Verbal Breakthroughs

Since returning from our trip to KY, Avery has had 2 verbal breakthroughs. Firstly, she has never called Quincy, our 6 year old Yellow lab, anything resembling his name. Usually it was "dadoo". She now calls him Princhy. It's really sweet. He doesn't realize she's talking to him, but she says it constantly. This has made us realize she doesn't say c or k sounds yet. So for now he is her princhy.
She also has started saying 2 word phrases which is really neat. She says things like "oskar's shoes", "daddy's socks", "daddy bath", "mommy vacuum (badow)", "orange badow", etc. It's so fun. There is the tiniest of pauses between the words as she strings them together. She also says "byebye ____" to just about anything and everything, Quincy, Oskar, moon, baby, mommy, daddy, elmo. We enjoy her immensely everyday.

Family

Avery Lucia Elliott Mazie

Grandpa, NanaLin, Auntie K and me

Pretty Ladies: Amy with her neices S (9) and S (7)

Me, Auntie K, Chris and Amy trying to recreate a Christmas photo of the 4 of us from 1978

Santa

Grandpa and NanLin's House

Christmas in Kentucky

We flew to Kentucky the Tuesday before Christmas to be with my dad, his wife, her kids and grandkids and my sister and her family for the holiday. The flight was easy, we got in early around 2 pm. My dad picked us up at the airport, a decision he will long regret. By the time we reached the car it was raining and the streets were just getting iced over. It was 32 degrees. We immediately drove to a Kmart to pick up a new carseat as the one my dad had been kind enough to borrow for us was a little to rickety for what turned out to be the most dangerous day to be on the roads in Kentucky.

Traffic was insane. There were accidents everywhere on streets, highways, salt trucks shutting down stretches of roads to lay ice who then crashed and shut down stretches of road while they were towed away. It was soooo frustrating. We spent several hours driving very slowly and several other hours standing still. We were thankfully able to get a subway sandwich early on in the debacle and later on we were able to stop at a grocery to get food/milk for Avery and to stop at a Bob Evans for supper. Everytime it seemed the traffic situation couldn't get worse, it would. At midnight we made the split second decision to take a small country road to try to get to the small town where my dad lives. It thankfully started to rain harder and the temperature warmed up to 37 degrees so that road was not too icy. My dad did a great job driving in these less than desirable conditions. Avery was such a trooper, she had a couple of meltdowns, the worst of which came at midnight when she woke up after a 90 minute nap to find us STILL in the car. She calmed thanks to the MacBookPro that we quickly yanked out to play music and a slideshow. We arrived at the hotel at 12:45 AM. 10 hrs after we left the airport. Thankfully we were all safe, we had been fed. There were a lot of people who suffered loss that day due to the ice storm and we are fortunate that all we lost was a little patience.

All the above pictures represent why that 10 hr car ride was well worth it. We had a great time with Grandpa (or as Avery calls him Papa, when he's not trying to scare her with his deep scary voice) and NanaLin. They had everything ready for 4 babies descending on their house. Highchairs from their local country club, pack and plays for all the babies, food galore and presents aplenty.
Aunties K and B and the triplets fortunately missed the ice storm as they came from the south. We enjoyed every minute with the cousins. They are all a joy. NanaLin's daughter Amy and her husband Bill spent Christmas day with us and her son Chris, his wife Dana and their sweet daughters joined us the day after Christmas. There was an open house where Grandpa and NanaLin's friends came to see all 6 grandchildren. It was a very nice party. Avery slept through half the party but enjoyed the later part of it.

Disneyland

I had forgotten how much fun Dumbo can be!

December 4th my dear friend Deirdre (Ella and Charlotte's mom) and Avery and I went to Disneyland. It was Avery's 1st trip to the Magic Kingdom. Living in southern California, it is a rite of passage for all toddlers to venture into the world of characters, princesses, rides and crowds. Charlotte was just 8 weeks when she first had the privilege. I managed to hold off for 16.5 months. Avery really enjoyed it. We got to go on a few rides, stroll around in an attempt at naps (failed for Avery, the other 2 were great stroller nappers), watch a parade and see it "snow". It was a wonderful day spent with our friends. Here are a few pictures.

We all rode the carousel together. Avery was afraid at first, then had a great time.

We got to ride the newly refurbished It's A Small World. It was all decked out for the holidays and Avery loved looking around at everything.