First of all, if you haven't watched this video yet, a) you're missing out and b) this post will make NO sense to you. It's Avery's new favorite. She asks to watch it at least once a day. So watch the video.
And here is Avery and her crazy Daddy singing and dancing. Avery is just transfixed.
When you ask her "what does a fox say?" she says "ring a ding ding ding." DYING. So funny.
In different (but related news) I splurged on some treats for Kinley and Caris. At Avery's baby shower, my mom's friend Brenda bought Avery a "JellyCat" teddy bear from some boutique. Well, Avery LOVES him and sleeps with him every night. And his name is Bear-Bear. Real original, right? Meet Bear-Bear tucked into her bed:
He is a pink, corduroy teddy bear. He has been dragged around all of our moves, thrown up on, drug through the dirt, made some road trips, and been washed about 50 times. When we took her pacifier away when she was a year old, she used his nose as a pacifier. He looks pretty good, I think. The fabric is thick and durable enough that if we ever had an accidental amputation or laceration, he could easily be stitched up.
Luckily, we had left Bear-Bear's tags on and I was able to Google the company. And because Amazon is awesome, they sell ALLLLLL kinds of JellyCat corduroy animals. I was ecstatic. Bear-Bear is soft, has held up, is cute, and is a great size. We definitely wanted to buy something for the girls that was "just because" from Mom and Dad. So we sat down and scrolled through all the choices. We wanted them all to be different colors, so there was no confusion, and wanted them to all have different animals. There was an ADORABLE elephant, mouse, horse, alligator, bunny, kangaroo, etc.
We settled on a Rhino (my choice):
And a Fox (Troy's choice):
I. AM. OBSESSED. They are SO soft and cute. They came in the mail and Avery was immediately like "MINE." And we had a sit down talk about how those belong to her sisters. And she has HER Bear-Bear. Which we never make her share. She seemed to understand and handed them over.
So now, here is my poll for you. Troy and I SUCK at naming things. The only reason our dog has a bad ass name is because we didn't name him. The SPCA did. I mean, how original is "Bear-Bear"?
What should we name the Fox and the Rhino? Troy was like, "how about Rhino and Fox?" Negative. Any suggestions for the twins' snuggle friends?
So there is a full blog post about foxes. And a rhino. Suggestions on naming encouraged.
Woooweee it's been a while since I posted. Sorry about that.
Avery came home on June 19th and we were very very excited. Troy was on midnight shift the day that she came home. He had worked from midnight to 8 and got home around 930, with intentions to sleep for a few hours before we picked up Avery and my stepdad from the airport. But then my brother called (he was on TDY to Nellis for a deployment training) and asked if we could go to lunch. And Troy was too excited to sleep. So to help pass the time until reunion time, we spent a few hours with Tyler.
Then it was time to go to the airport. Troy made Avery a sign. Yes. Troy did. I had nothing to do with this. At all. I think that other people thought that we were welcoming home a deployed soldier or something. Nope, just our 2 year old. And there is Tyler photobombing. Typical. And Troy's eyes are a little scary. Sorry about the poor quality iphone photos.
This is my first hug with Avery. She came down the escalator sitting between my stepdad's legs on one of the steps. She stood up right at the bottom and jumped into my arms, IMMEDIATELY talking and talking and talking. About what? I'm not really sure. Just long winded babbling with an understandable word every 15 words or so.
We took a family picture in baggage claim too. Troy insisted her sign be included.
We have been spending lots of time at the pool. Sometimes at the YMCA (it's a little crowded there some days), some days we went to our youth pastors house who has a pool, and another day we went to my friend's neighborhood pool (MUCH less crowded). Avery has one of those puddle jumper life vests and is getting more confident in the water. We've been reading a lot and Troy and Avery do puzzles a lot. We've had a couple play dates and I don't think Avery remembers her friends initially, but seems to warm up to people quickly, so yay!
Troy took a bunch of leave when Avery came home and he got to spend almost 2 weeks home with her, which was amazing. I worked for about half of that. Speaking of which, I worked a 40 hour work week last week. It's the FIRST TIME I've done that since before Avery was born. I was feeling pretty awesome about it. Troy was making me go to bed at 830 every night, which was annoying at the time, but a good choice.
I'm glad Avery decided not to squirt her mom, holding the iphone...
