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.

My two front teeth

It is finally here!! Audrey's other top front tooth just broke through the gums. Soon she will be able to bite with both teeth and take an even cuter picture.

On a side note, all of this teething all at once is taking its toll on the mommy - who is v. tired. I am hoping this is going to be the last in this round. 3 in the span of a 10 days has resulted in lots of long nights.

Funny Girl

Little Audrey's sense of humor is coming out more and more each day. The other day, she discovered that it is funny (i.e., that her parents laughed out loud) when she puts things on her head. Now she puts all kinds of things on there just to see if it will make us laugh. My favorite (which I didn't capture on film) was when she put some pink bloomers on her head first thing in the morning.

In this picture you can see that she put the sunglasses on her head the wrong way and then she forgot about them when she came to eat.

Peeling the walls

Grandma and I have been working hard to get Audrey's room looking very cute. We painted the walls two different colors, a lighter celery green on the top and a darker sage green on the bottom. We put up a border between the two colors that matches her bed set and we have matching window treatments to put up this week.

We finished the border on Wednesday and I thought I had given the border plenty of time to set before I put Audrey's bed close to the wall again and put some of her other furniture back in the room as well. So this afternoon I did all the rearranging before putting her down for a nap.

Apparently, that was not my best idea. As you can see, Audrey didn't sleep at all, she was too busy peeling the border off the wall - and shredding it. Luckily, from what I can tell, she didn't eat any of the border.

Another Tooth!!

I knew Audrey was getting lots of teeth all at once. I can feel them right below the surface of her gums, but it is still fun and surprising to see which teeth make it out first.

The funny thing about the latest tooth, is that it is a top tooth on the left of her left front tooth. So she is getting teeth on either side of her mouth, making it so she still only has one matching set (top and bottom) that she can bite with.


Top teeth: 2 (all on the left side of her mouth)
Bottom teeth: 3 (1 left, 2 right)

Sorry if this is confusing, I will try to get a picture as soon as these latest teeth are actually visible.