Week 52 (?!?!)

Wow, I can’t even believe I’m doing a week 52 post… how is it possible that my tiny baby Audrey is already a year old?!

Obviously the most exciting thing from this week was the first birthday party on Sunday, and I’ve already posted about that! But I had some other cute pictures that I wanted to share, along with a general milestone/what she’s doing now update… so, here goes…

Things to know about Audrey at 1:

~ She still gets the hiccups when she laughs

~ She says More, Please, Eat, and All Done now (baby sign language, anyway)

~ She says “Mama” (out loud… although I don’t know if she knows what it means yet. Both times she’s done it, she’s been walking towards me… heart MELTING.)

~ She says “Uh oh” and “Uh Uh” (and you can actually tell the difference)

~ She walks really well… although she has her Mommy’s coordination

~ She is fascinated by markers, crayons, and pencils… she takes a marker or a pencil and a piece of paper and tries to write on the paper. The crayons, well, the crayons she eats! :)

~ She will eat anything and everything… and as much of it as you’ll give her!

~ She absolutely LOVES her big sister… and her kitty

~ She is starting to prefer her pink blankie to all of her other blankets. Though, in a pinch, any blanket will do for her; she is quite the snuggle bug!

~ She loves to empty, well, pretty much anything- the diaper bag, my purse, my computer bag, the dvd rack, the shoe rack… anything that has stuff in it, she figures that stuff needs to be out of it, and strewn about the room!

~ She has quite the temper... if something doesn't go her way, she typically throws whatever she is holding/whatever we try to give her to appease her. She has also been known to engage in quite a tug-of-war with anyone trying to take something away from her- like grit her teeth, plant her little legs, and tug for all she's worth. I get the feeling we're going to have quite an interesting time with this one! :)

I think that’s about it. We go back to the doctor next week for her one year check/ear recheck, so I’ll have weight/height/etc. then. Hopefully we will also have a clear ear report, although I am not actually that confident. She has been very snotty and gunky and cranky for the last few days, and that usually means ear infection. But, who knows… we’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, a few pictures…

This was so sweet… I’ve been letting A walk in because I usually have too much stuff to make carrying her easy. So on Sunday Laney came over, grabbed Audrey’s hand, and led her inside. It was pretty adorable…

A few more birthday party pictures that I got from Ellen…

Mid-presents, Miss A decided that she needed to clear out some room for the cake… guess a one year old doesn’t know any better! Check out how red her face is! :)

I bought this really cute bow to go with her birthday dress (which cost $1, P.S.) and she absolutely REFUSED to leave it in. I guess she’s her Mommy’s daughter! :) The funny thing is, I’d put it in, she’d rip it out, and then she’d try to put it back in. It was a vicious cycle! :)

Busting out the toys during the party… this is what Josh & I got her, and it was nice to see her actually playing with it! :)

Monday, hanging out at home (yay for Spring Break). A played with her new toys, and the boxes they came in!

And on her actual birthday, dressed extra cute for school! Love that she grabbed her shirt like she was holding it up. Totally an accident, but cute anyway!

Today I brought cupcakes for Audrey’s class at school. I actually made applesauce cake, hoping to go for something a little healthier than store bought cupcakes with lots of icing! The cupcakes were really good. I tried to get cute and ice them with some pink icing… so I just threw some milk and powdered sugar together with some red food coloring, and it looked really adorable… for about 5 minutes, and then all of the icing soaked into the cupcakes and was gone! Oh well, the kids didn’t seem to mind! :)

The teachers at Cannery Row Preschool got some party decorations for Miss A, including this hat, which she did NOT want to wear!

However, once there was food in front of her, she seemed to forget about the hat for awhile! Check out the cute 1st bday sash, too!

All the kids… Laney got to come in to have the party with us. She was pouting in this picture, because her hat was blue, and that was “Not my favorite color!” Life is rough for a 3 year old…

So, there’s the week 52 update… the last weekly update. I’ll be honest, I’m kind of sad that I’m mostly done with Audrey’s blog. Although, it does mean that I’ll have more time to post on the other blog… and I have a few more posts here, too. Check back Saturday for some fun videos, and, of course, a post-doctor’s appt visit next week. Man, 52 weeks since the crazy IL birth! :) Hard to believe…

It’s a Party!

