Happy 2nd Birthday!

It's hard to believe it, but my baby girl is two years old today. We celebrated a few days early with an Elmo-themed pizza party this past Saturday. Avery knew something exciting was happening when she spied the Elmo cupcakes on the dining room table before the party and exclaimed, "cupcakes!" Thankfully, the batch she grabbed survived until the party!

Avery loved the party activity: decorating Dorothy sugar cookies with Baylor and Emme. For those of you that don't watch Elmo's World daily, Dorothy is Elmo's pet goldfish. I am aware this is a stretch, but hey, we had a snow storm last week and I couldn't come up with an Elmo cookie cutter.

Onto the presents! Avery sat in her new personalized Land of Nod chair to open all her gifts. Of course, her old friend giraffey sat faithfully by and helped.

Avery was excited to receive a tickle-me-Elmo, an "I love Elmo" t-shirt, the Best of Elmo's World DVD collection, and many other great Elmo and non-Elmo themed gifts.

After gifts, Avery dove right into her cupcake, and sported a red mouth, teeth, and tongue for the rest of the day like everyone else. What a fun day! Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate and make Avery's day so special!

Happy 2011

As is our annual tradition, we rented what we thought was a nice, easily-accessible-in-winter-weather cabin for our New Year's trip to the NC mountains with the Newberrys and Nealises. We were a little misled by the access; in fact, the Nealises had to wait the first night out in town before they could make it to "The Lake House." Just ask them about their nice overnight stay in Robin's guest house.

Once everyone arrived, we had a great time catching up, eating good food, partaking in a few adult beverages, and holding some healthy competitions on the wii, courtesy of our resident mii artist, Greg. The boys felt superior enough to challenge the girls to wii Trivial Pursuit, and we really handed it to them. Don't worry, Greg, Jay and John, we still think you all all very handsome from up here on our pedastools. We can barely fit all of our pie on, though!

One reason why Heather is my eternal BFF - I can count on her to always brings the wine!

The kids all go along so well and we enjoying having an opportunity for them to play together. Here is a rare moment of everyone sitting down - Avery (23 mos), Luke (19 mos) and Elizabeth (4 3/4 years). Now, "more run!"

Due to a malfunctioning hot tub, thanks to Jay's efforts, we actually did make it into one hot water party. Only a few ladybugs decided to take a dip.

Though we all enjoyed our trip, I think we're all more than over snow and ice and will seek out a lower elevation to ring in 2012. Beach house rental anyone?

An Elmo Christmas

When I was growing up, we spent every Christmas with my mom's family in Pittsburgh, PA. Christmas anywhere else just wasn't Christmas! I loved seeing my grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins during this annual trip. Post-college, the tradition began to fade, and all the sudden, it had been 5 years since I'd visited Pittsburgh. We decided 2010 was the perfect year to head to the Steel City so that Avery could have her very first Pittsburgh Christmas!

We arrived in Pittsburgh at lunch time, so headed to the Penn Brewery for some libations. Pierogies are my new favorite food, but Avery plans to stick with ketchup with a side of French fries.

Though Avery enjoyed meeting all her 2nd cousins, she really took to 13-year old cousin Shea, and wanted to do just everything Shea was doing.

Christmas 2010 was definitely the year of Elmo. Avery got an elmo etch-a-sketch...

...a new "Guess Who, Elmo" book....

...and an Elmo Pla-Doh set. We are in Elmo's World, all right!

Ellen and Uncle Dwight got this baby stroller and doll for Avery. She quickly discarded the baby doll in favor of her new Olivia doll and made a few laps around Dwight's house in this pink cruiser.

Thanks to Santa Claus for restoring the order to our house with this gift. I just hope Avery is not too brainwashed from "Hello Bucky!" and "Go Pack Go!" to appreciate this fine sampling of UNC propaganda.

