Stories

1/4/08 - Happy New Year! 

My parents offered to take Avery overnight on NYE because we had two parties to attend (a surprise 40th b-day & our neighbor's annual NYE bash), and they were not planning to go anywhere that night.  Grandmom & Grandpa picked her up at 4:30 on Wednesday evening, went to Oregano's for dinner, then played "store" until she went to bed at 9:30.  Steve and I had a great time at both of our parties, and even managed to stay up past 9:00 pm! 

Thursday morning we got up and started putting all of the Christmas stuff away, and did major organizing/cleaning.  I have been wanting to get into Avery's room & pack up her summer clothes and put out the winter ones for over a month, but it has never gotten done because of a little "helper" that always wants to do exactly what Mommy's doing.  When it was getting close to the time I was supposed to pick up Avery, Steve and I both thought we could get a lot more accomplished if Avery spent another night with Grandmom and Grandpa.  Of course, they had no problem with having their little Grandchild over for another night!  : )  Avery had a fun day on Thursday, going to New Year's Day mass, out to breakfast, picking oranges off of Grandpa's tree and a visit to the train park in the morning and once again at night to see the lights/decorations. 

On Friday, Daddy got out of work early to pick up Avery from Grandmom & Grandpa's house and bring her home.  When she walked in, she was so excited to see all of her Christmas toys.  She went around to each of them and said "Hi baby", "Hi Princess Cup", etc.  Needless to say, mommy & daddy were VERY excited to have our little girl home, and very appreciative of Grandma & Grandpa keeping her for two nights!  : )    

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12/26/08 - We had a fantastic Christmas and hope you did as well.  Christmas Eve was spent with my family.  We went to the children's Christmas mass, then headed over to my aunt & uncle's house for dinner, then ended at my parent's house for dessert & gift opening.  Avery was a perfect angel in church and through the whole evening, considering she has been sick with a cold for over a week, and in the past couple days also had an upset tummy.

We celebrated Christmas morning with Steve's family at his parent's house.  Avery was tired and still not feeling well, but once again did awesome.  She had fun playing with her cousins and helping everyone open their gifts.  We had breakfast when we were done opening gifts and headed home for a long family nap!  

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12-21-08:  We had a very busy weekend!  Yesterday Avery & I left at about 10:30 in the morning to head up to my parent's house.  Avery ate lunch and took a nap with Grandmom while Lisa and I took my dad to the mall so he could buy my mom some Christmas presents.  When we returned to my parent's house, Avery had just woken up, and we all (including Uncle Cory) went to church, out for pizza, then to the McCormick-Stillman railroad park for their Christmas lights display.  We attempted to go to the RR park at around 6:00, but there was not a parking spot within 1/2 mile radius, so we ate pizza and returned at about 8:15.  We waited in line for well over an hour to ride the train, but it was well worth it!  Their Christmas display was awesome (IMO, MUCH better than Zoo Lights!!!!)  Avery was a real trooper being out and about and all bundled up at such a late hour.  They had a lot of characters walking around for the kids to meet, but Avery was not a fan of any of them - including Elmo!!!  She screamed & looked the opposite direction when she saw them . . . very similar to her Santa experiences. 

We managed to start our Christmas shopping yesterday and officially end it today.  If I had it my way, I'd be done Christmas shopping on Black Friday!

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12/14/08 - After our last experience going to see Santa, I decided to come home and read more books and talk to Avery about Santa, then try and go see him again in a few weeks.  Well, last Thursday Santa made an appearance at the Fry's down the street from our house.  Avery's friend Raigain & her mom went with us, and Raigan was a champ sitting next to Santa.  Avery, on the other hand, burried her head into my shoulder and held on for dear life.  She wouldn't go anywhere near him, so I decided to sit next to Santa, flip her around to face the camera and hope for the best (see picture!).  I think we're just going to forget about getting a cute picture with Santa this year!

