Auburn A-Day

Last weekend, we went down to Auburn to see A-Day.  We knew the Heisman statue unveiling would be crazy, so we avoided that and came into Auburn about an hour and half before the game, met up with Josh and Nicole, and walked to the stadium.  It was a gorgeous day and the girls and I had fun.

Taylor looking for Aubie.

Cam Newton with Bo Jackson and Pat Sullivan at mid-field pre-game.

The first snap from scrimmage.

Kiehl Frazier breaks one open.  Let's hope we see much more of this in 2012.

A picture of the family.  My hair is wonky, Becca looks amazing, Taylor really doesn't want me to be in the picture, and Avery is looking for Jesus.  That sounds about right for our pictures.

Rylee and Taylor enjoying the free food in the Scholarship section (actually not free; the most expensive food ever consumed :)

Becca and Tay in front of Cam's statue.

Ring around the Rosies once the good guys had the game in the bag.

Becca and Avery played patty cake.

Ours is the one squeezing the bejesus out of the other kid.

Atlanta

It's rare that I have the opportunity to take the family with me on a work trip, so when we get the chance, we take it.  We went over to Atlanta at the end of March and came back on April 1.  We took the girls to the Georgia Aquarium, Atlanta Botanical Gardens, Atlanta Zoo, and IKEA (ok, so they didn't want to go to the last one).  Here are some pictures from the trip: 

I know what you are thinking, how did you get two girls in one picture?  It's my mad photo skills.  Do you love how neither one are in focus and Avery is looking at the camera with the thought of a Native American "You just stole my soul with your picture taking"?

First up, the Atlanta Botanical Gardens

Next up, Avery decided to be cool and let me take some pictures of her.

Then we went to the aquarium which was RIDICULOUSLY packed.  Go during a weekday.  You'll thank me later.  We did see some pretty amazing stuff though.  

Yes, she is waving at the fish.

No, this isn't one of those optical allusions.  The fish is really that big in proportion to me and Taylor.

We walked over to a cool Children's museum from the aquarium.  It's called ImagineIt.  Taylor had a blast.

Finally, we went to the zoo.  Besides the occasional animal mating, it was pretty amazing.  Taylor had fun while Avery enjoyed being pushed around in the stroller (read, being held everywhere we went).

This is what happens when you focus on the background and not the foreground.  It does allow you to check out how the lion behind us is sleeping.

Yes, she is staring at a baboon's butt.

Atlanta, I learned, is one of only 5 U.S. locations to have pandas.  They are on loan from the Chinese government.

When you see kangaroos, you expect hopping.  Of about 10 kangaroos at the zoo, exactly zero were hopping.

That was it.  We grabbed some sodas and hit the road.  A pretty great long weekend if you ask me.  

Oatmeal and Eighty Year Olds

Avery had her first bite of oatmeal this week.  After not calling once in the last six months, Becca's work asked her to work while we were gone to Savannah, GA a couple of weeks ago.  They called again this week and Rebecca went in for several hours.  She was concerned, but Avery did well without the mommy milk for a couple of hours.  Since then, Becca has been making it a point to feed her oatmeal nightly.

Sunday, we visited with Nana and Poppy (Taylor and Avery's great grandparents, my grandparents on my dad's side).  Taylor warmed up quickly and thirty minutes in was doing this:



Avery took a little longer.  Specifically because Nana scared the crap out of her by peaking into her carseat at the exact second Avery woke up from her nap. By the end of our time there, though, she had warmed up nicely.  Our little girls are growing up!  We need to make visiting their great grandparents more of a priority.

Update: Taylor's Three Major Milestones

I wanted to provide an update on how Taylor is progressing on the three major milestones.  Remember that post?  If not, here you go (click here).

Bottle
Let's call this one closed.  No issues whatsoever.

Potty Training
For the most part, we have been successful on this.  Well, other than when she STOOD OVER THE TOILET LIKE A MAN AND LET IT FLY!  She said, "I'm peeing like Daddy".  I ran over there screaming NOOOOOOO!  However, I was impressed that she got it all in the potty except for two drops.  That's better accuracy than I have.  Hopefully, that issue has been addressed.  Other than that, we've not had many issues.  Progress my friends!

Concentrating on the task at hand:

Big Girl Bed

This Wednesday, I put the bed together (with the help of PawPaw Jody).  We gave Taylor some presents to go with it to make it a really big deal for her.  

It looked like this when we finished:

I hear what you are saying.  It's a pretty sweet bed, but a little low.  Well that is because we didn't have any box springs and the mattress is laying on the floor.  Or rather, I have box springs, but they didn't fit on the bed.  I'm going to spare you the long drawn out story about how I thought the bed was made to the wrong size and tell you that it now looks like this.  Thanks to PawPaw Jody for helping me put the bed together . . . twice, and a curse to you, Baby Appleseed, for making weird bed rails.

Taylor has slept all night long in her bed for the last three nights, albeit with me by her side.  She's only waking up for a few minutes a night, so as soon as we can break her of that habit for a few nights, I'll start to try to transition out.  

What's that?  You want to see another cute pic of Taylor?  Ok.  Here she is after she got in the makeup.  I'm digging the Joker look: