Growing Up

As I have posted before on the blog, I am having a hard time coming to terms with my baby girl growing up.  She's 14 months this week and has done things this week that really make me see just how fast I'm losing her-okay, a little dramatic, but sometimes it feels like it's snowballing into that!  She has helped me clean the floors-she's partial to pushing the swiffer and helps load the dishwasher (well, really she wants to take things out, but is pretty good at helping close the door).  We've tried with her helping to feed the dogs, but the food ends up all over the floor-too soon for that one.  We did have some other "big girl" experiences that were captured by photo/video!

Here's Avery doing her first bit of floor work at gymnastics-she's doing a backward roll here with some help from her teacher.  Artie was able to take lunch today and assist Avery in class-as you can see him standing there observing-they had a great time...other activities included Avery's first taste of the foam pit!

Artie and Avery again-It seems I'm a better picture taker than participant in this post, but I swear, I do things with my daughter too!!  Anyway, we took Avery to the mall one night this week-during a major winter storm I might add (which was nice because the mall was pretty dead-not so nice trying to drive!)-and she had her first carousel ride!!  Yes, Glenbrook, Fort Wayne's main mall, has a carousel inside-it's a huge 2-story one and very expensive I'll say.  It replaced the ice rink that used to be there, personally I liked the ice rink better.  Okay, back to her first ride...at first when she was strapped onto her animal she was clinging to Artie trying to get off.  But, once the ride started she held on tight and stuck out her tongue the whole time!! It was so cute:)

This video is from one night this week.  Avery was having yogurt with dinner.  Normally, we feed things of this consistency to her.  However, this particular night she had brought a spoon with her to her highchair (she's obsessed with spoons and "spoon" is actually one of her first words that is understandable), and reached over to the yogurt, put the spoon in and fed herself!!  We couldn't believe it, so I hurried and got a little bit of video of it.