Avery has really gotten into the "noman" (snowman) thing this year.  I played the old "Frosty the Snowman" video for my daycare kids one day and Avery fell in love with it.  Now we watch it at least once a day and she also loves the blow-up snowman we have in our front yard.  She looks out the window to check to make sure he's inflated, and when he's not she is so sad.  (Mommy tells her he's taking a nap!)   Aside from the snowman, Avery gets so excited when she sees people with Christmas lights and/or decorations on their house and in their yard.  The other night she was a little unhappy due to a bad cold, so she & mommy drove around the neighborhood for about 1/2 hour looking at lights.  When she sees them she gets soooo excited and says "Lights ON Mommy" and gasps!

Last night I had a "Parent's Night Out" for my daycare families.  They brought my daycare kids plus their siblings over to our house for a Christmas pajama party.  We ate pizza, decorated cookies, made a reindeer ornament, watched The Polar Express, read Christmas books, and opened the presents & goodie bags that I had for them.  My daycare children were really excited about our party, but I think their older siblings were even more excited!  We had a good time and were wore out when they all went home for the night!  It was really fun for us to see how excited Avery was to have her daycare friends over for a party.  Now we are even  more excited for Christmas! 

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11/28/08 - Last weekend we went to the Phoenix Zoo for Steve's company's holiday party.  We had the zoo to ourselves and got a sneak preview of the Zoo Lights display.  Since Steve's sister also works for the same company, she brought along our nieces so Avery & her cousins could spend some time together.  Avery held on to her big cousin Hailey's hand and walked pretty much the whole zoo lights path.  It was a beautiful evening and we all had a great time.

Yesterday we celebrated Thanksgiving by having my family as well as Steve's family all here for dinner.  Avery was so excited about the rain and the inflatable snowman that daddy put up in the front yard. 

Tonight Avery is spending the night with Grandmom and Grandpa.  It's so quiet in the house without her here . . . I miss her so much!

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11-13-08:  Avery is 20 months old today!  In the picture that I posted, she's wearing the same outfit that she had on in her 10 month old picture!! 

Is it really possible that in 4 months, we'll be celebrating Avery's 2nd birthday?  Wow!  I am so grateful to be home with Avery and involved in her development on a daily basis.  Everyone has told me that these wee years go by so quickly = they were not kidding!  I am also so appreciative that Steve is still such good friends with his elementary school buddies, and they all live very close by.  It's even more fun that all of the guys are now married and have started families within the past couple of years, so our kids will grow up together. 

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11/10/08 - Avery has been growing and changing so fast, it's sometimes hard to keep up with our little toddler.  Some of her latest "tricks" and "talents" are:

* Saying "no thanks".  Example:  (Daddy says: Avery, it's time for bed.  Avery responds: "No thanks")

* Counting.  She'll be playing and we'll catch her counting to herself.  The highest we've heard her count to is 6, but sometimes she leaves out 5.

* Pushing - kids, that is!  Unfortunately, she picked this "trick" up from one of my daycare kids.

* Singing the Elmo's World theme song when we put on her diapers that are decorated with Elmo.  She even tries to disguise her voice like I do when I sing it.

* She puts herself in time out (her room) when she is starting to have a melt-down.  She'll sit in there completley silent, holding her blanket until you tell her she can come out.  If it's been quite a while, she'll say "Mommy??"  (so cute!). 

* She says "I Love You" all the time and I love it!!!!  After we put her down for a nap or at bedtime, she'll continue to say "I love you" so we can hear her on the monitor. 

* Potty training!  She is telling us by either using words or grabbing her diaper when she is going #1 or #2.  We've sat her on the potty chair and the big potty a few times and she actually kind of enjoys it (she loves to read magazines or books on it), but has never done anything.  She's even been waking up dry in the mornings, so I run her right into the bathroom to try and go.  I am not pushing this too hard on her, because she is still kind of young, but we're hopefully on the road to being diaper free within the next 6 months or so (fingers crossed).  4 of my 6 daycare kids are now potty trained, so Avery & I have gotten a lot of experience with it lately, which has been really helpful.

* Asking "Why?" after everything we tell her.  She picked this one up from a daycare child too.  It's actually pretty cute how she says "why" and it isn't even annoying.  : )  Daddy and I are really making an effort to give her an answer or reason when she asks "why?" so she understands what's going on and doesn't just say it out of habit. 

