"I love you, you love me"

We managed to avoid Barney for Avery's entire 1st year of life, but we made up for it in her second year. I don't know exactly when or how she got so hooked, but the purple dinosaur and his friends are high on the list in our house. I recently snapped this photo to have as a momento of what Avery does probably once a day while I am nursing Kendall or taking my shower. Barney (the stuffed one) has also made an appearance on our swingset, as have the imaginary versions of his friends BJ and Baby Bop, whom I have the pleasure of doing the voices for :) Although Barney is a little annoying, I do have to admit that he is a lifesaver in many situations--i.e. on long trips in the car, when I am nursing or showering as already mentioned, and the imaginary Barney sure is good at getting her to do things she doesn't really want to do (don't even get me started on that topic!). One other cute little thing that has come from her love of Barney is when she holds hands with Kendall and sings the "I love you, you love me" song. I for sure need a video of that one. While I am on the topic of songs, I have to list a few of Avery's other favorites that she likes to sing while coloring, riding in the car, swinging or just running around the house: You are My Sunshine, If You're Happy and You Know It, Jesus Loves Me, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Build a House for Jesus (taught to her by Memaw), and the most precious song from school called "Love is Like a Circle." It goes like this:
Love is like a circle
A circle big and round
Whenever you see a circle
The end is never found
It's like the love of Jesus
It goes on eternally
Forever and forever
I know that he loves me!
How lucky am I to get a daily or near daily reminder from my 2 yr. old about the nature of God's love and how we should love others!
The picture above shows my other daily reminder of God's love. I love to make her smile and coo. It seems like she is having more good or average days than bad days lately, and she's just growing and changing so much. She is getting pretty consistent now with not waking up until somewhere between 4:30 and 5:30 AM for a feeding, then right back to sleep until 7 or 8. And she has been going down for the night around 9:45 or 10:00 the past few nights instead of 10:30 or 11:00. Hopefully she'll be sleeping right through in a couple weeks or another month. She is really noticing toys more now and even tries to swat at and grab the ones on her floor gym and tummy time mat. I am getting so anxious for her to get more active and really start playing and interacting. When you've already done it once and know what fun things are to come, it's hard to be patient!