All Synced Up - It's a Google Miracle

I'm not a technology guru by any means but I thought this was so important that it may just reduce the divorce rate. So we all know that you need to be an Outlook user to sync with Blackberry. But did you know that if you don't use Outlook and have programmed your entire life into your Yahoo! calendar as I have, there's hope for you? Better yet, did you know that you can share a Google calendar online so that when your husband is at school getting candy out of airplanes (see previous post) he has no excuse about missing events because the paper calendar (that's so 2006) is at home? If you have not already synced your life with that of your significant other, please do this. Blackberry syncs with Outlook. Outlook syncs with Yahoo! Yahoo! syncs with Outlook which syncs back to Google. See? Round and round your calendar goes. If you're sitting at a stoplight wondering what you're doing later in the afternoon, you can check your calendar on your phone because you've automatically synced Google to Outlook which has magically synced itself to Yahoo! which has then transferred all of your information back to Outlook and onto your Blackberry. AND YOU NEVER LIFT A FINGER. I'm offering free syncing advice to all 4 of my readers because it has no doubt improved my life and I want to improve yours too.

For those 2 of my 4 readers who still have plain old cell phones, I'm afraid there's no hope for you. I bet you even still use paper calendars. Geez.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Avery Girl!

On this day last year our little girl was...

Sweet
Innocent

About 20 pounds

Just taking her first steps

Easy to distract
Easy to run errands with
Saying quite a few words like "Dissie, Owo, Dada, Mama"

Cupcake Breakfast on Her 2nd Birthday

This year our little girl is about 27 pounds, talking up a storm, testing out her new found jumping skills, bossy as can be and... too crazy to describe in bullets. I want Mason to come add some later but here are a few of my favorite memories during our second year of life with Avery.

She's in love with monkeys. Take her to the zoo and she doesn't need guidance. She'll take you straight to the monkeys. She's got the monkey noise down as well as most of the other everyday animals. Mason even made up a sound for what a camel says that she has mastered and it's hilarious. We've spent countless hours looking at our "100 Animals" book with Avery refusing to look at anything but the four monkeys. That leaves 96 others we ignored. She would show the monkeys to anyone who would look, including Dixie and her babies. Then she moved on to "Goodnight Gorilla" which Mason still says is his favorite.

When we're not at the zoo or reading monkey books, Avery is playing with her babies. Not real ones, but the lower maintenance kind that can be stuffed and tossed and strolled and shoved into seats. Too many adults have been fooled by what at first seems to be a sweet interest in a baby in a car seat. Wrong. What Avery is quick to clarify is that she wants the real baby out of the seat so that she can put her baby in. She's not apologetic either. Just get your baby out, lady. She'll say please - "Baby out, please." and she's pretty good at "Thank you" which has now turned into "Thanks." She loves babies with accessories. She will cover and uncover, take a pacifier out and put it back in, buckle and unbuckle, pat, shush, bounce and sing to her entire brood for hours on end. I can't take her for walks in the stroller anymore. She refuses to get in. The only way she'll go is if she puts her baby in the stroller and pushes it herself. Mason came home from a walk last week that took 45 minutes and they only went a few blocks because Avery was pushing "at 2 miles an hour" the entire time.

She still loves her leopard, hot milk, has learned everyone in the extended family's names and knows where all of the neighbors live as well. She knows that when we're near the "donut store" we're also right around the corner from home. She knows that at the "park" you "swing and slide" and can pretty much tell us what she wants to eat as her vocabulary is extensive enough to cover "ice cream, bread, sandwich, chicken, noodles, orange juice, apple juice (which she is not shy about asking for from waiters) cookies, candy, chocolate, fruit, apples, pineapple, grapes, crackers, cheese, mango." I could go on forever. My point is that she's got the talking thing down. She's starting to understand concepts like "tomorrow, later, in a minute, after, first, etc." which is helpful but we still have our fair share of fits just from her not getting her way and not understanding that we're on our way to do something.

She's still fearless. We took her to Schlitterbahn last summer and she absolutely loved it. We can't wait to go back again because this year she'll be able to do even more stuff herself. We went to the rodeo recently and she didn't hesitate to go down the big slides and she loved the roller coasters.

Avery has a memory like an elephant. She has only been inside Mason's school once and it was about 2 months ago. Today I said, "Where's dada?" "School." she said. "What does he do there?" I asked. Her response was "candy - airplane." I had no clue what she was talking about and I really wasn't even expecting a response. Mason and I figured out after talking about it that the night we took her up there, there was an airplane pinata full of candy during a festival. So, Avery thinks that school is a place where you hit airplanes with a colorful stick and candy falls out. Sounds good to me. We'll let her keep thinking that for a while. I have a million other examples of the same memory things but if I let myself go I'll write forever.

I may have to come back and add later so please excuse me for editing myself. I can't believe how much she's changed since last year and as you can see from the small number of bullets from her first birthday, I can't even remember what she was doing. I'm determined to use the blog as a way to document things for us. I had a friend in college whose dad would write her a letter every year on her birthday. It was a review of everything she'd accomplished and he'd tell her all the reasons he was proud of her. I remember her reading it and bawling. I'm trying to avoid the mush factor for everyone's sake but, Avery, please know that we love you more than anything in the whole wide world and we're so happy to get to play with you every day! You are one hilarious monkey! (There, I did it and I have to go to bed now before I really start crying!)

Here's to a happy, healthy, potty trained 3rd year!

$164 Bucks

I'm jumping on the fashion blogging bandwagon now because I love this swimsuit and I need someone to give me permission to buy it. I saw it at Nordstrom a few weeks ago and it's still stuck in my head. I'm over getting tan and I've come to terms with the fact that my gut is over a two-piece. This would require less sunscreen, provide more coverage and I don't think it's as matronly as some one piece suits. See how nicely the casually crumpled mid-section would cover everything? My last bathing suit came from the Juniors section at Dillard's. It's time to graduate.

There are some things I think are totally worth the money and others that are just silly. Fancy dinners that cost $200 and are gone in an hour? No way. Juicy bathing suits that I promise I would keep for years? Worth every dime.

Strep Throat

This is an interview with Avery after a shot of antibiotics in her "knee" and 14 hours of sleep. Poor kid still sounds like a frog but she's doing better.

And, a picture of the nap she took on the couch this afternoon. Just crawled right up while I was on the phone and passed out.

Pee Pee

Just wanted to have it on record for Avery's sake that she peed in the potty twice last week and she also , well, you know. I also thought I should have on record that on the same day she peed twice in the potty, she went on the wool rug in her bedroom and the sisal rug in the living room. Baby steps.

It's a Boy!

Kelly and Perry just had their baby! He's chubby and cute and rumor has it he looks like Kelly. She said he's not at all wrinkly so he looks like he's a few weeks old. We all thought he was going to be blonde so the dark hair is throwing everyone for a loop and now they're stumped on the name. Stay tuned...