SNOW!!

This light dusting of snow has provided so much enjoyment for Avery, and thus Jeremy and I as well.  She has so much fun just moving the snow from one place to another, and I love to watch her having fun with something that seems so meaningless and mundane to me...ah, the mind of a two-year old.

One of her favorite things to do in the snow is to go down the slide.  The combination of snow and the fabric of her snow suit makes her go especially fast down the slide.

The Big 3-0!

The dreaded birthday has finally come, for Jeremy at least.  Since he said he didn't want to make a big deal of his birthday, Avery and I decided to just do a few things at home for him.  His birthday was on Monday, so we decided to incorporate it into the weekend.  First we let him sleep in without me constantly nagging him to get up (which is what usually happens) while we made him French Toast.  Avery loves to use cookie cutters, so we cut shapes out of the bread.

Here's the final product.

Avery decided that it would be best if she helped him to eat his birthday breakfast.

We decided that the French Toast wasn't quite enough, so we made cupcakes...mini cupcakes of course (they're Avery's favorite).

Avery loves to bake with me.  The end result usually ends up tasting just as good as it would have if I would have done it alone, but it's definitely more messy and takes twice as long to do.

She was sure to taste the cupcakes after the first batch, just to make sure that we had a quality product...it passed the test!

Here is the final product...a million tiny cupcakes decorated with anything we could find in the house... sprinkles, coconut, jelly beans, colored sugar, chocolate chips and more.

Thanksgiving

For the first time ever, we have been totally on top of the holidays.  We started Thanksgiving morning with our new tradition of setting up the Christmas tree.  I know that kind of removes the emphasis from Thanksgiving and puts it onto Christmas, but I really wanted to get the tree up early.  Maybe we'll modify the tradition a little bit next year so we can enjoy Thanksgiving more.

Avery loved all of the Christmas decorations and was excited to show off the decorations to Paci Baby.

We also put up Avery's little tree in her room.  She thought that since the tree was so little, it belonged to Paci Baby.  It was so cute to see her get excited about that little tree and share it with her baby.

After a small Thanksgiving lunch at our house, we headed to Clinton.  We had a great dinner with everyone at Nana and Papa's house, and Avery got another chance to hold Baby Jillian.  Jillian has grown quite a bit since the last time Avery held her, so she was a little more apprehensive this time.  Jillian wasn't quite sure what to make of it either.

Cousins eating their Thanksgiving together...as usual, the kiddos are well into their meals and the adults haven't even started.

A New Friend

Avery has recently become interested in other kids her age.  She likes to play with them and is so cute when she has little conversations with them...I love it!  We're always looking for chances to give her that interaction, so we were excited when Jackie and Jason were looking for someone to watch Lauren, their niece, for an afternoon.  Avery and Lauren hadn't met before, but they hit it off and quickly became friends.  It was also nice for Jeremy and I to have a little break, someone to pay attention to her.

After playing, we decided to make personal pizzas for lunch, a big hit with both of them.

We also did some crafting, a favorite of any girl.  We made turkey hand-print cards for Thanksgiving.

After a quick nap to refresh everyone, it was snack time interspersed with bike riding, thus Avery's helmet. All in all, it was a busy, but fun, day, and we were so happy to have Lauren for the day.  She's such a sweet girl!

Great Wolf Lodge

We had the amazing experience of traveling to the Great Wolf Lodge in KC for the weekend as a celebration of the looming, un-named birthday fast approaching for Jeremy and I, as well as Julie's whose was this past summer thanks to Nana and Papa.  It was an amazing weekend and a chance to do things as a family that we don't normally have to opportunity to experience.  The lodge was amazing, starting with our room.  The "wolf den" was actually Avery's bed.  There was an entire corner of the room that was in a "cave" with a set of bunk beds inside it.  If you look closely, you can see Avery napping in the top bunk of the bed.  She loved having her own little area in the room and was so excited to sleep in the top bunk!

There was also a little craft room in the hotel that we decided to visit on Friday afternoon while we were waiting for everyone else to arrive and get settled...yes, we were the first to arrive (crazy, I know!).  Avery made an alphabet necklace that she proudly wore all weekend.

Dinner Friday night was pizza in our room, and all the kids loved the bunk beds as much as Avery did!

We spent most of our time at the indoor water park, which didn't exactly lend itself to abundant picture-taking, so there are only a few pictures.  The number of pictures is not, however, an indication of how much fun we had.

There was a set of smaller water slides with a shallow pool and several water toys in the walk-in pool.  Avery went up and down those slides more times than I could count.

We did manage to get Avery away from the slides long enough to ride the lazy river with Chelsea and Jack.

All that play was hard work...time for some rest!

Halloween

With Avery's overwhelming obsession with horses lately, it was pretty easy to come up with a Halloween costume for her...a cowgirl of course.  The costume itself was made up of things we already had and things that we bought that would easily be reused for daily wear or otherwise.  We got her some really cute pink cowboy boots that I'm absolutely in love with!  I was so excited to show off those boots, and luckily we got a few opportunities to do so.  On Friday afternoon, there was trick or treating at the businesses downtown, so we met Jeremy at work, showed Avery off to all of his co-workers and headed downtown where Avery made off with quite the loot.

We stopped at the bank that just happened to have the teller line "dressed up" like an old west town.  Avery posed in the Saloon doors!

On Monday, Halloween day, we made our usual trip to Hyvee...have I mentioned how much I love that store!  I'm not sure that Avery appreciated it as much as I did, but I really like that it's indoors and the fact that they hand out things other than candy...like FRUIT!  Avery, however, remembered that she got loads of candy when we went out on Friday, so she was disappointed with some of the things at Hyvee.

She managed to get her cowgirl pose down with no coaching at all.  She even has a Tootsie Roll in her cheek posing as her "chew."

After Hyvee, we visited Jackie and Jason then to Terry and Teresa's.  Avery really liked to hand out the candy to the other kids, which Terry and Teresa were more than glad to have her do (they live in the best neighborhood for Halloween).

Teresa even made Avery a little goodie bag with necklaces, bracelets and vampire teeth!

Jack-o-lanterns

This was out first venture with pumpkin carving.  Since Avery's not quite old enough to draw shapes or understand the concept of drawing and cutting out a face, we decided to go with something a little more recognizable to her.  She liked the idea of doing the same thing that Jeremy and I were doing, but she was not into the "guts" of the pumpkin.  I had her tough it, and she promptly replied, "GROSS!"

She decided to do a little "carving" of her own by simply poking tiny holes in the pumpkins.

So, while Avery poked holes, I traced and cut out the faces.  Jeremy and Avery eventually got tired of waiting on me to get them done, and went out for dessert while I finished up.  They came back to find two completed pumpkins...

Mickey and Minnie!

Fall Fun

This fall has been picture-perfect as far as weather goes, so we have been taking advantage of it.  Who would have thought that we'd still be wearing shorts at the end of October, but it sure made the fall festivities more fun to do in the warmth.

Jeremy and I used to go to a local corn maze every fall, but haven't been so loyal the past few years.  I really thought that this would be the year that Avery would get a lot of enjoyment out of the corn maze, but unfortunately it wasn't the hit that I had hoped for.  The trip started out great...

Avery was really excited to see exactly what a maze was and how it worked.  I had anticipated her loving the ability to control where we went and being able to just run around, and she did...for about the first 5 minutes!

We also found a bridge that went up over the corn field to connect two paths through the maze...I think that was Avery's favorite part of the entire trip.

After the bridge, the trip to the corn maze went downhill quickly.  The ability to run around freely lost its appeal, and Avery wanted to be carried, which wasn't exactly what Jeremy and I had in mind.  So, we had a short stay at the corn maze and instead went home to play in the backyard...a much bigger hit.  Maybe next year!

That evening, we had our first official "movie night" with popcorn and everything.  Avery got to choose her own movie, "Rio," and she watched the entire thing.  She has really developed quite the attention span considering her age.  It seems that she has the ability to really focus on most things in front of her for an extraordinary amount of time, this night it happened to be a movie.

Another amazing fall weekend led us to the Hartsburg Pumpkin Festival.  We went last year as well, and had just as much fun this year as we did last year.  The woodworker's group was there again this year providing cars for the kids to make and take home...Avery loved it!

Driving her new car!

We took pictures next to the giant pumpkins...

climbed stacks of straw bales...

and most importantly, rode horses, which were new this year!  This was Avery's first time riding on a "big horse."  I thought she might be a little afraid, but she surprised us all.  She climbed right up there and was ready to go with no need for Jeremy and me to be around.

She's turning into quite the little rider.

Yet another fall weekend involving horses...the Homecoming Parade.  As you can tell by the attire, the weather wasn't quite as nice this weekend, but we had a great time anyway.  It was no surprise to us that Avery's favorite part was the policemen on horses (they even beat out the candy).

Jeremy provided a perfect breakfast consisting of cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate.

Yet another fantastic fall weekend led us to Peach Tree Farms for their "fall festival."  There were lots of goats to feed and pet,

baby chicks to look at

and sunflowers to run through.

This goat promptly ate all of the food in Avery's cup then proceeded to devour the cup as well.

This was the closest thing that we could come up with to a real horse at this particular location...a straw horse.  Avery didn't seem to mind that it wasn't real.

Avery also had her first experience with face-painting.  It went really well, and she loved looking at the balloon on her face for the rest of the day.