Avery has been GREAT in her big girl bed. She hasn't gotten out once. She goes right to bed at night and sits in bed yelling for us in the morning until we come get her. A couple people have asked how the edge of the bed "noodle technique" is working and so far, so good. She hasn't rolled out of bed in the middle of the night. My only complaint is the the noodle will slide off the edge and get caught in the elastic of the fitted sheet so you have to push it back up onto the edge of the mattress. But other than that, it seems to work well and is certainly cheaper than buying a rail. Win-win.
Seriously, I just want to watch her sleep stalker style. She's just so cute.
Song anyone? 10 points to the first person who knows...
If you follow me on instagram (barnesdailycircus) you know that we were traveling last weekend. Despite all my concerns and fears, Avery was a freaking CHAMP on the plane. She flew as a lap infant and our flight was direct to Junction. It was only about an hour and fifteen minutes, but it gave us a good indication of how Avery will do when we fly to Florida next month for my sisters wedding (5 hour flight, 2 hour layover, 1 hour flight).
We went to visit Kyle and Rosa. They are recently engaged (CONGRATS!!) and have been to visit us 4 times since we moved to Las Vegas in August. It was DEFINITELY our turn to go out for a visit. We were pretty pumped.
We got there about 5 on thursday afternoon. Before we lost the light, we headed up to the Mesa and went for a drive. It was gorgeous. Apparently, they (the town) are waiting on approval for Independence Monument to be approved as a National monument. Ain't it purty??
Here's a picture of Avery, Troy, Kyle, and Rosa looking over the Mesa. Good looking group, eh?
That night, we put Avery to bed and had a BBQ on the back porch (bratwursts with grilled onions, peppers and asparagus) and sat out on the porch with a nice, comfy fire.
Friday morning, we got up and went for a short hike (about 2 miles) to go and see the Colorado River.
Then Troy veto'd anyones vote for lunch with Chick-fil-a. There isn't one in Las Vegas and Troy has been going through extreme withdrawal for some. He was SO excited. He double fisted. He got a sandwich and nuggets. With sweet tea. And fries. And he larged his order. Fatty. Just kidding, honey...LOVE YOU!
After lunch, we headed back to the house so Avery could nap. We hung out and chatted and then headed out to dinner at a local restaurant/brewery that has really cool/unusual pizzas. They gave Avery pizza dough to play with while we waited. She LOVED it. It made me think that she might be ready for playdoh soon. As long as she doesn't try to eat it.
That night, we went back to the house and watched a movie on Netflix and chatted.
Saturday morning, we woke up and the weather was pretty yucky. Well, pretty. But yucky for any outdoor activity that we were planning. But we saw some snow.
Then we headed to this indoor kids place called Bananas. It cost 8 bucks for Avery to "jump" on any of the indoor inflatables for an unlimited time. She was definitely one of the smaller kids there and I was FREAKING out about her getting knocked over or hurt. But she held her own and figured out some of the mazes and slides by herself!
JUMP!
She caught some serious air. She liked to jump up and then just throw herself onto the ground.
We kind of had a hard time with directions. She wanted to climb up the slides and slide down the ladders.
Rosa couldn't go with us to Chick-fil-a the day before because of work, so she suggested we go again. Troy was all, "DO YOU EVEN HAVE TO ASK?!?!?!?" So, off we went again.
This time, Avery got to meet the "Eat Mor Chik'n" cow. I thought she would be super scared, but she did GREAT!
So I took video. She signed "thank you" to the cow for his milk. So funny.
We headed home to put Avery down for a nap and when she got up, the snow/rain slushy was done and we went for a walk around their neighborhood/town.
The next morning, Kyle suggest that we drive to Utah to check out some of the parks and scenery. It was gorgeous. Unfortunately, I started feeling a little carsick from the looking straight up from inside the car thing, so I only got a couple pictures. It was GORGEOUS.
And my first time to Utah.
And here are some of the formations.
We left later that afternoon and had an easy flight home. YAY AVERY!
Thanks Kyle and Rosa for hosting. We had a great time visiting with you guys! Can't wait to see you again!
It's starting to warm up here again. Fall/Winter/Spring lasted about 4 months. It's been 70 the past 3 days. CRAAAAZY. As a result, poor Optimus is VERY confused about what his fur is supposed to be doing. If you remember, he went through a stressful fall, which involved the crazy shedding and medical testing. So to avoid him getting too hot, we decided to be proactive and went ahead and shaved him down.
