I owe you...

WOW, I am possibly the laziest blogger ever.  Managed to skip right over my baby's first birthday and Christmas!  First steps, too - she is walking now!  But as you can imagine, things have been busy.  It hasn't been my top priority to update here.

Here's a little collage of Audrey's first 12 months.  Is it just me, or has she looked about the same from birth?  I think it's the lack of hair.  But she's so much bigger.  In the first year she grew 10 inches and nearly tripled her weight!  She is my tiny giant.

And now... a video of Audrey devouring a cupcake!!  Enjoy. 



Alarmingly, looking through all of these nostalgic baby photos is making me want another kid.  Aaah!  This is how they get you!  You can't see all the sleep deprivation in the happy photos.  :)

I'll try to come back soon and catch up even further!  But to be honest, I've been much better about keeping my Facebook account updated with photos, videos and updates.  It's a little embarrassing.  If anyone would like to keep in touch with me there, let me know!  You will definitely get to see more timely pictures.  This birthday stuff is over a month old!

baby's birthday checklist

Balloons: Check!

Pumpkin cupcakes: Check!

Sweet baby girl on the verge of being a year old: Check!

Tomorrow is Audrey's first birthday.  A year ago exactly, I was already in bed, trying unsuccessfully to get a good night's sleep, knowing I would meet my daughter the next day.  A year ago exactly, this little person didn't exist outside of my body.  I'm so proud that we made it through this first year; it has definitely been monumental.

Robert's family will be here with us tomorrow, celebrating Thanksgiving and Audrey's birthday! 

Note: that last picture is actually a few weeks old... Our big tree has lost most of its leaves now, and Audrey has outgrown that shirt!  Things change so quickly.

Audrey's First Halloween

Sorry it's been a bit quiet over here.   We've just been enjoying fall and living it up!  Audrey had her first Halloween.  As many events with a baby or toddler, it wasn't quite as fancy as I was hoping it'd be.  Before any trick-or-treaters had even shown up at our house, Audrey was already out of her costume and eating dinner, and then we had to deal with our doorbell ringing all evening while we tried to get her to bed!  But at least I got some cute pictures.

Last year vs. this year - oh what a difference a year can make!

I decided to dress up as a witch - too easy!

Time is flying and Audrey is growing so quickly.   We are now less than 2 weeks away from her birthday!  I can't believe that a year ago I didn't even know her.  She is the biggest part of my life now.  It's very strange to welcome a tiny person into your home and let them consume your life!  It's also the most difficult thing I've ever done, and probably the most worthwhile.  (That's one of those cliches that is just very true, no getting around it!) 

As much as she's grown and changed, she has always been the headstrong little person she is now, and I think we always somehow expected her to be this way.  She has a unique baby personality.  Robert put it this way the other day: "I love how she never just makes innocent little baby faces.  She always looks like she's plotting to kill you."  In the cutest way possible, of course!  This little girl is the personification of mischief and curiosity, and we love her so much.

She is into EVERYTHING.  She has taken a few steps now, and should be walking fairly soon.  I have a theory that it's difficult for her to balance because she grows so quickly that her center of gravity keeps changing!  But she's working on it.  She uses baby signs now: she knows "bath," (that was the first one she learned) "more," "all done," and "eat."  She has still never called me mama, but I think she can say the word duck.  She is a funny little thing.  Oh, and best of all, she is pretty consistent about sleeping through the night now!  Things are pretty good.

real shoes for baby

Audrey isn't walking yet, but she does enjoy it when we hold her hands and "help" her walk around.  I knew that we'd be needing some real shoes for her soon!  (As opposed to the soft "crib shoes" that are mainly for baby decoration.)  So while Robert was shopping for new shoes last weekend, I picked up a pair for Audrey.  Cuteness ensued, and we had to go for a late afternoon walk to break them in!  The weather has been spectacular lately.

The other cutest thing happening around here is that Audrey now DANCES any time she hears music.  She's been dancing on occasion for months, but now as soon as the first note hits, she starts swaying.  It's almost too much to handle.  Baby cuteness overload!  She is just about 10 months old, and so much fun.   She's turned into such a pleasant companion!

owlette collective

So many people commented on Audrey's spiky bonnet in the last post that I just wanted to tell you where I got it!  A friend gave it to us when I was pregnant, and that little bonnet kept me on the edge of my seat, waiting for the tiny companion that could wear it.  Of course she found it on Etsy... at owlette collective.  I checked over there today, and look at the adorable things they have in stock!  I couldn't keep these to myself.

