Taking Care of the Dogs

While Audrey was napping today, I put the dogs food and water on the floor and then forgot about it. Later, I was on my laptop and she was quietly playing in the kitchen. I walked in to check on her and found her "feeding" her puppy dog. She was holding him in the water dish, which was half full, when I first walked in.

Then he got some food.

Then he had to get another drink.

Oops! There is water dripping all over the floor. It's just like when Roscoe gets a drink and his ears fall in the bowl!

Hazel didn't think this game was as cute as I did. :)

Audrey has been doing a lot of cute, silly stuff lately. She loves to bend over, put her head on the floor, and look at you from between her legs. She recently discovered the curtains in my bedroom and likes to hide behind them and giggle. She also reads her book "Where's Spot?" In the book, Spots mommy is looking for him at dinner time. On each page, his mommy asks "Is Spot behind the door (or whatever the picture is)?" and when you lift the flap, it's another animal who says "No!"

When Audrey looks at this book, she'll say "Zooba dooba doopa duh? Nooooo!" She really accentuates the No and it is quickly becoming her favorite word.

Right is Left and Left is Right

Last Friday and today there has been a substitute in the baby room while Miss Tammy is out. Both Friday and today, Audrey has come home with her Adidas on the wrong feet! I could understand it if Audrey was the one putting her own shoes on, but this is an adult putting shoes on the wrong feet! Poor kid! She also has not been filling out Audrey's daily paper, and being the control freak that I am, it drives me crazy not knowing what she ate for lunch and when she napped. On the plus side, she has been coming home much cleaner. I don't think Miss Tammy puts a bib on her at lunch time and she usually comes home filthy.

They told us yet again that she'll be making the switch to the 1-2 year old room soon. She spent most of the day over there today and came back to the baby room to nap in the crib. They sleep on mats on the floor in the big kid room and I'm curious how she's going to handle that. She's never really fallen asleep in the middle of the floor before.

I had to delete about 10 pictures like the one below to get the one at the top of the post. She wanted to hold the camera, but then she'd just stick her hands all over the lens. I'm no expert, but I have a feeling that greasy baby hands aren't good for camera lenses.

"O?"

Miss Audrey is doing much better now (me too, mentally and physically). She missed going to the birthday party on Saturday because she was still clingy and screamy so we just stayed home and relaxed. We did make one errand to Petsmart. She loved the fish and seeing all of the pictures of cats and dogs! On Sunday, we went over to celebrate Grandma Mary's birthday with a b'day brunch. Audrey stayed at the house with Grandpa and Ian while I went to see 27 Dresses with Mary. It was nice to get away for a little bit, especially after the past couple of days!

Right when we got back into the garage, the tornado sirens started going off. Pete had just gotten to the basement with the babies and they both pooped on the way down (both babies, not Pete). Right when we set Audrey down to change her, the power went out. Grandpa Pete gets an A at changing diapers in the dark!

When we left, she waved good-bye to Grandma and Grandpa. It's the first time she waved even though I've been trying to get her to do it for a long time.

She has a few more new tricks:

- She picks up her sippy cup with her teeth and slings her head back to drink, like she's doing a shot. UGA, here she comes!

- She picks up the phone, holds it to her ear and says "O?"

This picture was taken with my cell phone on the way home from daycare today. She was really into her Elmo book. She obviously didn't inherit my car sickness gene.

Black Friday!

Warning: This post is going to turn into a really long rant! And, again, when I click to publish this rant, all of the spaces between paragraphs are gone.

Audrey and I had a horrible day on Friday. It started out at about 1 am. Audrey woke up and I was in and out of her room a million times. I finally brought her into bed with me around 3, then she woke up screaming at 4. One bottle, 3/4 tsp Tylenol and one Baby Einstein video later, she started dozing off. Unfortunately, it was 5:15 and my alarm goes off at 5:45. I stuck her in her crib to sleep while I got ready for work (Andy was still in South Carolina hunting).

