my girls peanut butter+chocolate chip cookies

chocolate chip cookies = good, right? peanut butter+chocolate chip cookies = even better! well, that was exactly what little miss avery had in mind the other day for our kitchen day. she wanted to bake cookies for her daddy, who wasn't feeling to well, so that's what we did. here's how we got started...

our ingredients -

we followed the basic recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag

grinding salt- usually we use table salt, but i thought i would let

her have the experience of grinding her own

add our special ingredient (1 cup or a few spoonfuls of peanut butter) and stir it up

place these little treasures on the cookie sheet and bake according to instructions

final result= hot+fresh+tasty peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

package them up and give them to someone you care about. as you can tell this little miss was pretty proud of herself, as was i. she completed this task from start to finish with little help from me. she measured, mixed and scooped until the very last cookie. good job little miss avery!

the graduate

it's official avery graduated from preschool last week. we have been involved

with this school since she was one year old. the great thing about her school

was that it is a parent participation school, which is why we chose it. because it

has always been our intention to homeschool avery we wanted a school where we

could be actively involved in the education and the classroom? you might be

wondering why we even put avery in preschool knowing that we were going

to homeschool her and that's a good question. my best answer to that would be is,

" it was just right for avery at the time." but, we are so looking forward to

homeschooling in the fall and excited about the curriculum we will be using

and our new homeschool group as well.

here are a few pictures of my little graduate...

sitting with her preschool pals

when asked what she wanted to be when she grows up, she replied, "an actor"

accepting her diploma

with her wonderful teacher

the graduate

my present to mrs. chen for her classes to come

(see my "how to" here)

I love you mom, sooo much!

You know your doing something right when out of the blue your child comes up and says this to you. Best feeling ever! New Year status as of today: Happy!

When do we get to bang pots and pans?

Poor little Avery was so excited on New Year's Eve to stay up late and make lots of noise. We had it all planned out. We would order pizza out, watch movies all night and then right before midnight we would go out front with our party poppers and pots and pans to meet the neighbors for a night full of noise. The night progressed as planned until 11:31 pm when Avery fell asleep. I tried and tried to wake her, but she was out like a light. Needless to say, the next morning - New Years day her first question was none other than......

metamorphosis

this was our first time "growing" butterflies. we purchased them from a kit through insect lore at www.insectlore.com. within a week from ordering we had a small brown box delivered to our mailbox that contained a clear plastic cup with five little caterpillars. when they first arrived we were not sure if they were alive, but by the next day we had five hungry and active caterpillars crawling around getting ready to become little chrysalisis that would then become our butterflies. it took about 7 days for our first caterpillar to start this metamorphosis process, but the other four followed soon after. it took another 7-10 days for our butterflies to hatch. we released them into our butterfly garden shortly after the last one had hatched. this was a great experience and we learned a lot about butterflies. our butterflies were called Painted Lady and they can lay up to 500 eggs. some other fun facts about the painted lady are: she breathes through her abdomen, she taste with her feet, she has 10,000 eyes and she may travel 1,000 miles in her lifetime. books we read about butterflies included: the very hungry caterpillar by eric carle, waiting for wings by lois elhert, ten wriggly wiggly caterpillars by debbie tarbett and my yummy treats by sue whiting.

it's been awhile....

a lot has happened in the past year for mygirlavery, she found out she was going to be a big sister, she started taking ballet, she turned four, and she met her little brother garrett. needless to say we've been busy over here with a new baby and all, but life is good and we're are starting to get back into the swing of things. so get ready friends mygirlavery is back with a plan of attack! things to come include mygirlavery's butterfly adventure, favorite reads, new collections, and a few ideas for some summer fun. it's good to be back!

little surfer

back in november we took avery to kauai for the first time. it was a trip of many first's for her. first plane ride, first shaved ice, and her first try at surfing, well at least surfing in the water (she's a pro at surfing on her daddy's back). hopefully this won't be the last time she gets on a board.