Egg Hunt at Debbie's!

    Daryl's cousin Jenny is in town with her two daughters Sophie, and Addie, so everyone who was around came over for Sunday dinner.  Since Easter is next week we also had a little egg hunt for the kids.  Harper really grasped onto the idea pretty quickly, and Avery has been revved up for eggs ever since she got that egg plate from Aunt Joanne.  In fact, the first thing we did when we got home was immediately grab the egg plates and arrange all the eggs on them even though it was much past bedtime. 

     They also got to decorate giant bunny cookies (Thanks Costco!).  Avery and Harper had a great time playing with all their cousins there, and it was nice to catch up with all the family there too!

Debbie briefing everyone for egg hunting.  It looks like their listening.

Avery making an egg discovery.  Do you like how she got fully outfitted with her backpack and pink Mariners hat for the hunt?

Tyler helping Avery out.

Jenny was doing a little cheering to get all the kids looking at her.

Here's the front side of that picture. We got Sophie, Addie, Harper, Avery, Tyler, myself, Aimee, and Karl all in there.

Aimee got Harper to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" while she was playing the xylophone too.  It was super cute.

Avery preferred to show off her xylophone skills by parading around the house while playing. 

Making bunny cookies.

Here's everyone except Debbie and Kent.  Starting in the back we have Scott,  then next row: Karl, Daryl, Avery climbed onto Daryl's lap mid pictures, Kyle, Roberto (Scott's husband. Congrats newlyweds!).  Then in front we have Aimee, myself of course, Addie also stole her way into the picture, and Jenny.  Like my weird pregnancy rolls?

Kyle was feeling left out without kid to call his own, so Harper let herself be borrowed for this picture.

Easter Package from Aunt Joanne

       Yesterday Avery and Harper got a package from Aunt Joanne in the mail.  They were super excited when I showed them the box, and wanted it opened immediately.  Inside were Easter goodies.  Both the girls got hats with cute flowers and bows on them that they of course loved, and they got little bunny plates made to hold eggs.  Upon seeing the bunny plates Avery began to ask where the eggs were and set about looking for them all over the house.  It took many times of telling her the eggs were in the store before she finally stopped looking, but now Avery is very excited for Easter.  Also Aunt Joanne sent some cute purple (of course) onesies for our new baby girl that we are just referring to as Babs for the moment since we are once again having a terrible time picking out a name for our baby.

They really loved the hats and were thrilled to be posing for a picture with them on.

Avery wondering where the eggs were.

Avery had to go run and get this bunny once she saw the bunny plates.

Dinner Ala Avery

              A few weeks ago Daryl and I were upstairs together for what didn't seem very long when Avery came up insisting it was "eat food time."  We thought 4:30 was a little early for dinner, but she was very insistent. She was practically pulling us downstairs.  We should have known better.  She hadn't come to get us to make her food because she had already made us dinner.  Everyone got two slices of bread and their own cup of milk.  She even got out the bagels, but hadn't got to getting them out yet.  She was in the process of moving our dinner from the kitchen to the dining room table when she pulled us down.

             Avery saw a little digital book about a child bringing their mom breakfast in bed for Mother's Day, and this probably spurred her sudden need to feed us.  For weeks whenever Avery saw me in bed she would run downstairs to get me bread slices or a bagel to eat, along with some snack cheese, and a glass of water.  Pretty much all the food that she can get on her own.  Then I would have to eat it despite the fact that I was often not hungry.  It was pretty sweet though.

Avery very proud of the dinner she made for us.

Mmmm. Doesn't that look tasty.  

We think Harper was wiping her bread off because basically milk got everywhere when Avery poured a glass for everyone.  The bread was pretty saturated.

The Busy Life of Avery

    As always Avery has been keeping very, very busy.  She has recently discovered "camping," or as some of us might know it better:  fort building.  She is still bringing home a plethora of preschool art that is proudly displayed on our gigantic glass doors.  I catch her trying to sleep in the crib from time to time.  Mostly in random points in the day.  

   My favorite though, is yesterday, she quite insistently dragged me downstairs to show me something.  I found that she had lined up all the chairs she could find, and filled them with her dolls and other various stuff friends.  She had arranged her piano and our two little play guitars in front of her audience.  Once I was in attendance she preceded to give an energetic rendition of the ABC song with her taking the lead on the piano, and Harper on one of the guitars. Avery did point at the other guitar and sadly said something to the effect that, "that was Tyler's."  All of it very cute of course.

Thankfully she understood when I said that I was too big to camp under the dining table and eat with her.  

I have since convinced her that she need only drape her blanket over the top of the chairs to form a tent instead of using her bedspread as a table cloth on my dining table.

Avery pretending to be a baby.  She has some very convincing baby crying complete with hand and feet kicking she does.

I'm not quite sure if the "That's Mama" is in reference to  the pictures of the Barbies, but Avery was very proud of this art.  She even wrote the "A" in Barbie all by herself.

The audience.  Even the Roomba needed to be attendance for this.

You can see "Tyler's" guitar between them.

President's Day with Tyler

     Sunday night Tyler spent the night with us, so he could spend the day with us on Monday.  Avery was very excited to see Tyler especially.  We all had the day off since it was a holiday, except for Karl and Aimee which was why Tyler got to spend some time with us.  We don't live very far away from the Fauntleroy Ferry, so we decided we would take the kids on their very first ferry ride.  It was a great first ferry ride because it was short.  It was maybe fifteen minutes to our first stop Vashon Island, and then another ten minutes to our final destination Southworth.  That put us out by Port Orchard, so we went across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and drove home that way.  We were able to stop at The Rock in Lakeland Hills and then we were able to stop by one of my favorite doughnut places Legendary Doughnuts.

Our favorite Tyler quote of the day:  "We've been driving for like an hour."
Me:  "It's been fifteen minutes, Tyler."

Our near future, three kids in the backseat.

Tyler's best smile.

Avery and Daryl, and tiger bag of course.

We're on a boat!

I guess a lot of old people who need to know about Social Security ride the ferry.

Tyler at the Rock.

Avery and Harper quenching their serious thirsts.

Another Girl!

  We found out today that we will be having another little girl.  We are happy.  Avery was unusually adamant about having a brother, and we tried to explain to her that she would be getting a sister when we came home from the ultrasound.  All we really got was this look that said, "I have no idea what you are talking about and why you thought this was important or relevant to me."  We'll go over that again a little later.  

She spent most of the time with her hands over her face.  Obviously already embarrassed and frustrated that her parents were barging into her room.

Tiny baby feet.

This one reminds of us Skeletor.

A Little Super Bowl Shindig

  For the Super Bowl we had a few friends and family come over.  We had our Sister-in-law Aimee come over with our nephew Tyler, and then our friends Christie with her husband Ben.  Then Christie's two younger sisters came as well: Emily and Amy with her two boys Landon and Cole that are roughly Avery and Harper's age.  The kids had a blast playing Kinect Party and watching some Toy Story upstairs while the bigger kids watched the Super Bowl downstairs in the media room.  We had a great time with way too much good food to eat.

Harper playing piano in her cute little dress.

Tyler, Avery, and Cole playing Kinect Party.  If you have little kids they will probably love this game.

Ben, Daryl(hiding in the corner),Christie, Amy, and Emily watching downstairs.  Aimee and I didn't manage to get in the picture.

We were taking a picture of Ben "at" the game.  That also gives you an idea of how big the screen size is since Ben is well over six feet tall.

Cole and Tyler playing iPad.

Avery loves to use the elliptical.