I waited until the last possible minute to get her up and dressed and the poor kid was sound asleep, finally. She was so groggy as I was getting her dressed and she cried hard when I dropped her off at daycare. I cried when I got back to my car. I felt like the worst mommy ever because I knew she wasn't feeling well and needed to sleep, but I had no choice 'cause I had to go to work.

Daycare calls me at about 9:30 to let me know that Audrey has a 102 fever. Now, I'm in my car crying again because I am a horrible mommy for dropping her off sick and a horrible employee who works three days a week, then has to leave after 2 hours! I picked her up and she slept on my lap for about 3 1/2 hours (she had a long nap at daycare too).

So, off we go to the peditrician... again. Guess who has an ear infection two and a half weeks after getting her tubes in? Ugh! We go back to Kroger to get an oral antibiotic and I finally pick up all of her skin cremes. At this point, it's around 5 pm and Andy is still out of town. I look at my list of stuff to do to Audrey after my 3 hours of sleep the night before and call Grandma H. crying, so she was nice enough to come up and help me out!

Here is our new nightly routine for the next 10 days: 4 drops of antibiotic in her infected ear, oral antibiotic, saline spray and suction to the nose to help get some of the gunk out of her head, bath if needed to wash the gunk out of her hair that has dripped out of her ear, then body creme, Aquafor and cortaid on the rash. I'm tired just looking at the list!

Andy got home around 11 last night and took over nightly crying baby duty so I could get some sleep before I had a mental breakdown!

On the up side, Audrey seems much better this morning. Hopefully she'll still be feeling okay after her nap because she has a birthday party to go to.

The pictures on this post are a couple of the ones from Mike. There is a link below to a few more of my favorites.

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AZM3DRozaNGcQ

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Happy Valentine's Day!

We hope everyone is having a great Valentine's Day! Ours started with our monthly unplanned emergency trip to the pediatrician. I noticed a slight rash on Audrey's shoulder last night and by this morning, it had spread across her back and was in the crease of her elbows. It turns out Miss Sensitive Skin has eczema and I have to stop using all of her yummy smelling soaps and lotions. I have to change soap, put a cream on twice a day, Aquafor lotion nightly, and Cortaid on the rash until it's gone. And her left ear has discharge so we (and by we I mostly mean I) have to put drops in it twice a day. If it's not one thing, it's something else! Luckily the rash doesn't seem to bother her.

Other than that, we are all doing well. Andy and Hazel left this morning to go hunting, so Audrey, Roscoe and I will be spending a romantic evening together!

The Odd Couple

I finally got Mom's pictures from the party. Here are a few of my favorites. This is the one where everyone is singing to the twins...






This is Jack with his cake all over his face, his hands, the table and the chair.


And this is his anti-twin, the anal-retentive clean freak Ryan, cleaning the table off. One of Ryan's first sentences was "I need a towel." I love the look on his face - he's so happy to be cleaning! I wish he'd move in here!

Here is a link to the rest of Mom's pictures:

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AZM3DRozaNGcB

I am still waiting on pictures from Mike - he is a great photographer and I heard that he got a few good shots of the princess.

The Wonder Twins Turn Two!

Ryan and Jack turned 2 last weekend and they had a Buzz Lightyear/Elmo party on Saturday. Audrey lived up to her reputation as a party girl by climbing up and sitting in the middle of the kids table and then running through the kitchen topless with her arms in the air while I was changing her out of her dress. I'm scared for her when she goes off to college!



The twins were cute with their gifts and cakes. Ryan had to show all of his gifts to Pete and Mary and have Mary fold the tissue paper. Jack "wowed" at most of his gifts. While everyone was singing Happy Birthday to them, Ryan stared at everyone with a look of fear while Jack smiled his trademark big, cheesy smile! Jack tried to blow his candles out but only succeeded in blowing his bangs up, and while Tina was trying to get Tyler to help Ryan, Ryan reached down and grabbed the flame on his candles. Luckily he did it quickly and did not burn his little fingers!



