Avery Lately

  Avery's been a busy little gal lately.  Last week they had a 'free dress' day at school.  Avery was so excited.  The first outfit I put together for her she rejected.  Avery is usually pretty relaxed about what I pick out for her, but she said the first outfit looked to much like dress code.  Honestly, her winter wardrobe is pretty sad because almost all of it is dress code.  So I pulled out a new shirt I had got her for summer.  She was very happy with the second outfit choice :)  James wanted to get in on this picture.  Look at his hair!  He was long overdue for a cut.

  Avery, looking happy and excited about free dress day.

  Not the best picture, but Avery wore her new skirt I made her for church on Sunday.  We were in a hurry and I didn't have time to straighten everything out before the pictures, but I just wanted to document that she wore something I made!  It's a little bit big on the waist...it kept falling down.  Oh well.  Maybe she can wear it for the next few years ;)

  I was asked to help out at Avery's Valentine party at school.  They had little ice cream sundaes.  The parties at her school are on the small/dull side.  They usually have just refreshments- no games, crafts, etc.  So basically my assignment was to go around and see if kids wanted sprinkles on their ice cream.

 Had to get this cute picture of Dane in.  He got a bubble gun for Valentine's Day and as you can tell by his face he loved it.  We was laughing out loud at the bubbles.

 Today was a big day for Avery at school.  She got a special reading award.  The entire first grade lined the main hallway at school.  At the end of the parade were the principal and vice principal.  The principal called out Avery's name over the microphone and then the whole first grade chanted, "Avery!  Avery!  Avery!  Avery!" while they clapped as Avery walked down the parade

  When she got to the principals they put a special shirt she was awarded on her.

  I didn't get a picture of it, but then they each held up one of Avery's hands/arms and then they yelled, "Yeah!!!"

 Here is the group of first graders that got recognized at this awards program.

And here are all 3, at the school.  See Dane?  That is how he felt about the parade.  He hated it.  He cried through the whole thing because of the noise.  Then James started to get fired up because he wanted to be in the group shot with all of the first graders that got awards.  By the time the parade was over there was only an hour left of school and the principals said I could take Avery home with me...and Avery said she wanted to stay!!  What?!  Who doesn't take a get out of school free opportunity?!  Then James started to bawl because he wanted Avery to come home with us.  Sigh.  Some times I think it would be nice to have Al around to help me wrestle the kids at things like this!

I am proud of Avery!  She is a good student and I am happy the school here does such neat and special things for the kids who do well in school.

Avery's 7th Birthday

  Avery had a great birthday this year.  She chose to go eat at Texas Roadhouse for dinner.  That is her favorite place.  She loves the steak bites.  A birthday bonus:  kids eat free on Monday nights!  I am pretty sure that free steak bites are even more delicious than regular steak bites.  After dinner we came home and it was present time!

 Avery got a lot of fun little things.  I think the thing she liked best from me and Al was her glow in the dark hexbug.  One of the things she got was the new Fancy Nancy and the Mermaid Ballet.  She collects all of the Fancy Nancy books.  It is the cutest book- the pictures and story are adorable.  I highly recommend it.  She got some Fancy Nancy chapter books too that they are just starting to come out with.  Also very cute.

 James wanted to try out Avery's new hair brush.

 Avery got the American Girl trundle bed for her doll.  She was super excited.  I am sure McKenna will love it too.

  The cake was a last minute decision, hence the #1 candle...which sort of looks like a #7, right?!  It was the only candle we had.  I thought we could just get a dessert at the restaurant since she is having a cake at her party.  Al thought that was a bad parenting move and said she needed a cake.  I think Al really wanted chocolate cake...  Any how, we ran and picked one up at Sam's Club that afternoon.  Avery was happy with chocolate cake too.  I think Al was right.  It was good we got to sing to Avery and have her blow out the #1 candle.

  On her actual birthday the boys and I met Avery at school for lunch.  It was a little hectic, but fun.  James was very excited to be at the big school.  I wasn't feeling super great that day, but one of Avery's class mates said, "Hey, look!  Avery's sister is here!" and that made me feel a whole lot better.  Avery's sister that is towing an almost 4 year old and a baby... :)  Ha ha ha!  Kids are funny.

And here is Avery with her cute teacher, Ms. Frost.  I dropped off some treat bags for Avery's class, which is why Ms. Frost is carrying around a Target bag.  That is what they do at school here (everywhere?).  You take treat bags with little goodies and pencils, erasers, etc.  It gets expensive!  But Avery was so happy and excited that it was worth it.