Blue Green Zig Zag Spike Bonnet

Pink Circus Owl Bib

Gray Green Two Tone Vest

It's hard to keep such precious baby accessories in stock, I'm sure, so there are only a handful of items in the shop -- but they're so worth browsing!  They have some amazing bear cub bonnets as well, which you can see in the sold section.  I'd love to get one of those!  Every baby deserves a special hat.

fresh picture overload!

Audrey is 8 months old today!  I opened up the blinds in her room, put out some of her favorite books and toys, and let her go wild.. sort of.  In between pictures there was a lot of redirecting her from diving headfirst off the sofa, which is her number one desire.  Enjoy!

 

I say it pretty much every month -- "I can't believe it's been ___ amount of time since she was born."  But for REAL.  Actually, now it feels like she's been around here forever.  And we don't mind that at all.  More and more personality is emerging every day!  She can give high fives now... and she was doing a lot of babbling today!  She's not usually so talkative.

I think the day that Audrey looks at me and says "mama," my heart is just going to explode.  Can't even handle it!  

I had so much fun taking these pictures today.  Our camera gets a lot of use nearly every day, but I don't often find time to do everything I want with all of the photos!  It's hard to keep up. That's why this space is a little quiet lately... Not enough time to do everything that I want.

This little lady keeps me hopping!   

quick comparison

New Year's Eve - just a little over a month old.

Tonight - almost 8 months old!

Sorry for the crummy pictures -- when I took this one tonight I just knew I had to go back and compare to when Robert first started carrying Audrey around on his shoulders. We spent New Year's Eve at home alone with the baby, and it was such a strange time.  We'd barely begun adjusting to being parents and hanging out with a newborn...  We ALMOST made it to midnight.  Robert decided to put Audrey on his shoulders, which was a mistake because she spit up in his hair (a mistake he continued to make), but it was also very exciting because she was acting interested in looking at things on high up shelves. 

Anyway, here we are 7 months later.  What a difference a matter of months can make in a baby!  It's amazing.  It's also really weird to go back and look at Audrey as a newborn, because in my mind she has always looked the same.  But she was totally tiny and wrinkly.  :)  Still precious!

7 months!

Let me just overload you with some cuteness.  Audrey has been getting REALLY fun lately.  She has so much personality and energy.  Last Friday she turned 7 months old!  Every single month we marvel at how quickly it's passing.

She's sweet and cuddly right after naps.  She eats a TON of food.  We recently increased the amount of solids we give her and it has been helping so much in the last few days.  It's not like we were underfeeding her, but she apparently wasn't getting full enough to sleep for very long.  Since she started having finger foods in addition to purees at every meal, she has been taking just two looong naps a day.  Just like one of those babies I've been reading about in books! :)  I'm hoping it's a pattern that sticks.

I can make Audrey laugh just by widening my eyes at her.  We stare into each others eyes and laugh about the silliest things. She has also been experimenting with shrieking... which is cute when she's doing it for fun, and alarming when she's upset (and babies can go from fun to upset really quickly... I think she overwhelms herself sometimes).  We have a play date tomorrow and I'm hoping she doesn't get in a screamy mood.

I feel like we've become pretty good friends.  We understand each other, most of the time.  She's even started listening to me on occasion (or so it seems) when I ask her to come back to me or not to knock something over.  She also gets quiet and seems a little excited when I ask her if she wants to eat.  She also got VERY excited when Robert came home today.  She wanted to go to him and hug for a long time! 

She crawls, she climbs, she edges around furniture, and I get the feeling she'd be up and running everywhere if she could only figure it out.  This evening before bed she kicked her legs for about 5 minutes straight.  This girl has ENERGY.  She knows how to wear us out!

We have so much to look forward to in the upcoming month!  Audrey is going to get 3 visits from her grandparents.  Hooray for good baby stuff!  We've been enjoying being a family of 3 lately.

Father's Day, a little late

Just as I'd expected, Robert is turning out to be pretty much the cutest dad ever.  KNEW IT.  You can read about his first Father's Day here!  We tried to make the day special for him and had a really good time doing some major relaxing at home.

Audrey will be 7 months old on Friday!  As far as babies go, I think she's.... a jock.  I don't even know how it happened, but she is so crazy physically advanced.  Part of me loves it, because she is basically already a toddler.  Part of me is terrified, because she is an almost-7 month old who can almost walk.  Which means LOTS of accidents, because she doesn't understand gravity at all.  She takes her falls pretty well, but this morning she launched herself over the side of our bed before I could grab her, and it was scary seeing her little body crumple between the wall and bed.  So scary.  But luckily she seems to be fine!  And I spent the rest of the day with at least one hand on her at all time.  Really; I couldn't even get out of my pajamas until noon.  She has a little bump on her head but has been acting completely normal... 

