More Audrey and Tori

Audrey sings

All the time, loud and clear. Sometimes (often) her singing is more like controlled yelling, but it is still cute.

Her favorite song by far is Tickle, Tickle Little Star (know to others as Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star). Some others that she sings quite often include:

• Do, Rae, Me (from the Sound of Music)
• Eidlewiess (also from the Sound of Music)
• Where is Thumkin (which actually sounds like she is cussing)
• Itsy Bitsy Spider
• Little People (the Discovery song from the Little People dvds)
• You are my Sunshine (actually she makes me sing it to her)

Playing with Cousin Tori

We went to visit Cousin Tori (and her parents) in Iowa the weekend before Thanksgiving. Audrey and Tori were like long lost friends. Everytime they saw each other again - they would run up to each other and give their funny 2 year old hugs (neither of them was very good at it, so they both just leaned in towards each other) squeal with delight and giggle like crazy.

Here they are seen wearing matching outfits.
One of their favorite things to do was this little car. Audrey would ride and Tori would crash her into the wall, etc. Then they would both fall over giggling.

Cute Dress sitting with Gymbo

Cousins time

Aunt Kalyn just sent me these great photos of Audrey playing with Ali and Josie. They were taking in August, but I thought it would still be nice to see them.

As you can see the girls are having a great time (and making a great mess) in Audrey's play area. You can see the cool kitchen she got for her birthday as well as her magnet board. My favorite thing about these photos is the moon boots - that she insisted on wearing even though they were 1 1/2 sizes too small at this point and the little romper that aunt william gave her. Audrey is being a little saucy - actually she was just fascinated with the rainbow at the end of the zipper on the romper.

Halloween costumes

Every year - at least the three so far, I have made Audrey try on at least 2 costumes in the comfort of our own home. And I have kept the back-up costume just in case. This year was no exception. First she was a turtle. And while the turtle costume was cute, it just wasn't knock your socks off cute. So we (and by we I mean grandma) kept looking for the perfect witch costume. Finally I found it.
The hunt paid off. The witch costume brings out Audrey's personality. She loves to spin in it and tap (read hit hard, while saying soft) things with the wand. I can hardly wait to take her trick or treating.

Cox Farms

We went to the pumpkin patch near grandma's house on Friday. It was awesome. There was a hayride through a forest, water filled ditches and a spooky barn; tons of slides, lots of musicians and animals. Plus there was good food - apples, pumpkins, kettle corn... need I say more.

Audrey likes animals from a distance and every time we got up close she would say "scared" and "hold you". She also said "scared" for much of the hay ride - though popcorn helped ease her fears. She loved the slides, but again, liked to do them with mom whenever they were big. She also loved seeing all the kids. She would run after other kids yelling "kids!" Unfortunately they were never as excited to see her as she was to see them. Here are some fun pics.

Gymboree Party

Recently we went to a birthday party at Gymboree. All the kids get to dress up - Audrey is wearing a sequined dress with butterfly wings while doing a little craft project with sparkle glue and a plastic mask - what's not to love.

I love her looks of concentration as she is trying to glue feathers and sequins onto her mask. And she has such adorable and dainty little fingers. Once again the camera lady couldn't get a smile, but she is still cute .

Barking sneeze

Yesterday we went to Chipotle for dinner. Audrey had the chips and guacamole - which occasionally made her open her mouth, scrunch her face in horror and do a head shiver/shake - a reaction to the onions (I think). Following which she immediately reached for more guacamole, so apparently she liked it despite the occasional spicey onion.

Then a man at a table next to us sneezed. It was a loud barking sneeze that sounded like a dog. So Audrey immediately yells with excitement, "Doggy!" over and over. Genny, Ryan and I were tearing up we were laughing so hard and Audrey was just confused and looking all over the restaurant for the dog.

Carousel

Audrey and I at Burke Lake Park earlier this summer. We - Audrey, Grandma Margaret and I - rode the carousel and the little train and then had ice cream. I love this pic, you can see how much she is enjoying the ride and see her holding tight to the baby.

