Mommy & Avery

Well, it's Monday afternoon and we haven't killed each other yet. We were busy running errands this morning and she was such a trooper going all over with me. She was also such a good girl today at the 'hair cut place' (as she calls it). She got her toes painted a bubblegum color.

Right now she is taking a nap and it is so quiet. *bliss*




Ok, off to be productive.....I want to get a lot done while she naps so we can have a nice relaxing evening and dye Easter eggs....stay tuned for more pictures.....

Weekend Review

We had a birthday party to attend to Friday evening up the street, so Avery got to eat her favorite Chipotle rice bowl for dinner. When we ordered at Chipotle the guy handed it to me and said, "It's on the house". I have no idea what we did to get that, but it was a major bonus.

Friday evening in the late afternoon sun

We went to visit Grandma on Sunday. We had only been promising to show her our Italy pictures for over a YEAR now! We all had a nice visit and hopefully we didn't wear her out too much. Avery was a little fidgity and all over the place with energy.

We had Carrabba's afterwards and that was super yummy!

Avery & GG

Water Fight!

Playing in the grass


I LOVE this picture. (Yes, a chocolate bribe was involved to get her to cooperate)

Saturday we worked outside all day long. I took every item off our back porch and scrubbed the walls, rails and porch floor along with all the furniture that was on the porch and then moved it all back up and redecorated. I could barely get out of bed this morning I was so sore. The back porch and yard are looking much better. Now, if all our plants don't freeze this week. We are supposed to get near freezing temps mid-week!

This week is Spring break and I hope Avery and I don't kill each other. We have company coming into town Wednesday and we have a special surprise for Avery at the end of the week. :-)

I hope everyone has a great week and we sure hope our little cousin Leif gets better soon. You guys have been in our thoughts all weekend. *hugs*

Thursday 'Off'

Avery had a speech screening this morning at 8:30 and of course she didn't wake up early this morning! I had to wake her up at 8:05 and rush her out the door. She has been sleeping late this entire week, which is very unlike her. Who wants to bet she will be up at 7 (or before) Saturday AM?!

The evaluation was very educational for me. Turns out she doesn't have much of a speech problem, but more overall language issues. It doesn't seem to be much to worry about, but we will work with her on it and talk to her teacher at school about it in depth during the next parent night.

We came home for lunch before spending the entire rest of the day running errands.

Here she is playing in her room for a few minutes before we went out.

Spring Arts Festival Weekend

Scott was out of town for a guys trip and my mom came to visit us for the long weekend.
We headed over the St. Augustine Beach on Friday and I realized half way there that I forgot my camera. It ended up being a good thing though because the beach was freezing cold and the sand was blasting. We were only on the beach for about 45 minutes and then we headed into town. We had lunch and it started warming a bit, so we strolled around town, had some ice cream, watched the 'one man band guys' and then headed home. Of course we stopped at 'County Line' so mom could stock up on veggies and came home to relax around the house. Mom and I watched Twilight - she LOVED it.

On Saturday we headed down to the Spring Arts Festival. Avery desparately wanted her face painted and here she is....

Getting her face painted. I think it was some kind of pink and purple 'butterfly'.


Listening to the live music at the Thomas Center. She could have stayed there all day.

JAX Zoo

Last Sunday we got up real early and headed over to Jax to visit the zoo. Scott wanted me to drive because he needed to do some work, so I was driving on 1-10 when I saw a State Trooper pulling out of the median. I got that sinking feeling in my stomach and looked at my speed. It was 72, but I was distracted with Scott being on the phone and Avery complaining about the iPod, but I was pretty sure the speed limit was 70. I get in the right lane and so does he - SHOOT - he is after ME! How irritating! He came up to the truck and was super nice. He asked where we were going and when we told him he went into this whole spiel about the zoo and all these neat things about it. All I kept thinking was "ok Mr. am I getting a ticket or not"?! He takes my info and goes back to his vehicle.....we wait.....and Avery starts asking us if we are getting our zoo tickets now, etc. He comes back up to the truck and says, "I'm giving you a warning, just slow down and enjoy your day at the zoo". Apparently the speed limit had just changed to 55 and I missed it. PHEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We get to the Zoo a little after 9AM and it is wonderful. There were barely any people in there at that time and we could just walk and see whatever we wanted. They were just letting some of the animals out, so many of them were feisty. Especially these caged monkeys. They were SO LOUD! Scott was trying to talk on a business call and he had screaming monkeys in the background (made me laugh). :-)

We left the zoo around 1PM and the line was so long. It was great that we got there so early, I think that made a huge difference in our enjoyment. We will definately make a repeat trip sometime in the future. After the zoo we went down to St. Augustine to a plant shop for Scott to replace a few plants that had died and then headed home, but first we stopped at our favorite veggie stand in Hastings - the County Line - if you ever go that way - you've gotta stop - great fresh veggies!!!

