Things We Have Noticed Lately

Now that Avery is three years old, his physical development is visibly moving at a slower rate compared to when he was a baby. However, his cognitive development seems to be taking off.

The most notable difference is his budding imagination. He loves to make up words and songs. He is also developing new fears since he likes to give inanimate objects names and personalities. For example, he asks us to hide his stuffed animals in his closet at night because he is afraid of them coming to life (like they do in the movie "Toy Story"). The scariest animal of all to him is a really sweet and innocent looking caterpillar (which kind of makes us laugh since it is the most friendly-looking animal he has). We figured out the fear probably comes from his "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" book, in which the caterpillar eats many things. I suppose he doesn't want to get eaten by his caterpillar.

Avery bought his caterpillar book with birthday money he received from his grandparents. He has been talking to his grandparents on the phone about every weekend every since he could mumble a few words. Now, he is speaking full sentences to them and can carry a conversation for several minutes. Avery can voice his opinions and interests about things pretty well.

Since he can voice his opinions much easier, it is funny to listen to his preferences on things. One example is telling us what cereal he wants to eat. We've been buying Fruit Loops (sometimes used as "targets" in our potty training process). He will let us know that he wants to eat his "hula hoops" (fruit loops) instead of oatmeal. Another example is during the mornings when he will suggest "Let's wear pajamas all day!". He often wants us to take off his church clothes (sometimes dress up clothes are uncomfortable) so he can snuggle in his "Mickey jamas".

The Mickey jamas are his favorite. Possibly because he can now unbutton and button them. For some reason he does much better with smaller buttons than larger ones. The remaining items he still has trouble with are putting on and removing shirts and coats. Other than that, he is able to dress and undress himself.

We are enjoying Avery even more as he begins to get older and is able to do more things.

Winter Indoors Fun

Homemade snow ice cream...

Paper car town...

Reading silly stories...

Avery's Third Birthday!

We surprised Avery on the morning of his birthday (after he woke up on his own of course) by bringing in his car cake and singing happy birthday. He loved the "candles" and "fire on top", but had a little trouble blowing out the flames on his own.

Avery's Birthday Car Cake

A Crafty Little Boy

A Cuppa Meeelk

This is pure heaven for our little boy:

1.) holding the treasured blue blanket
2.) sipping the cuppa meelk
3.) snuggling with dad while rocking on glider

Avery helps Grandma ice the cake

Avery Learns to Set the Table

December Funny Stuff

(Mom) "We're going to have chicken nuggets, ketchup and corn for lunch today."
(Avery) "What? That's CRAZINESS!"

(Avery) "Nnnaaaahhhsss" (confused whether to say yes or no)

(Avery) "The Christmas lights are winking!"

(Avery) "I need a cup-o-meeelk" - he still loves to drink his milk and snuggle with his blue blanket

Avery sees mama flossing her teeth and says that he needs some floss because he has ABC's stuck in his teeth (Alphabits cereal)

(Avery while finished eating his apples) "Mama, I need some more apples."
(Mama) "Sorry son, we are all out. You ate all the apples all by yourself. There's no more."
(Avery) "There's more at Wal-Mart, Mama. I need more."

(Avery confused thinking he needs medicine) "Mama, I need some medicine, some cold medicine. No, me needs some hot medicine."

Grocery Shopping

Grocery shopping is an adventure with our almost three year old. He constantly and joyfully makes conversation with himself and other shoppers as he is perched up in the seat area on the front of the shopping cart. (If you are ever in Bolivar Wal-Mart and hear a happy little voice loudly squeaking and singing, it's probably us.)

As we pass by other customers, sometimes he will introduce himself or repeat words that he hears them say. If there is another child in a cart, he loves to grin and hold out his hand as if he expects them to return a high five. Thinking we are clever, we try to distract him with songs, rhymes, etc... but he often quickly catches on to our ploy refusing to participate.

Sometimes he critiques our selection of food and will strongly suggest another item in a different shape or color. We have even tried making him his own "list" with several pictures of items we usually buy hoping that helps tame his behavior. (That list does not include ice cream, the toy department, cookies or other things often mentioned by our son.)

Recently, we tried to humor him by asking Avery to "help" hold things. While we were trying to compare prices on lunchmeat and couldn't concentrate with all the toddler jabber, we gave him a package of ham to hold while we tried to calculate our decision.

Needless to say, we ended up purchasing the package of ham Avery so neatly imprinted his teeth marks in.