Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year! It was mine and Mitchell's first Christmas on our own without traveling to be with family. It was a little sad because we definitely miss being near our families but it was a neat experience to put in place our own holiday traditions. It was exciting that this year is Audrey's first Christmas! Mitchell and I didn't think she would get it at all, we pretty much thought Christmas would be like any other day to her. We were pleasantly surprised that she was extra excited that day! Here's how it all happened. Christmas Day Mitchell and I woke up about 7:45. We were SO excited to take Audrey to the living room to see what Santa brought! She normally wakes up between 7:00 and 7:30 so we didn't think she would sleep much longer. We waited and waited. We even went into her room and watched her sleep thinking that for sure she would stir and we could go open presents! No...she slept in until after 9 that day!! We probably should have taken advantage of the opportunity to sleep in on Christmas morning, I'm sure there will come a time when that is a luxury not to be had. I heard that my 9 year old cousin set his alarm for 5:00am this year! Anyway, Audrey was so cute and excited about all of the new toys and books! By the time we were done opening presents the living room floor was covered with fun new things for her to explore! She crawled from one toy to another playing with them and squealing with delight! She circled the living room playing non-stop until noon which was WAY past time that she should have had a nap. She wanted to play so badly that she was crying from exhaustion as she crawled from toy to toy! After a nap though, she was right back at it for the rest of the day! I think Christmas is made for kids. Seeing Audrey so delighted was definitely a highlight of the weekend!

Here's Audrey's haul! She was definitely spoiled on her 1st Christmas!

Later in the afternoon we decided to walk across the street to the big park nearby. There were TONS of people out sledding! We don't have a sled so we tried to improvise by using the lids from plastic storage bins. It was a fail. Bummer.

~HAPPY BIRTHDAY MITCHELL!!~

Sunday was Mitchell's birthday! And not just any birthday either, it was his GOLDEN birthday! We of course went to church in the morning then we had the missionaries and our friends Andy and Lynn over to celebrate! I made Mitchell's favorite meal of Chicken Curry Pasta Primavera and we had a yummy chocolate cake with lemon curd fulling. I attempted to get fancy and pipe 'Happy Birthday' with melted chocolate to make a 3D decoration on the cake but it was a fail. That's why the cake has a very crooked 'Birthday Happy' on top. ;)

Audrey loves company and is quite the little social flirt. She sat at the head of the table in her high chair for an hour entertaining herself and us. That earned her a little taste of birthday cake!

As seen in the last post Audrey figured out how to pull herself up on the furniture last week. Apparently she is very proud of herself for figuring that out because now all she wants to do all day is climb! She climbs on the couch, the fireplace, chairs, people, toys, her crib...basically anything she can access she wants to climb! She also thinks she can walk even though she really can't. She gets herself standing up then she lets go and tries to walk off. Of course she promptly falls flat on her face. I wonder how long it will take her to figure it out? It's very fun but I am nervous that she will fall and dislocate her shoulder or break her arm or something. Well, gone are the days of getting anything done during the day. Nap times are all the more precious now! I am so happy to get to be home with her though, I wouldn't trade this time! Another silly thing that she has started doing lately is fake coughing. She coughs all the time. I think she does it for attention, or maybe just to experiment with sounds.

This Baby Doesn't Want to be a Baby

I simply cannot believe how fast it seems that Audrey is growing up! She wants to do all things adult. She hates to be treated like a baby. Part of me is so proud of her for learning so quickly and so well but part of me would rather her stay my little snuggler forever! The one baby-like thing she still embraces without a hint of discontent is nursing. She will nurse as often as it's offered (even if she's not hungry) and she's really not that interested in solid food. She will, however, eat food if it comes from my plate on my fork! Haha, silly girl!

Yesterday she pulled herself up on a box and today she pulled herself up to the standing position on the chair. Doesn't she look so big!?!

In the evenings when Mitchell gets home from work the 2 loves of my life have play time together. I guess they were cold the other day because I found them having quiet activity time in bed. Audrey was trying to copy Daddy by examining her toy quietly next to him. I love to see them together!

This is just random cuteness. Silly sleeper!

Looks like I have a very special gift under my tree!

On the Move

Our little girlie has learned how to crawl! In the last week or two she has been getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth. Yesterday she actually took her first crawling...steps? I put up several videos, I don't really expect that the casual Audrey fan will watch them all but I do know there are some die hards out there that will. Enjoy!

This is a little plush nativity that my mom sent for Audrey. She loves it!

Watch out world! Here she comes!

Mitchell and I are on the move too. Santa visited our house early this year and brought us a treadmill! Hooray!

Snow Day!

This weekend we are in severe winter weather alert status. It blizzarded (is that a word?) all night and will continue until this evening. We woke up to a TON of snow! As a result church was canceled today. I love church and wouldn't want it to be canceled every week...but this is kind of fun! :) There is a lot of snow and it's pretty cold out there but probably the worst part about blizzards is the wind! We are having winds between 30-45 MPH from the north and it is COLD!! It also blows the snow up into tall banks. I'm glad we have no place to go because I'm sure it would blow our car all over the place on the road. We are sure the winter wonder will wear off after a while but we are enjoying the novelty of December in the midwest.

Meeting Santa

Some kids are afraid of Santa Claus when they meet him. Not Audrey...

Photo Dump

I have a bunch of photos again and not too many stories. Just the way a blog post ought to be!

Audrey's long hair is out of control! She likes to brush it down into her face and it just looks messy a lot. I finally got her some clips and it's helping a lot! I'm impressed that she doesn't just yank them out either!

Audrey has been experimenting with solid foods for about a month now. At first she was leery of the new textures but she was interested in eating like a grown up. After a while the novelty of it must have worn off because she totally lost interest. I was really fine with not feeding her solids for a while because it takes FOREVER but the pediatrician wants us to keep trying. The pediatrician actually wants her eating 3 meals a day but we are just going to start with 1 and see where that goes. (Above) Audrey and Daddy laughing while he attempts to shovel the yogurt and rice cereal in. Every time he got the loaded spoon near her mouth she clamped it shut!

This morning I had given up on trying and just dumped the whole container of yogurt on her tray. I don't think any made it to her mouth but she sure had fun!

The other night I wondered if she would feed herself finger foods. She doesn't really know how to chew yet so it would have to be something that pretty much melts in your mouth. How about grated cheddar and mozzarella cheese? It was a hit!

Here it is again!

For the last month we have known we were living on borrowed time since there was no snow on the ground yet. This is what we woke up to this morning. About 4-5 inches of soft powdery snow. Ahh, oh well, I guess winter has arrived.

In celebration of the season we had 2 other couples over this morning for gingerbread (graham cracker) house making! It was a blast! I should have gotten pictures of the process, it was so messy! We all had a great time though! Mitchell made a graham cracker temple (it's pretty gaudy so we'll call it a non-denominational temple) and I made a nativity scene.

Not For the Weak of Stomach

The other night as I was brushing my teeth something caught my eye. I glimpsed something unfamiliar on the floor behind the toilet so I took a closer look and found that there were MUSHROOMS growing out from under the baseboard! GROSS!!

So I have to admit, I probably haven't been as diligent as I should be at sanitizing the floor behind the toilet all the time but I do clean around here! Mitchell says I'm not completely to blame. Actually when he took a closer look he found a slow leak where the tank sits on the toilet and there has been moisture collecting under there for a while. Mitchell was my hero when he got down there and took care of the unwanted fungi. I was worried about him breathing in unidentified spores so I got him to wear an N-95 mask while he was cleaning up. We are happy to report that our little shroom farm is no more!