Little Farm video

Little Farm

Poor Ryan has been traveling all week so we have really missed him and he us. We wanted to spend the day together doing something fun but since we are sometimes not the most creative of people we couldn't think of anything. Luckily around 11am I remembered an article I just read about cheap things to do around the area and it said something about the Little Farm at Tilden Park in Berkeley. Perfect, cheap and full of animals for Avery! In fact they can even feed the animals lettuce or celery through the fence. We piled into the car and headed down there. It was really neat. The name pretty much describes it perfectly. It is a Little Farm with cows, goats, sheep, chickens, turkeys, pigs, rabbits, roosters, and geese. Avery loved feeding the animals and would call to them if they wouldn't come over fast enough. The animals are really tame and even the cows walked up to the fence when we called them.
We then drove over to the steam train and took a little ride. It's a real working steam train, albeit on a smaller than normal scale. It's only 12 min but Avery really seemed to have fun.
It was a great day! We were joking that we only spent $6 for the activities but probably $10 in gas! (at $4.15/gallon that is probably about right!)
We are so lucky to live in an area that has so much to do!


None of the animals even tried to bite her fingers. Good thing since she had no fear of putting her fingers in their "space"







Just a little train but really cute.

Big girl room

I can't believe Avery is old enough to move out of the crib! Ryan worked real hard on her room this weekend and we finally got it done! My plan was to move her over later this week but I was too excited so we did it this afternoon. I think she'll be fine in there, her nap went pretty well. Getting rid of the pacifiers isn't going to be as easy but we're working on that. We'll try that on a night when I don't have to get up at 5:30 the next morning. I have a feeling that she won't sleep well those first nights.
I still have some decorative accents I want to add but those will have to come with more time and more money! :)

It's hot here so we went to the creek

It was about 100 degrees here today so we are pretty hot and sticky. We are also in the middle of a drought so I thought that if we are going to do any creek hopping we better do it today before they dry up! At first she wasn't too crazy about the rocks and the cold, dirty water but then I couldn't get her out. She was having a lot of fun.

This is how potty training is going

I'm just getting Avery ready to potty-train. I haven't yet really tried it seriously, I just wanted to see if she was ready or not. I guess this picture tells you how well we are doing.

Family and Friends in Indy

Avery and my mom cuddling

Avery and her great-grandfather

Avery and her Great-Grandmother

Avery and Aunt Katie

Cowpaw and his little girl.

Ryan's grandparents Bob and Phyllis and his brother Robert with his wife Tashina. They are due with a boy in Sept.

Ryan's Aunt Nancy and Makenna.

Ryan's Uncle Roy with Avery and cousin Makenna.

They had a great time on the swing in my mom's backyard.




While we were home Lily and Val drove down the 3 hours from Chicago to see us. Lily and Avery were born 4 weeks apart and Val babysat Avery for the first year of her life. They were and are very special friends to us. We are so grateful to them that they make the trip to see us. We spent all day together and the girls had a great time. We even think that they remembered each other!

My best friend Sara had her first child back in November. Because I'm such a bad friend and moved 3000 miles away this weekend was the first time I met her! She is so cute and such a good baby. Our other best friend Ali drove down from Chicago so we could have a girl's night. Of course we kept the kids around as well. What a different night that was from the past. Instead of going out to dinner and drinking wine, we watched Baby Einstein and made baby food! Even though it wasn't as exciting as past "girl nights" in so many ways it was so much better. I've now realized that I don't have any pics of Sara and Tatum but I did get some cute ones of Avery "choking" Tatum!

Aunt Ali w/ her 2 "nieces".

Me and cute little Tatum! Look at those cheeks!!


Avery saying good-bye to Tatum. Sara drove down and took us to the airport.

On our first night in Indy one of my oldest friends came down for dinner. We grew up across the street from each other so we were really close friends. We got married 2 weeks apart and were in each others weddings. I'm so glad we've kept in touch over the years and that we are still willing to make the trip to see each other. We got married at the same time but, as you can see, we clearly didn't have kids at the same time! Her 2 kids, Abby and Eathan are so cute and so well behaved. As you can see Avery had a great time playing with them.

Avery loved this little tea set my mom had. Abby was so patient to play with a 2 year old.

Grandma MAG, PopPop and all the kids! What a great weekend!

This is one of the presents Marianne got Avery for her Birthday. We celebrated it while they were here.


She also got this golf set. Now she can be just like Daddy!

Max was very helpful to make sure Avery opened all her presents properly.



We tried to get some pictures of the kids after church on Sunday. They were so cute. Amazingly they sat there for quite a lot of time.