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11/1/08 - Happy Halloween!  We had a great day yesterday.  The day started out with a Halloween party with all of the daycare kids.  The kids came in their costumes, I took individual pictures of the kids outside by the decorations, then a group picture.  We came in and painted baby pumpkins, decorated sugar cookies, then made caramel apples.  The kids were all so well behaved and had a great time.  They got to take home a huge bag of goodies, which they were really excited about! 

We had a potluck dinner in the cul-de-sac, as we have done for the last 4 years.  The neighbors next door worked all day to turn their garage into a haunted house, which was a lot of fun.  It would have been the perfect Halloween night if the weather was a bit cooler to go along with our big pot of chili and the firepit!

Avery did such a great job wearing her costume and going door to door.  At first she wasn't quite sure what was going on.  The first house she went to gave her money, but once she got candy from the 2nd & 3rd houses, she was all about saying "trick-or-treat", putting her candy in her Elmo bucket, then saying "thank you".  We probably went to 10-12 houses before heading back to the cul-de-sac for the night.  We had a great time enjoying the night with the neighbors and Avery's first trick-or-treating experience.   

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10/17/08 - These are a few of her favorite things . . .

1) Lip-Syncing to music with her new mircophone (I posted pictures).

2) Pushing her babies around in her baby stroller and being a little mother to her babies all day long.  The baby, baby bottle & stroller now have to come with us where ever we go.  (Good thing mommy has a big truck to haul everything around!)

3) Asking WHY? every time I ask Avery to do something or explain something to her. 

4) Fish sticks & grapes!  This girl is a picky eater, but currently LOVES fish sticks and grapes!!

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10/7/08:  We just got back from our cruise to Mexico.  We had a blast and look forward to taking another cruise again soon.  Avery got spoiled by her grandparents, aunts, uncles & cousins while we were gone, and did surprisingly well with the transitions.  It was hard not having cell phone service for 3 of the 4 days to call in and check on things, but obviously, I survived! 

Prior to us leaving, Avery had been having regular temper tantrums.  These lovely drama episodes started around 17 months and unfortunately have not gone away.  Avery will get ticked off about the smallest thing and all of a sudden just screams and cries so hard that she actually throws up!  I was informed by both sets of grandparents that Avery did not have a single tantrum all weekend long while she was in their care.  Well, last night just shortly after we returned home, we got the "mother of all tantrums".  I have NO clue what set her off last night, but she screamed so hard her lips and face were purple and she managed to vomit three times in a matter of 10 minutes.  If this is a sneek peek at what the "Terrible Two's" are about, I'm scared . . . . very, very scared.

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9/20/08 - Avery had her 18 month check-up yesterday.  She is 32 inches tall, weighs 22.8 pounds and head circumfrence is 19 inches.  She only got 1 shot (Hep.) yesterday and didn't even cry!  The pediatrician said she looks great!  I had a few questions for him, the main one being the fact that she still won't drink milk and is very picky about eating cheese.  He said she is probably getting enough calcium through foods that I wouldn't even know had calcium, plus the yogurt she eats & yogurt smoothies she likes to drink.  He was asking questions about her development, and after every question Avery nodded her head "yes" or "no" to answer them.  The Dr. thought that was pretty cute, and was impressed by the fact that she answered all of them correctly!  He said by this age, she should have at least 10 words in her vocabulary that she says on a regular basis, and at our last count she had 42, so that's great. She is exposed to a lot of language with all of the chattering, reading & singing the daycare kids and I do all day long.   

We're going to go pick up Grandmom & Grandpa from the airport today.  Avery is already talking about riding the "choo-choo" when we go to their house. 

