!

Happy Father's Day!!

Starting to Frame

It's been awhile since I've gone out to the new house. Well, we went by last weekend for the block party, but in the past 2 weeks or so, not much really changed. The only change was that instead of having mountains of dirt, the dirt got spread out. I guess they filled it all in then it had to settle a bit.

But we found out that the carpenter was starting on Wednesday of this week so we knew some changes were coming!! Gabe drove out last night and said they started the subfloor.

Avery napped late today so I knew she wouldn't go to bed early at all. I suggested we drive out after dinner to check things out. And guess what?!

We have walls!!!

Here's the front of the house: I'm standing in the garage area here:

This will be our morning room (side view):

Here I'm standing by the front of the house looking out the back of the house:

I have a feeling that the trips out to the house will become more numerous now since we actually have the start of a house to see! It'll just keep getting more exciting now!!

S'mores Bars

I have no idea where I got this recipe from. It's been in my book for awhile, but I've never made it until this past weekend. We had to bring a dessert to our new neighborhood block party and I thought these would be good since they would have to sit outside all evening.

S'mores Bars
1 package of sugar cookie mix
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 cup butter, melted (2 sticks)
3 cups milk chocolate chips
4 1/2 cups mini marshmallows

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. In a bowl, combine cookie mix, graham cracker crumbs, and butter until a soft dough forms. Press into a 9x13" pan. Bake 18-20mins or until set.
3. Remove from oven and immediately sprinkle on chocolate chips. Let sit 3-5mins or until melty. Spread over crust.
4. Top with marshmallows and broil until lightly browned.
5. Serve warm if possible

These turned out very good! I will say that it is a lot of chocolate chips-its almost 2 bags, which is a lot. I think you could get away with one bag and it would be plenty. I also baked mine too long-after 20min, the bars didn't look "set" to me so I baked them an extra few minutes and I think it was too long. When they cooled, they were very hard to cut (although not hard to bite into). We didn't serve them warmed, but they were still good. With my leftovers, I microwaved them about 10sec and they were fabulous-nice and gooey like a S'mores! And of course I love that this recipe is super easy! Definitely will make them again!