Chris & Meghan Averie & Declan: Pictures. I know, I'm shocked too.

Declan celebrated his first Christmas at 8 months old, with 8 teeth!

Then we celebrated Valentine's Day with coincidentally coordinating outfits. Declan cried because we put him down.

Averie played peek-a-boo with the front-facing camera on my phone while I (mostly successfully) dodged out of the picture because it was early (note the cupcake PJ's) and I was not wearing any make-up and my hair looked like a flock of seagulls 'do.

Declan tried some (admittedly vomity-looking) baby food that I wanted to use up. Even after he made this face, I still tried to get him to finish it. Nope.

Averie finally potty-trained at 3 years, 4 months old. Upside: she did it pretty much herself (really. We went about life as normal, not chained to the house, no accidents). Downside: it took THREE AND A HALF FREAKING YEARS, one of which was spent with two in diapers when I obviously carefully planned the 2 1/2 year spacing between them so that that would not happen. Who said kids ruin your plans? ;-)


We were only able to persuade her to put a couple back. Averie has about 50 pairs of underwear. Not exaggerating. (And yes, some boys' pairs. Who says girls can't like trains?!)

We found out Declan can get really territorial about someone else's (*cough*mine*cough*) Easter cinnamon roll.

I took this picture of Declan, wide awake at 11 pm because he's a stinker like that, and inadvertently made him look like a poor one-legged baby.

Declan has a nervous breakdown when we tell him how old he is.

After aforementioned potty-training (and thus no more diaper butt), the losing battle to keep Averie's pants up becomes a lost battle. She also gets her first professional haircut shortly after this.

Um. Hmm. I just don't know.

Even though we have enough toys to fill a Toys R Us, Declan's birthday gift becomes the most fought over item ever. Averie does push Declan all around the basement in it, which is almost as fun as getting to ride in it yourself.