this guy

this little guy had a birthday! he is an entire year old and counting. we forget sometimes that he is so big now, and counts as a real person.

for instance, if we buy avery a sucker or popsicle you had better believe he demands his own. (this guy gets siren loud with his yelling)

and when we took him to the train park for something to do on his birthday, we did not expect him to care or notice too much the train/why it is so awesome to cruise around a park on a little train.

but he showed us once again how grown up he is, sat on his seat right next to avery and waved his little chunky arms the entire time. His facial expressions were the very best! i think he had fun.

late nights on the town

oh avery and davis, how i hope you enjoy this town and love it? you have no idea how glad i am to be done. this was town #2. the one i made for you last year for christmas, i ruined when i washed it christmas eve. i cried a little and was slightly devastated, a lot of love and time went into that one too. RIP. so almost 1 year later i started over. i spent a lot of late/all nighters on this town, again!

i was putting on the last house (2am sat night) and burnt a nice big iron spot on it. i thought i had ruined it once again and was brainstorming ways to fix it/die if not. i thought i would have to redo that section and somehow piece it back on. google saved me, i found a way to get iron burns out. hydrogen peroxide, who knew?
the town is complete with some waterfront property, houses, a camp spot, airport, home depot, a car lot, gas station, hospital, school, police, fire station, and church. i had fun making the town and this time i am saving my templets because you never know? i still have a few details to add but for now i am enjoying seeing avery play with it and pushing davis out of the way of his town. learn to share already! and davis stop being king kong and recking all of avery's fun!
town to do list:
add the ice cream shop i thought i lost or threw away
binding
gas pumps for the gas station
parking spots/trees?
cardboard bridge/tunnel less ghetto & size appropriate (the one in the pic is his motorcycle jump)

come again rain!

the rain brought a lot of fun for avery! our street was flooded up over the sidewalk. and since we hadn't showered, avery slipped on his crocks and we headed outside to check out the puddles and flooding. avery had a blast tokyo drifting and riding through the water on his little car. davis thought we were out there for too long, he liked it for a good while but had his fun and was ready to go in and dry up long before avery (or maybe he was just jealous of avery and his car?)

here kitty kitty

chad took avery to a d backs game a little while ago, and he fell in love with baxter the kitty cat! he was won over by his pre-game motorcycle riding skills. (who wouldn't be) avery thought it was hilarious and has been playing pretend baseball with the kitty cat. he will say "throw baseball kitty cat" or tell the kitty cat to get his bat up as he pitches the ball. it is pretty entertaining.
we had a chance to take avery to another game and this time we went all together. (the first time was guys only-no girls and no babies allowed). thanks to chads friend we had pretty good seats and baxter came by our section a few times. i tried to take avery to catch him once and failed-avery cried and we climbed back up the stairs to our seats in disappointment. the next time chad took him on the chase and caught him. high fives and knuckles were shared, avery loved it. but the best was when he came up close and we got a picture with baxter the kitty cat, up close and personal. lucky! when we eat out he even gets his very own drink (soda) sometimes. double lucky!

proud new owners

of a rusty, most likely lead infested, cracked old tire, coolest tryke ever! lets just add this on to our project list. although if we want it fixed up before avery and davis both out grow it, we will be bumping it straight to the top of the list. we are actually going to aim for christmas. so my new obsession is tracking down the replacement tire we need. other areas of interest: swimming, napping, popsicles, watching movies. davis is now fully mobile and crawling/starting to pull up on things, chunky as ever, and has count them, 4 tiny teeth.

easter

easter came and went so fast. i had too much fun buying stuff for the egg hunt and went overboard on the candy. whoops! next year i will stick to the game plan of toys or outside stuff for the basket and maybe only one piece of candy per egg. avery ate his candy as fast as he(we) found it and ate too much! he stopped hunting for eggs once he had the candy from one or two of them, so we ended up picking up the rest. thankfully, next year he will have some competition with davis and his cousins.

in memory of...

oh avery! getting so big and always making us laugh. you got this scooter for your birthday and walked along side it pushing it so seriously and refusing to let us try and help you ride it. then one day you come scooting by down our hallway. and now you are a full on hard core scooter riding kid. and your love of head gear is the best!
R.I.P. scooter (it broke), don't worry bud a new one is on the shopping list.

baby blues!

those are some blue eyes, i think i have my lovely mother to thank for those. she has the prettiest blue eyes ever! i am sure they will be melting the ladies hearts in no time, but for now they are working wonders on me.
thanks grandma!

nothing new

avery is his dad's shadow. where chad goes, avery goes. he especially loves to "do work" with his dad. unfortunately for chad there is no way avery's toy tools do the trick when there is such real man tools to be used. plastic hammers, screw drivers, etc are for babies. so it makes for fun productive work when chad has to fight to be able to use the hammer or a dolly with huge trash can.

sat mornings

this is how i have been spending sat mornings lately. waking up before the sun and going to run at south mountain. crazy! when we get there it is still dark which makes for a safe run down a dirt road to the trails. the first time i went i just kept thinking "how and why are people jogging here, someone is going to break an ankle" (most likely me). no broken ankles yet, just one fall by yours truly and a strained muscle for lisa. i like south mountain, but not so much the actual running part. i like seeing the sun come up, the variation in the trail keeps the run interesting, and "makes you strong," -lisa. my favorite spot is when we come around on the mountain it overlooks the golf course and you can see out over the city. my pictures aren't that good, but there have been some really pretty sunrises.