This fall season has been so much fun with Avery. And busy! It flew by fast and I realized that I had not updated this blog in some time, so be prepared to be inundated with photos. (whoops!) Avery really got into the fall festivities and I hope she continues to enjoy fall as much as I do as she gets older. She loved carving and decorating pumpkins. A favorite book of hers right now is "It's Pumpkin Day, Mouse!" where the mouse decorates pumpkins with different faces (happy, sad, etc) and Avery's absolute favorite pumpkin in the book is the scary pumpkin. She is in stitches every time she turns the page to that pumpkin. So that is the pumpkin we decided to make this year. She loved it!
Avery ended up with two costumes this year. She rocked her cowgirl costume when we went down to Connecticut to visit my brother Adam and his girl friend Heidi. We went to a fall festival and she had her picture taken and was in their local paper for having the cutest costume! She was such a ham; running around the festival saying hi to everyone, dancing to the music, and meeting the local fire department, including their dalmatian puppy. I think the hay ride was her favorite part of the festival though, and she became good friends with the operator of the tractor who told Chris that Avery made his day. While down visiting we got to meet Adam and Heidi's new puppy, Bailey, who Avery fell in love with. However, Avery made it very clear to Bailey that her crate was no longer her's; it was Avery's crate.
Her second costume was Princess Leia, which was very last minute when we decided to take Avery Trick Or Treating up the street with our friends Jon, Whitney and Robbie. Robbie went as Yoda so I did some last minute shopping and came up with a Princess Leia costume. The kids were so cute and they loved going up to the houses and getting candy. Avery had no shame and would take 2-3 pieces at each house. I think she just liked adding items to her pumpkin bucket! She did win over some hearts; especially a "Georgie" from IT who gave up their single red balloon to Avery when she expressed interest in it. She would say "treat treat", "thank you" and blow kisses to the people who gave out candy. And at times, she was more interested in people's dogs and their flowers than the candy. I would say it was a pretty successful first Trick Or Treating experience for Avery. She was dancing, chatting and singing the whole time. She really enjoyed herself and had a blast with Robbie and his cousins.
We have also enrolled Avery in a tumbling class where she is truly blossoming. She is making new friends and really enjoying the climbing, jumping, and tumbling around. As a one year old, I would never have believed that Avery would sit still during "circle time" and sing songs, listen to another adult who isn't family, and play follow the leader through obstacle courses and actually do all of the tasks. Even walking across the high beam with the teacher's help! Since we are fortunate enough not to have Avery in day care, this has been a great way for her to socialize with kids/adults who aren't family, grow as an individual, and really gain some confidence in herself. The kid has no fear!
It has been really awesome watching her grow into a little person. Each day she is saying more and more new words. She now plays pretend with dolls and really likes to feed them bottles and put them to bed. She also has started a new bed time routine where she asks for "shadow doggy" (mostly with daddy because he can make way better shadow puppets than I can). He pretends his hand is a dog and he will bark and lick her face and she will take her hand and make her shadow on the wall pet the shadow doggy. It really is the cutest thing. She loves helping out around the house. She feeds the dog (and at times reminds me that she needs to be fed), helps put laundry and soap in the washer and clothes in the dryer, empties the silverware from the dishwasher (we finally got a dishwasher after not having one for 3 years - YES!), and will help me cook when it's safe enough. Sometimes it's too hot and I tell her "hot" and she blows haha. I know one day she won't believe me that she actually enjoys helping out with chores as much as she does. Don't worry, I'll have proof. Some might call this child labor but I swear she gets so mad when we don't ask her to help us!
Within the last month or so, Avery has shown an extreme interest in sports. All sports. Soccer, football, baseball, basketball and hockey. She will grab our remote and say "ball ball" because she wants to watch some kind of sport. She can say some sports like "soccer" and "football", she says "ball ball" for baseball and basketball and she will say "hockey" but most of the time even that is "ball ball" haha. She gets super excited when we put sports on and will sit down with us and watch, cheer when our teams score and clap when we clap or when she sees people on the TV clapping. I'm pretty pumped that she enjoys sports this much and I hope that doesn't go away any time soon because this household loves to watch sports. I don't think she has a favorite yet, but I would suspect that soccer and football would be at the top of her list.
Avery is still in love with the outside. She still loves leaves, trees, flowers, the sun, airplanes, acorns; you name it, she loves it. Seeing her get so excited every time she hears an airplane or sees the leaves blow in the wind really warms my heart. I love watching her immense love for things and seeing the wonder of life's little treasures that, for her, are so special each time. I don't think I've ever walked around our backyard as much as I have in the last 6 months; just exploring and discovering the world through her eyes. She makes me enjoy little things so much more.
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