Here's Sir Optimus and his mane before and after getting cut:
Avery thought that he wasn't coming back when we dropped him off at the groomers. I didn't realize how many nicknames we had for Optimus until this happened. We started walking out the doors without his and she was like "NOOOOOO PUPPERS!! PUPPERS!! PUPPPPPPPPPEEEEEEERS!!!!"
And instead of comforting her, what did I do? I did what any good blogger does!! I taped it.
She's SO melodramatic. Apparently it's a girl thing. But she wasn't upset enough to stop shoving crackers in her mouth....
Avery decided that she wanted to make a video for everyone. Aka she decided that using the phone like a mirror (with the camera on) was the best game ever...so like a good mom, I video taped the cuteness :)
And now for your viewing pleasure: It's super up close and she wears the hood on her onesie the whole time.
Avery is the best. She is such a joy and blessing in our lives everyday. She makes us laugh constantly. Avery has got MOST of the animals noises down. She is walking around the house cockadoodledoing (more like a yodel) and I just want to squeeze her it's so cute. Here are the animals she's got down:
Last year, we took Avery trick or treating at a trunk or treating event held by our church in San Antonio. She was dressed up as adorable. OH WAIT! She's adorable everyday. She was a pumpkin. Here is the picture from last year.
What a difference a year makes, eh? So this year, Avery received a sock monkey outfit from her Gran-Gran. We decided that she would wear it for Halloween and it was perfect!
Troy really wanted to take her trick or treating, but he wanted to dress up. The first year we were stationed in Dover, one of our neighbors took his kids trick or treating and he was the highlight of our night. His daughter was Winnie-the-Pooh, his son was Piglet, and he dressed up as Tigger. He didn't just have a black sweatsuit that he striped with orange duct tape. It was a full on Tigger suit. ADORABLE.
Troy wanted to think of something that would tie Avery's monkey outfit to him. So they could be a pair. I love him :) This is what he decided he wanted to be:
The man in the yellow hat. Avery's sock monkey outfit could easily translate to monkey. So anyway...Troy asked me to find him a FULL ON YELLOW SUIT! Like Dumb and Dumber style.
Except for yellow of course. I was like, "um are you kidding?" So instead, I got on Amazon (oh good old Amazon, you are so dependable) and ordered a long sleeve hanes yellow t-shirt and a yellow hat. Total of 11.16 + shipping. I used black electrical tape to make his tie.
We walked outside to take a picture on the porch and Troy was like, "TAKE A PICTURE OF AVERY BEING CURIOUS!! GET IT? LIKE CURIOUS GEORGE???" Apparently being "curious" translates to putting your baby on your car and making a scared face. For the record: This picture was Troy's idea. He completely posed them both for the photo. Another reason I love him: He's silly.
Look how excited he is:
Getting ready to leave:
Troy said that they went to about 15 houses. And only about 1/2 of the people got their costumes. READ PEOPLE!!!
Avery was super excited about her candy. I know she doesn't look like it in the picture, but she ate 2 kit kat bars and figured out how to chew through a Butterfinger wrapper and was found eating the paper and some of the candy bar. Bad mommy points. Overall, she had fun!
Here is Avery enjoying her kit kat and making monkey noises while her mouth is full. For the record, we did NOT teach her that monkeys go "oo oo oo." We taught her that they scream. More like "aaaaaaAHHHHH aaaAHHHHHH" so that the pitch and volume go up at the end. It's more accurate.
We all know that I think Avery is the cutest thing to ever walk the planet. I love her laugh and her hair and her kiss sounds and her fatty legs. I just love it.
I feel like people tell you things, but you don't believe them until you see it for yourself. So here is the truth:
No matter how many cool toys and gadgets and tv programs you have, your child will always always always prefer a simple toy over the fancy stuff.
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
Exhibit C:
Now that she's a little bit older, she is super into peek a boo and anything that jumps out at her and scares her. She is a little thrill seeker and definitely prefers to play games where she interacts with us rather than playing alone.
Right now, her favorite game is to ride on my foot. When I am sitting on the couch when my legs crossed, she walks up to me and sits on the foot of the leg that is crossed like a little seat. Then I just flex and extend my knee. Best. Game. Ever. And she makes the BEST faces during this game. I should have some KILLER quads in the next few months.