Even though it is a few months old, I thought it was a post-worthy pic, while I am waiting for some bday pics to come in.

Baking Cookies

Today I made cookies for Aunt William (who is coming tomorrow for Audrey's birthday). Audrey doesn't like to be left out of anything these days, so as I was getting out ingredients she came up to me with a "hep peas" and her arms outstretched ready to be lifted to the counter to see what was going on. So I let her pour the ingredients in and stir the flour and such. I also let her sample some chocolate chips ahead of time and that was a huge hit.

She had a great time and made a great mess. She saw me dumping the dry ingredients into the wet ones and decided to do that herself and dumped the box of salt into a bowl. The cookies turned out well and Audrey and I sampled a few just to be sure.

I thought I got her completely cleaned up after our creation, but apparently a chocolate chip had escaped onto the floor. Audrey rescued it and then gave the baby kisses - so now I need to wash the baby - yet again!

Taking care of baby

We call Audrey's much loved little baby doll - baby. Here she is putting the baby in Audrey's chair with all of the essentials to keep the baby happy. The baby does actually get washed weekly with Audrey's laundry but you can't tell because Audrey smothers her with kisses and loves to share her food, drink and pacificer with the baby (the dark spots are chocolate). Another funny thing she does with the baby is she has the baby do all of the pointing in her books - like if I ask Audrey to find a doggy in the picture - she will use the baby's short little arms to touch the doggy. And Audrey is convinced that I have a picture of the baby on my dresser because I have a framed picture of Audrey where she happens to be holding the baby (this one) on my dresser. She often runs over to my dresser and pulls the picture down and brings it to me to show me the baby or she will want to hold it (in addition to the actual baby) while watching a show in our room.

My knitting girl

As many of you know I love to do crafty things. My latest crafty craze has been knitting and to keep Audrey happy while I knit I have given her a bit of yarn of her own to play with. So you can imagine my delight when she came to the table with her yarn and her drum stick pretending to knit like mommy.

Trains and Cars

Audrey is now very into cars and trains and basically anything that she can wheel around. Yesterday we were in Toysrus and she ran over to the Thomas the Train table and played with the trains until I made her leave 15 minutes later.

Earlier this week she boxed out all the other kids at KB toys (can you tell we are pricing out Bday presents) to play with a 3 car race track set. Grandma saw how much she loved it and got it for her. That was Monday and now she wakes up and does the sign for car because she wants to play with it. In fact, she has already gone through one set of batteries (luckily they are rechargable).

Sleepy Head

Audrey loves to curl up with a blanket and a pillow when she is feeling tired, but not necessarily like sleeping. Here are a couple of pics of her when she climbed onto the coffee table to rest and watch a show.

Daddy's Sock

Audrey loves to help me do laundry and by help I mean scatter clean clothes in every direction while I race to fold and put them away before she can grab them. So it was no surprise to find a random daddy sock in her play area when we were done with the laundry. As you can see, it made a great toy and in the end she had all three socks (her pair and daddy's one) on one foot.

Feeding the Turtles

Audrey and I went in search of ducks the other day to feed with the end of a loaf of bread. We never found ducks, but we did find some turtles and I threw a couple of pieces of bread to them to show Audrey how it is done. She thought better of my idea and just ate the bread herself.

Notice the cute Fridley, MN shirt from Aunt William!

Reading to baby

Audrey loves her books. And now she reads them to her baby dolls regularly.

Granola Bar break down

For some reason Audrey has a disturbing reaction to granola bars. She likes to eat them - that is she likes the taste of them, but the fact that they break apart really unnerves her. Yesterday I forgot how traumatic they are for her so I gave her one as a treat. I handed her the granola bar inside the opened wrapper and within seconds she was hysterical - crying and screaming with the two halves of the granola bar in her outstretched hands. I asked her if she wanted me to try to fix it, which she did and when I was unsuccessful she had an even larger meltdown. I tried, to no avail, to explain that granola bars were like bananas they still taste just as good in smaller pieces, but she wasn't buying that. In the end, she sat on my lap sobbing her way through her granola bar. I held all the small broken pieces in one hand (and kept it closed) and all the larger pieces in the other. She ate the larger pieces and cried anew each time they broke. The whole exhausting process took about 10 minutes and I have learned my lesson - no more granola bars for Audrey - no matter what.

