Tower Grove Park

Last week Avery and I met some of the med-wives and their kids down at Tower Grove Park. It is right in the middle of downtown and is huge! We have been there before, for a class picnic, but haven't really explored it too much. There are tons of pavillions, trees, grassy fields, etc.

The activity was to go to the fountains and wading pool. It is free to the public and wasn't very crowded now that kids are in school. They had one bigger fountain and then a ton of smaller fountains that shot water up from the ground--like at Gateway in SLC.

Avery's favorite part was the wading pool. It was only a couple of feet deep at it's deepest point and so she could walk around in it. Most of the time she wanted me to bounce her up and down in the water, or to help her lay on her back or tummy and float through the water.

The girl in the pink Cardinal's baseball cap is Avery's best friend, Em. After swimming we went over to Heather's and Em's house for lunch. It was a very fun outing.

Face to face with a hippo

Al had the day off on Saturday so we took Avery to the zoo.
Avery had a front-row view of the hippos and as you can see one of them swam right up to where she was standing!
The hippos are Avery's second favorite part of the zoo. I tried to get pictures of Avery in the penguin exhibit, but it is too hard. She is always lunging and flapping her arms and calling out to the penguins. Every picture comes out as a blur.
I think these hippo pictures are cool though.

Return to Grant's Farm

On Friday Avery and I went to Grant's Farm with some of the med-wives and their kids. It wasn't nearly as hot and humid and not nearly as crowded, so it was quite a bit more enjoyable.
Avery's favorite part was feeding the baby goats with a bottle of milk. I couldn't get a picture of it because those little goats are strong and I had to help Avery hold the bottle. She was squealing and giggling. The other kids were feeding the goats, but they were more subdued. I think Avery is just much more spirited than a lot of kids. The other moms where saying, "Is that Avery laughing?" Then they would get a big grin on their face. Avery just seems to enjoy everything so much. It makes it a lot of fun.

Ahoy!

Here is Avery in her new dress! I think she looks so cute! I worried if the bow in the hair was too much with the bow on the dress, but I left it anyway. Al assured me that it was good.

New desk!

Well, it's not really a new desk, but it looks new to us! I had to order these handles on-line because the handle size is kind of a weird one. Home Depot didn't offer any thing in it's size and I checked on-line with a few other major chains. But I found a great website that offered all kinds of choices in the size that I needed. These black handles and knobs look really good with the rest of the furniture that we have up in the loft.

Next is Avery's dresser. The handles for that were shipped separately, but should be here any day. I can't wait to change hers. I really like the handles I bought.

I saved all of the old handles, knobs, and screws, should we ever decide to switch it back to it's old form.

The church

This church is right in the middle of downtown Chicago, on the Magnificient Mile. I thought it was really pretty. And we all loved the grounds. We took a little break and let the two girls get out of their strollers for a little while. It is pretty quiet in the little square, even though there is a ton of people and traffic just a few feet away. We saw a bride and groom and their entire wedding party come out of the chapel when we walked back up the mile. That was really neat.

Cute pics

I thought that both of these pictures are cute. We took them right before we left for a day of shopping in Naperville.

On the trolley

Avery passed these rides at the outlet malls and she was dying to ride one. I thought it was the least we could do since she'd been such a good sport about all of the shopping.

Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy!!

Hannah and Avery loved playing together. They both really liked riding this zebra that bounces. Sarah bought Avery this shirt so that Avery and Hannah could have matching outfits. I think they look really cute.

Avery in the pillows

Avery loves to roll around in the pillows on mine and Al's bed. She will got stand on the bed and motion to be lifted up. Once she's up there she is perfectly content to roll around for as long as I'll let her. She just thinks it's about the funnest thing ever.

Avery's 18 month check-up

Today was Avery's 18 month check-up. It was pretty uneventful, which is good. I stripped Avery down to a diaper (standard procedure) when we first got there so they could weigh and measure her. We left the check-up room to go to the scale and Avery could hear a baby crying down the hallway. She looked up at me with these big eyes and just froze in her place. After some gentle tugging on her hand I finally got her to follow me down the hall. But Avery was still kind of freaked out and wouldn't stand on the scale, so we had to put her on the baby scale. Normally this isn't a problem, but that other baby crying had set Avery off and she started to cry. She tried to climb off the scale, but the nurse put her back in and Avery weighed in at 23 pounds, 11 ounces.

Then the nurse had to measure her, which caused more big eyes and protesting, but she finally got the job done and Avery measured in at 31 1/2 inches. Her head (more whimpering) came in at 46.5 cm.

By this time the other baby had stopped crying and so Avery calmed down. We saw the doctor and everything checked out fine. Avery only had to have one shot today, but it is a tetanus shot, kind of a bad one. So the nurse had me give Avery tylenol right away and said that there would probably be a fever and some swelling. This made me feel bad since Avery just got over her other fever, but I know this one won't be as high and won't last as long.

Avery's weight puts her in the 35th-40th percentile and her height puts her in the 40th-50th percentile. I guess she's slowing down a little bit on her growth and is no longer "tall" for her age. She doesn't have her next check-up until she is 2! The time is going by so fast. As Al said the other night, she isn't a baby anymore :(

Rah! Rah! Rah!

Look what came in the mail today! Avery got her Halloween costume a little early. Isn't it adorable on her? We still have a lot of time to add the finishing touches to it, but you can definitely see the potential. I think she looks like she has a lot of team spirit already. She's ready to cheer somebody on to victory ;)

Avery has learned now to say, "cheese" when we are trying to take a picture. She holds that smile until we put the camera down or until she sees the flash. We have her pretty well-trained after many months of excessive picture-taking.