Off and Running

Happy New Year 2011! This year I have decided to try a blog for keeping up with our family adventures. I have been inspired by my cousin who does a great job and actually wanted to start this last year. However, starting something new with a newborn is not a great idea. So, now that Averie is 3 ½ and Grady just turned 1, I’m officially starting! But first, to catch you up…

This year is off to an exciting start since Grady started walking on December 29. He started taking steps right before his birthday but took off walking when we arrived back in Houston from our Christmas trip to Oklahoma. He has become pretty good quite quickly and no longer crawls unless he is trying to find a place to pull up (he can’t just stand up yet!) or he is “driving” his cars around. Grady is also starting to talk. We get lots of Momma, Dadda…especially after Averie yells for us. He also says “Oh wow!,” “bye-bye,” “no-no,” “vroom” and “oo-oo-oo” for a monkey. Averie absolutely loves that he can walk and talk now and is so proud of him. She is a very good big sister and is happy that he is finally becoming a playmate instead of just a baby. Around Halloween she started calling him “Boo” and we hear that a lot around our house these days.

Averie is growing and changing so much too! She loves her preschool, playing with her friends in the neighborhood, her dollhouse, the park, the zoo….I could go on and on. She asks me every morning when I go in her room “where are we going today?” It doesn’t really matter where I tell her, she gets excited. Today it was Kroger and she was thrilled. Being 3 is nice! She is also very excited about growing right now and decided we needed to measure her yesterday on her growth chart. Turns out she is just over 41 inches which is almost 2 ½ inches since her birthday in August! Wow, no wonder her pants are getting short already! When I showed her how tall Grady is on the chart she said “whoa Boo, you’re short!” I have a feeling she won’t say that forever!

Well, that pretty much gets us started for the new year. This week after visiting Daddy at work on Tuesday, we got back in our routine of school for Averie and music class for Grady. Averie is taking a break from dance this spring and next week they both start gymnastics for the first time. Should be fun!