Tortilla pizza and piggy cookies

Wednesday's cooking class was a lot of fun. I'm starting to notice that pepperoni and cheese are involved almost every week, much to Avery's delight. Avery is getting really good at making pizza. This week was a tortilla pizza.

After they made pizzas the kids got to make these cute piggy cookies. When the teacher started passing out icing, M&Ms and marshmallows it was a free-for-all. The kids were supposed to cut the giant marshmallow in half with a plastic knife (well, the moms were supposed to cut) but before we could even get to them most of the kids had popped the whole thing into their mouths. Luckily there were reinforcements.

I was a little nervous because I must have taken the bib out of my purse that I usually carry around and so Avery didn't have one this week. And since she is 2, and a little stubborn and independent, she didn't want me to hold the pizza while she took bites. She actually did a good job on her own keeping pretty clean.

Then the kids all ran around chasing each other. Besides stuffing the huge marshmallow in her mouth, this was Avery's favorite part of the class.

Uh-oh...

This is kind of a long story, but I thought it was funny.

So, I have to set it up a little by telling about the park in our neighborhood. A lot of people around here have dogs, but don't feel the need to clean up after their messes. Avery has become very good at spotting out the messes when we walk to the playground and will call out, "Watch out! Doggy poopy!" She is very concerned that none of us step in it, which is very thoughtful of her.

Sunday Melissia and Finn had me and Avery over for dinner. We spent a lot of time outside and let the kids run around, which they loved.

After that we came inside. Melissia and I chatted on the couch while the kids played. Avery walked by the coffee table and said, "uh-oh." Then she points to the floor at a piece of a brown pipe cleaner. I knew what she was thinking, especially since Melissia has a dog and she was watching her parents dog while they were on vacation. I just chuckled and whispered to Melissia, "she thinks it's doggy poopy."

About every ten minutes Avery would walk by the pipe cleaner and say, "uh-oh..." and point at it and look at us to see if we were going to do anything about it. We would just giggle and one of us would always tell her, "Avery, it's a fuzzy. It's okay." Well, this went on and on and so finally Melissia picked it up and Avery got this horrified look on her face. Melissia said, "Look Avery, it's a fuzzy. It used to be on Finn's caterpillar that he made, but it fell off. It's just a fuzzy." Melissia held it out to Avery, thinking Avery would want to inspect it and touch the fuzzy. But Avery absolutely recoiled as Melissia came towards her with the fuzzy!

We just laughed and laughed! Avery is so funny! About five minutes after this Melissia took the fuzzy up to Avery again and asked if she wanted to see it, to prove it was just a fuzzy. Avery just got a disgusted look on her face and shook her head and said, "no, no, no."

I guess Melissia took it one step too far because then Avery walked over to me where I was sitting on Melissia's couch and said, "I wanna go home."

Melissia and I could not contain ourselves. I don't know why we got such a big kick out of this, but we were hysterical. Avery was really serious about leaving and stood right by me until I got up. Then she ran right over to the front door and tried to open it. She wanted to make sure that she was getting out of this crazy house.

I have thought about this over the last couple of days off and on and always get a good chuckle out of it.

Tagged...

Okay Lara, here you go! Althought, let me first start by saying that when I read about what you were doing 10 years ago I died laughing at the woman part. And it also made me feel really old.

10 years ago:

Okay, ten years ago I was in my second year at BYU. I had already decided on Elementary Education for my major and was taking the preliminary classes for the major. I was probably rolling my eyes at my El Ed dance teacher and trying not to laugh hysterically at her antics. I was in a couple of classes with my best friend and found out that you can, in fact, get in trouble in college. I spent a lot of time going shopping, watching movies, Dawson Creek (oh my gosh...Pacey vs. Dawson...how can you decide?!?), eating, and hanging out with my friends. And honestly should have spent more time studying. Oh well. Those were some good times.

5 Places I've visited:
*Most of the whole country of Germany (I lived there for 4 years and loved it)
*Paris, France
*Venice, Florence, and Pisa Italy
*Cancun, Mexico
*Denmark and Netherlands (okay, more than 5, but I didn't want to hurt Netherland's feelings)

5 Things on my to do list:
*call my insurance lady
*work more on my blog journal printing/pasting, etc.
*start the next book for Book Club
*mail a birthday present and a baby present
*work on my cross-stitching

3 bad habits:
*I am a constant worrier--you name it I worry about it
*always procrastinating cleaning the bathrooms and mopping the floors
*I tend to repeat myself/ask the same question a lot...I tend to repeat myself/ask the same question a lot

5 life time goals:
*To finally lose those last 10 pounds
*To be a good mom and make Avery's (and any future children) life fun, enjoyable, and memorable
*Be more physically active, to make it more of a priority and have a better attitude about it
*To live in a bigger house, with more storage, and feel more permanent in our living situation so I feel like I can put the effort in of painting and fixing it up the way I like. I would love to have enough storage space so that my house didn't feel like it was cluttered or on the verge of exploding
*To live closer to my family so that we can be more a part of each others' lives

5 things you might not know about me:
*I don't usually like game systems, but am obsessed with Guitar Hero and Rock Band. If I had the funds I would go out and buy it right now...but then I would probably turn into a bad mom. Maybe it's a good thing we don't have it. All I can say is that I rocked out to In Bloom over Christmas break and it was awesome.
*I used to be hugely (real word?) overweight. True story. Since 3rd grade. It wasn't until my 3rd year of college that I started losing weight. It has been a battle my whole life. Ugh!!!
*I am a really good swimmer and have been swimming since the age of 3. I used to compete on a swim team and loved it. It has been a long time though, since I've swam competitively and I have no doubt that I am out of shape.
*I LOVE the holidays. LOVE. I love decorating, the planning, the parties, the food, the family, the friends, the lights, the shopping, the wrapping paper, Santa (love him!), the Easter Bunny, the baking, the commercialism, the excitement, the giving, the getting, finding the perfect gift, all of it.
*I never dated anybody seriously until I dated Al. Seriously. I hated dating. I went, but didn't like it. But when I met Al it was different. And then I loved every second of it. I love our dating/marriage story. I think it is so sweet and romantic.

I tag Sarah, Jessie, Jen, Becca, and whoever else wants to enlighten us

Terrible Two's?

So, yesterday Sarah called to chat. Avery wanted to go outside, she kept saying, "Avery's turn to go outside." So while I chatted with Sarah I ran upstairs to get on my shoes and socks. I telling Sarah all about Avery and the green paint. She was telling me that I should have taken pictures of it, which I probably should have.

After I was done putting on my shoes and socks (I was probably upstairs 5 minutes, max.) I ran back downstairs looking for Avery. I turned the corner and found Avery in our bathroom, up to her elbows in toilet water. I just yelled, "Avery!!!" which I'm sure Sarah enjoyed being shouted in her ear. Then Sarah asked what was going on and she started laughing when I told her. She said, "Oh man, Hannah and Avery would get into so much trouble together." I agree. Because look at how much trouble Avery gets into on her own!

So I asked Sarah if she wanted me to document this one, since I hadn't taken pictures of the last fiasco.

Isn't this gross?!? Toilet water!! I quickly hung up and took Avery right upstairs and put her in the tub. She's been having a lot of baths lately. If you look closely at the picture you will see that the toilet paper roll is empty. Luckily it hadn't been a full roll, but what had been left Avery had stripped off and soaked in the toilet. There were little clumps of it all over the bathroom floor and a few in the family room. Yuck.

Avery and I had a long talk after that about how we don't play in the toilet. I repeated that part over and over and had Avery repeat it back to me. I hope she got it...

My new car

I finally took pictures of my new car. Well, van, actually. It is a 2006 Kia Sedona. We got a really good deal on it and it doesn't have very many miles on it. I love having all of that trunk space! I keep both of Avery's strollers in there and there is still plenty of room to spare! The back seats can fold down and for the first time in my life I have automatic locks and windows.

It is kinda funny just having Avery and driving around a van...but we bought it because we don't plan on getting another car for a very, very long time. It did come in very handy with all of the company this past week.

