happy birthday baby!

avery's 2!
birthday kisses!

papa & van came over for a little breakfast celebration - we had a waffle "cake" and a few presents and balloons!

daddy got "finding nemo"
she had no idea what it was, but was excited all the same :)

fancy candy jewelry- thank you Kitty!!

isn't she beautiful?

she has really made the last two years of our lives the most incredible, wonderful times - we never could have imagined how amazing it would be! we are so blessed!

in recent news...

we've been really low-key lately due to my being bedridden for the last month (baby Q is fine, but my body is a little broken :) SI joint dysfunction sure takes a long time to heal...) thank God for peter, family & friends who have kept me going :) anyways, because of that, we haven't had alot going on.

here's a peekaboo video:

avery playing with her hat & gloves this morning:

avi & daddy a couple days ago:

nana brought over some disguises for avery & mommy to play with:

and these are a little bit older...

from when i could still feed avery lunch in the kitchen, and not off my bed :), i think she looks adorable, and she was so funny checking herself out in the mirror.

we sure do love that she is such a snuggler!

children's museum

we went to the children's museum last friday with our friends chloe, elise & issac, and their moms christina and leah. so much fun! we went into a huge climbing structure, where of course avery had to go to the very top and get herself stuck up there...so 7 months pregnant, i had to squeeze into these spaces obviously meant for toddlers, and rescue my poor baby girl :) of course, when i fit through, i felt empowered and continued to climb through the rest of it...it was (besides the elastic on my jeans rolling down)alot of fun!

we also played with the water table, the frozen shadows, the make believe neighborhood, music room, the bubbles, the curvy crawler and avery's favorite: the ambulance! some pictures are blurry, but that's because we couldn't get the girls to stop moving!

this is the climbing structure...


avi & mommy

avery & chloe to the rescue!



bubbles!




chloe, avery & elise


she was loving the water!

happy new year!

we hope everyone had wonderful holidays - we sure did!
avery is so much fun. christmas day started at 7am when she came to our bed as usual. we snuggled for a couple minutes, and then went to get breakfast and open presents. when we finally went into the living room, she said "oh my god, christmas tree!" and pointed at the tree, like she does every time she sees a christmas tree. we had to point out the presents, even though the easel from grandma and grandpa was huge, and so was the stove that daddy finished for her. she was definitely overwhelmed - i think one gift would have been just fine with her. i love it!

avery & bailee

checking out the new stove

thanks grandma & grandpa!

when we were done at our house, we drove over to nana & papa's for all the excitement there. avery was definitely overwhelmed at this point, and just wanted to play. we went home for naps and relaxing before going back over to nana's for dinner. i don't have any pictures yet, but her favorite gifts from nana & papa were her very own bitty baby doll, wooden "animalz" and a nightgown with matching slippers. it was a merry christmas :)

here is avery enjoying some of her christmas presents:

she loves her easel!

a penguin towel from uncle mike & auntie heather

in their beautiful christmas dresses,
avery + chloe = bff

this is from a little before Christmas, Avery wanted to demonstrate what an amazing musician she is already...

santa claus is coming to town...

we're getting ready for Christmas! avery is very excited about presents, she got one from uncle dennis and auntie april last night at our annual christmas dinner. i don't think she quite gets the concept of santa ;) but we have gone to visit 2 of them...here are some pictures from one:


she wouldn't sit with santa by herself :)


santa gave her a candy cane and a "magic elf"


she was way more into the candy cane than into santa, but she did tell him she wanted presents for christmas, that she was a good girl, thank you and merry christmas!

then lanie & merri wanted in:



a little blurry, but the excitement is almost tangible :)


avery's in the dog house...

this was at yankee candle in deerfield, ma. what a cool place to visit right before christmas with an almost 2 year old :) the santa was wonderful - friendly, patient and telling jokes! avery got such a kick out of santa's workshop, the train room, the villages and the waterfalls, the trees with snow falling...it was magical ;) it was even more fun because we had nana, auntie lanie and auntie merri with us!

enter your guess

since we're keeping it a suprise, we thought this might be fun :)

thanksgiving

we had a wonderful thanksgiving! it was a pretty relaxed day, although we did have to go to 4 gas stations to find a newspaper, and bailee took off for a little neighborhod jaunt (peter found her and brought her back)...we still had time to go for a nice long walk and watch some of the parade.

we hosted for my family, so we had 14 people in our little house, but it was nice and cozy. avery was such a good eater...she ate her turkey and green beans and stuffing and mashed potatoes...she really likes cranberry sauce, but does not like butternut squash. she was pretty vocal about it, too..she pointed to everything else on her plate, and said "i like it, i like it, i like it"..and when she got to the squash, "i no like it" and covered it up with her hands.

we hope all of you had a great thanksgiving too!