Playing tug of war with the rope :) How cute is my baby and my furry baby? The answer: SUPER CUTE!! I love it when they play together. In general, he is less than impressed with her. Like avoids her. I think she's too unpredictable and flails too much.
As I mentioned last week, Troy's Dad was in New Mexico with us for his graduation. Avery and her Granddaddy had a grand ole' time together.
Isn't that precious??
I also got an adorable video when he didn't know I was filming. He may actually be finding out right now as he reads this. This video is adorable. Avery is laughing super hard. There's just something about men playing with babies!
Apparently ice cream just wasn't the right motivation. It was bath time! And look how far she walks! LOVE IT! And you get a peek into her chunky monkey chubbers. She also shows off her throwing skills. She puts her own toys in the bathtub. Love her.
We go to the pool several times a week. It's hot. And we literally have nothing else to do. Alamogordo rules. Did you see the sad zoo? We still went. And we knew it was going to be bad. But it was better than looking at the sad sad walls of TLF for another MINUTE!!!
Avery has recently discovered how much she loves the slide. It doesn't look like it in the video, but she points at the slide, grunts, and then pats her chest. Which is baby sign for "please." And she does it over and over with increasing insistence and irritation if you don't take her on the slide. Troy and I try and take turns. That's a lie. Troy takes her. Mostly. Because I'm vain and clumsy and cannot manage to go down the slide without completely dunking at the bottom. And then I come up sputtering like an idiot because I cannot figure out how to gracefully land at the bottom.
Some friends of ours, Stephen and Becca (we went to Roswell with them) have this awesome waterproof video camera. We decided that we would take full advantage and took video of us on the slide with Avery.
I would like you to notice several things about this video:
1. Troy's fun noise is "weeee" like the pig on the Geico commercials. I can't stop laughing because that's all I can think about while I watch this.
2. Natalie's fun noise is "yay"
3. In my video, Avery looks like she is gritting and grinding her teeth so hard it hurts.
4. I really need to give her hair a trim. She had like 6 strands of hair when she was born. They have all grown at an alarming rate and all of her other hair is still filing in. Troy keeps saying that he will clean the toilet with my toothbrush if I cut her hair. But seriously. It's like a mullet for the most part. With 6 really, really long strands in the front. So weird.
Avery LOVES ice cream. Like a lot. Here is Avery at her first birthday eating cake and ice cream.
We tried to bribe her into walking towards a spoon ice cream. And then documented it, thinking we could get her first steps on camera. No luck. We are bad parents. She screamed and screamed and we continued to film.
She wanted the ice cream. Bad. But not bad enough to work for it. Only bad enough to scream at the top of her lungs. Watch if you dare.
It was a valiant effort. No way, jose. She's not walking with the camera out. Better luck next time.
Avery does not want to walk. I think she could. But she crawls super fast. She really just doesn't want to walk. But here is evidence of her walking skills. Again with her baby stroller. But this time, she's using it "the right way." And running into walls. And the cabinets. And challenging the refrigerator to bumper cars. She won.
You can tell she considers walking. Really. And then she decides not to. You can just tell.
Since I wrote this post last week, she has taken about 5 steps. Twice. Never towards Troy or myself. It's always one of our friends. What's with that?? I also have a video of us trying to bribe her to walk. With ice cream. It didn't go well. It ended with her screaming and throwing herself onto the coffee table like a teenager being told she can't wear blue nail polish to school. Just me?
Avery does not sleep when we are out. Not in her stroller. Not in a carrier. Nothing. She will ONLY sleep in her bed or for about 30 minutes at a time in her carseat. If we are lucky. I managed to catch this jewel on the way home from the Roswell UFO Festival. She was awake for 10 hours straight. She was in good spirits the whole time we were out. She is such a trooper.
I pretty much died laughing watching this. And while shooting it. Which kept waking her up. She was doing the head nod worse than a college kid at an 8 am class after a weekend of partying. Enjoy. I hope it brings you as much joy as it does me!
ps. I apologize that I shot it lengthwise. That means that you may get a crick in your neck trying to watch it sideways. If you are watching on an ipad, lock the turning mechanism and you can watch it right side up. Or just turn your laptop.
We were invited by some friends to go with them up to Cloudcroft, New Mexico this past weekend. I didn't take much convincing. Especially after they told us that this is a mountain town and elevation is 8000+ feet**. Which means the temperature is 20 degrees cooler there than down here in Hades, Alamogordo. I was totally in.
