"I'm thankful for...

stools!" Ever since Avary and I made her Thanksgiving Turkey, when I asked her what she was thankful for, she has been asking, "Mommy, do you want to say what I'm thankful for?" (meaning do I want to ask her what she's thankful for). So I say, "Avary what are you thankful for?" over and over while she tells me one thing she is thankful for each time I ask the question (usually just whatever pops into her head at the time, or something she sees in the room). Well, the other day, one of her answers was "stools", and it dawned on me that she probably really is thankful for stools. From the time she was old enough to climb onto stools, they have been one of her best tools. Once she got strong enought to carry them around, she started using them to get anything out of reach. Avary has spent so much time standing on a stool next to me in the kitchen helping me cook, or carrying stools around the house trying to reach things without asking for my help, or trying to reach things that she asked ne for, but I told her she couldn't have. She started all of this while we were at my parent's house during Mike's deployment, and they had tall stools there. I remember walking into her room one day to find one of those stools on her bed! I think she may have been trying to reach a glow-in-the-dark star on the ceiling. At our house we just have a little piano bench, and a smaller stepping stool, but she uses them just like the stools at Grammy and Grandpa's house. Anyway, I realized that it would be a shame to not have any pictures of Avary on a stool, and I couldn't remember if I had any or not, so I took some.



Then I found these older pictures. Left January 11, 2007. Right March 27, 2007
(yes, those are oven mitts on her feet).


As a side note, we are now homeless. We moved out of our house this last week (and what a crazy week it was!), and we are now on our way to see our families before we are off to Korea. I'll post pics of our trip later.