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9/14/08:  Last night my sister, friend & I went to the Diamondback's game and stayed for the Jessica Simpson concert afterwards (ok, the real reason I went was to see Jessica!).  Daddy & Avery stayed home, ate chicken nuggets and watched football.  Avery would be so excited to see that Jessica wears her bracelets just like Avery does - all kinds of them on one arm!  I am a big fan of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey.  Avery listened to their music when she was in the womb, and during my labor & delivery.  When things were getting pretty rough during my labor, my nurse grabbed Nick Lachey's CD cover & held it in front of me and said "This is going to be your focal point".  We got a good laugh out of that, and to be honest, it was not a bad sight to see!  ;o)

Avery turned 18 months yesterday and is saying all kinds of new words every day.  The new words this week are: "AAAAAvery", Amen, tag, keys, U-S-A!, she makes the sound for horse, and says Brrr! when you ask her what a penguin says.  And I don't know how she learned this, but when you ask her "how old are you?"  she responds by saying "two"!  We always practice that with her and say you're "one", but I guess she wants to be two.  Somedays she sure acts like a terrible two year old!   

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9/9/08 -  This past Friday night I hosted Bunco at my house, so Avery & daddy went on a "date".  They went to the Chandler mall and ate a pretzel while walking around, went to Build-a-Bear and made an elephant, went to the toy store and got a new Thomas the train book with sound, saw the puppies at the pet store, and ended their night at Desert Breeze Park.  I guess they have a miniature rock wall there, and Avery climbed it with no problems at all.  The only problem was when daddy had to pull her off of it to go home, since it was way past her bedtime!  We all had a great time playing Bunco, and it sounds like daddy wants to have another date night with Avery again soon (he was very pleased with her excellent behavior the whole night).  ; )

Avery has learned two new words since my last post with her word list.  She now says please which sounds more like "peace" (so cute!), and unfortunately, she has learned the word "MINE".  (I can thank the daycare kids for that one!)  

My picture-taking has slowed waaaay down now that Avery has decided to throw tantrums, scream, whine & squeal when she wants something she can't have or when she doesn't want to do something.  When I get out the camera, she wants to see the pictures on there, not get her picture taken.  : (  Do the "Terrible Two's" start this early????

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8-31-08:  Avery & I went to my parent's house for the day yesterday.  We started off at the Railroad park, and Avery loved the train ride AND the carousel this time!  The last time Grandmom & Grandpa took her on the carousel, her whole body shook from being so scared.  After the rides, Grandpa pushed her on the swings for a little while, then we looked at some really neat model trains that were going around the building.  Avery was so excited to see the "Thomas" train.  Grandpa stayed home while Avery took a 3 hour nap, and my mom, sister & I went shopping.  Steve won an all expense paid cruise to the Mexican Riveria through his work, so I had to go buy some dresses & fun clothes for our trip! : )  We can never go shopping with Grandmom and not bring something home for Avery, so we surprised her with a "Thomas" tent!!  We ended our marathon day by going to church then out for pizza.  Avery was a really good girl all day long.

Tonight we went to Steve's parent's house for his sister's birthday dinner, and Avery got to play with her cousins for a little while.  Avery is going to have her first sleepover with Grandma & Grandpa Maize when we're on our cruise!  How fun would it be if ALL the grandkids had a sleepover at Grandma & Grandpa's house that night???  ;o)  

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8/22/08 - I have been trying to make a list of all the words Avery says on her own on a regular basis.  This is what I've come up with so far:

ball, bugs, hi, uh-ohh, owie, mommy, daddy, Jack-Jack, duck, Thomas, poo-poo, Calliou, baby, bowl, boys, stink, apple, P.U., I do, boo, down, hat, hot, shoes, turtle, bye, umbrella, cheese

Avery is at the point now where she pretty much repeats almost everything we say.  The other morning we were playing and I said "I'm gonna get you" and started to run after her.  Avery's response to that sure sounded like "Oh SH**"! 

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8/18/08:  "Grandmom" (my mom) came down and spent the weekend with us since Grandpa was out of town again.  Of course, Grandmom always brings Avery (and sometimes mommy & daddy) some surprises.  Avery was so excited to get 4 sets of princess shoes from Grandmom!  We ordered pizza and just played Friday night.  Avery loves her olympic hat and torch that we made with the daycare kids this past week.  We dressed her in her USA cheerleader outfit and she proudly wore her hat and carried her torch while we watched the olympics on TV. 

