Audrey's 2 year photo shoot

Before Audrey was born I began looking for a photographer who would come to the house for photo shoots. I had seen many blogs and websites with such gorgeous images of newborns and babies...and while I think studio photos are very nice, there's just something so special about the home setting. So we've had photos taken at home (or at some other pretty outdoor location) for her milestone birthdays (nb, 6 mo, 1 year, 18 mo.) The problem with these shoots is that our photographer was SO EXPENSIVE! The session alone was pricey and the prints were outrageous (for just ONE print!) But I sucked it up because the photos were always gorgeous and they would last a lifetime.

Then my friend Stacy from high school became a mom and started her own photography business. Through FB we'd kept in touch and she started blogging, too. I absolutely loved seeing her work, mostly of her beautiful daughter Addisyn. She now lived in DE but often visited her family who still live in the area. I knew she'd be perfect for Audrey's 2 year portraits.

Our sneak peak was posted on her blog last night and I love how they came out so far. Stacy was so great to work with...she directed us, had great ideas, and even insisted we take pictures on Main Street. If you are in the northern VA/MD/DE area I highly recommend her...you get more than your money's worth and it's such a fun experience!








One thing I love about Stacy's work...she also focuses on the parents...what a change! After all, it all starts with 2 people in love...




All photos courtesy of Stacy Hart Photography.

Christmas x3

On the 23rd we celebrated at Grandma & Grandpa's house with Aunt Sarah & cousin Bella. The girls got so many cool toys including a MMCH table with chairs and an indoor play tent with a tunnel. They had so much fun unwrapping gifts and playing with their new toys.






On Christmas morning my family came over for breakfast and to open presents...there were so many!






After all the presents were unwrapped she walked around and gave everyone a hug. Adorable!


She got so many cool toys; Little People zoo & scooters, Minnie's Bowtique, books, a sled, clothes, a basketball hoop and much more. Santa knew she was a very good girl this year :)

After Christmas morning with my family we headed up north to see Mom Maw and the rest of Christopher's family. More birthday gifts and Christmas presents!



She loved playing with cousin Teddy. He's so funny!

I love this picture...we're both looking at the camera for once!

By this time Audrey was pretty tired of opening gifts. She got new PJs, books, DVDs, a jewelry box and a beautiful silver bracelet. What a great day!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that you were able to spend it with loved ones. I'm so depressed that it's all over! I'm going to start putting away Christmas decorations today but the tree stays up until January 1st :)

Audrey Cate is TWO!

It was a wonderful day...we began with a photo shoot and ended with a party. She got some really great gifts: an art easel, a bathrobe with matching slippers, MMCH stuffed animals & laptop, a Radio Flyer tricycle, a Nerf gun (lol!) and more. She was much more into unwrapping her gifts this year... she would say, "Open!" after it was unwrapped. She had a wonderful birthday!


Traditional birthday breakfast: pancakes with candles


Blowing out the candles (she got one!)


Balloons!


So many presents...


Loved the bike from Nana!




Really loved the stuffed animals


She was super excited about the Nerf gun...we set up Woody from Toy Story as target practice, lol




Loved her cupcake




She didn't want her party to end :)

Happy 2nd Birthday, Audrey!

2 year slideshow

One day as I was driving to work the song Forever Young by Rod Stewart came on. As I listened to the lyrics, I got so teary eyed- how perfect they were to describe my hopes and dreams for Audrey's future:

May the good Lord be with you
Down every road you roam
And may sunshine and happiness
surround you when you're far from home
And may you grow to be proud
Dignified and true
And do unto others
As you'd have done to you
Be courageous and be brave
And in my heart you'll always stay
Forever Young, Forever Young
Forever Young, Forever Young

May good fortune be with you
May your guiding light be strong
Build a stairway to heaven
with a prince or a vagabond

And may you never love in vain
and in my heart you will remain
Forever Young, Forever Young
Forever Young, Forever Young
Forever Young
Forever Young

And when you finally fly away
I'll be hoping that I served you well
For all the wisdom of a lifetime
No one can ever tell

But whatever road you choose
I'm right behind you, win or lose
Forever Young, Forever Young
Forever Young ,Forever Young
Forever Young, Forever Young
For, Forever Young, Forever Young


My favorite part of the song is about standing behind her, win or lose...it is very much true. I knew when I heard the song that I wanted to use it in her slideshow. On her first day of school, on graduation day, on her wedding day and at the birth of my grandchildren I know I will always look at her and see my little girl, my sweet Audrey Cate.

Remembering...

Two years ago we were admitted to the hospital (after hours of walking the maternity ward!) Our family members started to show up around 10:00...I had a nice hot soak in the spa tub and shortly thereafter in my comfy hospital bed my water broke. Within minutes I was having intense contractions and by midnight my epidural was complete and I was determined to get a good night's sleep before meeting Baby Burns.

