Nobody Puts Audrey In A Corner!

Well.. I put Audrey in a corner to take this picture.

I just love this onesie! Excuse Audrey's hair - she had just woke up and believe it or not, I did brush her hair before taking this photo.

Here's another cute one of her hiding in a box.

Not too much new going on here. Audrey is still not 100% from her stomach bug. Her appetite and attitude are back, but she still has yucky diapers. Her new thing now is holding her own bottle. I think she saw some of the other babies doing it at daycare, because she just started doing it on Monday night.

First Day of Daycare

Today was Audrey's first day of daycare. Although Daddy woke up with our stomach virus and stayed home, we figured we better still bring her in since they were expecting her. When I dropped her off, she went right over to the daycare worker and looked back and forth from me to the other kids. I got out of there quickly before she figured out what was going on.

When Andy picked her up, they told him that she was a good girl. She hung out with two other baby girls the whole time and the only time she cried was when one of the girls' mommy came to pick her up. Audrey didn't want her little buddy to go home! They also told him that she is the cutest and smartest baby that they've ever had. (Okay, I made that last part up!)

I"m glad she liked it because she has to go back tomorrow. :)

I better go take care of Mr. Pitiful. He's all hunched over on the couch with the chills. When I was sick, he went to happy hour after work, a camp meeting and a barbeque while I was home with sick Audrey, but now that he's sick, he can barely function! Men!!

Since I don't have any cute new pictures of Audrey to share right now and I know posts are boring without pictures, I thought I'd share this one of Avalanche "hiding" under the bird feeder in the bird bath. Somehow, he's never caught one!

American Sicko

Is this not the most pitiful face you've ever seen?




I took this on Thursday. She wasn't barfy, but she was really lethargic all day and I had to look at this sad, pitiful face. Unfortunately, I woke up with her stomach bug on Friday, so Grandma Mary spent the day taking care of both Audrey and me. It's nice having your own personal nurse when you are sick!


We are both feeling better. Neither one of us has too much of an appetite and Audrey now has explosive diarrhea, but she's more like her old self today. We just found out that she got Grandpa Pete sick - sorry Grandpa!


For the past couple of days Audrey and I have been working on waving, which she is slowly catching onto, and kissy faces. She has been making her kissy face complete with a "smack" all day! I'll try to get a video of it, but she won't do it on command. :)

Baby's First Stomach Virus... Aww..

Miss Audrey has her first stomach bug. The poor thing woke up crying at 9 pm and when I went to check on her, she and her crib were covered in vomit. I had to give her a quick bath but she threw up again as soon as I set her back down. We had a long night of dry heaves and I thought she was feeling better this morning... until I was wearing her morning formula.

The poor little thing is so dehydrated and thirsty, but she can't hold anything down. Grandpa Pete was already on his way over to babysit when she got sick this morning, so he came with me to the pediatrician's and, being the trooper he is, is home with Miss Barfy now while I'm at work. She can only have a teaspoon of Pedialyte every half hour and that's it. Her doc gave us a box of Pediatlyte popsicles and she likes those, but she threw up the last one of those that she ate.

Keep your fingers crossed that we get through this without too much more crying and less barf-wearing for Mommy!

Misc. Photos 'n Stuff

We finally got the picture of Angry Gay Jason off of Andy's camera. For those who didn't read the long, drunken post, here is the part that describes who Angry Gay Jason is:

"We went to a restaurant to get a couple of drinks. There was something about the waiter there that reminded us of our brother-in-law, Jason, but this guy had sharper, angry features and appeared to be gay, so he was henceforth named Angry Gay Jason. We spent the whole time trying to sneak a picture of this poor guy with Andy's cell phone and giggling like maniacs because we had been up for so long."

I don't think Tina and Jason thought this picture looked anything like Jason, but when you have been up for 20 hours after about 4 hours of sleep, he does!

Audrey has her 7th tooth poking through on the bottom. I think she now officially has more teeth than Ryan!

I learned the other night not to place naked babies on the floor. I took Audrey's diaper off while I was getting her bath ready thinking that the worst that could happen would be that she'd pee on the bath rug... but that's not the worst that can happen! I saw a little brown pile under her butt and she had her foot in it! Luckily I caught Andy before he left to go check some traps - it's not easy holding a baby up while trying to clean poo and avoid getting poo on yourself.

This is what happens when Mommy is bored and finds extra hair bands lying around the living room:

Tuesday and Wednesday

On Tuesday, Andy didn't feel like going back to Acadia, so we just drove around Mount Desert Island (the island that Bar Harbor is on). We stopped at various areas to take pictures, then decided to go to the Acadia Zoo, which advertised that it had a moose. Andy figured if we paid to see a moose, we'd be guaranteed to see one in the wild.

Acadia Zoo is a wildlife center kind of like Bear Hollow, for those of you from Athens. We walked in and there were llamas, monkeys and big cats, then a roped off area. The guide told us that we had to wait for a tour to go back and see the other animals. He gets a group together and tells us that we can't make loud noises or any other noises at the animals and that we can't run because it will make the animals nervous. We have a three year old in our group, so I knew we were going to have a good time! So, we go behind the roped area and there are deer, a coyote, two wolves, two bears, three moose, some more llamas and some donkeys. The dorky tour guide was nervously watching everyone, making sure no one broke the rules - he even walked backwards so he could keep his eye on everyone.

When we got to the moose exhibit, the bull moose was in this little cabin, so we couldn't see him very well, and the mom and baby moose were pretty far away, so I couldn't get a good picture of them. Two exhibits later, I look back to see the mom and baby by the fence, so I walk over to get a picture. I got yelled at by the guide for going about 20 feet away from the group!! I still stood there and got my stinkin' picture! He about had a heart attack when the three year old ran past the coyote cage - "Can you guys see how he's making the coyote nervous?" No, but I can see that you are!

At sunset, we went to the sand bar that gives Bar Harbor it's name. At low tide, it's wide enough to walk or even drive across if you wanted to. I guess there is just some trails at the island that it goes to - we never made it that far. We did get some good shots of the island though.

We got up on Wednesday and head back towards the airport. We stopped in Freeport for a bathroom break and little did I know, but Freeport is the home of L.L. Bean! They had three stores - a two story hunting/camping store, a two story ski/snow store and a 4 story clothing store. Andy was in heaven! He bought Audrey her own fly fishing vest, plus some other stuff for her and him.

If anyone is thinking of going to Maine, I would recommend Freeport over Bar Harbor just because the shopping is better! I suppose you could do both because they are only about 3 hours apart, but Bar Harbor is full of touristy souveneir shops and Freeport had a big outlet area with North Face, Gap, Patagonia, etc.

While we were driving down the highway, we were both keeping an eye out on the side of the road for a moose, although neither one of us expected to see one. The highway is lined with lots of trees and we came upon this big open field. What do we see right in the middle of the field, staring at us? A huge bull moose! It was like we were meant to see him standing in this random open field. We were so excited that we got off at the next exit and turned around so we could see him again! I tried to take a picture, but the stupid camera shut off right when we got to him, plus he had moved closer to some brush so you probably wouldn't have been able to see him anyway. We also saw a turkey and some woodchucks, but they weren't as cool as the moose.

We accomplished everything we wanted to - we saw a humpback whale, a moose in the wild, and Andy ate a whole lobster! :)

We made it home with no drama thankfully! We really appreciate the grandparents for keeping Audrey and Steph and Alex dropping us off and picking us up. We owe you guys one! I thought Audrey would be clingy and just over the moon to see me when she woke up this morning, but it was just like any other morning to her. I did get a really pissy look when I turned on the light in her room!

Here are the rest of the pictures, which will be labeled as soon as I get around to labeling the others.

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Saturday, Sunday and Monday

On Saturday, we decided to just spend the day in Middletown, CT. Unfortunately, there is nothing to do there! We walked around the historic downtown area, which was mostly restaurants and a couple of bad clothes stores, then we walked down to the Connecticut River and sat for a while.

Saturday night was the wedding. It was the first Jewish wedding I have been to, but it wasn't much different than any other wedding other than the breaking of the glass and the parts that were in Hebrew! It was a lot of fun just to drink and dance the night away. Here are the pictures from the wedding, if anyone is interested:

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On Sunday we had breakfast at the hotel then started our drive to Bar Harbor. After 7 hours and four states (CT, MA, NH, ME), we finally arrived here at about 5 pm. We are in a cute little inn and our room is off of a wrap around porch. It's tiny and has no phone and a 13 inch TV, but it's clean and that's all that counts! It's also right by Main Street, which has all of the tourist stuff and goes down to the Harbor. Sunday night we just walked the area, had dinner, then drove around a little bit in search of a moose. We didn't see one, but we did find a deer!

This morning we had our whale watch tour. We saw a harbor seal and a grey seal, puffins, a couple of Minke whales, a couple of fin whales, and my personal favorite, a humpback whale. I have always wanted to see a humpback and never thought I would, so it was very exciting! His name is Arrowhead (I didn't name him, that's his name!) and he's been hanging around Bar Harbor since the 70's. He came up near our boat about five times, and one time he was on our side of the boat. He surfaced really close, then came towards us and swam up to about 20 feet away! Andy got a cool video of him right by the boat but I can't get youtube to upload it for some reason. I'll try again when I've had some sleep. By the way, if you ever go whale watching, it's extremely cold when you are 25 miles off of the coast of Maine! I had on khakis and a cardigan and about froze my butt off.

