And Now She's Two

Happy Birthday to our fun, adorable, lively little girl. Avery turned two a few weeks ago. She was so excited for her party. She found the Elmo cake-pan I had made for Daven when he was two. She carried it around the house for a few days. I decided to make her an Elmo cake. Any time you would ask her, "Avery, is it almost your birthday?" She would say, "ELMO Birthday!" It surprised me she knew what was going on.

We celebrated the Saturday before. Our friends, The Sherwoods were so sweet to come over.

It was a very simple party. We sang Little Bunny Foo-Foo.

Avery loves to "bop them on the head!" This is one of her favorite songs she sings in nursery on Sunday at church.

Pizza Face

Presents! She is still good at unwrapping them!

She got 2 new pairs of flip-flops. She loves shoes, so it is fun to have a choice every morning as to which ones she wants to wear.

The cake....She stayed up with me the night before to "help" ha-ha. She sat right next to me the whole time. I gave her a little frosting to play with. Mike kept asking if she wanted to go to bed and she adamantly told us, "No, I wan help mommy!" It was fun to have a little helper and someone that was so excited about her cake.

I can't believe she is two. She's adorable. She pulled a classic two-year old stunt before the party. She had picked out a different party dress. We had her dressed and a bow to match in her hair. Five minutes before the party, she freaked out and had a wardrobe change. I have to laugh. How could she care what she wore to her party? She is the most independent thing I've ever met.

Sorry, Tia if the red frosting stained anything. I guess some of the kids liked the cake :)

And this is her new pink cup and tinkerbell plate from her grandma. We had to put them away as soon as she opened them. If they are clean, this is what she wants to use. I guess drinking from pink cups is far superior to other colors. We just roll with it.

All the Reasons I Know She's a Girl....Part 2

It is almost lil' miss Avery Mae's 2nd Birthday. I have been thinking lately how much she acts like a little girl now. (And sometimes like a teenage girl!)

I did a post when she was a few months old about all the reasons I knew she was a girl. Well, it is becoming even more apparent every day. I think it is time for another one!

I catch little things she does every day that are so different from the boys. It usually makes me chuckle and catches me off-guard. Oh, how we love this little girl. I am so glad she is part of our family. And I don't know what we would do without her!

Here's to all the girly things about her:

1) She is the BEST time-out supervisor in the whole world. Ever since she could walk, if someone gets put in time-out, she's there! She sits by her brothers, comforts them, and most recently has started lecturing them in her jibber-jabber voice. Her new phrase - "no no ga-ga." That means "no no Logan!"

2) Avery is always the first one on the scene when someone gets hurt. She loves to comfort, kiss, and nurture her brothers. She'll squat down and say....."okay" as in "you're okay." We just laugh. It doesn't matter what she is doing, if someone is crying, she has to drop EVERYTHING and go investigate.

3) She thinks she is everyone's mommy. She likes to walk Logan into preschool. She'll walk inside and make him giver her a hug. As she closes the door behind her, she'll say, "Have fun, ga-ga." And the funny thing is, she really thinks she's being a mommy.
4. She is great at pretending there is something in her eye. This is her go-to pose if she doesn't want to talk or look at you. Usually if there is a male in the room, she'll look away and pretend to have something in her eye. Every time!

5. She loves the color pink! I think she is pre-programmed this way. One day she was coloring with her brothers. She found a pink crayon and brought it to me and said, "Look mommy!" I must have said it was a neat pink crayon because ever since then, she loves anything that color. And if she sees something she'll yell "Pink" just to let us know! She has these pink pants and a pink Notre Dame shirt. Every time I pull them out of the dryer to fold them, she won't let me. She'll strip down and put them on screaming about the fact they are pink. And if I happen to wash her pink socks, they go on, too. She looks like such a scrounge in that outfit but she feels really pretty.

6. She changes clothes at least 3 times a day. And she also takes forever to choose her outfits. I don't know why, I certainly don't change my clothes 3 times a day. And the outfits she comes up with are very interesting. How can a 2 year-old have such a strong opinion?

7. She loves to give fashion shows. Any time she feels particularly cute, she'll parade into Mike's office to show off her outfit/hair to daddy!

8. She loves DISPENSERS...soap, lotion, shampoo, tape. The other day I got out of the shower and it was really quiet. I could just hear a soft click-click noise. Well, lo and behold, I walked into our bedroom and there was Avery with the lotion click-clicking away. I cannot even tell you how much lotion she had on her legs.

On multiple occasions we've walked in and she's tried to shampoo her hair with the bathroom soap or clean the shelves in the boys room or make other types of dispenser mischief.

9. She loves backpacks. I'm sure this will translate into purses someday soon.

10. She is really good at opening presents. Once she figured this out at Christmas, she just went to town. Loved it.

11. She loves to help me in the kitchen. She thinks she is helping all right.

But here's the thing....as much as I know she's a girl, she has a sprinkle of her brothers in her, too! She loves to put on their dress-ups and pretend to have sword fights with them. She gets so excited every time she sees a fire truck coming down the street. And if baseball or any sport it on TV, she'll make sure her daddy knows about it.

