Light Switch Moments

Audrey loves to play with the one light switch she can reach - the one at the bottom of the stairs. She stands on the second step on her tip-toes and stretches and then she can reach the switch. While it is scary to watch, she is actually quite good at it these days.

In these pictures she is wearing her holiday pajamas - they have gingerbread men all over them - along with a warm vest.

Dress-Up Blues

I dressed Audrey up in a lovely holiday outfit from her great-grandparents (maternal side) just to take a cute picture. Apparently, this was not as much fun for Audrey as I was hoping.

Socks and Shoes

Audrey loves to try to do things herself (over and over and over). Here she is seen trying to put on her own socks and shoes. She hasn't been too successful at this yet - she will get a toe in her or there, but never her whole foot. This morning she put her shoe on my big toe and then laughed about how clever she was. And she is quite a wiz at taking them off.

Audrey does the sign for shoe and can almost say the word as well. Yesterday at the mall, she did the sign for shoes as we were walking past various shoe stores. It is cute how she identifies things in sign language as she recognizes them (she also did fish, hat and book).

Doll clothes

The other day I was washing Audrey's little baby (the soft one that she sleeps with and drags all over kingdom come) so I put her down for her nap with her Bitty Baby doll. I am not sure Audrey got any sleep at all, because I heard quite a bit of chatting going on and when I peeked in, this is what I saw. Audrey had completely undressed the doll and was playing with her clothes and diaper. She actually had the outfit on top of her head - but wouldn't repeat that for the camera. It is funny how much Audrey loves her dolls, she plays with them (or at least drags them to the same vicinity) while doing whatever else she is doing. It is also interesting to watch how she almost treats her Bitty Baby, which has a more life-like appearance, as a little sibling. She will lay her down to sleep and put her on the couch or on her rocking chair, etc. The other day she found an old pacifier in her toy box. She put her doll into a laundry basket and kept trying (to no avail) to get the doll to take the pacifier.

Nutcracker

This year as part of my Christmas decorations, I put one large and one miniature nutcracker on the fireplace mantel. Audrey loves them.

When she first saw them she pulled me over to the fireplace and pointed until I understood that she wanted to know what they were. So we sat down together on the chaise and I let her play with one of them at a time. Then when she was done looking at the nutcracker I put it back.

Sitting on the chaise together and playing (gently) with the nutcrackers has become something we do several times a day together. She enjoys this so much that she started actually saying the word cracker (instead of just using her sign for cracker) when she wants to play with them. Grandma got a book to go along with the nutcrackers so now when she is done playing with the actual nutcrackers, she will do the sign for book and read through that for a while.

Music

Audrey loves music. She dances to any and every beat - and she has since she was about 5 weeks old. She dances to classical, pop, holiday and children's. She also loves to sit at the piano at Grandma and Grandpa's house and play. Surprisingly, she doesn't bang away. In fact, until recently she only played one note at a time. Lately she has been pressing a few notes at the same time, but again, no banging - just gently pressing.

Bedtime routine

Our bedtime routine consists of: Eating a good meal, bath time (not part of it every night), changing into pajamas, brushing teeth, reading books (usually 3 - favorite of the day, Good Night Moon and Mommy Hugs), giving her the pacifier and baby doll and singing Edelweiss while rocking her on the way to her bed.

Recently, Audrey is insisting on doing more and more of it on her own. I have already mentioned how she likes to do the cleaning in the bath, she now tries to help with putting on pjs, insists on reading her own book - though she likes me to do the words while she holds the books and flips through the pages willy-nilly (luckily we have read them all often enough that I have them memorized), and the trickiest part - she loves to brush her own teeth. We always take turns but she is getting more difficult during her parent's turn.

Here she is multi-tasking - brushing her teeth and reading her book.

Legos

Grandma has a big bag of legos for visiting grandkids to play with (which currently consists of just Audrey in the local area). Audrey absolutely loves the legos and of course, her favorite part is the lego people. She actually has really great finger dexterity and loves to put the legos together just as much as she enjoys pulling them apart.

Animals

This week our play group was at a little girl's house in the country - gravel road and all (frankly, I didn't even realize there were unpaved roads in Fairfax county). This little girl has lots of animals - a dog (which was very kid friendly), a horse (which was showing off to try to get treats) and a pony (which mostly stayed in the barn). Audrey was fascinated and scared by the animals. She did the sign for horse and dog, but really didn't want either of them very close to her.