We had lunch down on the harbor afterwards and Andy ate his first full lobster. He got this huge meal with clam chowder, a 1.5 lb lobster (which I don't think he ate correctly, but he ate it and that's the whole point), corn on the cobb, clams, potatoes and blueberry pie. The poor guy is still paying for that meal - it's 11:15 pm right now and he fell asleep about 15 minutes ago mumbling about how he feels like he's going to barf!

Even with the full stomach, we still made it to see part of Acadia National Park. It's beautiful but it's very touristy and crowded. People from the north talk loud and they have lots of loud children and it's not very pleasant having to listen to obnoxious, loud people while you are looking out over beautiful scenery! Today we just drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain, which is the highest spot on the Eastern seaboard and walked a little around a pond, but it started raining. We had dinner downtown and planned on sitting on the porch and drinking blueberry wine, but someone has a tummy ache!

Here are the rest of my pictures from Maine. I'm too tired to go through and rename them, so I'll do that another time. This isn't all of them, but I thought I'd spare you from having to look at 20 shots of a whale dorsal fin sticking up!

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Pictures from Thursday and Friday

I wrote yesterday's blog while a little tipsy and a lot tired. I haven't gone back to read it yet, so I hope it makes sense!

Here are our pictures from Portland and a few from Middletown. :
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This is my favorite picture so far. Our luggage, which arrived 12 hours after we did, had two of these "Rush" tags on them!

Hello From Connecticut!

Andy and I have the worst luck traveling (like the airline going on strike in Mexico when we were trying to fly home from our honeymoon). This trip was no exception!


We left the house at 4:30 a.m. after having only about 4-5 hours of sleep. We had an 8 am flight to Baltimore, then a connecting flight to Portland, Maine. The Airtran lady did not notice the small fact that we were not staying in Baltimore, so she only tagged our bags to there with no transfer. Luckily, Andy caught the error at the gate and they told us just to let them know when we landed.


We arrive in Balitmore around 12:30 pm and the guy at the Portland ticket desk radioed the baggage guys and assured us that they would transfer the bags. Naturally, when we got here, the bags were not on our flight. We were told that Baltimore had called and that they were putting the bags on the next flight. They would arrive at 4:30. Luckily we had a rental car, and although Andy would be missing the wedding rehearsal, we would have time to explore Portland Maine.

So, we walked around Portland and visited all of the little gift shops, etc. We returned to the airport only to be told that the flight was delayed and that the bags would be in at 7:30. We were a little pissed, but we got back in the car and went to visit a lighthouse and drive around. At 7:30, we get back to the airport and see on the monitor that the flight was cancelled. We find the Airtran guy, Scott, and ask him where the heck our luggage is. He said that there was no way to find out and blah, blah, blah. Andy told him to get on the phone and figure it out, so he calls down to Baltimore and finds out that the bags are being put on a flight that is scheduled to arrive at 10:30.

We go see a movie (Chuck & Larry - pretty funny, although it may only be because we were so freakin' tired) and check the Airtran website. That flight is also delayed! We went to a restaurant to get a couple of drinks. There was something about the waiter there that reminded us of our brother-in-law, Jason, but this guy had sharper, angry features and appeared to be gay, so he was henceforth named Angry Gay Jason. We spent the whole time trying to sneak a picture of this poor guy with Andy's cell phone and giggling like maniacs because we had been up for so long.

So, 12 hours after our arrival, our bags finally arrive at 12:30 am. We still had a 3 1/2 hour drive to CT. We drove for about an hour, then pulled over at a Massachusetts rest area and slept in the rental car for 4 hours. We didn't check into the hotel until about 9 am today. It looks huge on the web page (http://www.innatmiddletown.com/) but it's much smaller in person.

Today, we just picked up Andy's tux for the wedding, had lunch and came back to the hotel and napped for 4 hours!

The rehearsal dinner tonight was nice. After the dinner was over, they opened up the room for any out of town guests to come and have dessert. I am sure I am the only one who ever watched this, but one of the guests was a former contestant of Temptation Island! If any of you happened to watch the first season, she was the girl with the funky hair, Mandy. She has bright red hair now and is apparently a caberet singer in NY. She knows the groom from a long time ago and I guess their parents are still friends.

