First Sentence

Avery has been saying a lot of two word sentences/phrases as I wrote about below. But today she said her first REAL sentence. It seemed so long compared to everything else she has been saying. I couldn't believe all of the words that came out in one string. And now, here is the sentence in all of its glory. There has been no embellishment and no tweaking of words.

Drumroll please.....

"Change my poopy bum."

There you have it. That is one for the record books. The one that will be going down in her baby book.

Big Talker

Over the last couple of weeks Avery has really turned into a little chatterbox. She is in a kind of parroting phase where she repeats almost everything I say.

She has also in the last couple of weeks started to string two or three words together, making phrases or sentences. I can't believe how quickly her talking has changed from single words to more conversational. She likes to say, "Daddy at hospital." Or she will bring me my cell phone and say, "Call Daddy!"

She's also started using adjectives. She likes to point out the color of whatever object she is pointing to-- red shoes, blue circle, white bunny, fuzzy pants, etc. Colors are her most common describing words but she also likes to use big, hot, or tell if an object is "Mommy's" or "Daddy's."

Something that I find amusing is when Avery is trying to tell me what she wants to eat. The other morning I was unloading the dishwasher and Avery grabbed a tupperware bowl, handed it to me and said, "Roni!" I always make the microwave macaroni and cheese in a tupperware bowl for her. I asked her if she wanted "roni" for breakfast and she got a big smile on her face. I made it for her and she ate almost all of it.

She also likes to ask for more of something, "more fruit loops" "more chocolate cookies" "more juice." It is really helpful that she can tell me these things now! And it is very cute to hear her little requests or descriptions of things.

She has been playing with her dress-up clothes a lot and likes to get very dolled up. She puts on her make-up and I help her put on the tu-tu/dress and wings. But her very favorite dress-up item is the pair of clip-on earrings that came with the tiara. She wants to wear those earrings all of the time, not just when she's dressing up. And they are huge! They are these big silver/fake diamond looking, dangly earrings. But she absolutely loves them and will leave them on all day if I let her. She occasionaly will reach up and touch them softly and say, "earrings," kind of like she's in awe. She is such a funny little girly-girl.

Penguin vs. Bear

One of Avery's Christmas presents was these penguin slippers. I was so excited when I found them and thought that Avery would love them. She did love them until she tried to start wearing them...

They are slip-on slippers and don't stay on Avery's feet quite as well as she wants them too. The first few times she wore them she gave up after a few minutes. Then the other day she seemed determined to make it work. I helped her put them on and she walked around, gingerly. After a few moments they went askew. Avery stopped and let me fix them for her, not thinking anything of it.

She walked around for a couple of more minutes until the slippers fell off again. This time she seemed slightly agitated, but again sat and let me straighten them out.
The third time the slippers came off Avery had had it. She picked the slippers up and chucked them across the room. Then she threw herself on the ground and cried and cried. I was trying not to laugh, thinking I shouldn't get too much enjoyment out of this, seeing as she was so frustrated.

We put the slippers away and I opted to put socks on her. The next day we went to Target. I thought I would check their slipper selection to see if there was anything in our price range. I found these bear slippers on clearance for $1.98. I decided it was well worth it. I had Avery try them on (She wanted the Thomas the Train ones but they were hideous...I slyly put them back and tossed the bear ones in our cart). These are the kind of slippers that have that socky-type part at the top, so they aren't going anywhere.

Avery loves her bear slippers. She has been wearing them proudly for the last couple of days. The penguin ones are big enough that they should fit next winter. I think I will maybe try to sew on some kind of elastic strap so they will stay put better. But in the meantime...the bears won.

Sugar Cookies

Last night we made sugar cookies. I baked the cookies while Avery was napping and then waited until the evening, when Al got home, to frost and sprinkle them.

Avery was super excited about the sprinkles. She grabbed the bottles and shook them pretty vigorously, trying to produce some sprinkles, but I hadn't removed the caps yet. After I frosted the first cookie I put it on Avery's plate and handed her a bottle of open sprinkles. Boy did she go to town!! That cookie was pretty much covered. I moved the cookie to the wax paper to make room for the next cookie. I turned back to Avery and she was emptying a bottle of sprinkles onto the plate!

