Happy Turkey Day!

Avery's 2nd Thanksgiving was a good one! On Thursday, we headed to Detroit for "America's Thanksgiving Day Parade" and the Titans/Lions football game. We didn't have any family in town so it was a fun activity! Avery got a kick out of the parade- especially the Clifford balloon. It was cold and windy though, so we only stayed for a little while before heading to Ford Field for the game (right next door)

Luckily we are Titans fans instead of Lions fans because it was a blowout! Fun game, though, thankfully not outside, and Avery was well behaved as usual. She especially enjoyed clapping, and she loved the "Jesse McCartney" halftime show!

On Friday, we went to the Bader's house for a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner including the most delicious fried turkey ever!! Avery and Kaitlyn had a blast running all over the house. It was really the first time they "played" together so it was super cute. They would sprint into Kaitlyn's room, hide behind the chair, chat about the kitty cats in their "toddler speak" and would sprint back down the long hallway into the kitchen.




Thanks so much to Jess and her family for having us over!

Sorry I haven't been updating the blog very much lately. Honestly, it's because Dave and I have been renting the 1st season of Heroes. We're obsessed, and you have to pay attention too much to blog at the same time =) I'll try to do better!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I am so so thankful for my wonderful daughter and husband, my family, friends, and the so many other blessings in my life- not just one this one weekend in November, but every day of the year.

Nana's Visit

We were so happy to have Dave's Mom (Nana) come and visit us last weekend! It had been several months since she'd seen Avery so she had to come and see all of Avery's new tricks =) It was FREEZING so basically we just stayed inside and played and played and played. We did take a trip to the children's museum, and Dave and I got to have a date night so it was wonderful! Here are Avery and Nana snuggling:

Here they are reading:

and reading:

and reading! Poor Nana read about 108,293 books while she was here. Avery is hard to resist when she brings you a book and holds up her hands to sit in your lap- especially hard for grandmas to resist!

We took a trip to Chelsea and walked around downtown after having a yummy lunch at the Common Grill.
Thanks for coming Nancy- we can't wait to see you again at Christmas!

TN Girl

Not much to report from this week... it's gotten cold, so we've spent a lot more time inside recently. It was actively snowing all day today! It's kind of nice... ask me again if I'm tired of it in April =) 

One thing you might notice- Avery got a haircut! It was getting to be such a mullet, the other night after her bath I just chopped off a couple inches from the back! I was impressed with myself. Now she has a little bob and it's super cute. 

I have to show you these pictures... I tried to take a shower the other day while locking her in the bathroom with me.  Recently she's been sitting in there with me, content to play with her toys, the q-tips, or whatever, but I guess those days are over. She insisted on having the curtain open and wanted to touch the water the whole time. Here is what she looked like afterwards. SOAKED!

Thursday night, Avery and I had girls night out at the Fashion Show/Silent Auction to benefit the NICU at St. Joseph Hospital. My friend Susie is on the Family Advisory board- her twin boys spent time in the NICU when they were born early- so we went to watch her and the boys strut their stuff at the fashion show. It was fun! It was Avery's first event where she had to sit still in an auditorium and watch a show, but she was good. We were sitting on the aisle, and after a little while she got bored sitting in my lap. So then she sat right beside me on the step in the aisle. Each time they introduced a family to come out in the fashion show, everyone in the audience would clap. Avery was freaked out at the loud noise at first and kept running back to sit in my lap. But after a couple of rounds, she REALLY got into the clapping. She would sit there on the step with her juice cup and watch, then as soon as people started clapping, she would LEAP up and clap as hard as she could, beaming so adorably. She even got to be a pro at sticking her cup under her armpit and simultaneously clapping. HA! Here are some pics of Susie, Grant, and Hunter modeling and some of Avery sitting and then leaping up. I was embarrassed to be taking pictures of my kid in the audience instead of the models in the show, so I didn't get a great pic of her. =)

Here are Audrey and Avery. Audrey had a big Dora ring on that Avery thought was pretty SWEET!

Doesn't she look like a little southerner in her monogrammed dress and big pink hairbow? She looked very cute if I do say so myself. Here we are before we left for the evening... Avery running away from the camera of course. 

I've started to get ready for the big move... we've had a couple of movers to come out and give estimates, and we've started organizing the basement- pulling out things we're going to put into storage. TN football may be having a down year, but they still have one fan: Avery! She is obsessed with her Smoky dog that plays the fight song, so I thought I'd share a video. She's admiring her dance moves in the mirror, if you're wondering what she's looking it. Enjoy!

Picture Pages

Just realized I haven't given you any Avery pics lately! Oops!

On Oct 30th, Avery and I took one last trip to the pumpkin patch- Plymouth Orchards to be exact. It was totally deserted and they had almost no pumpkins left, but it was still super fun. They had cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, etc. Avery hated the cows, sheep, and pigs because they made too much noise. For some reason, she loves animals, but does NOT like when they bark, moo, baa, etc. It's actually entertaining. She did love all the birds- ducks and chickens. Here she is very seriously studying the ducks. =)
We went on a hayride through the apple orchard- much more relaxing than the hayride in Dexter!
It's getting cold around here so we had to bust out the winter hat!
Here are Kaitlyn and Avery on Halloween- very pooped from our "trick or treating" in downtown Ann Arbor Friday morning. They loved looking at all the kids in costumes.
They got their second wind when we went to the children's museum. Then Halloween night, we went to play with Jess and Kaitlyn again at their house, plus a few others. We ate yummy chili and played with Kaitlyn's fun toys and watched the trick or treaters come by. I can't believe I didn't get a pictures of the kids!
Here's Avery playing with her new pumpkin. She LOVES pumpkins, especially the small ones she can carry.

Here she is pouting because she'd had to wear that uncomfortable kitty hat all day!
Here are Dave, Avery the kitty, the toy kitty, and the real kitty. We told Dawkins that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery- so he tolerated a hug.
We stopped by to visit Katie, Bob, and Tommy. He looked too cute as Winnie the Pooh!
Here are some pics from last year of Avery in honor of ole' Winnie:
Avery playing with her pumpkin again
Here Avery is enjoying the park on the last day before winter starts (yes, it snowed today). This is Mushroom Park- with the greatest tree in Ann Arbor!

Of course we brought the popper.Avery really liked watching all of the leaves fall- it was just a little breeze, but it looked like it was raining leaves =)
Here are some pics from this weekend when I tried to get a good photo of Avery in her Baylor shirt to send into the magazine. Unfortunately she wouldn't be still for one second so they all look like this:
I'll use an earlier one from when she wasn't so mobile. =)
Until next time!