Andy is still out at a bar with Pete (it's almost 1 am), but I came back to get some more sleep. I have over 8 months of sleep deprivation to catch up on (counting the lack of sleep during the first trimester of pregnancy).

Some quick things we've learned about New England - they love Dunkin Donuts. You know how there is a Waffle House on every corner in Georgia? That's how it is with Dunkin Donuts here. There are also not a lot of minorities. We thought it was odd in Maine when we saw a construction crew of all white guys! We haven't heard a lot of New England accents up here - no one has told us where to "pahk the cah" or anything.

I've talked to the Grandma's and Audrey is having a great time. She has learned how to open cabinets and undo the velcro on her shoes to take them off. She's like her momma - why wear shoes when you can go barefoot?

Well, I'm going to bed now. Maybe I'll try to get some pictures off of the camera tomorrow.

Panic Sets In!

I know that Audrey is in wonderful hands while we are gone, I know she'll will be spoiled rotten and have a blast, but I am about to have a major panic attack here at work! Why is it so freakin' hard to leave for a week? Ugh!

Anyway, we leave bright and early tomorrow and I hope to keep this site updated with pictures while we are on vacation. Keep your fingers crossed that I don't totally freak out, steal the rental car and drive all the way back home to my baby! ;)

Evening update: So I did have a panic attack at work and had to leave a little early. I couldn't breathe or talk. I got to come home, feed Audrey and give her a bath. She was so sleepy, she was a little cuddle bug - even big tough Daddy was sad to see her go! To top things off, right after she left a bug flew into my eye and got stuck in there! I had to flush my eye out a few times to get him out and my eye is bright red. Andy thought I was just making an excuse for red, watery eyes - I was crying when Audrey left, but then I really was attacked by a bug. I hope I can wear my contacts tomorrow! PJ called a little while ago to let us know that the first thing Roscoe when he got there did was steal PJs dinner off of his TV tray! It's good to see that Roscoe is feeling right at home!

Mommy and Daddy are Chickens

After much deliberation, we decided to leave Audrey at home during our trip. Hazel and Roscoe are more than capable of watching a 7 1/2 month old.

Actually, she will be splitting her time between the grandparents. Although both options (taking her or leaving her) are stressful, it will be less stressful to leave her here. We are looking forward to sleeping in past 7 am and not having to pack up half of the hotel room in order to leave for an hour. Also, the groom from the wedding passed along a couple of other phone numbers, and we didn't want to call more random people in CT who had no idea who we were! I think I would be freaked out if some people called me out of the blue and asked if I could watch their kids in a hotel room.

Yesterday, her older cousins came for a visit during lunch time. Tyler wanted to stay here and play while the twins went home and napped and we had a good time blowing bubbles and watching Curious George. He's so funny now that he talks! When Audrey fell and bumped her head (like she always does now), he walked up to her and said "You need to be more careful, Audrey." He wanted me to come over to his house the next day and I told him that I had to work. He told me that Daddy was going to work and I had to ask him if I could go too. So, Jason, is it okay if I go to work with you? I suck with computer stuff, but I'll try my best!

This photo is Miss Audrey with one of her favorite foods - avocado! She doesn't really like to eat jarred foods any more because she likes to feed herself. I always think she eats a bunch, but when I pick her up out of her high chair there is a pile of food under her butt that missed her mouth! She also likes to run her hands through her hair while she is eating. The hair behind her ears is always crusty.

This link goes to a video of Audrey and her favorite doggie, Hazel. She crawled over to Hazel and just sat there and laughed at her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LBAYk3mDHw

Hello!

There's not much new to report here, but I haven't posted in a week and just in case people actually read this, they might be bored with the same entry! ; )

We are leaving soon to fly up to New England for a wedding in Connecticut and a vacation at Acadia National Park. I am stressing about everything - will Audrey do okay on the flight, will she sleep in her travel bed (which still hasn't arrived - will it be here in time?), is she going to be fussy 'cause she won't want to nap while we are out doing stuff, which stroller should I bring, etc, etc.

It looks like I won't actually be at the wedding. We were under the impression that there would be a family friend watching kids at the hotel, then we get an email with a phone number for a friend of a friend's babysitter. We assumed that she was all set up, but when Andy called her, she had no idea about watching kids for a wedding. Rather than have them search around for another stranger, I'm just going to have to miss the wedding and stay back at the hotel with Audrey.

From the website, it looks like the hotel is in a historic district with a bunch of shops and cafes, so hopefully it won't be too boring! Andy bought a laptop, so I'll have internet access and will be able to update Audrey's blog throughout the trip, so be sure to check in!

I had Andy take a picture of me and Audrey and it just goes to show that she looks nothing like me, aside from the messy brown hair!