sitting pretty

we bought audrey some new clothes last night because she has outgrown her 3-6 month clothing. we tried kid to kid since she is growing so fast but didn't have any luck. we did find her some darling little new outfits after kid to kid though, haha. i put her in this little dress with brown leggings and she looked so cute i had to pull out the camera and do a photo shoot. there were a lot of good shots, but this one was my favorite by far.

she looks so grown up.

goodbye toothless smile

audrey has a tooth! dave and i have been checking pretty regularly since she has been a little more fussy than usual the last couple of weeks but we haven't felt anything and then today i felt it and i peeked into her mouth and sure enough she has a little tooth. i was so excited i had to call dave and let him know. i can't believe my little pumpkin is growing up so fast.

six months old

my dear little audrey jane,
you are six months old today. where does the time go? i just adore you, my little princess. you are such a sweetheart. you love looking in the mirror and always smile big when you see your reflection. you love music and you love to dance. you open your mouth and smile big whenever music starts playing. you love to sit in your bumbo and watch mommy cook in the kitchen. you are very interested whenever we eat and each day you are getting better at eating with a spoon...so far sweet potatoes are your favorite. you love to grab and hold onto your toes...whether you are sitting and reach down for them or laying on your back (when you throw your legs up and reach up and grab them) you love to hold your toes. you love to laugh and you love to watch tv, often while you are watching you will give out a big hearty laugh that makes us laugh so hard because we can not believe such a little person can laugh so loud and so abruptly. your favorite toy is your glo-worm and you always reach out for it and try to eat the face. when you are in your jumparoo, you will grab onto both sides of the toy bar and just study the toys. you love to make people laugh. you often will look at us to see our reaction to you and then smile big and laugh. you also love books and your eyes get big each time the page is turned when we read to you. you love other babies and kids. when we were at a restaurant last week, the family sitting next to us had a little girl and each time she looked at you, you would smile and laugh. your cousin jj loves you and can't hug and kiss you enough when we go visit, you often talk to each other and you often raise the volume of your voice to match his. you are so beautiful. i could swear that your eyelashes get longer every time i look at you. your eyes have this sparkle in them that i hope they never lose. all of our family and friends were so excited for you to be born that we received oodles of new, darling clothing for you and you are always dressed to the nines. you like observing people, just taking it all in. you are at a stage where you want me or daddy all the time. when you are about to (or deciding whether to) cry, you get this exaggerated frown on your face that, while it is sad, is just adorable. it upsets you if i walk away from you (even if you can see me) to make your bottle so i have mastered doing all things with you in my arms (preparing bottles, making lunch, eating, etc) and it is incredible to look in your eyes and see the love you have for me. i love you too my little sweetheart.

yesterday

i know i have not been blogging that much lately. i have not been feeling well this week at all. i have had a constant headache and have not gotten much sleep. i just feel off. anyway, yesterday was my dad's birthday. he would have been sixty-one years old. dave called my sister melissa to find out what kind of food my dad liked and she told him that he was a steak and potatoes kind of guy so dave brought home steak and potatoes for dinner. it was so nice to not have to cook or clean and be able to celebrate my dad's life. it is interesting...in the past i have always thought more about my dad on the day he died than on his birthday, but i have tried the last couple of years to reflect more on his life and celebrate his birthday instead of reflecting on his death and the loss of him in my life on the day he died. i was so young and i never remember celebrating my dad's birthday growing up, not once...but the day he died is a day i will never forget.

i know that my dad would want us to have joy and smile when we think of him and tell our children stories of who he was and remember that he loved us very much.

superior customer service

i am just waiting until the princess wakes up so i can go over and squeeze my new little nephew and cuddle him but i thought i would write about an experience i had yesterday. i was on my way home from my sister's house when i stopped to get some windex and paper towels. i am going off sugar in january so i thought i would pick up some diet soda for those times i wanted a treat so i don't stray.

first, let me just say that i LOVE cranberry splash sierra mist free. it is so yummy. you can't even tell that it is diet. my husband has been looking for it to get for me for a couple of weeks to no avail. it is only seasonal and we thought it was gone. it didn't stop me from looking though. nothin. so i picked up some diet cola and headed for the checkout. i suddenly decided that i should be drinking water, not cola, even if it is diet, so i put the cola back on an endcap of soda nearby...and there they were, kind of backlit, like a miracle, two cases of the cranberry splash. i picked them up and checked out and went to the car. i was so excited i called my sister on the way home and told her i had a pack for me and a pack for her and she was excited too (we love this stuff, it is like christmas crack, haha). i unload my baby and albertsons bag only to find no cranberry splash.

i had left it in the bottom of the basket. i was so mad. i called the store and the manager offered to go out to the parking lot and look for it (since i couldn't just go buy it somewhere) and he put me on hold...about ten minutes later he came back and told me that he combed the parking lot and asked the bag boys and found nothing. he said if i didn't mind waiting he would check the back stockroom to see if they had anything. i said i didn't mind and he found two cases. this grocery manager was so kind. i told him (and he heard) that i had a fussy baby on my hands and i asked if my husband could pick them up on the way home from work. i told him my husband would be happy to pay for them because it wouldn't be very convenient for him to come home first. this store is not our regular store, but closer to my sister's house. the manager told me (i didn't know he was the manager at this point) he was happy to just give them to my husband, he didn't need to pay for them again or go home to get the receipt. how nice is that? it isn't very often that you get that kind of customer service.

i just called his manager and told him how impressed i was with my shopping experience and with this particular employee because it seems like people often times only relay negative experiences.