Just getting to the zoo - styling in her Dora glasses


Photo Op Carousel


The real Carousel -she loved it!!!


She is checking out the kangaroos here. She had just studied about Australia animals in February, so she was telling us about them.

In the parakeet feeding room.

We found this great kids play area - here she is in the 'nest'. She thought it was funny until she couldn't get out.

Her expression after her first time down the slide.

The kids slide

These guys were HILARIOUS. Avery kept asking about their extra genitalia and claiming it was ''scusting' over and over. At one point she yells out, "hey, monkeys have penis' too". OMG.

These were the loud guys I was referring to earlier. "WOOOOOOP - WOOOOOOP - WOOOOOOP"

This bird was so cool! He was right next to me almost like he was trying to pose for my camera.

Giraffes are so cool! What was even cooler is that TWI did the rockwork at that exhibit. It was my first time seeing the rockwork - pretty cool!

Petting the goats

Feeding the parakeets

Spring is here!

A few weekends ago Scott got a beautiful rose. He seemed to love it so much, I told him to go ahead and kiss it. He did.


It's not the weekend without all the princess dresses coming out of the closet.




Spring Flowers


Fun with the umbrella

Happy Belated St. Patty's Day

Here's a picture of Scott's perfectly poured Black & Tan.
We had Supper Club that evening. I wish I would have taken pictures of our St. Patty's Day inspired themed dinner. It was so good, we forgot to take pictures.

Feeling Better & Baby Chicks

Avery is feeling better finally! YAY! I just hope we can all stay healthy. There sure seems to be a lot of nasty virus' going around here lately.

Early Wednesday morning the United States Postal Service called to tell us our chicks were availiable for pick up. Scott went up and picked up all 15 of them. Don't worry, we are only keeping two. It will be interesting to see how many end up being roosters. Anyone in need of some fuzzy chicks? ;-) If so, call Scott!

Aren't they cute?!


I love how this one is about to peck his brother/sister.

Outside Tuesday enjoying some sunshine.

Sick Baby Girl

I thought she was doing so much better throughout the weekend, but last night the cough took a turn for the worse.
She is still sick. We had a rough night last night. She was coughing a lot. When I went downstairs to check on her she was laying on her rug on the floor. She told me she was sick. I gave her some Delysum and when I felt her she was burning up. Poor baby. The fever was back after 48 hours. Looks like a secondary infection to me. I hope it's not the chest or her ears (but it probably is one of the two).

We will go this morning and then I have to take her into work with me.

I will be happy when this sick season is over!!!!!!

I wonder why Scott never gets our sicknesses?!

Anyway, Happy Monday!



*UPDATE* She is just still sick. :-( This is going to make for an interesting work week...

Weekend in review

Let's see - this must have been the fastest weekend of all time. How can one little hour make the weekend seem so short?

This weekend was all about relaxation, wine, sunshine, beautiful weather, Avery, yardwork, sushi, good friends, psychic reading, watching a tear jerker movie, thinking of friends going through difficult times, back porch goodness, Sweetwater coffee, camelia trip to Melrose, banana bread, books, puzzles, sleeping in until 7:47 Saturday AM, good music and an overall appreciation of life itself and all those that are a part of it.

Here she is doing art Saturday AM


This was the beginning of "Spider Party"


Sunday AM in the yard


Art concentration


Blowing Bubbles


Taking Pictures


Those lips!


Sunday Evening Sunshine


Can she be any more precious?

Silly Sunday

Avery and new kitty (yes, we still need a name for him) tend to have a love/hate relationship. He really is a sweet and loving kitty, but Avery hasn't learned to give him his personal space even after several scratches. A few Sundays past she was playing in the dirt with kitty and apparently he scratched her on the face because she got his ant. Huh? Well, nonetheless she had a pretty deep scratch, so I put her in the tub and washed it and put Neosporin on it with a bandaid. I thought the bandaid would keep out the dirt and it would stay a little cleaner that way. What I didn't know is that Avery would have more of a mark from the bandaid than the scratch itself when I took it off the next day. It has been a few weeks and she STILL has the bandaid mark!

Scratch/Bandaid Mark


Yet another super silly face


This cat cracks me up. He has the funniest personality. I caught him grooming. *chuckle*