Jumping Beans

We don't own a trampoline of our own, but we have a friend who lets us come jump anytime we want on theirs. The girls love it.

Avery used to be pretty cautious but now she's become much more brave and even reckless.

Sophie is a crazy jumper, too, and she loves to bounce her little sis.

See? Avery actually isn't as high off the tramp as it seems in the pic and she was fine. Disclaimer: No children were hurt in the filming of this event.

My favorite part of the day was Avery's hair. It looked like this the entire time we jumped. Gotta love that static.

I even got to jump with them a little which was fun for all of us. I'd love to own a tramp of our own sometime, but we have to have a backyard first. Someday! Until then, thank goodness for nice and generous friends.

Tiny Dancer

Sophie started her first dance class a few weeks ago and I think we can safely say that she's fallen in love. She has been excited about dancing ever since we signed her up several weeks ago and bought her leotard and dance shoes. So I was a little surprised when she was a little trepidatious her first time there and wasn't so sure she really wanted to do it after all. I'm glad that wore off quickly and that she's enjoyed it since her first "I'm a Little Teapot" move that very first day.

The first day was all ballet, but they've gotten to do a little tap dancing since (which is my first love). Who knows if she'll ever stick with any dancing at all, but I'm glad that she's enjoying it for now at least.

They were all so funny to watch the first day. Sophie did a good job following her teacher, Ms. Paula's, directions. She marched, galloped, and tiptoed with all the other girls like a champ.

She kept turning around to tell me she was dancing! She was so excited. I just kept thinking the entire time how much she's grown up and how big she's getting. But she's still my Tiny Dancer as Elton John (or Tim Mcgraw) would say.

The end of the finale dance--hooray! We made it and are a full-fledged dancing girl now.

She dances all over the house now, even more than before her class started. And as you can see, literally half the day she is in one of her dress-up dresses. She usually starts in regular clothes, but almost always by the time Joseph gets home from work she's changed into one of these dresses. He always asks if she's wore that all day, and sometimes the answer is "yes". What can I say, she believes she really is a princess! And to us, she is.

Adorable Avery

Avery is currently 19 months old and is at such a fun stage right now. I love seeing her cute personality unfold daily. She is a happy-go-lucky little girl and Joseph and I are crossing our fingers that she stays that way. Her vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds right now and she's stringing more and more words together to form sentences all the time. Her first 4-word sentence was a few weeks ago and was "Avery cereal all gone." She loves to repeat everyone's name in the room over and over as she points to each person and is simply a sweet little bundle of joy.

We went to Disneyland with some friends a couple weeks ago and saw this little guy on our way in. Sophie was too scared to get close to him but Avery wasn't. She loves to say "Polly wanna cracker?" to parrots and loved being so close to this one.

She got scared on a few of the rides that day but loved the Buzz Lightyear ride that we finally tried out for our first time ever. She didn't get to shoot the gun, but Mommy and Sophie made sure to get all the bad guys for her.

Avery has really curly hair in the back, especially when the air is humid. This is what it does right after a bath, but then of course it gets all flattened when she takes a nap. I love it.

The front isn't as curly as the back but it sometimes gets a few curls going up there, too.

Avery also loves to mimic me on the phone. She started out by saying "Hewo? Good! Hewo? Good!" over and over. Now when she's on the phone with Gramma she'll say things like "Miss you!" while blowing kisses, or "I love you!" She also laughs a lot, which is funny because I didn't know I did that very much. Maybe she got it from her daddy.

The thing that kills me, though, is how she's started holding the phone between her ear and shoulder like she sees me do when I'm multi-tasking while I talk. Hilarious.

We went to Elmo's birthday party at our local bookstore last week and Avery was mesmerized by him. The girls don't watch a ton of Elmo's world but they definitely know who he is, so I was curious what they'd think when they saw him. They generally don't like characters whose faces they can't see and rather gravitate to the princesses at Disneyland whose faces are uncovered. They were both a little scared at first, but it didn't take long until Avery would go right up close and just stare. I finally did get her to give him a high five, but that's all she would do. No hugs for her.

They got to eat Elmo cupcakes after singing him Happy Birthday, which was a big hit, of course. They love anything with sugar in it; now where did they get that from? :)

Avery is just a happy, sweet little girl who brings so much laughter and joy into our home. She's not our little Peanut so much anymore (she now is up to 23 lbs!) but she's still pretty petite and I believe the adage "Good things come in small packages" fits her to a tea. Thanks for being our sweet girl, Avery Jane! We love you!

My Young Women

I am lucky enough to be able to work with the Young Women in our ward at church. Being the president of anything is not my ideal position, but these girls make it so fun that I don't mind. We currently have 13 incredible young ladies in our group and they make me laugh on a regular basis. I also learn something new from them all the time.

One of the first activities we held after I was put in was a Daddy/Daughter Date night. I have fond memories from doing one of these when I was a Young Woman and I think this one went well. Here the girls are all posing with their daddies.

They begged me to take a picture of them doing a pyramid (minus the person on top). Sillies.

I can't remember why they were making these faces, but there usually isn't really a reason for them to do anything anyway.

I was setting up another game of glow-in-the-dark dodgeball with my cute little helper Sophie's aid while the girls fought over who got to hold Avery next. My girls can't wait to be Young Women, but I say "Not yet!"

One of our activities was learning how to make sushi. I think they liked it.

We also learned another night how to fold towels and napkins all fancy, like you see on cruise ships and such.

They came up with some pretty creative ones of their own.

This one just loves to draw, and she's really good at it, too.

Thanks for making my Tuesday nights and Sundays a barrel of laughs, Girls! I love you all!