The funny thing is, with almost all of her other foods, she really enjoys the breaking apart process - sometimes more than the eating process. She regularly shreds small bits of toast, croissants, banana, green beans, etc. I can't figure out why granola bars are such an unusual exception.

"Nummy Mummy"

Audrey finally says mommy! - such sweet music to my ears. The funny thing is that she says it "nummy mummy" almost every time - as if the first word is the warm up to the real thing.

She also now says baby - beebee - and hi and grandpa - bapa.

Biting

Apparently Audrey has begun a new stage in life - one that unfortunately includes biting.

I was sitting at the table and Audrey came up and bit my knee. So I told her in a very serious and stern voice (while pointing my finger) "Audrey NO biting. We do NOT bite in this family." She looked back at me with a smile and then tried to bite my extended finger. At this point her daddy, Aunt William and Aunt Genny all started to laugh. So I had to give them a "no laughing allowed" look. Then I looked at Audrey and again told her NO biting.

She hasn't tried to bite since, but I am afraid that it is just a matter of time.

Bibs

We keep a small basket in the kitchen for dirty laundry - like bibs, napkins, etc. If I forget to empty it every night - Audrey will remind me by going through it and picking up all of the useful things - like bibs and trying them on and throwing the rest of the stuff on the floor.

Often she will put all of the towels and such back in the basket but she will include any clean things she can get her hands on too (like a clean towel hanging on the oven handle). And one of my favorites, she often hides her toys in the basket. When I am emptying the laundry, I find Farmer Bob or a little people animal hiding with the napkins.

Gymboree Play class

Today was Audrey's second play class and she went crazy with delight. She was running and jumping and sliding and rocking (on the boat and rocking horse) almost non-stop. Even things I thought she wouldn't be too fond of - like sitting in the center of a parachute with 7 other wiggling kids while the parents pulled it in a circle - she tolerated (unlike quite a few of her classmates). She is also becoming more adventurous on the slides - she discovered the joy of sliding on her belly (feet first thankfully) today and spent a good 5 minutes doing that over and over.

Another really interesting thing is to watch how she tries to please the teacher. It really is remarkable how much she tries to get the teacher to smile at her and acknowledge what she is doing.

The last interesting tidbit - while Audrey was doing the "freeze" on the log (long air filled/ stuffed cylinder that the kids bang on to the music) standing right next to the teacher I was sitting on the other side of the log watching her expressions and another little girl lost her balance and fell right into my lap. So I talked to her for a minute and helped her back to the freeze log. Apparently, Audrey wasn't too happy with someone else sitting in her mommy's lap because she stopped doing the freeze and ran around the log and jumped into my lap with great concern. So I gave her a big hug and she went right back to the log, but she kept her eye on the other little girl for the rest of the game.

Book Babies

Audrey loves the Book Babies program at our local library. We do it every other week. Last time we went - she sat on the floor right in front of me and read all of the books by herself - I was a little disappointed by her independence - but what can you do. This time however, she sat on my lap the whole time and let me read the books to her - it was a good mommy day.

After they read the books and sing songs, the library has a box of toys for the kids to play with. They had a couple of stacking/nesting toys that Audrey played with almost the whole time. I guess it is time to hand over my measuring cups when she follows me into the kitchen.

Going Bananas

Recently Audrey has taken to eating bananas all by herself. I start the peel just at the top and she takes it from there. After very carefully peeling the banana, she tosses aside the peels (often to the floor) and starts the difficult work of consistently biting off more than she can chew.