You can see on Avery's hoodie, the birthday badge.  She also got a goodie bag from the front office, her name announced during morning announcements, and her biggest highlight of the day....

She got to go down to the front office and say the Pledge of Allegiance to the whole school over the office intercom.  She thought that was pretty fantastic.  She also got to say the Texas pledge of Allegiance which is very similar to the regular pledge, but shorter.

We are happy that we got to have such a fun couple of days celebrating Avery.  She loved the phone calls and attention from her loved ones.

Next up:  Valentine's Day, Al's birthday, and Avery's Super Mario party.  This month is crazy!  I asked Al what kind of cake he wants for his birthday and after polishing off Dane's huge cake, and still working on Avery's he said he might be done with cake for a while :)

Happy 7th Birthday, Avery!!

Today our sweet Vee Vee turns 7!  I can't believe that she is 7 already...that sounds so much older than 6 for some reason!  We celebrated her birthday yesterday so that Al could be with us and so I will add pictures later.  Today the boys and I are going to the school to have lunch with her and then she is having a little friends birthday party at the end of the month.

Some things about Avery at 7:

- She is a sweet girl.  She is usually very willing to share, even without being prompted.

- Avery does well at school and enjoys it.

- She has lost 7 teeth now and that top left permanent tooth is finally making an appearance!

- Avery loves music on the radio, and she still loves Taylor Swift the most.

- She has just started taking piano lessons from a girl in the ward.  Her first song is Mary Had a Little Lamb :)

- Avery is the 3rd girl in her dance class to do the 'seal pose' and they have to do it so that their feet cover their eyes and can play peek-a-boo.  Her teacher makes a big deal about it and gives them a prize.  It's pretty crazy how flexible little kids are!

- She can be quite dramatic...!  At a recent trip to the park Avery fell off the swing (a small fall) and she declared that this park "was the worst park ever!!!"  And after seeing what happened when she woke up with a bloody nose yesterday I think it is safe to say that she will not follow in Al's footsteps and become a doctor, like she once claimed :)

- Avery is a collector.  American Girls stuff, little trinkets, jewelry, notebooks, stickers, pens and pencils etc.

- Her favorite foods are meatballs and steak

- She LOVES both sets of grandparents.  She asks almost every day when can we move to Utah/Idaho...

- At a recent church activity, while playing a getting to know you game, Avery said about herself, "I love the color green...no matter what!"  This is very true.  Sometimes she will add that she likes purple and hot pink second best.

- Avery has some strong interests in:  Super Mario anything, volcanoes, the color green, the wii, holidays in general, crafting especially if it involves scissors, wearing new clothes (but not shopping), wishing/wanting to see snow, going to the movies, still loves Tinkerbell.

We love Aves so much.  She is a great big sister.  She is funny, loving, spunky and smart.  We are so grateful that we have been blessed with her.

BEAR Night

 Last night was a big night for Avery.  She was invited to attend the BEAR party at her school.  It is once a year, for 1st-4th graders and it celebrates kids who have achieved excellence in both conduct and reading.  I dropped Avery off at school at 6pm to start the evening.  The school was really organized about dividing kids by grade, parents having to sign kids in, etc. so I wasn't worried about leaving her.

On the ride to the school Avery asking about which kids would be at the party and I told her it was the ones that never 'clipped down' at school and also did all of the required reading.  She said she felt bad for the kids that didn't get invited and she didn't know if it seemed 'fair.'  Sweet Avery.  I explained that it definitely was fair.  Everybody had the same opportunity to behave well in school and to do their reading and maybe they didn't make the best choices.  She seemed happy with that answer.

 The party started in the cafeteria.  As we walked in they handed her a purple tote bag to hold all of her goodies from the night.  They also took her ticket to enter it into a raffle.  There were a lot of school staff and parent volunteers/PTA members running the show inside.  Avery was seated at the 1st grade table and was served pizza right away.  I got this picture, but as you can tell Avery was a little to anxious/distracted to bother with pictures.  The kids didn't have to wear school uniforms to the party and there was a lot of excitement/buzz about that.

And Avery, checking out her empty tote.  After this I headed out to enrichment and left Avery to her party.  I picked her up at 9 and she was bubbling with news about the festivities.  She had a tote bag full of stuff she had collected.  She won two books at various games they played.  She also had some pictures that her and her friends had taken at a photo booth-  They were all dressed up in hats, mustaches, glasses, etc.  Then she had a school pencil, cup, etc.  I guess there used to be some treats in there too, but she ate those before I picked her up :) 

I am glad that Avery got to have this fun party at school.  She is a good girl and student and it's nice to show kids that being well behaved and a hard worker is rewarding.