On our last day in Pittsburgh, we took Avery to the Western Pennsylvania Train Museum. Avery was excited to see the choo-choo trains and we all enjoyed the elaborate and detailed scale model of the railways of Western PA.

Of course, getting to play with the trains in the kids' area was an added bonus of our visit!

After having so much fun, we headed home with many wonderful holiday memories having had a very Merry Christmas!

A White Christmas

This Christmas, we flew North to Pittsburgh to spend Christmas with my mom's side of the family. We really talked up the snow to Avery, and she could hardly wait to get from the airport to my Uncle Dwight's house to experience it. I bought an ebay snow suit, Meme sprung for the pink snow boots, and we borrowed a sled from my cousins Shea and Karl. We were officially ready to hit the backyard!

This Southern girl had a blast tasting the snow, touching the falling flakes, and most of all, sledding!

"More!"

But let's not forget....

...this Daddy supervision fail!

Girl's Night Out

Avery and I are fresh from a school night outing for dinner and a story, just us girls. Earlier this week, I discovered that our local library branch was hosting a "Polar Express Pajama Rama" this evening, and knew that Avery and I had to be there. Conveniently, the Polar Express Pajama Rama coincided with Chick-fil-A family night, so Avery was a very cheap dinner date. We even ran into Avery's school friend, Naomi, and her parents, so sat next to them. Avery was pretty unfazed by their presence as she gobbled up an entire nugget kids meal (with ketchup) and drank all her milk!

The Polar Express reading was enjoyable, and though Avery was a little unsure of the lights going off at first, she settled in with me to listen to the story. She thought the special sound effects were pretty neat, and enjoyed seeing the book's pages on the big projector screen. A couple of teens sitting nearby even giggled when she recognized Santa and exclaimed "Nanta Claus!"

After the reading was over, we did a craft together. Avery doesn't mess around when a glue stick is involved! We passed on the hot cocoa, but Avery did go for the cookies, then set about finding some new books to check-out and read. After perusing the library's entire board book selection, she chose two: "Go Dog. Go!" and "Curious George's ABCs." I opted for a more mature choice, the newly released "As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto."

On our way out, we made a stop to check out the library's dozens of decorated trees!

And last but not least, we took a self-portrait to commemorate our outing. Here's to a new holiday tradition at our local library!

"Nanta Claus"

We took Avery to see "Nanta Claus" this weekend. After a failed portrait session with Santa at school, I set my expectations low. When it was our turn to see Santa, Avery wasn't at all interested in sitting on his lap, but agreed to sit on mine while I sat next to Santa...as long as blue puppy could come, too. With these compromises, Avery indulged me with a tiny smile. It's not a perfect Santa photo, but I'll take it!

Thanksgiving 2010

We had a very busy Thanksgiving full of good football, food, and family. On Thanksgiving Day, we waited for Meme and Pa to arrive while playing a little football in our front yard. Avery didn’t let a silly dress keep her from the pigskin action!

That evening, we were fortunate to share Thanksgiving dinner with some of my mom’s extended family. We really enjoyed seeing several relatives that we hadn’t seen in years, and Avery was the life of the party! I was more than happy to take home an empty dish of corn pudding as our hosts did the cooking. As for Avery, she wasn't into the delicious meal and dined on goldfish instead. Sigh.

Friday afternoon, two of Greg’s closest friends, Marco and Eric, arrived to join the fun. They kept Greg busy drinking beer and playing pool, so we left them to their own devices on Saturday and headed to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens to take advantage of the beautiful weather. Avery had a big time running around the gardens and watching the miniature trains with Pa.

She wasn't so sure about Santa Claus, though.

Sunday, we left Avery in Meme’s care and headed to the Georgia Dome to watch the Packers take on the Falcons. We had a blast at the game despite the Packers 3-point loss. It was really a treat to be able to go to a game and leave Avery in such good hands.

Avery sure had a nice weekend with her grandparents, and can't wait to see them again at Christmas!