I quickly grabbed the bottle and put them out of her reach. Avery then began to eat the sprinkles on the plate. That is pretty much how the rest of the evening went for her. She was perfectly content to just eat the sprinkles while Al and I did the rest of the cookies.

No, no, no...

Yesterday Avery and I went and did a little more Christmas shopping at he Mills. I was also looking for an undershirt for Avery.
I decided to take Avery to the Carter's outlet since I was pretty sure I'd find the shirt and because Avery loves that store. They have hopscotch, these clouds that move on the ceiling, and a lego table.

As I was checking out I saw a bin that had these Christmas dolls marked 70% off. It was really cheap after the discount! So I decided that Avery might like to have this Christmas doll. I thought it was pretty cute and festive.

After driving us home and hauling in our bags I excitedly held the doll out to Avery and said, "Look, Avery! A Christmas baby!" She gave it one look and said, "No, no, no." So I tried again, "Here, hold your new baby!" "No, no, no." Finally I just tried to put it in her arms and Avery actually recoiled at the attempt. She scooted away from me several feet. This had me baffled.

When Al came home I told him the story. I tried to give Avery the baby again. She took it and threw it. I grabbed the doll and handed it to Al. I explained that I had thought the doll was cute, but maybe I am off or something. Al just looked at me and said, "Well Jenny, the doll doesn't have a nose..." I was aware of this fact when I bought the doll, but it didn't bother me, it was just a simple face. And it wasn't like just this doll was missing her nose. All of the other dolls in the bin looked exactly the same.

So today my mission was to try to fix this doll. I got some pink felt and cut out a little nose to stick on the doll. I also added some rosy cheeks. I didn't think that would hurt. After I was finished with the minor adjustments I handed the doll to Avery and said, "Look Avery. Mama fixed the baby." I handed the baby to her, she held it, studied it out, and then slowly with her pointer finger touched the dolls face and said, "nose." Then she went and put the baby in her grocery cart.

Secret Hiding Place

Avery found this hiding place Saturday while Al was getting ready. She thought she was being so sneaky. Al called out to me asking where we had more soap. I replied that it was under the sink. Then I came to show him exactly where and I opened the door to find Avery. She had a huge grin on her face. Then she promptly shut the door. I guess she didn't want us to disturb her secret place.

Of course, she proceeded to unwrap all of our bars of soap, so they are all ready to go whenever the one we're using runs out.

Pictures of Avery and Christmas Decorations

OB/GYN grade

Saint Louis University School of Medicine
Summary Clerkship Grade Report for:
Student: Tanner, Allen
Course: OB-301 Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Women's Health Clerkship

HONORS

Mr. Tanner had an exemplary rotation on Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Women's Health in all respects. His outpatient experience and performance was described by the residents as being superior and exceeding their expectations in all regards. He wrote very complete history and physical examinations. He was found to be a good communicator and had a solid fund of clinical knowledge. His continuity resident rated him as a very strong student as did the attending physicians on the gynecological service. He was noted to be very good with patients, and he received the highest clinical grade among his group of peers. He also showed a strong fund of knowledge on the National Board Shelf Exam, and the requisite clinical skills on the Standardized Patient Exam. He had an excellent rotation in all regards which bodes well for his future training. He receives an Honors grade.

Minnesota Thanksgiving pictures

The Minnesota Shaws

have signed up.

Al's Internal Medicine Grade

Internal Medicine Grades came back! Finally!

Al copied and pasted the info from the school website:

Tanner, Allen 2009

Final Grade for this clerkship: Honors (H)
NBME Score: 77 NBME National Percentile: 69

Summary Comments on Student PerformanceComments for inclusion in the Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE)

The final evaluation of Mr. Allen Tanner for the twelve week junior clerkship in Internal Medicine from July 9 to September 28, 2007 is based on 1) the subjective assessment by faculty and house staff of the student's performance on the medical wards of two hospitals and in the outpatient setting, 2) the NBME Internal Medicine Subject Examination, 3) the assessment by an observing faculty member of the student's ability to take a medical history and perform a physical examination, and 4) the written histories and physicals performed by the student.

A summary statement of the student's evaluations is as follows: Mr. Tanner showed excellent skills in gathering information through history and physical examination. His knowledge of medicine was described as excellent at this point in the student's education. His utilization of data for decision-making in diagnosis and patient management was excellent. Mr. Tanner developed excellent relationships with patients and co-workers. He demonstrated a high level of motivation.

