Avery is 2!

Happy Birthday to my dear sweet little Avery! Our tiny baby is now such a big girl.


We celebrated over the weekend, and you would have thought she had turned 21 instead of 2 because of how tired we were by Sunday night. We stayed up pretty late on Saturday night because our neighbors had a barbecue, and even though we got home fairly early, we had a lot of celebratory preparations to do. We were up until well past midnight, assembling a play kitchen and decorating a cake.

What's cuter than a daddy decorating a butterfly cake for his daughter? Only the daughter, I say.

The cake turned out adorably. I was the idea guy and Alan took over in decoration execution, thankfully. There is a reason I'm a writer, not an artist, after all.


Avery came downstairs on Sunday morning to her kitchen set assembled in the living room. She was so excited she got a little shy about the whole thing. After getting picked up by Alan and then hopping onto the couch, she ventured over to the kitchen...and didn't leave it for 30 minutes.

Hey Marti, make yourself comfortable in an otherwise adorable photo op.

She loved all of her presents. She got lots of goodies beyond her kitchen.

This picture makes my heart hurt.

A new friend to love. (Thanks Cindy and Ronnie!)

We had to enjoy the fruits of our labor, so there was cake to be eaten!


Owen, of course, had to party it up too.


At 2 years old, Avery is becoming her own little person. She's becoming quite the chatterbox, and she repeats everything. And you never known when she'll pull something out of her brain. At the barbecue, she randomly told someone "Puppy puked" because Marti had been sick the other day. She got too close to the street recently, which she knows is "very dangerous" and preempted my safety talk by saying "Avery Anne" like I do when she's in trouble.

She loves reporting on Owen's activities. Owen awake, Owen laughing, Owen kicking. When she wants him in the bouncer or jumper or off my lap it's "Owen-uh Owen-uh bouncer bouncer/jumper jumper" or "Owen down." One time Owen was crying and she revisited the pipes she's scared of: "Owen crying pipes." She's adding "very" to things, which is funny. She'll point to the street and say "very hurt" or "very ouchy."

We're painting our kitchen cabinets, a months-long process, and she knows that Alan is sometimes downstairs working on them. The other day: "Daddy painting cabinets...puppy painting cabinets...no, that's silly."

Counting is hilarious. She'll now consistently count to 10, but after that it gets interesting. "Eleven, uh-twelve, uh-poorteen, uh-sickeen." A recent hilarious run through the alphabet: ABCDEFGHIJK apple bike, QRSTUVW bike Y and Z, now I AB EFGHIJK apple bike, Yay!"

Some of the cutest words? "Mazagine," pronounced with the z and g swapped. Muskic. Hungry is still "hoo-awwn-gry" and she's always hooawngry. Most people list the few foods their kids will eat; I can list the few she won't eat: tomato, olives, cucumbers, unseasoned chicken, potato salad. Miss Opinionated now wants me to "move mommy move" if I'm at all in her way...or she wants to climb on me and not let me leave her sight. It's anybody's guess at any given moment.

She loves swimming and when someone splashes her at the pool? "Bad kids." When a kid is in her way? "Move kid." (And we're now teaching "excuse me.") She's also very particular about her bedtime routine. She must have her blankie and her "second blankie." She requests that the air conditioning be actively blowing ("A/C on, nice and cool"), so I don't know how she'll take it when we turn it off when it cools down. Her dolly, Golly, must be tucked in, as well as her hands and feet. It's like we add something new every night.

Some more recent faves of our funny girl.




Instead of parroting back everything we say, she's now starting to respond properly and has just now started saying "no" to things as you'll see in the video below. When she really doesn't want to do something? "No please."

Hooping it up.

It's been a wonderful ride over these two years. Avery is really becoming her own funny little person complete with her own opinions and quite the personality. Stay awesome, little Aves.