Avery Proves She is NOT a Superhero. She bleeds.

Our family has a free YMCA membership because our home is over 30 miles from our base. It's a great perk. It has free childcare, free classes, an indoor AND outdoor pool, and did I mention that it's free? For some reason, previously, I had associated YMCAs with low income areas with programs for families without the resources for safe activities. I don't know why. Boy was I wrong. It is SO nice. And we are really enjoying it!

I have been going to the gym about 3 times per week, which if you know me AT ALL you know this is a huge deal. I hate hate hate working out. Hate. However, now that I have a child and the child care is free, it's awesome. I am doing something good for me and she gets playtime/socializing time. I get to work out, read, listen to music, watch TV, take classes, whatever. All of a sudden, exercise has become "me" time. Which is amazing and a super motivational reason to go work out.

Recently, I decided that it was time for Avery and I to use the indoor pool every once in a while. They have a therapy pool and it is 92 degrees. AKA BATH WATER. It is SO nice and toasty. And Avery loves it. I think she's going to be a little water baby.

On tuesday, Troy and I took her swimming. She was taking great joy in going backwards down the stairs up to her neck and then climbing out and going to a deeper part of the pool (that was exactly the same height as the water) and lowering herself into the water up to her chest before lifting herself out of the side of the pool. This became a great game for her...of running and seeing how fast she could lower herself into the water from side to side.

Of course, we had already been swimming for over an hour and she was starting to get tired. But if you have kids who love water, it doesn't matter how tired they are, they are going to keep playing. Troy was in the water and I was sitting on a bench next to the area she was making laps and kept "catching her" to keep her from running. Of course on her last lap, she totally slips and goes down face first onto the pool deck and totally splits her chin wide open...

I immediately scoop her up and take her into the locker room to check it out and change her clothes because we were heading to Target to pick up the last of our Christmas gifts.

She quit crying pretty quick (I stuffed a bottle of milk in her mouth) so I could look at it. She has a Harry Potter lightening bolt cut right in the bottom of her chin. She is bleeding line a stuck pig. I change her out of her suit and put her clothes on. And she bleeds all over the neck/chest part of her shirt. It was looking all "psycho" up in that area.

I gather all of our stuff up and we all walk out to the car (Avery included, we try to have her walk all the time) and I'm like "TROY WE NEED TO GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM!" And Mr. Calm is all "Eh, we'll get some new skin at Target and she'll be fine." And then Mrs. Freakout is like "YOU DIDN'T EVEN LOOK!!! YOU DON'T LOVE HER AT ALLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!"

We get into Target and there is more blood all over her face and shirt, which I am continually mopping up with a wipe from her diaper bag (which now looks brown instead of white). And I am now "that mom." You know, the one who grabs things off the shelf and immediately opens them and pays for them later? With a first aid kit.

We taped up her chin and she was not bothered at all. And didn't seem to be in any pain either. This is after we got the "new skin" on there.

And here are the pink "Hello Kitty" bandaids that she has been wearing.

I took her to the gym the next day and while I was waiting to drop her off at childcare, some other moms made me feel so much better when they saw her pink bandaid. They both said that their kids have also had scraped up faces. One mom said "my daughter fell off a curb and scraped her whole nose up and wore bandaids for weeks." The other mom said that her son fell 2 times in 6 months tripping over the hearth on the fireplace and split his chin in the exact same spot both times. At least I know it happens to everyone :) And baby girl seems fine!

We Are Swingers!

Get your mind out of the gutter! We got a swing set as a belated birthday present for Ms. Avery's 1st birthday. You know, cause we were living in TLF. As much as we LOOOVED it (read sarcasm), there just wasn't room to have a swing set delivered there.

I was looking at swing sets when I realized that we were going to have a yard. Oh. My. Gosh. Some of them are SO expensive. Like many thousands of dollars. Which is straight crazy. Especially when you move all the time and they get broken down and put together multiple times.

My Dad and Elaine (Grandpa Geno and Gigi) sent a swing set to us about 2 weeks ago. Over Thanksgiving, Dan and Laura came to visit and while the girls went to the gym (Avery included), the boys (Jameson included) put the swing set together.

Avery LOVES it. It is the perfect size for our yard. I was worried that anything big would take up all of the astroturf and there would be no room for running and playing ball with Optimus. My worries were ill-founded. The size is perfect. Here she is in all her glory. I love that Avery is still a little too small to enjoy all the parts of it. It means that she'll grow into it, but any future kiddos that we have can still enjoy it too with the slide and baby swing (for kids up to 4 years old). We had considered getting a Step 2 swing set, but they were expensive and then we would have felt the need to buy a "big kid" swing set for Avery when she was older, while having to keep the smaller one for littler kids. This just makes sense for us right now.

It has a slide, 2 swings, and a teeter totter swing. Dad and Elaine bought an extra baby swing that was changed out with one of the big kid swings. We were pretty excited that they did that since Avery is still a little small to grasp the whole "don't lean back or you'll fall off" concept. We sat her on the big kid swing (she was determined) and did pretty well, but when she decided to sign "all done," and let go of the chains, she totally almost did a face plant right into the turf.

She LOVES the slide. She goes down sitting up, face first, and backwards. She's hardcore.

She prefers to hold our hands when going down the slide on her bottom. It picks up some serious speed and she learned that the very first time she went down. She went FLYING and was going so fast, I was worried she was going to shoot off the slide into the side of the house and impale herself on the hose spout. No worries. That didn't happen.

Now she just holds out her hand when she wants to go down:

But, if we don't get there fast enough, she just turns around and goes down backwards or face first. Because THAT'S not scarier than just sitting on your butt, right?



We live in a great community with lots of parks, but having an area to play at the house is great. Especially if it's overcast and I'm worried that we might be at the park that long before she gets cold or it gets dark.

We have had a couple play dates at the house in the past week also and so far, the swing set gets 2 big thumbs up! Or 5 Amazon stars.

Troy's Family Tradition

Troy has this thing where the youngest person in the household ALWAYS puts the star on top of the tree...

Exhibit A: Avery is only 6 months old

Okay, so in that picture she's not exactly putting the star on the tree. And I also didn't realize how bald she was at this time last year. BUT this is a similar set up to last year. Last year, Troy held her like this (see above) and I stood on a chair and held her hands onto a star and she "put" the star on the tree. He was super insistent about this.

This year was no different. Avery was VERY intrigued by the tree and excited about all the lights. Pre-lit tree y'all. It saved our marriage after the first year of Christmas together. We CAN NOT agree about how to put lights on the tree. Pre-lit is the way to go. No more arguing :) Win-win. With WHITE lights. It's the way we roll. Correction: If I would allow GIANT colored bulbs, Troy would be thrilled. But I just can't. I'm a white light tree girl.

She attempted for about 2 minutes to put the star on the tree. It was adorable.

Troy gave her a little help (and held her up at the same time) while I took pictures. She was concentrating hard. Look at that double chin. I just love it :)

After a little furniture moving, here's what we got. We waited until after Avery's bedtime to actually put ornaments on the tree. She's not quite old enough yet. I'm pretty sure that next year she'll be able to help.

Troy pretty much made fun of me the whole time. I would unwrap an ornament and be like, "OH THIS IS MY FAVORITE." And then unwrap the next one and be like "Oh no. THIS ONE is my favorite." I just love Instagram. And I love Christmas decorations. And Jesus. He's the reason for season.

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