Avery loves this van. Al has her convinced that it is like 'rocket' on Little Einsteins and so Avery calls it, "White Rocket." We've all kind of adopted that name. The first few times that Avery got in the white rocket she would do the "pat pat pat" like on the tv show. Then she would say, "oh no! Nile crocodile!" like how they do on one of the cartoons. When I unlock the doors with the keychain the headlights flash on and off. So when we go out to the garage Avery always says, "Hi, rocket!" and then I push the button on the keychain so the lights flash. Avery says, "Rocket says 'hi' back!" It always gets her pretty excited.

Train Pictures from the Mills

Look how happy Avery is!

Wrestling Grandpa Dave

Derek and Jen and the kids left early Monday morning. It was sad to see them go because we had such a fun time.

After the rest of us got ready we went to the zoo. Avery loved the penguins of course. We got to see a ton of elephants, even the 2-year old one. And the grizzly bears were out in fine form.

We came home to relax and take naps. When Avery woke up she found grandpa Dave dozing on the family room floor. She quickly jumped on him and started a wrestling match. Grandpa Dave was really nice to let Avery climb on him. I don't think he minded too much though :)

Terrible Two's?

This story is really long and so I am going to try to condense it down. So...while the other kids were taking naps on Saturday Avery had another agenda. Al put her to bed in the pack 'n' play in our room. She had been in there for a while when Al started to hear noises. He went in our room and found Avery covered in magic markers. When he surveyed the rest of the room he saw marker on our doors, my shoes, the sheets on our bed, our quilt, my books and all over Avery's clothes. Al said that Avery's hands were completely black with marker.

Us girls got home at about the time Al had finished giving Avery her bath. Al was so mad he couldn't even form words to explain what had happened. Meanwhile Avery sat there looking pretty angelic.

After the initial shock wore off we went and grabbed all of the art supplies and put them on top of the cabinet in our closet. Now, I know you are probably wondering why we had the art supplies where they were in the first place. They used to be in Avery's room, in a drawer that she couldn't open, but I had recently moved all of the things out of that drawer to make room for the baby...and then hadn't wanted to/thought to put them back in the drawer. I admit that I should have had the art supplies in a better place, but it was too late now :(

Al put Avery back down for a nap since she appeared to be exhausted and because neither one of us were too thrilled to be around her at that time. About fifteen minutes had passed and Al asked me to go and check on her again. I crept in and looked in the crib, and Avery was gone!! I couldn't breath for just a second and then looked around the corner and saw Avery sitting in our closet. Covered in green poster paint. Not only was she covered, but our carpet was saturated, the paint was smeared all over the cabinet, and Avery's hair was bright green. I just froze for a few seconds while Avery told me happily that the carpet was "geen!!" How did this happen??

I ran and grabbed my mom and brought her into the room. She gasped and then started to chuckle. I didn't think it was funny, but I guess if it's a grandchild than it becomes funny. My mom went and got Jen and she had the same reaction. Al came running in and was absolutely flabbergasted.

We didn't even know that Avery could crawl out of that crib until that day. Then the markers...then the paint that was on top of the 6 ft. cabinet! Jen opened the doors to the cabinet and we saw green paint up all of the shelves. All of the other art supplies were still intact on the top. So we knew that Avery couldn't have shaken the paint off. The only way she could have gotten it was to climb up all of the shelves. This freaked me out. It's not a very quality piece of furniture and I immediately thought that I was so glad the whole thing hadn't come crashing down on her.

I put Avery in the tub again and my dad came up to supervise her. She had so much paint on her that the water in the tub had turned completely green. Jen and Al, my mom and I, went to work scrubbing the carpet. Then my mom and I left to get more cleaning supplies. By the time we got back the carpet looked a ton better. Al and Jen had gotten most of the paint out so that now it only has a minty tinge to it.

I still have some cleaning to do to get it back to as close to normal as we can. The good news is that most of the marker came out.

I don't have any pictures of the event because I was too mad to consider it. But Jen took a few with her camera, so if I get them I will post them so you guys can see Avery's hard work.

April Birthdays

Allison and Derek both have April birthdays and so we decided to throw them a mini birthday party while they were here.