We love this little girl....she is the perfect addition to our family!

Happy almost birthday, lil' Avery Mae!

Christmas Morn 2010

"Did Santa Come?" Daddy went out to check while we waited to come out of mommy & daddy's room on Christmas Morning. We woke up around 7 a.m., so not too bad, but of course, much too early for mommy!! Mike's still like a kid, he wakes up around 4 a.m. and can't go back to sleep.

I guess Santa did come!!

Never mind she got a dream kitchen, the coolest present ever. All she cared about was the fact she got some Dora toothpaste and a Dora toothbrush in her stocking. She was amazed.

You can see Avery in the background trying to convince me to open her toothpaste so she can go brush her teeth. She spent a lot of time in the bathroom on Christmas. After the first 2 times, I had to pretend to put toothpaste on her brush, I was afraid she was going to stain her teeth! Is there such a thing as over-brushing?

Finally playing with her kitchen.

Santa is so smart, I wanted a water bottle just like this! I always love how the kids get excited about the big things but get just as excited about the little things, too.

Cutie in his Lego Head-Lamp.

She can sure open a present. She got good at tearing through that paper and FAST! She vacuumed for literally hours on Christmas with this little pink vacuum, in between brushing her teeth, of course.

Jengo-Fett's sleigh. Logan's proud Lego creation with Daddy this year.

Daven had fun playing with his new I-touch. On our way to Utah, we didn't hear from him for the first 4 hours until he said, "Mom, my I-touch is out of batteries." It was a big hit for both boys.

Christmas Eve 2010

Here are some family pictures from Christmas Eve. We had a great day! The kids were so excited all day long for Papa Pehrson to get here. We were glad he could make it. He was feeling under the weather earlier in the week, so we weren't sure. The kids kept praying he would get better.....it worked!

I think it is so fun to hear about everyone's Christmas Traditions. These are our Eve traditions:

1) Make cookies for Santa.

2) Play!

3) Home-ade Chicken Noodle Soup for dinner.

4) Open one present from mom & dad. (PJ's & Christmas Ornament)

5) Christmas Story: Luke Chapter 2

6) Leave cookies for Santa. We've heard Santa likes chocolate milk :)

With Papa here, we all had a giant sleep-over in our room. Well, except for Avery. We were a little worried she might get out of her bed and find the toys at 4 a.m. but she did really good. I think she came in our room around that time, but it was too dark for her to notice any presents in the living room. Phew! Oh, Papa slept in the boys room, we didn't subject him to the craziness of the giant sleepover in our room.

Favorite Christmas Memories from 2010

We had a wonderful Christmas season this year. I was so grateful that everyone stayed healthy during the holidays. I thought I would share some of my favorite memories from Christmas 2010.

1. Daven's Christmas Party:

Daven began talking about throwing a party for his friends in November. It started out as a Thanksgiving party, but we ran out of time for that. He kept persisting and his Thanksgiving party soon turned into a Christmas party. I thought it was really sweet but to be honest, I was mostly humoring him. "yeah, sure, that would be really fun....okay..." But, he kept bringing it up over and over. The kid would make a great lawyer someday :) I decided that he thought the party was really going to happen and he wasn't going to forget about it.

We set a date for December 18th. Well, it crept up on us really fast. I was thinking of ways to get out of the party. We were so busy. What a sad excuse, but that is what kept going through my head. A party was going to be a lot of work, how was I going to do that? Well, 5 days before the party, I woke up to take Daven to school. He had woken up early and hand-written invitations to ALL of his friends. They were very detailed. They even had our address and phone # on them. It was the cutest thing ever. I decided that we would throw the party together. How could I possibly tell him no?

Mike was a huge help. We pulled it off!! I think all the kids had lots of fun at our low-key party. Daven came up with some of the games. "Pin-the-Carrot on the Snowman." Then we played the m&m game, sherades, and decorated cookies. We did kill a little time by watching the "Polar Express."

Ten cute kiddos ended up coming!!

Paige

McKinley & Daven

Nathan James #1

Bailey

Logan & Annabelle

Nathan James #2

Little Sister even enjoyed the party!

2. Celebrating Our Anniversary

Mike and I decided to award ourselves with "coolest mom & dad" awards. We threw the party the morning of our 11th Anniversary. It makes us feel good about ourselves, we really aren't that cool anymore, but it is fun to talk ourselves up. We went out to dinner that night at BRIO. Oh-my..it is the most delicious Italian food I've had in a while. We had a great time that night. I can't believe it has been 11 years. It has gone by so fast & been filled with so many wonderful memories. But that is for another post, I'm sure.

3. Gingerbread Time

We found a "Gingerbread Train" at Target to decorate this year in lieu of our Gingerbread House tradition.

4. A Holiday Hay-Ride

Such a fun high-light for them. They absolutely loved and treasured it!!

5. Temple Christmas Lights

We invited our friends, the Staton's, to go to the Mesa Temple lights with us. They are so nice and were so sweet to go with us. We had a great time. They have the cutest family.

I'm hoping to get around to posting more pictures of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We had a good Christmas. I am so grateful for my kids, a wonderful husband and great friends. I am one lucky girl!