In the wide, wide, wide, wide world

I have been wanting to capture Avery's constant rambling on video for a while, but she won't do it when she knows she's being videotaped. So I set up the video camera to record and left the room. Then I panicked about 45 seconds later because I thought she'd see the camera and inadvertantly break it.

I think the video basically speaks for itself. I'd say we've reached "talks non-stop" status, more or less. Hopefully you can figure out the meaning of the title.

Just a couple of pictures for the heck of it

Photoshop Effects

Just thought I'd post this before and after of a picture of Avery that I photoshopped. I couldn't even tell you all that I did to get to the final product. It's all a combination of sharpening, darkening the levels, deleting partial layers, and playing with the saturation and hues.

I probably couldn't duplicate it. Anyway, here goes nothing... you can click to enlarge it.

Some good old-fashioned fun

My neighbor has a ten-year-old daughter, so we get a lot of hand-me-downs that no longer get used. We scored big time on a bunch of dress up clothes, and it couldn't have come at a better time. Avery wants to play dress up all day long. I'm not going to lie, I love every minute of it. We're going to slowly incorporate some etiquette into dress up time, too. After we master the proper way to sip tea with your pinky extended outward, we'll work on concentrating with your tongue IN your mouth, and we'll try to encourage Ainsley to eat the crumpets instead of the tutu.

I have only myself to blame

Jumping on the bed has become a household favorite. If Ainsley could figure out the whole supporting her own weight thing, I'm sure she'd get in on the action too. It probably doesn't help that I egged it on by saying "Jump so I can take your picture, again!"

I am the God of dollhouseland

Tonight after dinner Avery was absolutely adamant that she wanted Ainsley to play with her. I think she's starting to realize that there's a little person in there that is beginning to come out, and tonight after Ainsley was belly laughing with me for like 15 minutes, Avery had a moment of clarity and realized that having a sister might be kinda fun.

So I set up the dollhouse and got out the accessories and away they went. Avery showed her different pieces of furniture and told her what they were for and Ainsley listened intently to every word and was making mental notes all along the way. Avery couldn't have been happier...


... that is, until Ainsley went all King Kong on the mommy doll and stuffed its entire head into her mouth, completely saturating her hair with like 62 buckets of slimy baby drool. Avery got a pretty disgusted look on her face and decided maybe playtime with Ainsley wasn't a great idea. Not yet.


I gently took away the mommy doll, replaced it with a chewtoy rattle, and restored peace to dollhouseland utopiaville. All in a day's work, people.