here i am, sipping my sugar free cranberry splash...mmm, kindness tastes good.

while i am waiting...

for rachel to call to say that her baby was born, i thought i would write a little post about christmas...even though i really want to post about a new little someone that should be arriving soon. i got a call at one saying she got a call from the hospital to come in to be induced. i am so eager to hold this bundle of joy!!

anyway, christmas was a huge success. i have always loved christmas and having audrey here with us has been the only thing we have wanted for the past two christmases so it made our christmas to share it with her.

we had dinner on christmas eve dinner with my aunt rosemary and uncle kent at their house and then santa came, we read "twas the night before christmas" and opened some presents and everything was delightful. i have a darling picture to post of audrey in a hat that my cousin jennifer knitted for her once it is emailed to me. she looked so cute in it.

we came home and opened up a couple of presents (including new christmas pajamas) and watched "it's a wonderful life" and settled in for a long winter's nap.

dad and audrey let me sleep in until they couldn't take the anticipation anymore and came into wake me up. we went down and turned on some christmas music and helped audrey go through her stocking. it was so cute to watch her as we helped her open all her presents and see which ones she got excited about and the ones where she was unimpressed, haha.

dave spoiled me with a wii fit and a heartrate monitor as well as some fun ipod accessories, some new shoes and slippers and a few other fun things. rachel, jeremy and jj came over for our traditional christmas brunch (deviled egg and ham casserole and sweet rolls, orange rolls are so yummy) and some guitar hero world tour (that is what santa brought for dave).

i wish i had taken more pictures, but i am glad i took a couple at least!

audrey with her loot!


it took a few tries to get the above picture, she was very tired and she does the trick when she is tired of her bumbo. she leans all the way back and pops her stomach up. it makes me very nervous and she is only in that seat when mom or dad is by her side...


she LOVES to watch guitar hero, she makes me laugh so hard. you can see my new slippers in the background :)


she is our little thumb sucker!



she loves her activity gym! thanks ana and grandpa!



all dressed up in her christmas outfit


this one is actually from a few weeks ago when audrey and i were both sick, laying on the couch. i love this picture even though i am in desperate need of chapstick because audrey looks so funny in it. "how much formula did i drink last night?" haha.


this one is from last night when we were tending jj. when his parents came to pick him up he wanted to hold audrey so bad. it is so cute to see how much he loves her.


well those are a few highlights of our celebration. we missed our family members that don't live here and hope they had a wonderful holiday.

**RACHEL UPDATE** just got a text that said that baby will be here about midnight at this rate!! i am SO excited!

the best christmas book ever

today has been a good day. audrey is now five months, hard to believe it. she is such a sweet girl. i met some high school friends for lunch today and she was such a good girl through the whole thing. no one else brought their kids but since daddy had a dental appointment, the babe came with me. she is at an entertaining age right now. she has such a fun sense of humor. she doesn't take her binky much but instead prefers her fingers, doesn't have a particular one she sucks on, just whatever she can get in her mouth...sometimes it is her whole fist, haha. she has a little woodpecker laugh that is so unique and fun. she LOVES television and if it is on she will watch it, she will even strain to turn and watch if her back is facing it. she likes to giggle at her dad. she laughs with me sometimes, but no one can get her laughing the way her dad can. since she was a newborn she has studied everything around her. it is fun to watch her because you can see her taking it all in, observing her surroundings and trying to assimilate. she will not lean her head on anyone's shoulder. she wouldn't even as a newborn, she has to have her head up and be able to see what is going on...you know, be part of the action. she is a sweetheart and i wish i could freeze this moment but since i can't, i try to write down as much as i can about her and take lots of pictures and videotape so i never forget these sweet moments.

it was fun to see my friends today and catch up. it was especially fun to see that a friend of mine who has struggled for years with infertility is pregnant with twins and found out yesterday she is having a boy and a girl. could there be anything more happy? i was choking back tears while talking to her about struggling to conceive because wow, that is familiar to me. after lunch, audrey and i went to the library to pick up a book on hold for me, "the best christmas pageant ever" and can i just say that i love that book. it was one of my favorites as a child and i hadn't read it in years and had all but forgotten about it when it popped into my head on sunday night. it was fun to read it when i put audrey down for a little nap.

it was interesting to think about the christmas story and reflect on mary and how she must have felt.

"But as far as I'm concerned, Mary is always going to look a lot like Imogene Herdman-sort of nervous and bewildered, but ready to clobber anyone who laid a hand on her baby."

i don't know if it is because this is the first time i read this story as an adult or because i am a mother now or the general sappiness i feel during this time of year but i cried all the way through this book. i couldn't help but remember how uncomfortable i was that last month of pregnancy and how anxious i was for the safe arrival of my baby. i remember wanting to be the best mom i could be and give her every advantage. i think of mary feeling tired, hot, uncomfortable, swollen and so in need of a place to rest her head after her travels only to be brought to a barn. i think about my experience when my baby was born, family and friends around us, bringing us food and flowers and two nurses assigned to me at all times to help me when i needed or wanted something...i can't help but think of mary and the humble birth of her Baby. what a woman she must have been to endure all that she did and give birth to the Savior of the world.

i also loved that these children who were the terror of the town would be touched by this story and offer up their own christmas ham (when they don't have two nickels to rub together) as a present for the baby Jesus.

it was fun to read it today. i love christmas movies and books but most are about being a better person, more giving, more loving, etc. or about santa claus. it was a nice change of pace to read a christmas book that made me reflect on the birth of Christ which is what Christmas is really about.