Audrey is a little wild thing.  I feel so happy when I see bits of her personality emerging.  Even if I'm imagining them -- like this morning when I asked her for a kiss and she sort of licked my cheek so I cheered YAY for her and it looked like she was clapping.  She totally doesn't know how to give kisses or clap yet, but I know she will soon and I am so excited about everything that's ahead for her!!

sleep transitions

If you notice a lack of coherency around here, it's because I'm just exhausted lately!  Audrey is going through some sleep changes and we've been having a lot of awful nights.  Her daytime schedule is actually pretty good at the moment.  She has FINALLY, at 6 months, begun staying awake for 2 hours at a time between naps, and is down to 3 naps a day.  For the longest time she could only stay up for an hour and a half and was taking 4-5 naps per day.  A while back she dropped her last nap of the day, and began having a wakeful period of 3-4 hours in the evening before bed.  She has also been developing a set bedtime of 7:30.  It's really amazing how these things just seem to happen and adjust themselves.

But nighttime... Aghhh.  I think there was a growth spurt recently, so she's been wanting to eat at night, but now I'm afraid it's becoming a habit.  And it wouldn't even be that big of a deal if she would just go right back to sleep!  Audrey used to be great at immediately going back to sleep when we put her down.  Now, even if she's exhausted and has fallen asleep in our arms, as soon as we put her down she wants to roll over, crawl to the side of her bed, and stand up.   She LOVES to stand up.  And she doesn't know how to get back down (without just letting go and falling), so leaving her standing in bed isn't really an option.  One of us has to stay with her in the middle of the night until she looks like she's going to really stay down and sleep.

It's been rough!  But we're trying to stay optimistic.  Things always seem bleakest in the middle of the night.  Coffee and sunshine do wonders for moods.  And to help during the night, I made a little motivational poster that I put up in Audrey's room today, for those moments at 3 a.m. when I sort of feel like giving up on this mom thing and running away to start a new life.  I didn't take a picture, but it says:

BE KIND & PATIENT!  Baby needs your love and care!

That might sound like an obvious fact, but when it's the middle of the night and you're exhausted, it sometimes begins to feel like that little person is just purposely being cruel!  She is doing so much growing and developing, and we can only expect so much of her.  She doesn't know any better and is only trying to get her needs met.  She needs to cuddle!  And I need to get some sleep!  Goodnight!

roadtripping baby

Tiny baby napping in huge hotel bed

We are back from our little road trip to Memphis!  It went SO much better than I could have imagined!  I had no idea what to expect from Audrey when it came to the long car drive (about 3 and a half hours) and sleeping out of town.  But Audrey seems to have inherited my love of a good road trip, and she seemed pleased as punch to be in the car.  I'm sure it helped that Robert was in the back seat with her, ready to do anything necessary to make her happy!  We only stopped for lunch on the way there and back -- no other emergencies.

This is going to sound incredibly cheesy, but I feel like we came back a stronger family, more prepared for anything!  It was like a trust exercise out in the wilderness.  Sort of.  Sort of not.  I learned that I did not need to pack quite so much, though I should have had extra pants handy: we did have one little leak, which resulted in Audrey not wearing pants for the rest of the day.. oops.)  Once we got to Robert's parents' house, I learned a lot about letting go of control, and letting other people enjoy caring for Audrey.  There's just this overwhelming urge to do EVERYTHING for her, but I had to accept that her grandparents have that too, and since they don't get as much time with her I should welcome the break and let them go at it.  So I did!  Once we saw that she went down for a nap easily there (in her pack 'n play), and was having a blast playing with everyone, we.... let her stay the night!  Without us!

And OH what an awful night it was.  Not for Audrey - she slept great!  Robert and I were a mess.  We were awake at midnight, at 4 a.m., wondering what she was up to, if she was okay, if she was sleeping.  We made ourselves stay in bed until 5:30 and then got up to get ready and go see her!!  So much for a restful night alone, huh?  There was nothing to be worried about -- her grandparents took great care of her -- but we just can't relax unless we can hear her breathing, I guess.  I hope we get over that soon!

All in all it was a great weekend, and I will be posting more pictures and details soon!  Audrey had a lot of firsts, and Robert had a nice birthday!

6 months

A day old

It's hard to believe that 6 months ago today, I was in the middle of labor.  It feels like it's been much, much longer... a whole world away.  And yet the days, weeks and months are beginning to fly!