Audrey and I got colds over the weekend and I got to see how good her tubes work. I cleaned a ton of gunk that had drained out of her ears all weekend. I left work early today (God forbid!) to go to the doctor for myself and I have a sinus infection, so I made my monthly trip to the Kroger Pharmacy. Between me and Audrey, I'm surprised they don't know us by name there yet.



I didn't bring my camera to the party 'cause I knew there would be about 25 other cameras, so I will post some pictures once Mom or Tina forward some (hint, hint...)

Free Fallin'... Asleep, Out of Bed, & Tom Petty

(I apologize for the format - it keeps switching it like this when I click to post)

Awww... doesn't Audrey look so sweet in this picture? I wish that is how she looked last night from 11:30 pm to 4 am!

On Sunday night, Andy & I decided that we have to stop sleeping with her in her Lazy Boy every time she wakes up in the middle of the night. It's becoming almost a nightly habit. That night, she woke up about every hour until 2 am, and we would go in, turn on her crib aquarium, hand her Puppy and pat her back until she settled down.

Last night, however, things did not go so smoothly. She woke up at 11:30 and I rocked her until about 12:15, then decided to just let her cry it out. At 1:15, I couldn't take it anymore, so I went back in and rocked her for a while, but she was fidgety and wide awake. I put her back down and let her cry for about 30 more minutes, went back in for another hour or so, then put her back down at about 3:30. She finally cried herself to sleep by 4 am.

She woke up at 8:30 this morning. I let her sit in her crib and talk to Puppy for a while, then she started getting fussy, so I got up to go to the bathroom before getting her up. All of the sudden, Andy and I hear a "thump.... WAAAHH!" Somebody climbed out of her crib! The crib was still on the middle height setting. I had just told Andy last night that he needs to lower it because Audrey is a climber and it's only a matter of time before she figures out how to get out. He put it on his "To Do" list and you can bet that it got done this morning before he left for work!

So what is Mommy doing while Audrey is napping? Napping, you say? Nope, I have the work phones forwarded to my cell phone today so I can't take a nap. I just finished mopping the hardwoods with Orange Glo Hardwood Cleaner. I am embarrased to say that in the 5 years we've lived here, I have never mopped the hardwoods. I have swept them plenty of times, but the wood is so crappy that I was always afraid to mop them. I bought the cleaner when I was pregnant with the intentions of cleaning the floor before Audrey started crawling. I missed that deadline by 6 months! I must say, they look a whole lot better! It's amazing how much cleaner the house feels when the floors are clean.

Can you tell by the length of this post that I'm procrastinating on doing more cleaning? Andy has invited the two guys who work under him and their wives up for dinner on Friday, so I have major work to do!

By the way, the Tom Petty reference in the title has to do with the Super Bowl half time show, which Audrey thoroughly enjoyed! She watched and danced to the whole thing. She has good taste in music!

Sunday Update

Audrey continues to do well from her surgery, but now she appears to have a cold. She's had the runs, a snotty nose and hasn't eaten much the past couple of days, and last night she and I barely slept because she was so fidgety.

She spent both Thursday and Friday at daycare this week. The owner of the company that I work for was upset that I took Wednesday off of work for Audrey's surgery since I only work three days a week, so he had my boss call and ask if I'd come in on Thursday. Nice, huh? I get a lot of respect at work. Anyway, they sent Audrey down to play in the 1-2 year old room again and she had a great time this week. When I brought her in on Thursday, another little girl ran up to her, waved and handed her a toy. Audrey took off to play and never looked back. It was pretty cute.

Yesterday, Grandma Carol came up and we went to the new shops up in Cumming, which was exhausting! Audrey didn't want to stay in her stroller, so Grandma and I took turns chasing her through Home Goods, Old Navy, Off Broadway Shoes, Ulta and Target. She had the girls at the shoe store laughing 'cause she had to stick her face in/on every window pane. People outside were stopping and waving to her - she's a ham! She finally used her Target gift card that Great Uncle Butch and Great Aunt Jaynee sent for her birthday. We found a doll that has a puppy that looks a lot like Audrey's puppy that she sleeps with. I attempted to get a picture of them all together, but the best I could do was get Audrey near the doll, then puppy with the doll!