Life is exhausting...:)

Potty training...enough said! Potty training is the most exhausting time we have experienced in the last two years of Avery's life:) Despite the fact that she is doing a phenomenal job at it, every day we want to just throw diapers back on the kid. We started about two weeks ago now, the first few days we were just picking up pee and poop everywhere, now it is rare that she even has accidents BUT we're going to the potty constantly! and she always says, "mommy/daddy i need poop again" she doesn't distinguish between pee and poop which makes it that much more difficult:) it's also exhausting going back to packing multiple outfits in the diaper bag to be prepared for all the accidents! we have found that most accidents are generally our fault...we wont remind her to go often enough or before we go somewhere we'll forget to have her use the potty before leaving and then she goes. we're also trying to make her be able to go anywhere (this is the hard part for mommy, public bathrooms are so gross!!!) so she can now pee on the side of a pool (instead of in the pool:) as well as in the wildnerness (at mt. diablo the other day she popped a squat!) we are very proud of her and she gets to not only do a potty dance every time she goes BUT she gets a treat as well (one m&m:). also if an adult successfully goes on the potty, she gives them a treat! while it's exhausting, we wanted to get it done way in advance before baby number 2 comes so there is no regression.

other than potty training, avery is just talking away! her favorite sayings, "hey mommy/daddy, what doing?", "where'd ______(insert name here) go?" (even if the person is right in front of her, she also often says, "where'd avery go?"). she also loves to lift up mommy's shirt and kiss the baby (even in public:) and she keeps asking for the baby now. she loves loves loves babies! we'll see if that changes at all when baby #2 comes! baby mary-lou is growing a lot! i'm now 23 weeks pregnant and she (like avery) is a very active baby in the womb, constantly kicking and doing summer salts (it probably helps that i eat a lot of candy:) everything with the pregnancy is going great!

as far as andy and i...we've been busy! we're in the throws of working working working! i have finally grown into a set schedule so we're figuring out a routine and working out how each of us is able to spend time with the babes and eachother. at times it feels like we're both single parents (cause the days we both work we just switch off for a few minutes) but we're managing and figuring out what life looks like with our new routine. we're also slowly working on projects around the house. these include new curtains for our room (really great striped ones) and working on the new little girls' room. we've painted avery's bunk beds and put them together which she is currently sleeping in and loves being in a big girl bed (she would hang out in her room all day if we let her:) we have a vision for what the room will look like and we're slowly working on it, having a good time while doing so! as always, we constantly keep an eye on houses for sale around the area hoping some day we'll be able to afford one:)

i'm adding a link of some adventures of this past weekend, our friends the gunther's from LA came and visited with their 7 month old baby Liam (which i'm sure you can imagine avery loved!). we went on multiple adventures including eating domenicos at mt. diablo, going to tilden park in berkeley, etc. and had a good time together. enjoy the pictures and hopefully we'll have an update sooner than this next time!:)

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.645122398067.2126417.68602760&l=b8b6cbee97&type=1