Comments made by evaluators were: "Mr. Tanner played a very important role in our ambulatory care clinic. He was thorough in his histories and physical exams. He was able to propose a good differential diagnosis and treatment plan He would telephone patients to inform them of their test results. His performance is clearly above average for a beginning 3rd year medical student." "Allen was very motivated and offered to do more work than was ever expected. Very professional. Used Up-To-Date well and appropriately. Enjoyed having him on the team." "Allen did a very good job in evaluating his patients and in his written work. He displayed care that was empathetic and respectful. Very hard working student. He was motivated to learn as much as he could about his patients. Medical knowledge is very good for his level."

Rah! Rah!! Rah!!!

I guess we've found another one of Missouri's passions. Besides baseball, Nascar, and beer they are totally into Halloween. I had no idea.
We drove to the subdivision next to ours, one that is more kid friendly, to do our trick or treating with Avery. When we told Avery we were going trick or treating she couldn't get out to the car fast enough. She was so excited!!

We were pretty amazed at what we found when we parked the car. There were a few houses that had big bonfires going on out in front. A lot of garage doors were open and people had tables set up that were loaded down with hot chocolate, hot dogs, pop, etc. A lot of the neighbors would get together in one garage and have several bowls of candy lined up. They would have you take candy from each bowl and then would try to have you take a hot dog along for the road. Avery got lots of candy, goody bags that had several candies in each of them, bags of popcorn, a full-sized snickers, a hostess ho-ho and hostess cupcake, and a fairly big plush ghost that is holding a pumpkin. Somebody actually gave that to her as a "trick-or-treat."

Avery was so cute at each house. She would hold out her pumpkin and say, "Treat!!" (she conveniently left off the 'trick' part). They would toss in a few candy bars and then Avery would call out, "Thank you!!" So cute! Lots of the people would ask Avery to cheer and she would reply with "rah! rah! rah!"

Most of the houses were decked out with Halloween lights and big pumpkins. One of the houses had a life-sized Freddy Krueger doll waiting for you at the front door. Freddy's eyes would move and he would start talking to you as you approached. Avery just grinned ear to ear when she saw Freddy. The people in the house couldn't believe that she wasn't scared, and was in fact smiling. They got quite a kick out of it.

I don't want to brag, but Avery was pretty popular out there. Have you ever seen a cuter cheerleader??

The Whole Nine Yards...

Well, here we are decked out in our Halloween finery. We've had Avery's costume for months but weren't sure what Al and I were going to do for the big event.

One night I was talking with Sarah and she suggested making it a theme. I went with her advice and dressed as a football player with Al as the couch. Avery is really great at boosting our team spirit :)

Trunk or Treat

Last night was our ward Trunk or Treat. This was Avery's first experience with trick or treating so we were interested to see how she would handle it.

She loved it!

We only stayed for about an hour but Avery had a blast and loved seeing all the other kids dressed up.

Little Songbird

In the past week or so Avery has started to sing songs. It is really cute. At first it took me a while to catch on because most of the words aren't that clear, but when I figured out what she was doing I made her repeat it over and over again.
Avery sings, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," "Row Row Row Your Boat," and the "Clean Up" song from nursery. She doesn't sing "Yankee Doodle" yet, but makes requests for it by exclaiming, "Doodle!!"

Some other fun things Avery has learned:

She knows her letter "A" and likes to point it out on things.

She knows the colors pink and yellow.

Avery likes to chew gum. She found some in the car the other day and helped herself to it. She will chew it for a very long time and doesn't swallow it. I'm not sure where she learned this from.

Al has been working the nights and sleeps during the day. The first day Al came home and was sleeping I had to sneak into the bedroom to get dressed. I thought that Avery would stay in the other room playing, but she barged in a few seconds later. I whispered, "Daddy is night-night. He's sleeping." Avery looked at me with serious eyes and put her finger to her lips and said, "Shhh!" It was hard not to laugh.