There are several dogs in the neighborhood and she loves to watch them out the window or chase after them, but again, if they come to close she starts to cry.

She also loves birds. Our neighbors have several bird feeders in their tree in the backyard. So from our deck, you can usually see a great variety - Orioles, canaries, and a pretty red bird are among my favorites. The only problem we have with seeing the birds is that she squeals with delight every time - which of course, scares the birds away. She also does the sign for bird. (Strangely, none of the birds have been at all interested in the bird feeder that Audrey and I made at playgroup with a pine cone rolled in pb and birdseed.)

Yesterday when we were shopping we past some Nemo towels. Audrey saw Nemo and stared pointing and doing the sign for fish. So her daddy took her over to the fish tanks (we were in Walmart) where she squealed with delight at all the fish. Later in the day after her nap, she looked up at me and did the sign for fish again - apparently she thinks we can produce animals on demand. So I went to the Discovery HD theater channel and sure enough, they had a show on coral with lots of beautiful fish.

Books with Grandpa

Audrey loves to read books - both on her own and with others. Here she is reading with her Grandpa (paternal side).

Rudolph

In the car today, Audrey and I heard "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" on the radio. So I asked Audrey, "where's your nose?" In response she stuck her finger up her nose (as far as she could) and left it there for the whole song. The funniest part was she still danced to the music - bopping her head back and forth - even with her finger shoved up her nose.

Thanksgiving

Aunt Genny came and stayed with us for Thanksgiving. Here is a good picture of her and another bad picture of Audrey (poor kid).

We had a lot of fun making holiday food and hitting the sales.

Reach out and touch

This is a picture from Bud's VA reception. I forgot to post it earlier, but it is too precious to leave unposted. Tori is reaching out to touch Audrey's mouth.

All Done!

One of Audrey's favorite (or at least most used) phrases is "all done!" (said with the exclamation point). Lately when she says "all done!" while eating, what she really means is "I am about to dump the contents of my meal out and spread it around." Case in point - is the cereal seen in these pictures.

Bath Time - part 2

Last night Audrey said "bath."

And now she likes to try to wash herself in the bathtub. She reaches for the soap (which I squirt into her hands) and then rubs her hands together to get them foamy (but most of the soap falls through her wide open fingers) and then rubs her little belly (with great enthusiasm). Last, but not least, she looks up with a big I-did-it-myself-smile.

Bath Time

Audrey really likes to take a bath, but she isn't so fond of the bubbles.

Her favorite bath time toys are her bucket, rake, boat and watering can. She especially likes it when we pour the water from the watering can in front of her so she can play with the stream of water.

The only thing she really doesn't like is getting her head wet, so you can imagine the struggles to wash her hair. She usually tolerates it as long as her face stays dry. Once her face gets wet, she panics and stands up and reaches to come out and - worst of all - she sucks in - which makes her panic more when water goes into her nose and mouth.

Current Sizes

This post is not meant to be a hint, just a help...

Audrey wears size 12-18 month clothes right now. So any new clothes should be sizes 18-24 or 2T. She wears size 5 shoes right now.

Milk?

Audrey has the sign for "milk" (squeezing your fist like you are milking a cow) down pat. However, she has definitely taken a very broad interpretation of the word. She basically does the sign for "milk" whenever she wants something in the fridge because she knows that I will open the fridge for her and then she can run over and try to point to/grab whatever she thinks she wants while it is open. (It really is a race to get things into and out of the fridge before she can grab unsuspecting dressings, sauces and leftovers.) I, for one, am very impressed with her ability to use the words/signs she knows to communicate much more than her limited vocabulary permits.

Spicy Lady

The other day Audrey and I stopped into Popeye's for a quick lunch. I was thinking she would enjoy eating some of my chicken strips and biscuit. She was thinking she would help herself to some Cajun spicy fries. In fact, she had no interest in either the chicken or the biscuit. When she saw me dipping my chicken in the honey mustard sauce she wouldn't settle down until she had tried it too. I thought I would just dip her spicy fry in and let her taste - and then she would realize that she didn't want it after all. Boy was I wrong. While she didn't seem to like the honey mustard, she wouldn't eat another bite of her fries without it. And of course, she insisted on doing the dipping on her own too.

