One Year Ago

It was one year ago today that we first heard the words "It's a girl!"

We went in for our 20 week ultrasound and got our first peek at our little girl. The tech measured all her organs and then stopped and said, "Well, do you see anything there?" Because of the way she asked, I thought I was supposed to be seeing something, so I said "Is there a little penis there?"

"No, there isn't anything there."

"So, it's a girl?"

"Yes, it's a girl!"

I remember looking at Andy and saying "IT'S A GIRL!!" I would have been happy with a boy, but having three nephews already, I wanted a little girl so bad so I could paint her toenails (which I still haven't done) and buy little purses and dresses.

After our appointment, we each called our moms on our cell phones. Andy handed his phone to me so I could tell them both at the same time. I called Tina next and she was very excited to be able to buy pink too, although now she and Jason didn't have anyone to dump all of their boy clothes on! Poor Tina was almost in tears by the time I called because the appointment took so long that she thought something might have been wrong. She was with us when we had the ultrasound when I had the miscarriage, so she knows how nervewracking every appointment was with this pregnancy.

So, Happy "It's A Girl" Day Audrey Claire! We all love your girly giggle where you shrug your shoulders and wrinkle your nose, your dainty little fingers and toes, your long, messy hair that looks so cute in piggy tails and those big blue eyes that are going to melt the boys hearts one day.

Sesame Street Freak

We noticed the other day that Audrey gets really interested and excited when either Elmo or Cookie Monster are on Sesame Street, so Daddy had to take her on a Sesame Street shopping spree on Friday. She already has Daddy wrapped around her finger! He bought her a talking Cookie Monster doll, a Sesame Street phone, an Elmo purse and this chair, that vibrates and giggles:


Audrey isn't the only one who likes the Elmo chair. It looks like Elmo is getting ready to eat Spot!

On Saturday I shipped Audrey off to Grandma and Grandpa F.'s so I could deep clean the house. I spent 6 hours straight cleaning and still didn't get to the kitchen, dining room or foyer. By the time I finished up on Sunday, I was wore out and slept for two hours. I scrubbed baseboards, toilets, decluttered and cleaned floors until I about died!

Yesterday she spent half the day with her big cousins while Mommy and Daddy worked. This is the first time she's been over since she's been crawling and she had a blast getting into all of their toys. Ryan shared his waffle with her and she loved it, so now she has a new menu option for breakfast.

Today we went to the pool with Audrey's friends Jackson, Addison, Avery and Lynzie. This was her second time at the pool and she loved it even more than the first time. She splashed the water with her hands and layed back in the baby float and sucked the water out of her hat strings! She also enjoys sucking bath water out of her washcloth at bathtime, so hopefully the pool chlorine and baby soap don't make her sick. :)

Our Baby Hound (or German Shorthaired Baby)

I've mentioned before that Audrey thinks she's a dog because she likes to lick things. She also drools a lot and gets around on all fours. Now, whenever the dogs are barking, she has to join them! She doesn't actually bark, but she yells along with them. We finally got a little video of it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPY8gUotD7M

The photo to the left is Audrey with Papa's pointer, Gus. He decided that he had enough hugging shortly after this photo was taken and moved away. Roscoe is starting to learn that Audrey is mobile and he's not sure what he thinks about it. He used to be able to sit just out of her reach, but not anymore! He and Hazel like it when she tries to feed herself Cheerios though. Baby + Cheerios = snacks for the puppies too! A couple of nights ago, she had a Fruit Puff stuck in her slobbery hand. Roscoe had his nose right up against her hand and was trying to stick his tongue in to get the puff. It was cute because he was really gentile and patient. She finally opened a couple of fingers up enough for him to scoop the puff out!

I'm not sure if the picture at the bottom does justice to how messy her hair actually was, but this is what she looked like when I got home from work tonight. She was sporting a mini mohawk (you can see it if you look close towards the window). According to Daddy, she woke up like this and he never bothered to comb it. To top it off, he took her out shopping like this! I better make sure she has an easy-to-style hair do when she's older so Daddy doesn't send her out looking like a homeless person!

Big Post About Nothing Much

In the past week, we've gone from immobile to 1) slow, wiggly crawling, 2) moving from lying down to sitting up by herself and 3) pulling up on stuff. Once Audrey figured out that she can move in order to reach things and put them in her mouth, she hasn't stopped!

This past weekend she hung out with her friends Addison and Avery. She had a great time slobbering on their toys, chewing on their books and trying to touch Avery's head! She got to taste real sweet potatoes with butter and brown sugar - yum! Avery didn't like them as much - by the look on her face, her Mommy tried to stick a spoonful of poo in her mouth! It was too cute! Jennifer got some good shots of the girls that I'll post once she sends them.

Audrey has also been doing well with eating other big people foods. She likes bananas and pears and LOVES avocado. For some reason she doesn't like real peaches - I don't know if it's the texture or what.

Aunt Tina is lending me a book with some good sleep tips that helped Tyler, so keep your fingers crossed that bedtime won't be a nightmare anymore (no pun intended). Of course, now that I think about it, the twins sleep through the night better than Tyler does, so maybe I need to talk to them instead. :)

Audrey Clapping - The Movie

Here is a quick video of Audrey doing her new favorite trick - clapping. It was a hard video to get because whenever she sees the camera, she usually stops whatever she's doing to stare doe eyed into the lens! At the end of the video, she hits her foot on the sofa table and decides that banging her foot is more interesting than clapping. I'm not sure she understands the concept of clapping yet because sometimes she'll clap while she's fussing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wfiEpmwSj8

She hasn't made a lot of progress with crawling, but she can now pull herself into a sitting position. I went to get her up this morning and she was sitting up staring at me when I walked in. It's pretty startling seeing that when you are used to this little helpless creature just lying there! The only bad thing is that now that she's trying to push up all of the time, she's banging her head into a lot of stuff! She keeps falling over onto hard toys or flooring or her crib railing.

