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!

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.

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!   

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!

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!

jumble of thoughts [baby, baby, baby]

Thoughtful baby.

I blinked twice and a whole week passed me by!  But here I am!  Exhausted but happy on a Friday night.  Audrey started laughing this afternoon.  All week she's been building up to it; every once in a while when she was happy I'd hear a sort of half chuckle - a "huh!" sound between smiles.  And then suddenly today, there were giggles.  And life is all sunshine and lollipops now!  (Remind me of that when she wakes me up in a few hours.)

Bath time was also lovely today.  Audrey has enjoyed taking baths for a couple of months now, but she ALWAYS cries when we take her out to dry off.  We just expect a little tantrum.  But today, there were no tears!  No fussing at all.  I suppose we're both getting better at it.  I swear, if a baby senses your fear or anxiety, they freak out.  I was very calm with her and let her look out the bathroom window while I dried her off.  Getting her bathed and dried off and dressed with no crying?  Big breakthrough!!

Every new bit of her personality that shines through pleases me so much!  It's amazing how much she has changed and grown in the last three and a half months since she was born.  And it's amazing how quickly we adjust to each new phase.  Sometimes even prematurely.. she's slept all night 3 times so far and I keep expecting her to do it again - haha. Wishful thinking!

WHAT!?

I hope everyone has a lovely, restful weekend.  Check back here in the next few days for something a little more exciting than this!!