An Interview

I decided to interview Audrey this morning, so I sat her down on the couch and I sat a couple of feet away in the chair with a notepad and pen.

Mama: What did you do yesterday?
Audrey: play

M: What are you going to do today?
A: I'm having a mommy-Audrey day. I'm going to get down and you're going to rescue me. I need you to do that game, ok? (as she is already climbing over the back of the couch)

M: What is your favorite color?
A: Pink.
M: why?
A: cuz i like pink, cuz it's my favorite paint. lets tell my other favorite colors of paint. hmm, i like purple, i like red, i like blue, i like orange and red and yellow and i like green.

M: Are there any colors you don't like?
A: No.

M: What is your favorite toy?
A: Hmm, lets see - my microphone. Let me tell some other toys. I love a scarf (one from Gigi that is pink eyelash yarn - she wears it all the time around the house as do all her dolls and toys); let me play on the piano and make music and tell things I love. Ok?

M: What is your favorite thing to do?
A: Hmm, to do playing.
M: what kind of playing?
A: hmm, toys.

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.

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.

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 .

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.

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.

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.

Reading to baby

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

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.

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.

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.