Redskins Fan

We got a Redskins warm-up suit from Freecycle (a fabulous thing) about a year ago. It fits Audrey perfectly. Here she is snuggled up to her daddy to watch the game (and play with her cell phone). She is a lot of fun to watch the games with - she loves to clap whenever she hears clapping and she puts her arms up for touch-downs.

Good Girl

Apparently I say "good girl!" to Audrey quite often. The other day when I was giving her some food and she ate it, I responded with "good girl!" and she turned to me and repeated "Goo! Gar!" very enthusiastically. "Good girl" is now one of her favorite things to say.

Pig Tails

I have been trying to come up with hair styles other than the "top knot" look. Here I tried top pig tails. In real life they were really cute, but the pictures turned out terribly. I figured that bad pictures are better than no pictures.

The pictures look like Audrey was too busy reading to be bothered for pictures, but she actually did stop and smile.

For those of you who haven't been to our house in a while, you can see the new arrangement of our living room looking out from the play area.

Mini milestones

Today we had book babies, which is a program at the local library for 6-24 month old kids where the parents read and sing to the kids in unison. Audrey really likes the program, especially getting to play with all the other little kids afterwards.

Earlier in the morning, she bumped her mouth and cut her lip, so while she was playing she was holding her mouth in the same way she does when she finds something on the ground and eats it. When I noticed this I said, "Audrey open your mouth so that mama can see what you are chewing on." And she did!! She opened it as wide as she could so that I could see her empty mouth. Then she closed it again with a little smirk almost like she was pleased that she had tricked me and that she had obeyed my instructions.

Halloween

We have certainly posted plenty of adorable duck pictures, so I am just going to tell about Audrey's first trick or treating experience.

We decided to just hit a couple of neighbors houses. Since we live in a townhouse community, Audrey really didn't have very far to walk at all. Even so, she was not sure what to make of all the festivities. She liked walking around in her duck costume and holding her pumpkin bag, but she really did not get why people kept putting things into the bag for her. All of our neighbors gushed over her.

The neighbors two houses up, just had a baby (on Sunday) and Tabitha brought the newborn out for all to see. Audrey loved looking at the baby and she kept pointing to her. I can't wait until the baby is a little bigger and we can let Audrey actually hold her.

She started to rub her eyes, so we decided to head home just as a whole stream of kids showed up. She followed them to our house then she followed them back out again too. In fact, Audrey's favorite part of Halloween was people watching. She would try to talk to the other little kids and touch their costumes and they all tried to touch hers.

It was a lovely night (upper 60s) and I must say Halloween was fun for me too. All of the neighbors just hung out in front of our front doors to give kids candy and talk in between. It was almost an impromptu block party.

Scary Moments

Since it is Halloween, I thought it would be appropriate to share one of the scariest things Audrey does - she walks down the stairs forward now. She holds onto the wall and precariously puts one leg down to the step below. Then she kind of plops down on her little behind and pulls her other leg over the stair.

I know this is the natural evolution of things, but it still scares me tremendously. There are so many times I am sure she is going to tumble, but she manages to recover just fine.

These pictures were taken this morning at the top of the stairs. Isn't her Halloween shirt cute!

Practice makes perfect

We thought it would be fun to give Audrey a chance to practice trick-or-treating at Grandma and Grandpa's house so that she would know what to do when the big day arrives.Here she is - somewhat perplexed at having to stand outside in the cold dressed as a duck instead of just going inside.
Then she was even more surprised that Grandma greeted her with a bag of candy instead of a big hug as per the usual. In the end, the practice was probably not as helpful as I thought it would be, but we all had a good time.

Fancy Carseat

Even though Audrey is still just shy of the recommended 20 pounds, we decided to put her forward anyway. Here she is chewing on her cell phone, wearing her beret and holding her baby doll - all the necessities for a girl on the go. We love her magic seat - she regularly falls asleep in it because it is so comfy.

Baby Sign

Audrey is learning baby sign language in an attempt to allow her to communicate before she can talk. So far she signs "more", "food or eat" and "baby".

