Easter 2010

What a gorgeous day! The weather was absolutely perfect to attempt our first egg hunt. But first we gave Audrey her Easter basket:






I love her expression here


She loved her Dora book!


Flying around the house with Dad!




Reading one of her Easter cards.


Ready!




She was really hesitant about walking in the grass, so Dad had to pick her up











Then we played with the bubbles...










Back inside for a bit to rest!

We took a walk later in the afternoon:



For funsies, a few pics of sweet Audrey Cate last year:



Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter, I can't wait to see everyone else's pics!

Spring Break!

It's hard to believe that we had two weeks off back in February (it seems like ages ago!) School has been hectic and even on the weekends downtime is cut short by family/friend visits, shopping trips, and errands. Poor Audrey spends a lot of our weekend in her car seat, stroller, and shopping carts. So I am quite relieved that Spring Break is here and we can have a lot of time at HOME.

Can I just say how excited I am about her most recent communicative skill? She tries to mimic me when I count to three or say, "I love you!" Maybe mimic is the wrong word b/c she doesn't say "three" or "you." More like she anticipates the final word of my sentence and tries to play along. While she's not saying the words, it's very exciting to me :)





On Thursday night I took her to school for our Multicultural Night and Ice Cream Social (she loved the ice cream, btw!) I truly hope that one day she'll be a gator and so I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of her roaming the halls:


"No running in the hall!"


I will SO be taking a picture like this on her first day of school!!


This is how our night went: when she wasn't in her stroller, she was being chased by a bunch of (well-meaning) elementary kids. She loved the attention and the kids were so good with her!


On Friday Grandma & Grandpa sent us home with a bubble machine they had picked up for Audrey. She really loves it when their dog Asia snaps at the bubbles...I mean, she nearly hyperventilates with laughter. Unfortunately our dogs do not care for the bubble machine, but at least that gives Audrey a chance to enjoy the bubbles!

What a difference a year makes!

Easter Bunny pictures at the mall last year (March 2009):



Audrey was about 3 months old, too young to know any better. Fast forward to 2010:



Duuuuude. She was so fine as we waited the 30 minutes in line. As soon as I sat her down she flipped out. She slid right off of the bunny's lap and just screamed. I readjusted her and yelled, "Take the picture, it's fine if she's screaming!" knowing full well it would be yet another priceless picture to add to the Future Bribery File.

Documentation of the happy state she was in all morning:


Before we left the house


Playing with her flash card app while waiting in line


Making funny faces right before it was our turn.

Aaaaand some super cute videos:





Summary: I secretly like to torture my child in hopes of getting funny pictures. I prefer funny over cute.

Spring is here!!

Man do I have Spring Fever! The weather has been beautiful and that alone has had a big effect on everyone's mood it seems. I love being able to take the kids out to recess. I love that the sun is still shining brightly when I get home from work. I love driving with the sunroof open and not having to put a jacket on. I love new Spring clothes! One more week of school before Spring Break. We don't have plans to go anywhere, just hanging out at home will be vacation enough for me!

Audrey did great with her bunny pictures last weekend. They should be in soon! Here's a picture of her on the way to the studio:



She's been a very picky eater this week (not hungry one day, normal the next...not hungry at all for lunch but starved for dinner...) Tonight was great though! Chris made an amazing meat loaf. I put some on her tray along with some corn, and didn't offer her anything else. Of course she played with it at first, and just as Chris and I were finishing our plates, she started eating it right up! Then I tried something new that we picked up earlier today at Target: Happy Baby Mac and Cheese patty. Each patty has a full serving of "hidden veggies." Well, she LOVED it! I also bought the veggie tots which I'll try out tomorrow. I'm hoping she consistently likes these because I've been stressing about her lack of desire for real people food. While I'm bummed she's not eating whole fruits and veggies, this is at least a step in the right direction!



Chris got me an ipod touch for my birthday. I love it! I've been downloading tons of podcasts (I especially love the ones about LOST!) and some very cool apps. I downloaded a bunch for Audrey, my favorite being flash cards with sounds. She loves them and knows how to change the pictures by moving her finger across the screen. There's also an app that tells children's stories. She holds the ipod up to her ear and listens intently, it is so adorable.



Tomorrow we are going to see the Easter Bunny. I really don't know what to expect. She hated Santa and I don't see a ginormous rabbit being any different.

Spring Pictures

Since our portraits at JCP weren't stellar, I decided to dress Audrey up and try taking her picture at home, outside, where she could be free as a bird! The weather was gorgeous and all she wanted to do was walk up and down the sidewalk. She even tried running down the steep hill (such a daredevil!) I love how they came out.











Now I need some help choosing one for her Easter cards. Which is your favorite?

What a difference a year makes!

Check out these beautiful babies just one year ago:




Audrey (3 months) and cousin Isabella (2 1/2 months). All we did was prop them up on a blanket and they were good to go! Fast forward a year later and you have 2 very clingy, stressed out toddlers. I'm not sure why, but they wanted NOTHING to do with having their picture taken. We didn't even get one of them together in their dresses to compare with last year :( We did however, get a couple of cute pics with cousin Skylar (who is 5w older than Audrey.)





Here's Audrey last March (3 months):




And now!





Some Easter dress shots:











I didn't LOVE any of the shots, so we did our own shoot outside at home a few days later. I'll save those for another post!

Long overdue!

It's been quite busy lately as evidenced by the lack of blog postings. March started off great but then Audrey got sick. It started off as a cough, so dad took her to the pedi right away b/c her little cousin had bronchiolitis a couples weeks before. Turns out it was just a cold! So we did what any first-time parents would do: raid the pharmacy (or several pharmacies) and buy whatever claims to help ease cold symptoms (basically that would be anything that had a picture of a soundly sleeping child on the box.) Here's what we found to be very helpful:

-Vick's Warm Steam Vaporizer: we used this in her room 24/7 and it was great. I think it really helped her STTN.

-regular humidifier

-Vick's Baby Vapor Rub: not only did we put it on her chest and neck, but my SIL advised rubbing it on the bottoms of her feet and putting socks on...OMG, it worked wonders!!! I did this at night AND for naps.

-Little Noses Saline Spray & aspirator

-Tissues with lotion

-Tylenol

-Hylands C-Plus tablets. They're just like teething tablets but supposedly help with stuffy noses. Eh, I'm not sure they worked, but we used them anyway.

Nothing is more pathetic than a sick baby. Check her out:


In the morning, before we left for Grandma's. I started making sub plans the moment I got to school!


She was looking pretty rough by that afternoon. Good thing I took off the next day!


Chris bought her the warm steam vaporizer and first set it up in the kitchen. She likes waving the vapors towards her face, lol.

She started feeling better a couple days later so we went out to lunch with my mom and brother. Despite rosy cheeks and a runny nose, she was a delight!


Nana brought her a little wind-up chicky and she loved it!


Not the bow I had originally put in her hair, but just as cute!

She's been transitioning to one nap and still not a huge fan of most real-people food. Her growth has really halted since turning one. Her 15 month appointment is coming up and I plan to talk to her pedi about her diet. I don't know whether to cut out baby food and just keep offering the real stuff, or keep giving her baby food when she rejects real fruits and veggies.

She has a mouth full of pearly whites! Her top two canines poked thru last week. She looks so grown up with teeth. She's adorable and sweet and too much fun! She's pretty much running all over the place and loves to be outside. We celebrated my b-day last weekend and as we were waiting outside at the restaurant, she would just walk up to people, smile, turn, and run back to me, burying her face in my lap. She's bashful & outgoing at the same time.

Today we're getting her picture taken with real bunnies. It will either be really cute or really disastrous. Stay tuned!!

Tiny Dancer

Hello, March! There are so many things I'm excited about for this month. A few of them being my b-day, Daylight Savings, and Gator Week at school! In honor of leaving February behind, I put Audrey Cate in her new dress from Mom Maw...how CUTE is this?!?!



We've been doing a lot of dancing at night. A year ago one of my favorite things to do was swaddle Audrey up and dance around the living room with her. We danced to whatever was good on XM Radio (anything from Elvis to Eminem.) I still twirl her around the house, but now she's starting to get her groove on by herself, little Miss Independent!



Clearly, she loves dancing with her Dada:



I think we have a Bon Jovi fan on our hands!!!

Audrey is 14 months!

Today was spent at home with my two favorites! Chris and I cleaned the house. Audrey and I both napped afterwards for about 2 hours...I was exhausted even though I had slept 10 hours the night before...I did put in a full week of work, after all :) Chris made AWESOME fried chicken and we just spent the day relaxing.


Check out those chompers!! The ones in the back have been giving her a hard time all week. She's been a finicky eater and her diapers have been terrible (red tush!) And the drool, oh the drool! She woke up a couple times in the middle of the night (Tylenol and warm milk are my BFFs.)




She lurves her new gator purse. We got it while shopping with friends last weekend. We also got her first pair of Stride Rite sneakers! They ended up being only $10 (on clearance, then the cashier gave us a $5 coupon b/c she was "so darn CUTE!")


Blowing kisses!






So happy!

Audrey has gotten so good at walking, she practically runs now she's so fast! We met Chris at Target last night to do some grocery shopping and we let her walk around by herself. Ummmm, she was adorable and absolutely thrilled to be so independent. People kept stopping to talk to her, lol. I'm really loving this toddler stage!