As you can see Audrey also likes to dress herself and shoes are by far her favorite to change. Here she is wearing her moon boots about the house.

Tantrum Time

For about a month now Audrey will throw mini tantrums - kick her legs, sit down forcefully, fuss and wave her arms - when she really wants something. Unfortunately for her, I generally find her tantrums (at least at this stage) kind of cute and I often laugh when she starts to do one. If Audrey catches me laughing at her, she starts to cry for real. Apparently she is quite serious and if I am not taking her seriously enough, it hurts her feelings.

Baby Yoga

Audrey and I have tried to do yoga together a couple of times recently. Here is how it goes.

I put out a yoga mat for me and a towel for her and I put on a yoga dvd. Audrey and I both stand on our mats and she smiles and lifts her hands to the sky. As soon as the dvd has us bend over in any way, Audrey gets onto the floor and puts her head right under mine and looks up at my face so that when I look up we are inches apart. And as soon as I look up she bursts into giggles - as if this is the point. Of course, I can't help but laugh along with her and we end up laying on the mats watching the dvd together. Not much exercise, but it is still fun.

Rockin' Out

Recently Audrey has taken to dressing and undressing herself as much as possible. It all starts with shoes and socks then moves on to hats and jackets/sweaters.

We still have our box of winter accessories in our entry downstairs. Several times a day she will go downstairs (on her own and on the sly) and get into the box and pull out a hat or two.

This time she pulled out a baseball hat and her jean jacket and was in the process of putting them on when she got distracted by her rocking chair.

She loves to rock out on her rocking chair and yell "Eeeeee!" - her version of weee - over and over. It is really adorable.

Lady Bugs and Pig Tails

Audrey's hair is finally long enough for pig tails - so cute. She didn't like having them put in, but she sure liked having her hair out of her eyes all day long.

And today she rediscovered a musical ladybug that was hiding at the bottom of her toy chest. Normally she does laps around the kitchen island by herself - today she pulled that ladybug around and around and around until the music would stop and she would stop bend down, press the buttons again and as soon as the music started she would start doing laps again. In fact, when she first started the laps today, she was just happy to have something to pull along - about 15 minutes into it, she discovered the music - lucky me.

I have been working on getting Audrey to smile at the camera and this is the first pic that really paid off.

Gookie

Audrey has come up with a name for her binky - gookie. It is funny that she calls it "gookie" because she can say the b sound very well in other words (like Bo for Nemo). And she still doesn't say "mama" for me - though she has said it for daddy practicing a few times.

Coloring

Lately Audrey loves to color and paint. When she colors she loves to play with the crayons as much as she likes to color with them. She has broken, tasted and peeled the paper off of almost each of the crayons.

When she paints (watercolors), she loves to make the water get as dark as possible. In fact, I don't think she has quite caught on to the "proper" order to water painting. I show her several times a session - water, paint, paper. What she hears is - paint, water, mouth - she usually skips the paper altogether. Oh well!

I only let her do those things in her high chair, so her art has become our favorite activity while I am making dinner.

Ring around

Audrey loves to play ring around the rosies - she will do it alone or with others, she doesn't care as long as we sing the song. She doesn't quite do the falling down part very consistently, but she does laugh like crazy when her parents do the falling down part.

She also loves to do ring around the kitchen island. She literally runs circles around the island and giggles and laughs as she goes around and around.

Gymboree

Audrey has really been enjoying open gym time at Gymboree. Recently she has figured out how to climb up the slide on her own. Notice the Nemo shirt that she insisted on wearing.

Olives

I mentioned in an earlier entry that Audrey loves olives - and I think these pictures say it all.

First she is digging around for olives for the fingers.

Once found she waves them around a bit and then eats them off her fingers with great enthusiasm.

New Year's Snow

Audrey and I spent New Year's in Minnesota. On New Year's Eve Audrey got to experience snow - at least the kind that you get to play in - for the first time. As long as it wasn't blowing in her face, she loved walking around in it.