As cute as she is with the clapping, bedtime has become a nightmare lately. She hates going to bed. Andy's philosophy is just to plop her in the crib, walk out and let her cry. I know that "crying it out" is a sleep method, but she eventually gets to the point where she's almost hysterical and she won't fall asleep because she's crying so hard. I end up having to either stand there and rub her back or hold her until she falls asleep. Or I just let her stay up until she's so tired she's about to pass out, but then she's up until 9:00. If anyone has any suggestions on how to make bedtime easier on both of us, let me know!

And She's Off (almost)

Audrey has had two major accomplishments in the past 36 hours. Yesterday while I was packing up her bag to meet Amanda and Emma for lunch, I walked in the room and found her lying on her back clapping. I thought it might have been a fluke, but she did it a few more times tonight.

She's also made some big progress with crawling! Andy caught her take about four wobbly steps (is it called steps when you are crawling?) last night, but she didn't show Mommy until tonight. She didn't make it very far and she looked like a drunk monkey, but she definitly moved from one spot to another, so that counts, right?

Back to lunch yesterday, she and Emma were so cute (and of course Amanda and I both forgot our cameras). We had their high chairs side by side and they were just sitting there, eating fruit puffs and hanging out. Every once in a while they would reach out to touch the other one. Emma would look over, talk and get a big smile and Audrey would stare back blankly! She got a little chattier later because she was sleepy. She passed out as soon as I got the car started to go home - it's tiring having lunch with the girls!

In randon, unbaby realted news, I got an iPhone for work! It's the coolest thing ever. The only button on it is the power button - everything else you control with your fingers on the screen. The screen flips when you hold it sideways and you can get email, internet and all sorts of stuff. If you ever have an extra $600, I highly recommend getting one! If I ever quit my job, I may have to buy it off the company because I'll miss it too much already!

Random Photos

Grandma Carol finally sent the 138 photos off of her camera, so here are just a few of them. This one is Ryan trying to stick his finger in Audrey's mouth. For some reason, he is obsessed with doing that.





This one is Ryan helping me feed Audrey her mac 'n cheese on the Fourth of July. He also is obsessed with watching her eat. He has to sit on the lap of whoever is feeding her.






These next two are from the Fourth of July dinner. I like how all of the babies are lined up against the wall!




This last one is the face that Audrey makes when she is feeling her teeth. She grinds the top ones against the bottom ones. Sometimes it makes that awful teeth grinding noise and it sends shivers down my spine!







Not much new to report. She's getting good at pushing up on her hands and knees. We are going to lower her crib today because it's only a matter of time before she figures out how to pull up. I don't want to wait until she takes a header out of the crib! We also need to take the bassinet out of the Pack 'n Play. As my 16 pound baby was on her hands and knees in the bassinet, I was reading the label that says not to put kids in the bassinet who are over 15 pounds or can push up on their hands and knees. Oops!

Fun on the Fourth

Audrey usually gets up at 7 am on the dot, but she was so excited for her first Fourth of July, she woke up at 5 am! Her and Daddy went downstairs and had an early breakfast then snoozed for a couple more hours in the living room.

She slept through the first two hours at Aunt Tina & Uncle Jason's, but she had fun watching the boys run around when she woke up. Ryan was so excited to see her that he had to run and bring her a toy!

Speaking of Ryan, I didn't get any pictures at Aunt Tina's because Ryan is obsessed with electronics and I was scared to take my camera out around him. If you have something electronic and don't let him play with it, he gets pissed! He also has this amazing radar for remotes and computers. You could set him down in the middle of a tornado ravaged home and he would find all of the remotes in about 2 minutes!

Anyway, hopefully Grandma will send us some of her pictures of all of the kids. We didn't make it to the fireworks because Audrey was ready for bed right around the time everyone was getting ready to go. Andy and I watched the Lenox Mall fireworks on TV with the lights out so we could feel like we were there. Unfortunately, the colors don't show up well on film. Maybe next year!

The Diva

Who switched my sweet, easy going little newborn out with a fussy, clingy six month old? The princess has been quite the mama's girl lately. At first, it was really sweet that Audrey wanted to be with me all of the time, but after about a week of this, Mama needs a break! She cries if I get out of her sight and won't let anyone but me hold her if she's sleepy. Hopefully this is just a quick little phase!

On a positive note, she has learned a couple of new tricks in the past few days. On Saturday, she played peek-a-boo with Grandma Carol and me. She would hold a place mat over her head and we'd say "Where's the Baby?" Then, she'd bring the place mat down, we'd say "Peek a Boo!" and she'd laugh and start over again. She's done it a couple more times since then.

I also caught her pushing up on all fours today. She's had the leg action for crawling going, but she had never pushed up on her skinny little arms. She finally did it a few times today but she couldn't hold that big old head up for very long!

Tomorrow we are going to grill out with her big cousins. We are going to try to go see fireworks, but Audrey and the twins may not be able to stay up long enough and Tyler doesn't like loud noises, so that may not go over well! The picture on top is of Miss Audrey in the Fourth of July shirt I bought her while I was pregnant. She has another cute little dress and hairbows to wear tomorrow. We'll report in with more pictures tomorrow night.

I had to share this picture for those who know Roscoe. It's never a good thing when your dog walks up to you looking like this (those black spots on the front of him are not black dog hair)! If there is something rotten and stinky, he will find it and roll in it. Whatever it was smelled so bad that Andy had to wash him with a hose out in the driveway.