** Side note: Alamogordo is 4000+ feet above sea level. Which I did not know. And then I made brownies out of a box for dessert the other night. And I did not even THINK of following the additional instructions for baking at high altitudes. Lets just say that I was lucky they were edible. Because I was supposed to use 1 less egg and add flour. Oops. I do not win any awards from Betty Crocker this week :(
We went with a group of 6 adults and 2 babies (Avery is almost 14 months and Zack is 15 weeks) for part one of the trip and then another friend joined us up there after lunch (part II of this post). The 8 of us (babies are people too, you know!) left at 9am for the drive up there. It took about 40 minutes and our ears were popping the whole time. We kept feeding the babies or putting pacifiers in their mouths so their ears would pop. It was good. Here is our view from the top!! There was an overlook that we stopped at that was right before we got to the actual town of Cloudcroft.
Isn't it GORGEOUS??
Do you see the white sand? That is the national park about 15 minutes from Alamogordo where you can sled down the dunes and stuff. We will also be going there. Alas, that is not what this post is about. Still gorgeous in pictures though.
All of these trees are part of the Lincoln National Forest. Can you believe all these trees? I just pictured sand, sand, and more sand when Troy said we were going to be in New Mexico for 5 months. I was so surprised!
This is the most artsy picture I have ever taken. Go me. I actually TOOK the photograph in black and white. I'm impressed I could figure out how to change the settings on my camera. And then change them back.
It was an absolutely perfect day. A day the Lord had made. Look at that sky! Did I mention that it was 20 degrees cooler than in Alamogordo?
As for sight seeing, we took the route of "lets drive through town and stop when we see something we want to do" as opposed to "here is our schedule of events." The first place we decided to stop was the Cloudcroft Museum.
There were about 14 buildings that could be toured. I think only 2 of them were actually built there and the others were relocated to that area. Parts of the buildings are original and some of them were restored.
This is in the main building regarding the history of the town. The town was a train stop for logging and resupply. This town was the first in the country to have the "S" shaped track for switch-backing up the mountain.
This is the one room school house. So small. It really shows the basics of school. Too bad the education is not that simple anymore. Ahhhh the good ole' days.
Troy was dying laughing at the list of rules for teachers. It's pretty funny. I want to tag all of my friends (like on Facebook) so that they can read these rules. Hilarious. Especially the rule about hanging out in ice cream shops being scandalous. The first set of rules is from 1872 and the second set is from 1915.
This is the chapel. Some of the windows were original and had this wavy pattern in them. The restored panes were clear. You can actually still get married in there. Adorable. I loved it. So quaint.
This is an original 2 room cottage. There was a large room that was the living room and had the bed in it. There was an additional room off the back that had a twin bed. 14 people used to live there. At once. Talk about love. And camping in your own house. Ps. I hate camping.
This is Kristen looking at a firetruck from pre WWI. I can't remember the year, but the truck carried 150 gallons of water. And it was hand pumped out in the instance of a fire.
This is most of our group. Minus baby Zack and his momma, Karen. Zack needed a snack. We are standing in the post office/train station. One of things I loved about this building was the explanation for mail. There were 2 crates for mail. One for incoming and one for outgoing. The outgoing mail was just all in one bin and you sorted and sifted through it to look for your mail.
This is the actual train car that was on site. It was pretty cool.
This is the inside. The modern amenities and comforts of travel were definitely apparent to me after seeing this. Eeeek.
Kristen is so happy :) Such a good photo bomb. Congrats.
How cute is Avery in her carrier? She just snuggles up to you and peeks out. As long as you keep moving and giving her something else to look at, she's happy. The second you pause for more than about 7 seconds she's screaming and pinching the skin on the back of your arm. Consider that a warning if you ever carry her.
This is Troy pretending to be the train ticket salesman. See the video at the bottom for audio :) He's funny.
In honor of awesome dads wearing babies, here is Nate, carrying a passed out Zack after his snack. SO cute...
Weeew. That's a ton of pictures. Be back tomorrow with pictures from lunch and our "hike." More like a traveling comedy show. Some strollers are just not designed for rugged terrain. And babies are carried like Cleopatra. You'll see.
In the meantime, here's Troy playing train conductor:
