LBI 2009

We had a blast at the beach house this week. Avery had an incredible time with her 5 older east coast cousins and bonded with each of them. She particularly loved running around in the sand and sitting on the edge of the ocean playing with her beach toys. Thanks again to Grandma and Grandpop for making another yearly vacation possible!!!

18 months!

Avery's now a big 18 month old, saying lots of words - Up, More, Crackers, Moo, Quack, Neigh, Mama, Dada, Bye, Hi, Hot, Cold, No, Bath, Bubbles, Push, Banana, Eyes, Nose, Knees, One, Two, Juicy, and more.

She can get up and down off the couch by herself, open and close doors, play with a bucket and shovel at the sandbox and pet her cats Missy and Monty (although she calls them nah-nah).

She is also increasingly independent, wanting to brush her own teeth, or feed herself with a spoon or fork.

Here are some new pics... and we'll do another update after our vacation at the beach!!!

Long time, no blog

Couple quick Avery updates. We had a great visit with Marmel the beginning of February. Avery's highlight (actually everyone's highlight) of the trip was a visit to the Chocolate Room here in Brooklyn. Everyone's mood elevated just from the yummy smell and the chocolate was delicious! Avery tried many many many bites of my hot fudge brownie sundae and of course she loved it (who wouldn't??).

In genius news, Avery loves her sign language dvds and has started to sign a couple words. She has signed eat for a while now (which helps us know when she's hungry, of course), but her new signs are go to sleep, book and cat. What a smarty pants.

In developmental news, Avery has been finger walking (cruising) around the furniture for many months now, but she took her first official steps last week while Scott was on the phone with Aunt Shana. Luckily for me, she repeated a couple steps later on in the night for me to witness.

Sorry for the lack of blogginess recently... we will try to keep up!!!

giving all the little ones pieces of lox!

Big girl

Avery is a year old! We're not sure how this happened, but somehow a whole year has passed, and we find ourselves with a sweet little toddler. It's been an amazing year with Avery, and Cheryl and I are both very excited to see the changes ahead in her second year.

AJ opening the last of her BD presents. She is crazy about this pink dog, a gift from my paralegal.




We celebrated her BD in Brooklyn with some cupcakes from our regular dessert place in the neighborhood. Did Avery like the cupcakes? You be the judge...

By the end of the cupcake and the attendant sugar rush, AJ looked like she'd been out partying in NYC for 48 hours straight. It wasn't bath night when we started the cupcake, but it was afterwards!

Grandma and grandpop also came to celebrate on AJ's birthday weekend, and brought us a great lunch from a deli in NJ.

There have been some other exciting changes in Avery's life lately. The biggest one is that she went to the allergist who told us that AJ's dairy allergy is now officially downgraded to a milk protein intolerance. We have started her on whole milk and she's been tolerating it beautifully, and chugging enthusiastically.

Also, Avery can now stand without holding on to anything for five or ten seconds at a time!

The other exciting news is that Avery has officially started signing some words back at us. With Aunt Lisa's guidance, we have been signing words to her for some time. She's been recognizing a lot of our signs for awhile now. But in the last few weeks, she has also been doing a couple of signs herself. The sign she does the most consistently and correctly is "eat." Big surprise! But hopefully she will continue to learn and use new signs in the months ahead.

So happy birthday, Avery, and thanks to your mom for making you into such a sweet, healthy, and happy little girl!

2009!

We've had an exciting couple of weeks. It started off with a great visit with Uncle Rick and Aunt Shelley in Arizona! AJ did great on the long flight, and had a ball hanging out with Rick & Shell.

Avery and Rick got along swimmingly. Rick dubbed her "Meat Ball," which is as accurate a nickname as we've heard for her. Unfortunately, we only got one pic of the two of them together. About two minutes after this one was taken, Meat Ball had a minor blowout onto Rick and the leather loveseat. Great manners we're teaching her.



Avery and Aunt Shelley also had a ball. Here they are reading I Like it When, one of her favorite books. Fortunately there was no poop this time.

Avery also had quite an interesting time getting to know Sammie. At first, the two little girls were not quite sure what to make of one another, and a lot of crying and barking ensued. But the next morning, after a good night of sleep, everyone felt much more comfortable around each other. Here's Sammie giving AJ a little kiss.

More of everyone feeling very comfortable around each other.

Cheryl and I really loved Sammie. She is a beautiful, well-behaved, and very sweet dog, and we were glad to get to know her.

Rick and Shell's house was full of many fun activities for our little Bubby. Shell had some shelves full of cookbooks and loose-leaf recipes. I believe that the recipes may have been organized before we got there... But AJ has a way of imposing her own organizational system on things. Here she is hard at work.

"Hey, Aunt Shelley, thanks for letting me play in your kitchen!!"

Also a lot of fun was Rick & Shell's indoor lap pool. Avery had a ball in there with us. She had not been in a pool since the beach house in July, and took to the water much more enthusiastically this time around. This was good news for us, because Avery and I start swimming classes together next week!

I'm not sure who had more fun in the pool!

Unfortunately, the weather was nasty, so we didn't get to do much outdoorsy stuff, but Rick took us on a beautiful drive up into the Huachuca Mountains.

It really was a beautiful trip. Thanks again to Rick and Shelley for making it possible!

Next, we were off to Cincy. It was a great week with my side of the family. Here's Avery with Marm and Irv.

Shana with the new baby of the family, Lila!

Gramps and Deborah with Lila.

We had a fun dinner at Dad's house. Check out the fancy tablecloth and dishes!

Next up was an early BD party / late Hanukkah party at Mom's house. AJ had a specially made vegan cake (due to possible lingering milk allergy issues). She loved it, and alternated between bites of cake and bites of edamame. Yum!

Aunt Lisa entertained the heck out of AJ with a mylar balloon!

Then came the presents. Evidently, Avery found this one to be fascinating!

"Ooooh, is that for me???"

Aunt Shana explaining some of the finer nuances of Baby Faces to AJ.

Me with two of the three cousins. But where's Tillie?

There she is, in the cabinet! Scotty and Shana let her out for a few minutes to play, which was nice for everyone.

Some more pics from a great brunch at Shana's house.

Lila's smile was a real show-stopper!

Grandpa Morrie, aka Grandpa Mush, with his youngest great-grandchild.

My girls (and my dad's watch).

AJ & G'pa.

After a long week of travel, and a fun New Year's Eve party at Marmel's, we finally made it back to Brooklyn. Our luggage made it back a day later. The three of us had a nice, long weekend together, highlighted by Avery's first trip to the Brooklyn Museum.

Avery is closing in on a year, and we think she is going through some kind of growth spurt, because she's eating a lot more than usual, which is really saying something. All week, she's been absolutely demolishing whatever we put in front of her, especially LaRosa's ravioli, meatballs, chicken apple sausage, scallops, etc. She's an adventurous and spirited eater. She even has eaten a couple bananas this week, which we've long believed to be the one food she didn't like. But now, so far as we know, she will eat anything.

Here are some final pics of AJ going to town on some mixed berries, a dish best enjoyed shirtless and followed immediately by a bath.

That's all for now, except to wish all four of our readers a happy and healthy 2009!