Avery - 2 1/2

March 25 - Avery is officially 2 1/2!  I can't believe she is so big!  She is growing up so fast and thinks that she is just as big as the big kids and wants to do everything that they do.  She is VERY independent and I call her Sassy because she has a bit of an attitude and so much personality right now!  It has been amazing to watch how much she has changed over the last few months.  She went from saying words here and there, to full paragraphs so fast and can now carry on full conversations.

She is a great story teller and uses such expressive facial expressions and hand motions.  I love just listening to her talk.  She also takes these big dramatic breaths in between sentences and makes me laugh all the time.  This is one of my favorite stages because they are still little but have so much personality!

Avery is incredibly independent.  She likes to dress herself and changes her clothes about 4 times a day.  Usually into pajamas.  She likes her PJs and I think that is the easiest clothes for her to get into.  They rarely match - just whatever she pulls out of her drawer.  Her favorites are her silky pants.  It drives me bonkers some days!  She also HAS to do her own buckles when we get in the car, which can be frustrating because it takes a LONG time! She is getting ready to move into a big girl bed and loves to tell everyone all about it (her bunk bed) and she is SO excited about being a big sister and having a baby brother at our house.  She asks me all the time when the baby is "coming out" and has learned that it will be "afer the Easer Bunny comes"  She is fascinated by my growing belly and loves to feel the baby move and give him loves and kisses.  (She is also a little obsessed with boobs but that is another story....)  She asks everyday if she can feed the baby or change his diaper or play with him when he comes out.  I am sure she will be a BIG helper.  Maybe a little too much of a helper...  She loves to sing and perform and is always belting out songs.  Usually she repeats the same line over and over several times.  She LOVES Annie and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Barney and Elmo.  She loves to be outside and especially to swing!  She also likes to ride bikes with Rylee and "help" Daddy weed.  Lately, she has been setting up a little lawn chair and telling Daddy she is watching a parade.  She loves baby dolls and is always loading up bags of accessories and hauling them around and it is hilarious to hear her "talk" on her pretend phone.  She has just started to get into dressing up and loves "prin-pecesses".  She also loves to pretend that we are going places and to "drive" us in her pretend cars.  She makes this funny swishing sound while she rolls her arms to drive and makes everyone buckle up.  Her trips are usually to Disneyland or "Chicken-A-Lay".

On her 2 1/2 year birthday, I made her do a little photo shoot....  Here are the results.   I still don't really know what I am doing with editing...  Some of the pictures were really over exposed, so I tried to fix them the best I could, but don't judge too much!  Avery LOVES the camera and is quite the poser lately!  I didn't even have to coach her!  I love the hands on the hips all the time.  Rylee used to do that, too.  I thought it was a Rylee thing, but maybe its a girl thing.  Or maybe its a girl thing this one picked up from watching her big sis....
 

I don't know what it is about her running, but I think it is one of the cutest things ever!

 

Towards the end of our photo shoot, she spotted a bug...  She wanted to pick him up but he flew away and it kind of scared her! 


Here are a few more things about our Sassy little Miss A for my journaling purposes....

Some of Avery's most commonly used phrases are:  
"I bis 'tending!"  (I'm just pretending)
"I bis a baby!" or "I'm not a baby!  I a big girl!"  She uses both of these a lot depending on the situation!  Sometimes she likes to be the baby (usually she says that when she is getting in trouble for something and she is pleading innocent...)  and other times she does not! (when she wants to do what the other kids are doing)  
Duh-Huh!  (for Uh-Huh) said with LOTS of attitude!  This is one of my and Daddy's favorites
If I ask her how much she loves me (or vice versa) she says "Moon and Back!"  I love it! 
She knows her name and sings "E - R - Y and that's how you spell Avery"  We are still working on the first couple letters.  She also says Logan and Rylee's names really well and knows mom and dad's first names and that we live in Hyde Park.
She says actually a lot to start sentences, which makes me laugh because she is so little.
She says Mine instead of my, she says "or" for your and she says "ooze" for use.
She has just recently started asking me "Are you a nice mom or a mean mom?"




Avery is really smart.  She can mostly sing her ABC's (since about Christmas...sometimes she gets stuck and starts repeating them) and knows her colors REALLY well.  She likes to count and says a lot of the numbers, but doesn't usually say them in the right order.  My favorite is "Leventeen"  She uses that one a lot.  


Avery LOVES to sing!  Some of the songs Avery likes to sing:  I Am a Child of God, Tomorrow (from Annie), Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Theme song, Jesus Wants Me for a "Sunbean", (she has to open and close her little hands for the SUNBEAN part and it is so cute!)  the Real Salt Lake Anthem (thanks to daddy), Its A Hard Knock Life (from Annie - She does a really good pouty face and folded arms for this one.) and any song from Tangled, but especially "I Have a Dream!"  And the Scotsman.  I love the way she belts out songs!  She shakes her little head when she holds the notes.  She is also a pretty funny little dancer, too.  She has to shrug her little shoulders whenever she hears music and can't help moving to the beat.  Tomorrow is probably her favorite.  She sings "Sun will come out, Tomorrow....There be sun.  Grey and Lonely, stick out my chin, grin, say.....Ohhhh  (this is the part where she shakes her head).....Sun come out...tomorrow....there be sun..."and she usually ends up repeating.  We don't get to the end too often.  Sometimes she likes to do it in the voice of the President like the movie.  It is hilarious!  


She LOVES the name game song and makes us go through everyone's names, but when she tries to sing it, her tongue comes out and it is just a lot of "lllll".  She can't quite get it.  It is hilarious!  She was really into this especially right before Christmas.  We had the CD in the car and she would ask for it over and over.  She would say "Do Avery" or "Do Rylee" - we would go through all our family and most of her friends. 



Avery's prayers are just about the cutest thing EVER!  She just says exactly what we are doing most of the time.  They are so sweet!  She blesses everyone to be "helfy" a lot and she will go through everyone's names and that we are going to bed, or eating dinner or whatever we happen to be doing.  

Avery has to do everything herself!  She can peel her own oranges (if I start it for her), open her own string cheese, do her own seatbelt, put on her own shoes, dress herself...  Pretty much everything!  If you try and open something for her or help her, she gets so upset and says, "No!  I do it!"

Avery's best friend is probably Rylee, although they do fight...  a LOT!  Her other best friend is Hallie, but she just moved away.  She always makes us play the Bladen's, Hallie's family and assigns us all a part - "You Stephanie, I Hallie, Rylee Zana, Logan Carter and Daddy Mike"  and there usually has to be a Baby Asher.  It is pretty funny!  She is also into who is her age.  The last few nights she has given me a list of names of friends her age.  "hallie mine age.  Lizzie mine age.  Lucas mine age.  Sarah mine age"  Some of her other buddies are Ollie, "Ownen", Sarah, Lizzie and she plays with Lucas and Ashlyn at nursery.  

Avery had a hard time going to nursery for a little while, but then loved it.  She is struggling with it again at the beginning of the year, but I think she is finally doing better again.  She loves to tell us about it when she comes home and always tells me who she plays with.  The other day she even told me that she hit someone!  Then she tried to backtrack and say it was someone else.  Little stinker!  Her favorite part is singing and the treat!   

Avery is an electronics junkie!  She is starting to really get into TV and her "shows" and is also always stealing my phone or Dad's ipad.  It is amazing to me how well she can maneuver thorugh all the menus and know just what she wants to get to.  She can find my music or games.  Pretty much anything.  She has also deleted all the memory from my phone.  Twice!  While she was supposed to be in some special app for kids that was protected!  STINKER!  She LOVES daddy's ipad and is always trying to steal it.  She calls it a "Hi-pad" which I love.  That is actually one of the ways that they got her to go to nursery.  Sandy Ballard let her play the ipad!  The other day, Darren told her, "You don't even love me.  You just love my ipad!"  Her response was, "No Daddy!  I love you AND your Hi-pad!"


Right around her birthday, Avery became addicted to Elmo books.  We had to read them EVERY night and it was usually the same one.  It went that way for several weeks...maybe even a couple months. Then she went through a phase where she always wanted her Wheels on the Bus book.  She also loves the Bear Hunt book, which she calls tip toe. 


Avery loves purses and all things girly and loves getting into my accessories and loading up bags with her "stuff"!  


Avery walks around on her tip toes a lot.  It makes me laugh.  

After we went to Disneyland, Avery became a little obsessed.  She didn't know many of the characters before, but she knows all the Princesses now (or Prin-pesses as she calls them) and also loved Buzz, Woody and Jessie.  She wanted to look at her little photo/autograph book everyday when we got back and name them all.  I love how she says some of the names - especially the Fairy Godmother.  She separates the God Mother and it sounds so cute!  She also started loving horses, I think from all our carousel rides.  


 Avery LOVES the Aggies.  She had so much fun having season tickets this year!  She is a clapper and HAS to clap if anyone else is clapping.  She sat through the games better than the big kids sometimes.  She has an obsession with Big Blue.  She has to know where he is at ALL times during the game.  She would tap my leg and ask me over and over.  At first, I thought it was because she wanted to meet him, but we soon figured out she was TERRIFIED of him and needed to be sure he was NOT close.  The couple of times he did come close, she ended up in tears!  She got so excited when they would play the fight song and the Scotsman and she had the actions and most of the words down and it was so fun to watch!  


Avery LOVES her crib.  She has never really made much of an effort to climb out until about Christmas time.  Once she learned to climb out, nap time was OVER!  No matter what I tried, I couldn't get her to go down for a nap.  She still manages to crash out in some of the funniest places some days, or falls asleep in the car but I can't get her to lay down and take a nap.  She is great at bedtime though and has to have things a very particular way.  She has to have her blankie, which changes all the time which one.  She also has to have her monkey Coconut that Daddy and I brought her back from Vegas in October.  She has to sleep on her Monkey Pillow Pet.  Then you have to sing "I am a Child of God" to her and place her sip in EXACTLY the right spot when she tells you.  It is pretty funny how particular she is.  


Avery is our candy junkie!  Our other kids were not really into sweets but Avery will find candy wherever she can and is always climbing up onto the counter tops to find it.  She even told Santa that is what she wanted for Christmas.  She also loves daddy's Diet Coke.  The other kids don't really like carbonation and have never really tried to drink it, but Avery is always trying to steal a sip.  She is a fruit snack addict and also loves to go to the fridge and help herself to the string cheese.  I am amazed but she can totally get it open by herself.  Even the cheeses covered in wax that Daddy buys, she can open herself. 


Avery has a funny obsession with the cow from Chick-fil-A.  She is talking about "Chicken-A-Lay" all the time, but when you say we are going there, she has to know if the cow will be there.  The cow was there once and it scared her to death!  Now, she is terrified to go inside if she thinks he will be there.  She even woke up one night and must have had a nightmare about him because when I went in to get her she said, "Cow Chicken-a-Lay in my room!"  She looked so scared!  Poor girl!