I can't believe my little baby is half a year old.  This is definitely a very fun age.  We pretty much play and cuddle all day.  She still usually wakes up once a night, but it doesn't really bother me anymore.  I've just accepted that it's going to happen...

Audrey has been going developmentally bonkers lately.  She's getting the hang of crawling, though she hasn't realized it exactly.  She's better at turning and going in reverse.  She has also begun to pull up into a standing position, which is pretty startling.  She just wants to climb EVERYTHING. 

Today is ALSO our 4 year wedding anniversary!!  I think it's pretty handy that Audrey's half birthday falls on our anniversary, and our half anniversary will fall on her birthday.  (Not that we've ever celebrated a half anniversary, but... why not?  It's so easy to remember now!)  We exchanged sappy cards this morning and we're going to see how the evening goes.  We may go walk around our little downtown, if the conditions are right!  If our little friend isn't cooperating, we may just hang out in the backyard.  Chocolate will be involved, for sure.  No pressure!

6 months old!

This week was made for partying.  We're heading out for Memphis on Friday to visit Robert's family, and Saturday is his birthday.  I'm a bit nervous about our first stay out of town with Audrey, but I'm hoping everything will go well and we'll have a good time!

Happy Mother's Day!

BABY HUUUUUGS!

It's my first Mother's Day!  So far, it's a pretty good day.  Robert has been 100% on board with making things easy and fun for me.  Audrey didn't get the memo.  But I suppose I can forgive her.... She is awfully cute.

Mother's Day was always one of those holidays that I didn't appreciate as a kid.  What's in it for me?  Seemed like a waste!  HAHA.  It wasn't until I had a baby that I suddenly realized how hard mothers work.  It actually overwhelmed me, in the early days, to think about all the mothers before me having to go through such hardships.  Babies are HARD WORK.  It sounds obvious, but I never really quite understood until I was dealing with one 24/7.  She is a total treasure, but man.... I deserve presents.  And treats!  And pampering!

I'm totally on board with Mother's Day now.  Happy Mama's Day to all of you out there with little ones!  And those of you who aren't moms... don't forget to appreciate your own!  She worked hard to take care of you.

a new place to play

 Ooops, I didn't post for a whole week!  And I thought I was getting pretty good at posting twice a week.  I guess it doesn't really matter.  The reason I've been a little quiet online is that I've been having some real life fun, playing with Audrey. She's becoming a fun little play mate! I made some improvements to her bedroom last week.  A bigger, more active baby needs ROOM to play.

What the corner looked like, pre-baby! (And pre-good lighting?)

We originally had a rocking chair in this corner.  Everyone said a rocking chair was an essential part of the nursery, but to be honest we didn't use it much.  Audrey is not a rocking baby... she is a BOUNCING baby.  If she wants movement, she demands a lot of movement that generally requires standing up.  We also have a little comfy sofa on the other side of her room that has been an amazing place to sit with her during night feedings (and to sleep on occasionally, for those really rough nights).  So the rocking chair ended up being something that I just stacked baby clothes on...It was getting messy. 

 We'd been finding ourselves sitting on the floor a lot with Audrey, and generally we would just put down a blanket to sit on.  The main purpose of the blanket was to catch spit up.. because Audrey is still very much spitting up a lot.  So we had scattered blankets around, and that was also looking messy.  Enter... the Tadpoles Dino Playmat Set!  I knew Audrey would need a better place to play and practice crawling.  Something she could get a grip on, rather than a slippery hardwood floor or blanket.  And of course we went for the dinosaur pattern.  It was clearly the best.

So, the rocking chair was moved into the den, where I think it will ultimately see more use.  And the play mat was assembled in the corner by the book/toy shelf.  And so far it has been a great success!  We spend a lot of time playing there.  It is much, much easier on adult knees than the hard floor.  (Aaaannd... probably better to fall back on for Audrey, too.)  When she spits up on it, we can easily wipe it clean instead of having to wash a blanket.  This has solved a lot of little problems for us!

Aside from chewing on everything, Audrey is really into peekaboo these days.  It's pretty good.  It has become our new life goal to make her laugh, because it's the BEST little sound.  I'm thinking about trying to attach a mirror to the wall next to the bookshelf, so that she can see herself.  Baby In The Mirror is a really cool kid, and Audrey is always pleased to see her.

P.S. After a night and day of grumpiness, I realized that Audrey is getting another tooth.  This is her third, all on the bottom.  None of them have popped through yet.  No wonder she's been a little grouch!  I wish they would come on through...

P.P.S. What have I missed while I was away?!