Would ya look at how cute this little fella is?? My goodness- he was soooooo excited for his first swim lesson!! He just kept bouncing up and down. I wish I could have captured it, but he kept turning around during his lesson and flashing me the double thumbs up!





And then, there is his version of hitting... complete with sound effects!!


Most of you will probably think these videos are super boring because it is much of the same from the last post. But THIS time she was in a real Horse Show! Well, sort of. It was a schooling show- so everything is a bit more relaxed and the expectation is learning and not winning. Though, it turns out, that is hard for the female component of the Smith Family!

You see, Avery received a ribbon for "Best Smile". Which is a consolation prize so everyone gets a ribbon. She's happy as a clam, but she did ask, "Does this mean I did better than everyone else or worse than everyone else?" I did not take the bait though and just told her that the judges just thought she had the best smile!! And I- being the source of all of Avery's competitiveness- stewed over it for the next 2 days trying to figured out what she could have done differently! (stewing over something that I know NOTHING about) Ridiculous, I realize!!

So here is her ribbon-winning ride!! ;) And some pics thrown in for good measure!







Avery is on the little pony- not the big white horse!



Lined up in the middle at the end- she looks so small!

Riding out with her ribbon.
First and foremost... she's 7!!! How is this possible??! She had "the best birthday ever!!!" and, I think, felt really special and celebrated! The biggest surprise was that Jeff took the day off (which she thought was just for her and "couldn't believe it!"). We took her to school and then came home and got working on giving her bedroom a re-do! Grandma and Grandpa Davis were in on the fun and we painted her room and gave her a desk and chair. I had set it up for her to go to a friend's house after school so we could have a couple of extra hours of work time. When she came home, she went up to her room and freaked out about her desk! She was sooooo excited! I had no idea she'd be that excited about her desk! She never even noticed that her all white room was now purple and yellow! We were asking her if she noticed anything different and THEN she finally saw the new color! And freaked again! It was pretty fun!

I didn't take any pictures- I didn't want to thwart her reaction at all. If there was a camera video-taping her, there's a good chance she would have responded differently. So you'll just have to take my word for it!! We then spent some time opening presents from Grandma and Grandpa Smith and the Bouses- and was she in a mood! Jeff and I kept remarking about how expressive and thankful she was being! Usually she has to be reminded to express her gratitude! So these pics are pretty terrible, but you can tell how much she enjoyed her presents!!!






In her new room, sitting at her new desk!!



Also sometime in February, they had a "Specials Night" at school. It was soo cute! It was all about heart health- they made cool heart stuff in art, learned songs in music about heart health, and did a huge unit on jump roping. Then they put together a big program showcasing all of that! So this video is Avery in her jump roping segment.








This song cracked me up! "Smoke... is no joke... smoking is a terrible bad habit. Smoking is bad for a woman or a man or kid or a chipmunk or a rabbit" or something along those lines. Funny! Avery is in the middle row, 3rd from the left.




Finally, Avery has been making some great progress with her horseback riding! She's been stuck for quite some time at trotting- she was REALLY scared to take the next step to cantering because she fell off cantering several months ago. So her trainer and I have been trying to convince her that she is ready to canter for so long! And she finally did it! She was so proud and thinks its so easy now! ;) She's only gone a few steps at a time, but she's ready for more! So these first two videos are of Avery trotting...





And here's the canter!!!


Hey Everyone! Its been a long time and there's too much to catch up on. So, we'll just jump in with a random video.

How can one describe Oliver... let's just say that he is AMAZING at using his imagination! He can play with Superheroes forever, with Buzz and Woody in super creative worlds, and with the Power Rangers in all sorts of battles. He's going to be the class clown- even when he was learning to talk, his language development wasn't anything useful! One of his first words was "elephant"! Not "more" or "milk" or anything that would get him something... "elephant"- simply because it was fun to say (I think)!!

So we've pretty much relied on Oliver to just pick things up while playing or from Avery. Maybe we should force it more, but I've always thought his imagination is such a bonus! Avery, of course, is the exact opposite. She likes being drilled and rote learning- and has a smaller imagination.

Anyway, it feels like he's late on a lot of this academic stuff, but he'll pick it all up eventually! So this is Oliver learning to spell his name!! He is such a little cutie! This video also includes some footage of our new cat, Bandit! He's been with us for a month now and is pretty great to have around!