Week 17 - Chalk and Bath

Just a little heads up before I start this week's post: This is going to be a predominately Black and White picture post! There's a reason, and I will get to that. 

First things first, it was a big day for Avery. It was rainy and my mom kept Avery's rain boots at the Ranch this week on accident, so we were stuck inside and unable to play in puddles (Thank a lot Gramma!!! :) ) The reason it's a big day for the tot is because she was FINALLY allowed to play with chalk on her chalkboard. Up until now, the chalk never quite made it to the board, always went directly in her mouth. Today, she grabbed it and starting drawing... made all of the stupid painting I had to do for that wall worth it. Then, naturally, she had to fit as many pieces of chalk in her hands as she could, so the drawing became a bit more difficult. Regardless, she powered through and created some beautiful art to add to the house! 

She thinks she is left handed here. Clearly so excited about the opportunity to write on the wall that she forgot which hand she writes well with. (It's funny because she can't write yet)

Maybe with two pieces of chalk writing with our left hand will be easier??

AHH, back at home with the Right hand :) 

Beautiful beautiful Artwrok thanks to Avery Jane Ferreira

After the chalk fun, it was also bath night, which was great because after chalk we had beets for dinner. Kid needed a bath. Something that I have really been wanting to do is get some good shots of her in the bathroom and decorate our bathroom with them. The way I just typed that out makes it sound a bit weird, but the idea is to have a good black and white shot of her in the bath and a good black and white shot of her brushing her teeth. What better way to decorate your bathroom than to decorate with pictures of your unbelievably adorable kid in the bathroom. Don't worry, I won't take some of her USING the bathroom... although, that could be cute :) Anyway, that's why there's so many black and white in this little group... trying to decide which ones I am going to use!

Good god.... this face!!!!! 

It makes me want to kiss the computer screen!!

You can see remnants of beets for dinner (Dad hasn't cleaned her face yet)

I feel like I have a duty to include any funny faces. This one is becoming more and more common in our house for some reason, and it makes us laugh just as hard every time we see it!!!! Sometimes, when I ask her for a kiss, I get this face :) 

I love how expressive this kid's eyebrows are!!  

Her cheeks!! Also, Dad did her hair  

Bath time is the BEST!!!!!  

Haha, she loves to chew on her bath toys!! And I think this one is funny, because she has the frog in her mouth and I think she looks like a frog! Little weirdo!

Blow a kiss!!!!!

This one makes me laugh because it looks like she is posing! But really, if you know how she says "Please" you know that that's what she's doing, her hand is just in a slightly different spot.

Isn't she doing such a wonderful job of brushing her teeth?? (She's really just sucking the water off of the toothbrush)

Getting a refill

Another refill. Love her tiny baby curls!!! See! Wouldn't this be cute on my bathroom wall :) ??? 

Week 16 - Shiner Sunday

Well, my friends, we officially have our first black eye! Titan really loves to come sprinting in the door when he comes back into the house from being in the backyard. Which, at the same time, Avery loves to sprint over to the door when she hears it open. This can result in a tragedy, and some crying, and apparently a black eye. This is what happened on Sunday this week, we let Titan in, he got excited and plowed through Avery, knocking her over onto her tiny wagon thus resulting in a black eye. I didn't even realize she hit her head until I picked her up later, after another Titan plowing incident, and her eye was turning black. Naturally, I freaked out a little "What happened to your eye!?!?!" To which she reacted with a light touch of her hand on her eye, she was equally as confused.... I guess that's a good thing! Anyway, I figured it would be a good blog post to show off her battle wound. Too bad it's not easy to get a toddler to sit still and show me her black eye!! :)

Just a goofy kid, her big toothed smile and her black eye

ANNND her boogers

Buddy caught her in the middle of a little downdog action

She could be flipping us off here?? Sick of pictures of her black eye maybe??

Buddy took this picture and I realize it's blurry but I think it's freaking cute and kinda like it :) I love this little girl!!! 

Week 15 - Gramma's Birthday

My mom's birthday was on a Friday this year, so Buddy and I figured we would go out to pick Avery up and bring her dinner from one of our favorite restaurants, Roma. After a very eventful trip, we finally made it out to the ranch with food in hand. Earlier in the week, I had the idea to do a picture with my mom seeing as it was the week of her birthday, THEN, I thought "What if I'm in the picture too?"

I have kind of been thinking a lot recently about how I'm not in a whole lot of the pictures that I take. I'm cool with it because I don't usually like how I look in pictures, but I then remember back on a picture I have with my mom when I was younger, in this pink "night gown" I stole from her (pretty sure it was something she used long ago to nurse in??)  and my bear who was wearing a tutu. It was one of my favorite pictures.. not because of the bear or the tutu, but because it was a picture of me and my mom!!! So while Avery is still an only child, I figured it was important to get some pictures with her starting now and to really try and get myself in the picture more often, if not for myself, than for Avery. I also thought about how one of my favorite pictures to take is a generation picture.. and I don't have one of those! So, I set the settings, gave my awesome husband a quick tutorial (like 4 seconds long) and had him shoot a generation picture with two of my favorite people in my life. I absolutely love how they turned out!!! Not sure Buddy is ready for it.. but he just may become my handy little personal photographer :)

Just ignore my bra-strap and the big scrape on Avery's nose. Mom - you're the well put together one here :)

AJ didn't want to be held and smile for the camera, unless it was upside down!

I love this picture so much :) My little goober and the best mom in the world!! 

Pretty much captures us....kind of a mess but so unbelievably happy!!

Week 14 - Eggs, Bunnies and Scavenger Hunts

This past weekend it was Easter at the Ranch weekend. I never thought it was possible to love Holidays more than I already did... but somehow, I love them more and more each year with my tiny tot!
When Willy and I were kids, we would have the normal Easter morning traditions... Waking up, finding our baskets and then doing an egg hung trying to find the eggs we dyed the night before. In addition to those little hunts, my Mom would also do a scavenger hunt. Obviously, when we were younger, the clues were easier and the prizes were smaller. As we got older, the clues were tougher and sent us ALL around the Ranch. I remember specifically riding my bike to almost the end of our land to find one of my clues. I think my parents just did it to get some time away from us, however, I know they always enjoyed watching us get the clues and zoom off to the next spot.
This year, being the first year Avery could run around on her own, we not only did the egg dying and egg/basket hunting, but my Mom also put together Avery's first scavenger hunt. It was really fun reading her the clues and watching it click in her little noggin and then OFF she went. She didn't realized yet that she had little prizes at the next spot, but my Mom happened to pick certain places that Avery always loved to go! SO much fun! I just followed along with my camera... as always :)

We dyed eggs naked because... well.. it was bath night and ... everything is more fun when you are naked!! 

Putting some stickers on her eggs

Focus: the key to egg dying 

She was trying to get her sticker onto the eggs, but it just wouldn't come off of her hand.

As you can see, Avery's soft touch may have cracked a few of the eggs. Actually, I think the only one that wasn't cracked was the Yellow one 

Pretty glad these weren't dumped everywhere! 

She had NO problem finding her Easter basket... granted, we didn't hide it very hard! The little eggs with marshmallows in them were her favorites :) 

Probably hoping there's marshmallows in there! 

Someone got bubbles in her basket... and someone also has some severe bed head 

We were trying to get her to blow her own bubbles, but after this step, the little wand went directly into her mouth. I also had to put this photo in here because her face is HILARIOUS.

Lookin' for bubbles in the air

Finding eggs outside

Some of them, we didn't even have to help her with

She was so proud of herself when she found one! 

First Clue of the Scavenger Hunt

She's on a mission!!! 

Second Clue of the Scavenger Hunt!

Found the next clue and the prize but really only wanted a ride on the Four Wheeler 

Third Clue for the Scavenger Hunt. Avery got a little too excited and ripped it :)

Final Clue (and my favorite) of the Scavenger Hunt!

The prize at the end of the hunt... Daddy and a great big, soft sheeper!!!