Avery's New Hobby

In the past couple months Avery has taken up a new hobby...Photography! She loves to use my camera to take photos of practically everything and anything! I think I know what she will be getting for her birthday this year :) Here are some of the pics she's taken of the family...I have a lot of photos she's taken of us driving, her toys, the house, etc. but I didn't want to bore you with that. She's getting pretty good...I may just have to put her to work when I get busy :)

Happy Birthday Brian!!

Happy one year left until the Big 3-0 birthday Brian!! We had so much fun on Saturday night celebrating Brian's birthday! We started the night out at his apartment with a celebratory bottle of Dom Perignon. There are several reasons we drank this bottle, but I'll have to go into that some other time because this is about Brian's birthday!

Here's Dad with his lovely, yummy bottle:



Here I am taking my fair share ;)



Got a quick photo of Tim and I taken.

Then we headed over to Nick & Sam's Grill..one of our new fav restaurants. The food and drinks are so good and the music and atmosphere is great. Try it out sometime...you won't be disappointed!

The boys...

enjoying themselves...

The Ladies

Blowing out the last candles of the 20's!!


After dinner we headed over to the Dragonfly for a brief visit and then situated ourselves at the Library in the Melrose hotel. They have a great lounge with live music...it was the perfect way to end the evening!

This is what our car looked like when we got back to my parents. It was a crazy, constant swirling snow drive home.

Happy Birthday Bro...see you next year in the 30's :)

Check Out Avery's New Favorite Video

Avery really likes to watch videos of the songs we play in the car and at home on the computer. We just found out that we can make a playlist of all her videos on YouTube so we put together a playlist for her that continues to play her music videos.

Now, as some of you might know, Avery doesn't listen to much kid music anymore :) Tim and I have kind of turned her on to the music that we like, which is great but the only problem is that she likes to hear only certain songs OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. So, once we are about to go out of our minds listening to the same song, we persuade her to listen to another new one. Her list is finally growing! Some of her favs...1234 by Feist, A-Punk by Vampire Weekend, Hey Soul Sister by Train, I'm Yours by Jason Mraz, Single Ladies by Beyonce - she can sure dance to this one :), anything by Ziggy Marley, etc. Speaking of Ziggy Marley, for all you parents out there when you get a chance check out Ziggy Marley's Family Time. It's a family oriented CD and Avery just loves it.

Here's her newest Favorite Song - Cousins by Vampire Weekend. If you haven't listened to Vampire Weekend's new album, give it a try...they're great!!

Valentine's Day

This year our Valentine's Day was so fun!! Avery really got in the spirit of things and we are still celebrating it a month later!! Overall, I think we bought out every kind of Valentine at Target that would interest a toddler girl especially since on the weekends she would ask Tim to take her to get more new Valentine's - of course he obliged :) She has Cinderella, Dora, Mickey, Puppies, etc and they all go in her super cute mailbox they made for Valentine's Day at school.

She loved to take her Valentine's everywhere with her and pass them out to everyone. She still does this at home so we'll have to put them up sooner than later...just waiting for the next holiday! I hope you all had a fantastic Valentine's Day!

Her she is picking out her Valentine's and stickers to give to her friends at school


Decorating her Valentine's

Leaving school with her mailbox full!

Checking out all her Valentine's she got at school. She's so funny because if it's not M&M's or Lollipops she's not interested. And, even the lollipops she takes a few licks and she's on to another.

I think she's done with taking pictures!!

One of her Valentine projects she did at school. I've always wanted a stained-glass window!

Big Girl Bed

Surprise Avery...check out your Big Girl Furniture!! How exciting - we moved her into her Big Girl Bed! We had the furniture delivered and the bed made up with her super-cute bedding made by none other than Nana herself and surprised her with it this morning.

She LOVED it and had to get right in and feel and touch everything and get under the covers and jump on the bed. She couldn't get enough of it. This was such a big day for us too!! Besides finishing potty-training at night, this was one of the last Big things we have to conquer from her going from a toddler to a Big Girl. I think I'm having the hardest time with it, but I am also super-excited about it at the same time! She has done so great sleeping in it both at nap and bedtime so luckily it was an easy transition for us. Hopefully it will stay this way!

PS: Don't be surprised if you come over and she wants to show you her New Big Girl room. She's pretty proud of it!!

Last Night in the Crib!

Well ladies and gentlemen, tonight is the last night for Avery to sleep in her crib! Her big girl furniture is coming tomorrow and the crib will be dismantled and hidden in a closet so that there will be no chance of her crawling back into it.

This is something that is so bittersweet to me because I know it is time for her to get a big girl bed, I know she will be "3" in a couple of months but it also means my baby is growing up. Everyone keeps telling me not to worry about her transition into the big girl bed, but how can you not worry about something like this. Especially since Avery LOVES her crib - she is such a great sleeper and she has never even attempted to get out of it before. I'm sure I'm jinxing myself on both these points for tonight but we'll see in the morning!

One friend of mine put it this way..."it's better to worry for nothing, than not worry at all"! I like that because I do hope I'm worrying for nothing and I hope it goes smoothly, but if not, it will be just like any of the other road bumps we've crossed in this journey of Avery's childhood. I know it won't be the last! But, keep your fingers crossed for us that it all goes well...I'll keep you posted.

Here are some of my favorite pics I found of Avery in her crib. Clearly I stopped taking them after 1 1/2 because I couldn't find any in her 2-year old pics.

Classic Sleeping Pose


Our little Houdini - how did she do that and in her swaddle too??

Such a smiler :)