We have a pop-up Halloween book that I was given several years ago. It is aimed at older kids and is a little on the spooky side. Avery loves to get this book out and have you move all of the things that move or pop out. She gets really excited and giggles or puts her hands on her cheeks and makes a big "O" with her mouth. But there is this one part that absolutely terrifies her and she will burst into tears and run away. I told her that we had to put the book away because it was too scary. A few minutes later she brought me the book again and was begging to read it. I gave in. Once again she loved it until we got to that one part. She ran off crying again. The funny thing is that she keeps bringing me the book, several times a day, even though it creeps her out.

The Pumpkin Patch

Twins!

Today Avery's best friend Em came over to play. We were tickled when we saw that the girls we dressed almost identically--we had to get a picture.

I wish I could get one where they were both smiling, but that seemed impossble. Anyway, they are still cute!

Halloween barette and shirt

I bought Avery this Halloween shirt and barette quite a while ago. Avery likes the pumpkin on the shirt, but really gets excited about the bat barette. Every day since I've bought it Avery has brought it to me at least once a day asking to have it put in her hair. I have even caught her on several occasions trying to put the bat barette in her hair herself. I've explained that we can't wear it until it cools off outside.

Today it was finally cool enough to wear long sleeves. I told Avery that she would get to wear her pumpkin shirt and wear the bat barette and boy was she excited. She was practically bouncing off the bed while I was trying to put the barette in. When I was finished I told her that she had the bat in her hair. At first she looked really pleased. Then she looked puzzled and reached up to touch the barette. I watched as she tried to pull it out of her hair. I think she had decided that it was more fun to play with the bat barette than to wear it. I explained to her that she would have to keep it in her hair. She thought about this for a second and then her bottom lip stuck out about as far as I've seen it go. I wondered how long the bat barette would last.

Avery actually left it in the whole day. Every once in a while she would reach up and touch it, I guess to make sure it was still there.

Early Celebration

Since Al had the entire weekend off after finishing his rotation we decided to celebrate our 4th anniversary a little early. We kind of did a big celebration this year since we have a little fun money from the babysitting job. Al planned for us to spend the night at a hotel and to take Avery swimming.

All of Friday Avery carried her swimsuit around the house and would say, "pool! pool!" I would have to explain over and over that we had to wait until daddy got home from taking his test.

When Al got home we packed and headed off to start our little mini-vacation. There were cookies in the lobby and Avery and I helped ourselves while Al checked us in. We were off to a great start! Then we went up to our room. Avery thought it was the greatest. She was obsessed with that telephone on the nightstand. She would pick up the receiver and say, "hello!" and then proceed to have a gibberish conversation. When she was done talking she would hang up. A few seconds later she would place another phone call. She had a lot of people to talk to I guess.

The pool was great! We were the only people in it and the water was actually not too cold. Avery had a blast swimming around with Al. She mostly wanted him to swim with her, so I was on camera duty. After quite a bit of swimming we sat in the hot tub for a while and then decided to head to dinner.

We ate dinner at Qdoba, which is a step up from Taco Bell and really tasty. After that we did a little shopping and then decided to head back to the room so Avery could go to bed. She had other plans though. I guess she was pretty wired being in a new room and maybe we shouldn't have let her drink sprite at dinner...she did not want to go to bed! At least she was being good. She just rolled around in the pillows on the bed.

Avery has been sick for the last few days and if we had another free weekend we maybe would have postponed the activity, but this was it. It was a terrible night's sleep. Avery was coughing all night, crying, etc. I think all three of us spent much of the night awake.

After breakfast we headed to a mall and did more window shopping. Then we went to kind of a ritzy area and went into some little shops. Lots of antiques and home decor shops. We did make a very important stop to the Lake Forest Confectionary. Al bought our traditional chocolate-covered strawberries. They were delightful!

We made it home pretty early and we all just crashed. Everybody got the medicine that they needed and naps were taken. It was a very fun weekend.

Halloween Cupcakes

I know it is a little early but I couldn't resist baking Halloween cupcakes. Avery gets all excited about the holidays, just like her mom, so I decided it would be fun to make the funfetti Halloween cupcakes.

Al took some time off from studying and helped Avery put on the sprinkles after I frosted the cupcakes. Avery did a couple of them but mostly liked to watch Al do the sprinkles. After every cupcake was finished Avery would look at it and exclaim "pretty!!"

Avery's favorite part of the activity was eating the sprinkles that fell onto the plate and then of course, eating the finished product.