Tulip Festival with Cousins

While we were in Seattle visiting Grandma, we got to join Uncle Ben and Aunt Tara and Tara's mom and Cousins Benny and Alexandria going to the Tulip Festival a little north of the city. Aren't these photos amazing! The yellow in the background is daffodils and the other colors are all tulips. Unfortunately, it was raining, snowing, hailing and windy, so the elements were conspiring against our enjoyment of the day.

Cousin Alexandria was very helpful, making sure Audrey didn't slip while getting in and out of the tulips for the photo. Cousin Benny has this winking thing going on that is just endearing.

Audrey's ready for Springtime

The weather has been gorgeous this week, mid seventies. So, here are some pictures of Audrey playng on the back deck enjoying the spring weather. Like her new dress? Man, that Aunt Genny has good taste...

Easter

Audrey is one lucky kid. Her great-grandma F bought a pretty Easter dress for her with cute shoes (we went with practical mary jane tennis shoes). Here she is at G&G F's house showing off her pretty dress and opening her Easter basket.

I don't know if these pics will show it or not, but blue looks amazing on Audrey because it really shows her beautiful eyes.

Nail Polish

Every time Audrey sees me paint my finger nails she wants polish too. So, yesterday I painted her nails red.

Cousin Time

Another first

Audrey put herself down for a nap - without being prompted or asked. She went up stairs to grab a couple of blankets, and when she didn't return, Ryan went to find her. She had closed her own bedroom door, found her binkies and tucked herself under her blankets.

BTW, she is still sleeping on the floor, but we have moved her mattress onto the floor now too, so at least she is now sleeping on a mattress again.

Little Bob

The other day Audrey woke up from her nap a little surly. So in an effort to cheer her up, her daddy was talking to her and touched her nose and said, "Is this Audrey's nose?" Audrey came back with, "NO!" Daddy persisted, "Is this Audrey's forehead?" This time Audrey came back with a drawn out, but happier "noooo." So Daddy asks, "It's not? Who's forehead is it?" Audrey answers, "It's Bob's!" Daddy laughs out loud and says questioningly, "Bob's forehead?"

Audrey answers (as if this were her real name), "My name is Bob!"

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.