Ok, here’s a first birthday party post with more pictures than is really reasonable… but, oh well! :)

Corey & Andrea, some of the youth leaders from church, got married this past weekend, so Josh was coming into town for their wedding.  Since next weekend is Young Christians’ Weekend, and Josh wouldn’t be here for Audrey’s actual birthday, we figured that we better make the party the weekend before!  So we decided to have it Sunday afternoon, after church.  We were slightly complicated by the fact that we had a showing Sunday morning (of course), so we couldn’t decorate or anything beforehand.  But we came running home from church, tossed the birthday girl in her swing for a quick nap, and got to business!  And, by 1:00 or so, we were pretty much ready to go!

I actually forgot the wake up the birthday girl for awhile, but finally noticed someone important was missing from the party! :)  So I gently woke her up…

“Mommy, I was sleeping!”

And it took some snuggling in the middle of the living room floor…

 

But eventually she woke up… particularly when the food came out!

Since we were doing lunch right after church we kept the menu pretty simple- pork roast in the crock pot for shredded pork sandwiches, potato salad, cheesy potatoes, chips, cole slaw, and deviled eggs.  Simple, but absolutely delicious!

And, of course, there was Yaya’s famous orange kool aid, which Audrey POUNDED! :)

Love Hyvee bakery… great cakes (taste and look), and they give you a free 5 inch round for the baby cake!

P.S. isn’t the banner on the cake cute?!  Courtesy of Ellen, of course!

 

This picture looks a lot like the other picture of the cake, but I liked that the flowers were in focus instead of the cake… thanks, Ruth, for being the photographer for the day!

After lunch, it was present time!  As with most 1 year olds, Audrey had quite the haul!  Thankfully, Miss E got a few presents, too, to keep her occupied! 

Miss A. was at least a little interested in opening presents! :)

But mostly was interested in playing with her new toys!

And trying out her new chair from Grandma & Grandpa Looten!

When presents were opened (and assembled, and played with a little) it was CAKE TIME!  I’ll admit, I was interested to see what Audrey did with her cake.  Laney just kind of picked at her’s, and mostly ate icing.  But Miss A has always been a little more interested in eating than Laney was at her age (probably because I’ve been a little more relaxed with her and let her try food earlier, and eat more of it sooner).  Anyway, she definitely has shown a penchant for sweets, so I figured she would enjoy her cake.  She did not disappoint…

She reached out and snagged a piece of icing while we were singing, before I moved the cake farther away!  She was definitely a fan, and immediately started saying “More, more.”  Translated, that means, “HAND IT OVER, MOMMY, BEFORE THINGS GET UGLY!”

Which I eventually did… she started off slow:

 

but she got the hang of it pretty quick…

She hit the actual cake (they put a lot of icing on those cakes!)…

And started really going at it! :)

Mmmm, a sugar coma is moments away!

 

She did some serious damage to that  cake!

 

And some good damage to herself, too! :)

So we took Audrey to the sink and hosed her down, and then everyone else got to enjoy dessert- cake, ice cream, and Mom’s banana pudding, yum!!

Despite having eaten almost an entire cake, Audrey still managed to find room for some banana pudding she suckered from Aunt Ruthie!  :)

Audrey and Grandpa Looten!  She’s obviously working on a good sugar crash here! :)

Mommy made her wear the hat!  Notice I’m holding her hands down! :)

And it wouldn’t be a party without a family picture!  Unfortunately, it was the end of the party, so Miss E. was in desperate need of a nap, and Daddy wasn’t much happier about taking a picture, so I wasn’t sure we were ever going to get a good one!  But, hey, it makes the outtakes even funnier!

Grandma Price was the photographer’s assistant for this round!

Daddy and Laney, definitely the cranky ones!

It took everything in me not to pop that stupid balloon!