I consider myself to have a very terrible memory. That's the whole reason for this blog...it's for me, so that I don't forget all the precious (and not so precious) moments of raising my children. While my memory is pretty bad, I know I will never forget certain things about that night...Chris closely watching the monitors and trying to get comfortable on the couch. My in laws, grandparents, & sister in law waiting outside of our room. My mom coming in much later, then my brother sometime past midnight. I'll never forget my nurse who held my hand through the epidural and made me feel so comfortable and at ease. Waking all through the night as the nurse came to periodically check on my progress. Clicking the button for pain relief over and over because there was no way in HELL I wanted to feel this huge kid being ripped from my loins.

I remember waiting until about 5 am before telling the nurse that I had been feeling a lot of pressure. It had been building all night but I kept wanting more sleep! I remember everything happening so fast. Lights came blaring on, Chris holding one leg, being told to push for 10 seconds at a time (those were 10 very long seconds!) The doctor was called in and after just a couple more pushes we had a baby...I couldn't wait, was it a boy or girl?! I heard Chris say, "It's a girl!" and I nearly died with anticipation to get my arms around her. "Hi, Audrey, I love you!" I kept saying...I just couldn't believe it! I will always remember those moments.

They weighed her and cleaned her and I got to hold her again while Christopher told everyone the good news. Then they all came in to see our sweet Audrey Cate. I know that when I'm old and I look back on all of the best moments of my life, that will be one of my proudest.

Tomorrow Audrey will be two years old. Everyday I look at her and I know my purpose in life is to love and support her unconditionally. I am so thankful to her for teaching me how to love in that way. Happy birthday sweet Audrey Cate!

Baby Burns at 20 weeks

We went to the doctor today for our 20 week u/s and check-up. We got a bunch of cool pictures...Baby Burns was doing somersaults! We were very good and looked away when we were told :) Everything is measuring great, looks great, and we're still on track for May 7th. I weighed in at 135 which makes me dread the next 4 months...this is when I start packing on the pounds.








I still can't believe we're having another baby...when Chris picked up Audrey and brought her home tonight, she seemed so BIG to me...she's going to be a big sister, not the baby anymore. But this doesn't make me sad...it makes me really, really excited to help her build a bond with her little brother or sister. I think she will be so wonderful.



Tomorrow is our last day of school before break. Audrey will be 2 on Friday and Christmas is on Saturday. I can't wait to spend all of my time with my sweet girl!

If Baby Burns is a girl...

we think we've narrowed it down to two names. Please vote on which you like better:

Abby or Annie?
	Abigail Mae
	Anne Elizabeth
pollcode.com free polls

We have a long way to go and who knows...we might just wait until we see her to see which name fits her the best!

(BTW...It sounds adorable when Audrey says either name, lol.)

Pictures...round 2

On Wednesday Audrey seemed to be feeling much better so we headed back to the mall to try 2 year portraits & pictures with Santa. What a difference! She was such an angel and in the best mood. First we went to Picture People. I had a coupon and wanted to get a good picture of her to give out for Christmas. It was a quick shoot and was a doll:




While we waited for those, we stood in line for Santa (about 30 minutes.) To my complete surprise she did not cry or scream. Actually, she barely paid attention to Santa...the camera guy was throwing a stuffed animal high into the air and it worked....smiles!



While we were there we stopped to visit Aunt Sarah at TCP. Audrey just loves her auntie. She gets SOOO excited when we see her. We didn't get home until after 8:00 and after dinner she passed out as soon as we laid her down. I was so relieved at how well it went.

Next Friday is her 2nd birthday and my friend Stacy is coming to take pictures. I can't wait!

First Snow Day!

And it couldn't have come soon enough! With Audrey's birthday & Christmas next week (GAH!) I so needed a day to get things done around the house.

We knew yesterday that we were going to get snow but they didn't make the cancellation until just after 6am today. I usually leave the house around 6 so I can get work done before the kids show up. This morning I was up at 5 and refreshing my browser for the next hour. I finally got in the shower and afterwards, when I checked again, the call had been made :) Just after 8 Audrey woke up and we headed to Main Street for breakfast. By then the snow had started falling & it hasn't stopped yet!

Chris went to work for a couple of hours while Audrey and I played and got a few things done. God how I cherish these free, unexpected days with her! I guess I don't realize how much I miss her during the day. We got bundled up and headed out to play in the snow. At first she didn't care for it...she kept saying, "Up, up, UP!" But then I showed her how to kick in the snow and she LOVED it. She kept walking around and saying, "Kick, kick, kick." She would also pretend to sneeze which was pretty funny. I got some amazing shots of our sweet snow angel:





Look at how far she traveled, all by herself!





We came back in after a few minutes (it was FREEZING!) and she complained the entire time we were undressing. She ran to the door and yelled, "OPEN!" Luckily she was easily distracted with crayons :) She laid down for her nap and I'm thinking we might have to go out again this afternoon!

What a busy, cold week

Audrey has this lingering cold that just won't go away. I have a sore throat and terrible headache. It sucks being so busy, having so much to do but not feeling like doing any of it.

On Monday our power was out so we met Chris for dinner. We got home around 7:30 (still no power) but as I was packing up to head to the IL's, it came back on. The next night I had my final math class (yaaay!) On Thursday we met Chris at Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner (oh, delicious honey BBQ wings, I am still craving you!) and then we headed to hh greg where Chris bought my Christmas present, a new camera! I'm still trying to play with it and figure out all the different settings. I'm hoping to take a nice family picture in front of the tree for our holiday cards. The weather sucked...it was extremely cold and windy and yet there's no sight of snow in our forecast.

Yesterday we went to the annual pancake breakfast at my school. It was so great to see the kids and their families. Afterwards we had a quick visit with my dad and brother, then we headed home. Audrey had a nice long nap, then we all headed out for grocery shopping and dinner at Mexico Restaurant. We noticed red bumps on her legs but we're not sure what caused them:


Cortisone and caladryl (sp?) cleared it up overnight, thankfully.

This morning was pretty rough. Audrey woke up and seemed fine. I thought it might be a good day to do a little shopping and visit Santa. We were halfway to the mall when she had a screaming fit in the car. By the time we got there she had calmed down but as soon as I put her in the stroller she wasn't having it. As we waited in line for Santa, I had to hold her and she was a crying, sniffling mess. I was so torn. We had gotten ready and driven 30 minutes to get here. We've been standing here 20 minutes already. I have so much freaking shopping to get done! But looking at her, I knew we had to just go home and relax. She of course screamed most of the way home and eventually passed out by the time we got there. I had to give her a bath because she looked like a wreck between her runny nose and watery eyes. I got her into her PJs with some juice and we laid in my bed to watch Mickey Mouse (he really helps taker mind off of feeling bad, God love him.) By the end of the episode she was smiling and giggling and back to her usual, happy self (no fever, btw.) She laid down in her room for a nap and I pretty much collapsed back into bed wanting so badly to have a drink or two.

I just couldn't believe the morning we'd had. She had never behaved that way in public. She must've been feeling really terrible. And I felt so badly for putting her through it. I started to actually regret being pregnant because, honestly, how would I do this with TWO little ones? Not alone, I can tell you that much! Thank goodness for Christopher who was so wonderful and understanding when I called him in tears on the way home. Or when he texted me to make sure everything was ok (with BOTH of us) and if he needed to come home from work. I quickly got over my pity party. With him I know I can get through anything because I am not alone.

I am praying for a better week!

Ugh.

I don't know if it's being sick (God, I hope it's because she's sick) or if it's because she's in a new room, but Audrey has had the worst time going to sleep the past few days (naps AND night time.) The first couple of nights we got her out of bed after a few minutes of screaming and let her stay up an extra hour. But this weekend I've pretty much let her fuss herself to sleep. And it sucks...I don't know what else to do. This is worse than sleep training was when she was 6 months old. I really hope this passes because I cannot stand to hear her so upset...but the kid needs her sleep!

Updates

First, Baby Burns!

Today I am 18 weeks. I had the quad screen done yesterday and scheduled the big u/s for 12/21. I've been having severe pain in my tailbone. On Thursday I could barely stand it...getting up and sitting down hurt so badly. Luckily the pain has subsided...Dr K. isn't sure what the cause is but he wrote me a rx in case it comes back and recommended a maternity support belt (since I'm already feeling pressure.)

I'm starting to feel small kicks and jabs, specially when I lay down at night. This is my absolute favorite part about being pregnant! BB has a nice heartbeat in the 160s and we're so excited to see him/her in a couple of weeks :) I just realized I never posted the very first sonogram picture:



And here's the bump:


I'm at the awkward phase where my maternity clothes make me look huge but none of my regular clothes fit! I weighed in at 134, so that's about a 6 lb weight gain. I'm sure the 34 will be soon to follow...

This morning we were supposed to have Audrey's 2 year pictures done...but on Thursday she came down with a cold and she still has a very runny nose. My good friend Stacy will be coming in a few weeks to take them. Check out her blog here: Stacy Hart One More for Love.

Her room is pretty much done! I love how it came out and I think she will enjoy it for years to come...








Not sure why this one became so blurry when it uploaded! She loves the "A" on the wall

Her room being done is a huge weight lifted...because there are so many other things to do! Design and send holiday cards, pictures with Santa, Audrey's 2 year slideshow, shopping & wrapping...I'm feeling motivated and checking the extended weather forecast for a snow day or two before the winter break!