Merry & Bright

We went to the Macy's 8th Floor Christmas Display on Saturday night, and after an incredibly long wait, we finally got in to see "A Day In The Life of An Elf." Avery was in awe. There were elves everywhere, and we got to see what they do all day up in the North Pole.

 



 

Here they are setting the table for breakfast, and getting ready for the elf morning.

Avery loved all the lights and the Christmas Trees. There were also animals scurrying around here and there that would catch Avery's eye. 

 

Up in the North Pole the Christmas Trees sing carols and here they are practicing for the Christmas Night Choir.

 

 

All the animals help decorate the trees, to get them ready for their big night.

 

 

Elves fly around in hot air balloons overlooking things and making sure everything is going smoothly.

 

The elves have to help the Reindeer practice their flying before take off Christmas Night, so here they are making sure Dasher is ready to go. 

 

And we can't forget all the treats they have to make. Santa likes his cookies!

 

And the children love their candy!

 

And here the elves are putting the finishing touches on all the toys, wrapping them, and hurrying to make sure everything is perfect for all the children of the world. 



 

After seeing the busy elves, it was time to see the Big Man himself. We waited in line to see a VERY JOLLY Santa. He was so nice and kind to a screaming and terrified little girl. Avery let loose as soon as she saw Santa, but through her tears she kept saying "Cinderella, Cinderella" just so Santa would know what she wanted.

O Christmas Tree

This weekend we put up the Christmas tree. Avery has never been so excited. We'd had the tree and lights up for a week, but we wanted to decorate it when Greg was home so we waited until Saturday. Avery, of course, chose to put on all the pink ornaments, which if you notice is why 90% of them are near the bottom of the tree. When it was all decorated she just stood back and said, "Mommy, Daddy, its so beautiful." I have a feeling Christmas is going to be SOOO much fun this year with this little girl anticipating and loving every second of it.

She's a Funny One...

Avery has been a hoot lately. Seriously, she's starting to say the funniest things and show her own little personality.

We've been practicing the alphabet and the sounds of each letter for quite a while now and she has them down cold, but I learned a lesson recently that according to Avery its not "w" (double u) anymore its "double me." She's a vain one that Avery.

Avery asks for a story every night before she goes to sleep. So there have been many adeventures of Princess Avery and her rag tag band of animals (somehow there always seems to be a dancing giraffe in the mix). Well sometimes she comes and sleeps in our bed if she's had a nightmare or something and in the middle of the night I don't particularly want to tell her a Princess Avery story so I tell her to tell me a story. And she always starts "Once a potty time..." Guess we need to work on the word "upon" because she obviously has no idea what the word is an substituted the word she thought we said with one in her own vocabulary. Believe me, at 2:00 in the morning its pretty funny.

We've been trying to focus on the real meaning of Christmas with Avery. So we've been telling her that the Christmas Tree and presents and everything Christmas is all about Jesus's birthday. This little girl LOVES birthday parties and so she's caught on pretty quick with the whole thing. Now she goes around "wrapping presents" (read placing a blanket over her toys) and shouting "Happy Birthday Jesus!!" And then "opening the presents" and saying, "Wow, thank you!"

Because She Looked Like One

Avery was a cute little witch this year! She loved loved loved Halloween. She couldn't stop talking about it all day so when it was finally time to go she could hardly contain herself.

 

 

 

 

Carve It!

For  Family Home Evening we decided it was time to carve those pumpkins we picked. Avery was pretty excited at first. After Greg cut the top off we let her look inside the pumpkin to see if she'd help scoop out the gunk.

 

 

However, it wasn't what she expected I suppose, so instead of a happy little helper we had a distraught 2 year old.

 

So after telling her it was alright, and letting her sit on mom's lap, she calmed down and started asking, "What's that?" She picked out the only design we had with an animal, a cat sitting on top of a pumpkin. 

 

 

Then it was time to trace the design onto our pumpkin. Greg started the tedious job.

 

We had to keep this out of Avery's sight, because she'd get upset every time she saw it. I wonder what it reminded her of.

 

While Mom and Dad were carving Avery decided to take a few self portraits, this one didn't turn out half bad.

 

Carving a pumpkin is kind of stressful, you certainly don't want to mess up.

 

And the finished product! TaDa!

 





 

Avery can't get over the fact that when she turns out the light she can see her cat on a pumpkin. I have a feeling she's going to be pretty upset when this thing has to get thrown away in a week or so.

Leaves are Falling All Around

Its that time of year where you have to break out the rake and invest some time in your yard. Seriously who knew owning trees was so time consuming?? Avery loves helping with the leaves (read: jumping in and kicking around your neatly made piles). So yesterday I made her sit down for a few minutes for some pictures. Lately, she's become obsessed with having her picture taken and has even gone so far as to practice smiling in the mirror. Apparently this is the smile she's decided on for now.  

 

Hope you're all having just as much fun with your leaves as we are!