It is precious to see her do it, especially because she gets distracted by her own fascinating fingers. For example when she does the sign for "more" (which is bringing your fingers together in front of you) she will often stop and just start playing with her fingers while she has them all together anyway. And when she does the sign for "eat" (which is bringing your hand to your mouth), she usually keeps going and ends up putting her fingers all the way into her mouth, just to see how they taste.

What's Up Doc?

The other day when I was cutting up carrots, I let Audrey gnaw on a large carrot. She was happy for almost a full hour cutting teeth on this carrot. Here she is outside on the deck gnawing away.

Upside Down

Audrey loves to be upside down. In fact, if you say, "upside down" she will put her head on the floor and look through her legs, as seen here.

Pure Cream

Yesterday I figured out a good way to give Audrey some extra fat in her diet without much sugar. After finishing her dinner, I put some heavy whipped cream (with a touch of powdered sugar) into a bowl and gave her a spoon. She was extremely pleased with this idea.

Aside from the mess, this seemed to work out famously.

15 Month Old Vital Stats

We visited the doctor yesterday for her 15 month well-baby visit.

Height - 30 1/4 inches
Weight - 18 pounds 8 ounces

As you can see she is a small but adorable little person.

Alumni Fan Club

Ryan helped Audrey create these pictures, so that he could rub in BYU's win to the Aggies in the family.

I'm talking to the duck in the mirror

This is Audrey seeing herself as the duck for the first time. As you can see, she was a little trepidatious about the big puff ball staring back at her.

Duck, Duck, Audrey

After much deliberation, the duck narrowly beat Nemo for this year's Halloween costume. This sneak preview at Grandma's house let us get a few early pictures. The funny thing about Audrey is that she seems to really like dressing up in these crazy getups. I think she just loves all the postive attention and gushing that she gets from being such a cute duck.
Now if we can only get her to say "quack quack"...

Dirt

Inevitably kids are drawn to dirt. But I was still surprised yesterday when I saw Audrey with a strange expression of distate on her face with a mouth full of it. With 8 teeth in various lengths, her mouth is a little more dangerous for mommy's fingers than it used to be. It was no easy task to get that dirt out of that little mouth.

Shoes

Audrey loves shoes. She associates shoes with going outside and there is nothing better than going outside. In fact, it seems to be her goal in life to spend as much time outside as possible.

If there are shoes anywhere within her reach she will bring them to me so that I can put them on her feet. In this picture, she is bringing both her shoes and my shoes to me. After I oblige and put the shoes on, she will take my hand and start pulling me either to the door of the porch or the stairs going down to go out.

Which brings up another interesting point, she says about 6 words consistently - daddy, uh oh, all done, cheese, shoes and out or outside. They usually go in this order - cheese (when I open the fridge door), uh oh (as she is dropping the cheese on the floor), all done (along with her signs for that), shoes (accompanied with pointing in the general direction of her shoes) and outside (while pulling me along).

DVD Favorite

Here you see a picture of Audrey sitting on the couch watching the "Little People" dvd that came free with her farm set. It is her favorite show. I keep the little cardboard container up high so that she can't see it. My thinking was - out of sight, out of mind. However, it hasn't exactly worked that way. Instead she comes over to me and raises her arms (indicating that she wants to be picked up) and then points to the not so clever hiding spot for her dvd. If I try to pretend like I don't know what she is talking about she squirms to get it herself or if I ask if she wants to watch it she laughs with excitement.

Notice Farmer Bob in her overalls pocket - he is her favorite little people character. She also loves her little cloth doll. And while she is watching the dvd, she loves to hold/maul the cover.

Discovering Sunshine

My little sunshine was discovering the sunshine today on the rug in the library.

My little sunshine was discovering the sunshine today on the rug in the library.

Mischievous

Audrey loves to play in the pantry and I tend to let her if I am trying to get something done in the kitchen. So yesterday, while I was doing the dishes, she pulled out the bag of cheerios and was shaking it. This has happened many times before without incident, so I wasn't really paying attention. I look up to see Audrey sitting in a pile of cheerios in the middle of the living room. She was picking them up and dropping them and eating a few, then repeating the whole sequence.

Luckily, she enjoyed helping me pick up the cheerios and put them back into the bag, just as much as she enjoyed playing with them on the floor.