Saturday the kids and girls went shopping at the Mills. My mom took all of the grandkids, except Ethan, and let them ride the little train a few times. Avery was in absolute heaven. She has recently developed a train obsession. My dad and Derek played tennis while we shopped. Al was at work :(

After that we all met up Olive Garden and my dad took us out to a late lunch. Then we split up and the girls went back for more shopping while the guys went home to watch movies and let the kids nap. Well...Avery didn't nap. She was busy doing something else...I'll post about that next.

When we got back from shopping we had a quick dinner and then we had a cake, ice cream, and presents for Derek and Allison. They were pretty excited, especially Allison. Al, Avery and I gave her some Junie B. Jones books. I think they were a hit. Jen accidentally bought the trick candles and it took us a little while to catch on...I think we were all wondering why Allison wasn't trying harder to blow out the candles. When we made the discovery we got a good laugh and then we let Al put them out.

We put the kids to bed and then we played a couple of rounds of Ticket to Ride and Loaded Questions.

Look at that hair!

I love Avery's sweet face in this picture. She looks like such a little doll. Avery was so excited to see my mom. It was really cute to see them together. She wanted to show 'Nette' her whale jammies. She really loves these. Whenever my mom would leave the room Avery would panic and start whimpering, "Nette...Nette!" So cute.

Butterfly House

By Friday morning my mom, dad, brother and his family were all at our little townhouse. My dad took everybody to the butterfly house. I think it was a big hit. There is a little gift shop where you first walk in and Allison said, "Oh, it looks like there is some good shopping here!" We all chuckled. I think it must be genetic...

I think everybody was surprised at how many butterflies there actually are that fly around in there. They are everywhere. The kids (and adults) got pretty excited. We got some really cute pictures of the kids and my parents. It is the first time that my parents have ever had all of their four grandkids together at once.

One of the rules about the butterfly house is that you are not allowed to touch any of the butterflies. This wasn't a problem at all until we were getting ready to leave and a butterfly landed on my brother's head. Since we weren't allowed to touch them he just had to leave it there. It stayed there for at least five minutes while my brother walked around. Pretty funny.

After we finished looking at the butterflies we took the kids to the carousel. Avery and Allison really enjoyed it...Dylan...not so much :) I'm not sure if we've ever mentioned it before...but Missouri isn't really known for their customer service/people skills. The lady at the carousel was no exception. It's no wonder that Dylan got freaked out. My dad got in trouble once and I got reprimanded twice...all before the carousel even started. Dylan started off on a really tall horse but got a little scared because it was so high off of the ground. He wanted to sit on that little bench they had. My dad went with him. As the carousel went around the corner we watched my dad grab Dylan and put him on top of a horse. But it wasn't a horse that went up and down, just one that stayed still. The carousel came around again and as my dad and Dylan disappeared around the corner we watched my dad grab Dylan again and put him on top of one of the moving horses. We were laughing so hard as we watched from the sidelines. I am surprised that my dad did not get caught and that we didn't get banned from the butterfly house carousel.

After that we stopped and got some lunch at the Steak 'n' Shake. It was a pretty fun day.

Last Cooking Class

Last Wednesday Avery had her 4th and final cooking class for our session.

We started by making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

After that we made little pizza cups. There was a big plate of pepperoni out and Avery kept shouting, "Pepperoni! Pepperoni!" Then she started sneaking them off the plate while the teacher explained what we were supposed to be doing. She was putting on a show for the other moms and the teacher. I think by the time we got down to making the pizza cups Avery had already eaten 5 or 6.

We made the pizza cups and when everybody was done there was one pepperoni left on the plate. The teacher picked up the plate and said, "Does anybody want this last pepperoni?" and put the plate right in front of Avery. Avery was kind of staring off into space so the teacher repeated again, "Does anybody want this last pepperoni?" She put the plate right in front of Avery's eyes and Avery smiled and grabbed the last pepperoni.

For dessert the kids made dirt cups. The all got to take turns mixing up the pudding. Then we crushed the oreos and put it on top of the pudding. The kids got to pick out 4 gummy bugs to put in their "dirt." Avery was all over the pink and purple bugs.

The class was a lot of fun and as you can see from the pictures Avery really enjoyed the food, especially the dirt cup.