Saturday we went grocery shopping and Avery tried out the big kids "car" shopping cart.  It was fun for her to pretend to drive the cart, but was a big pain for mommy.  We ended up having to get an additional cart to push around because I couldn't fit the big case of water or paper towels in the "car cart".  Thank goodness Grandmom was with us to help with the extra cart!  Saturday night Grandmom babysat Avery while Steve & I went to a surprise birthday party for one of my really fun daycare parents.  

Even though Avery didn't take a nap yesterday, she woke up super early today, so we went to the early mass & then out to breakfast.  We came home and got ready for the birthday party we were having here for Grandpa Maize & cousin Jordan.  We had a good time having a barbecue and pool party with the whole Maize family tonight!          

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8/13/08:  Avery is 17 months old today!  I didn't think it was possible to love my little sunshine any more than I already do, but my love grows stronger for her every day. 

Avery cracks daddy and I up on a nightly basis.  She is doing and saying so many things now.  For starters, daddy's and my favorite thing is how she lip-sync's to the music on the XM tv stations.  We turn it on every night to listen to music and Avery jumps up, starts to dance, squints her eyes and moves her mouth to the music like she knows the words.  I've got to try and get a video of this - it's hilarious!  She has also started to let us know when she goes potty or poopie.  She'll either grab the front of her diaper and make an "icky" face, or she'll go grab a diaper and lay down at our unofficial changing spot.  I've noticed that when she has to go #2, she either climbs into the kitchen cabinet and hides or hides behind the sectional sofa (see picture).  I decided to get out her little potty chair and let her explore and experiment with it.  She sees me potty training the daycare kids, so I'm sure she knows what to do . . . it's just trying to time it right with her since she is still so young. 

Some of the new words to Avery's vocabulary are: apple, stink, P.U., Jack-Jack, and "I yuv you".  She has not said it to me or daddy, but she said it to her little friend Jack yesterday!!  I have not been able to get her to repeat it, but she woke up this morning and asked for Jack-Jack.  Should I be concerned?

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7-31-08:  This past week, we've noticed Avery talking like crazy.  Some of her jibber-jabber is her own creative language, and some is actual words.  Last night she and daddy got into a discussion about "boys" . . . . Avery's newest word!  How she learned that one, I have no clue.  Daddy kept saying "no boys!" and Avery would laugh, smile and say "boys" again.  She is also fascinated by "owies" (not sure how to spell that).  My mom and I both fell and skinned out knees in Wisconsin (we were completley sober!).  Our "owies" are gone, but Avery continues to point to our knees and say "owie".  She likes to sit on our laps and check us over for "owies" as well.  Any mole or discoloration of the skin is an "owie" to her.

The last two days/nights, Avery has put herself to bed and down for her naps.  She grabs her silky blanket, gives daddy & I a kiss and starts walking down the hallway to her room.  Of course, we need to lift her into her crib, but we think it's pretty cool how she realizes when she wants to go to "night-night".

Avery LOVES books, and loves to pull all the books off of the bookshelf around her.  She sits there and flips through the pages as she "reads" in her own language.  As a teacher, it brings a tear to my eye to see my little girl love reading so much.  I can't wait to share with her the boxes and boxes of books I have in storage!

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7/21/08  - I don't have a lot to update this week.  We just got home from visiting my mom - "Grandmom".  Grandpa has been out of town on tour with his brothers for a few weeks and Grandmom was a little lonely, so we went to church, out to breakfast and shopping with her.  I posted some silly pictures that we took when we were at Grandmom's house this morning.

Avery has been dancing up a storm to music and LOVES to do Ring Around the Rosie and "Had a Horse".  She thinks those two rhymes are the best thing ever.  She knows and points to quite a few body parts:  head, hair, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, tongue, teeth, hand, belly button, butt & "stinky feet".  Yesterday, Steve was eating some garlicy beef sticks and blew his breath in Avery's face.  Avery wrinkled her nose, put up her hand and swished the air away from her face as if she were saying "P-U"!  It was too funny.

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