3 Year Old Avery

Our sweet little Avery has grown too fast. I remember holding her when she was 3 months old and talking to Lacey about Chase who was 3 then. I remember thinking that my little baby would never be that big. And here I am now with a sweet, funny, imaginitive, talkative, silly little 3 year old. Did I mention bossy and dramatic? But that comes with all 3 year old girls, right? Little miss Avery has such a soft spot for all things baby. In other words anything tiny. Anything. Worms, shoes, dolls, animals, toys. She loves to talk about how they need to find their "famiwees" and especially their mommies, that is if she is not their mommy, and that is a very rare occasion. I usually have to address her as mommy. If I call her Avery or Sissy I am usually corrected that she is mommy. I am usually the sister or grandma. Mike usually gets to be called Dad though him and Pierson are interchangeable. Pierson is baby if he is not daddy. And to speak to anyone you have to call them that name. I can only imagine what people think of us when we are out in public.

Avery has names for things. Like the pajamas above are called elephant booty jammies.

Whenever we see a bridge or there is some way to make a bridge Avery calls it the "troll fridge" (from Dora). I will try to have her say b,b,b, bridge and she will say b,b,b, fridge.

Avery LOVES the color pink. Anything that is pink is 10 times better than anything not.

Avery likes to be silly and make funny faces for us. She told us her first joke, "Guess what?" and I said what to which she replied "chicken avery" or "chicken mommy". I guess daddy taught her that one but with the real reply "chicken butt". Bad daddy. We like chicken Avery better.

Avery LOVES to take pictures. I have been meaning to do a post with just pictures she has taken because it is fun to see the world from her perspective. Pierson is usually a main object in her pictures since he is usually trying to ge the camera from her.

Avery loves her buddy, Pierson. She loves to take care of him, she loves to boss him, she loves to annoy him by touching him or pinning him down. She loves to play with him and they usually do really well together. Those first six months of having two kids and wondering if it all was going to work out really have paid off. It is so fun to see these two interact with each other. I love when they can make each other giggle. I love when they give each other kisses. It warms my heart.

Avery really is a good big sister and watches out for her buddy. Not many 3 year olds are as good at it as she is.

Avery loves to sing songs. She does all different kinds of Avery remixes, where you can hear Book of Mormon stories intertwined with Itsy Bitsy Spider, Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam, Popcorn Popping, and a little freestyle. She has especially enjoyed the Christmas carols, mainly Away in a Manger.

Avery loves to be outside and playing with her friends, especially Soso. Those two are so fun to watch and listen to as they play. They are telling each other what to say and what to do and where to go. They usually play house and Avery is usually the mom and Soso the dad. They have their good days when they play for hours without a single problem. But they also have their off days when you can hear Avery say, "your not my friend" or "don't say my name" or "leave me alone soso!" But they usually get over it pretty fast.

Avery loves to tell stories. These stories can last up to a half hour. I feel like when she tells her stories she doesn't even take a breath. If she does stop it is usually to tell you to say something or ask her a question. It's pretty amazing.

Avery has been known to have booty-crack from time to time. In the picture below I had already told her to pull up her pants and you can still see a little crack. It is pretty cute, but soon it wont be as cute so we're working on it :)

Avery loves to read books. We have a few books that have the pictures in place of words so the kids can help read and she loves those books and will say all the pictures and sometimes make silly faces or use a funny voice when she says them.

Avery has been in joy school for about 8 months now. We rotate houses and a little group (started with 6, about to start again with 3) of kids get together and learn all sorts of fun stuff. At the beginning Avery wouldn't tell me too much about it once she got home, but now she is excited to show me pictures and tell me what she has learned.

Avery can count to 14 by herself. She still skips 15 and goes to 16. But we working on it. She can identify numbers 0-10 and if you tell her 12 is a 1 and 2 she can find it for you.

Avery knows her ABCs and can identify them all and tell you their sounds. If you sound out a word she can tell you what letter that word starts with.

Avery is getting pretty good at tracing letters and if you give her instructions on drawing a letter she can do it okay. She can write an A, V, H, S on command. Some times she will be drawing and will accidentally write a letter and then get all excited about it. That is how she learned to do Hs. She will also play with string or sticks or blocks and make letters out of those too.

Avery can spell her name. A V E R Y. She knows her big name, but still can't spell her last name.

Avery loves ice cream cones, especially cotton candy ice cream from Rite-Aid. They are pretty delicious.

Avery has an imaginary friend named Tinkle. He is usually only a bath time friend though there have been a few instances when she will talk about/to him other places. We first learned about him when she was wrapping toys in the bathtub with washcloths and giving it to him.

Avery is a pretty good eater. She might not like everything I give her but she will eat it, especially if there is a treat incentive. I wish her brother would follow her example.

Avery's favorite cereal is rice krispies with a handful of marshmallows added in. She doesn't really like sweet breakfast foods like pancakes or waffles. She'd rather have cereal or a piece of bread. And fruit of course.

Avery loves Cinderella. Like if I let her she would watch it over and over and over. She loves to dress up as Cinderella. She loves to talk about the naughty girls who ripped her pretty dress. She loves to talk about the fairy godmother and boppity boppity boo. She loves to talk about gus gus. She especially loves to reenact any scene from the movie. The other day she came up and told me that when I lose my shoe and they find it that i need to say "thank you, thank you so much" (as she clasped her hands and looked up). It was really stinking cute.

Avery and Pierson's carseats are interchangeable and Avery is always switching what carseast she wants to sit in. She'll be on a kick of sitting in one and then if you put P in there first she wants that carseat. That's when she gets the "too bad so sad" line.

Avery is obsessed with her cousins. We talk about them daily. She has decided that a family that has 4 daughters in our church are her cousins. She loves cousins. Especially cousins that come visit us :)

Avery has a pink baby that she is attached to. It goes everywhere with us but also has to be in bed at night. She still has her blankie that great-Grandma Haynie gave to her that she cannot sleep without.

Avery does not like: to clean up, dress herself, turn the light on herself, to go to bed, to go potty before naptime, when Pierson pulls her hair, having to come inside after playing, and having to put her nose on the wall.