And finally, a mostly good one! :)

   

So, there it is… Audrey’s first birthday party… absolutely crazy to think that she is turning one already.  But we sure had fun hanging out, talking and telling stories with family, and celebrating Miss A’s first year of life.  She is developing such personality, it’s going to be interesting to see where she what kind of kid she is in another year!

Weeks 50 & 51

Wow, so hard to believe I’m writing the post for weeks 50 & 51… and Audrey’s birthday party is this weekend!! 

Audrey is getting so big… she knows the signs for 3 words now, “More,” “Please” and “Eat.”  Last weekend, the weekend of the 12th, she really figured out the whole walking thing.  Instead of stumbling all over the place, she really just started taking off and walking.  She’s gotten progressively steadier since then, and now she walks as much or more then she crawls.  It’s still strange to be in a room and see her walk around the corner! 

We had a few days of really nice weather, so I decided to take the girls to the park.  It was Audrey’s first time of really being able to enjoy the park, and boy, did she enjoy it!  She is a FAN of sliding!  At first she just sat at the top of the slide until I pulled her foot and made her slide down.  Then, after a slide or two, she started leaning forward and sliding herself, until she was sliding down before I could get to the bottom to catch her! 

This sliding thing is AWESOME! :)

Our major adventure during the past two weeks was our trip to IL for Grandma’s auction.  We had a good time, and I got lots of good pictures of Audrey enjoying the farm.  She’s a farm girl at heart, and I had to scrub grass stains out of her jeans by the end of the weekend!  :)

Audrey & Max… probably the origin of the grass stains! :)

Riding a tractor with Daddy!

Refusing to nap with Aunt Ruthie… NOT tired! 

She did learn that gravel was hard to walk on, and managed to coerce Sam into helping her!

 

Audrey & Aunt Sarah, rockin’ the shades!

 

What would a trip to Grandma Judy’s be without a trip around the farms to see all of the baby animals?  We piled in the mule (and Charlie in the four wheeler) and off we went!

Watching the cows from Aunt Ruthie’s shoulders!

No, we did NOT actually let her ride like this… but it was too cute of a photo op!

 

Who said she could get so big?!

Always has to do what big sister does… hanging on the fence with Uncle Charlie.

 

Just cute…

Farm girls, even if they were born in town!  Yes, Miss A is licking the fence… I had to resist the urge to wash her mouth out with purell after this…

Audrey, sticking out her tongue.

Funny part about that picture is the picture before that, Charlie had photo bombed by sticking out his tongue.  So we were teasing/yelling at him for sticking out her tongue, and Audrey did it in the next picture!!

But we finally got a cute one of Miss A and me!

 

Audrey definitely loved having all of the dogs around while we were in IL… she was constantly going after one!  Thankfully, they were all pretty tolerant!

 

Audrey has a new food love: cornbread!  Yes, it’s even one her forehead! :)

 

So there’s two week’s worth of pictures of Miss A!  Next week I’ll have lots of good pictures of her FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY!  Can’t believe it!

In other A news, she still does not have an ear infection (that we’ve noticed- she is snotty, but doesn’t have a temp or anything).  We go back to the doctor on April 4th to double check, and are really praying for clear ears.  But I’m pretty at peace with having tubes if we need them, I just want her to be healthy.

She still eats, well, pretty much whatever you put in front of her.  I haven’t really found much she won’t eat, but she LOVES bananas, hot dogs (cut up small, of course), green beans, and pretty much any fruit, really.  She is definitely developing lots of personality, for better or worse!  She has opinions about most things, and she’s so funny when you try to take something away from her.  She loves to play with Laney’s crayons, but since she mostly eats them, it’s not usually a good idea!  But if she gets one and I go to take it away from her, she will grab whatever she’s standing next to (usually Laney’s table), square her feet, grit her teeth, and just pull and pull to keep the crayon.  It’s hilarious.  Stubborn child!!  She still loves blankies, especially thrashing around in a big blanket, like a comforter.  She usually takes one nap at school, and still sometimes takes one little evening siesta of a half hour or so. 

So there’s the A-Lou update… turning one next week… I don’t know where the time has gone…