Audrey as an Oak Tree

Audrey's second grade class did their program last night called "Nuts."  Audrey was an Oak tree - a darn cute one at that.  Ryan put her hair in curlers the night before to get it to be curly for the performance.  And what is an Oak tree without a bit of pink sparkle. She is wearing pink princess socks, pink sparkly jelly sandals, a pink jewel necklace, and pink ruby earrings.  It is what any Oak tree would wear if they could.

Nina is also appropriately dressed for the Oak-casion (great pun, if I do say so myself) in an acorn dress with acorn buttons.

Also worth noting, Audrey's picture was chosen by her peers to be on the front of the program.

For weeks Audrey has been walking around singing this song about nuts. "We're nuts, we're nuts, we're all just little nuts," so like any good baby sister, Meredith has been singing the same song.  And then requesting a nut to eat - naturally.

Posting catch up

I recently found the cord to my camera and now have at least a year's worth of photos to post. At some point, I plan to print out this blog into a real book, so that we can enjoy the pictures/stories, sequentially. Because of that, I am going to post the old stuff to the appropriate month, as much as I can. For anyone who reads this and doesn't use a reader to check it, I highly recommend either doing that or becoming a follower, so that you don't have to try to find new postings in old months.

Happy New Year!

Coloring

Audrey has become incredibly good at coloring. Here she is enjoying her new good smelling colored pencils in the dining room.

Dance class

Over the summer we enrolled Audrey in a local dance studio's summer session to see if she would enjoy doing it for the whole year. Of course she *loved* it. So now she is taking tap/pre-ballet every week. Usually we don't get to see her during class. December however, had a special visitors day and here are some pictures and a little video.

The Silliest

Audrey started her Montessori school this year and loves it. She came home the other day and told Ryan...

Audrey: "Daddy, I told my friend Grace that my Daddy is sillier than me"
Ryan: "Oh really, what did your friend Grace say to that?"
Audrey: "She said that her daddy was sillier than her too. We both have very silly daddies."

The next day, Audrey and I were heading up the stairs to go to bed and I wanted her to hurry...

Me: "Audrey, if you don't hurry, I am going to have to give you a xerbert"
Audrey: "Mama, you can't say that, only Daddy can say that because Daddy is the silliest."
Me: "Well if Daddy is the silliest, what am I?"
Audrey: "Mama, you are the nicest and Daddy is the silliest."
Me: "Then what are you?"
Audrey: "I am the smartest!"

Binky Free!

Last weekend, I thought I would start getting Audrey ready to give up her binkys - my goal was to have her done with binkys by four.  Saturday morning, I pulled her on my lap and we looked on the computer at a big girl "princess" bed and a big girl fancy bed set.  I told her that whenever she was ready, she could throw her binkys into the trash can and mama would get her a fancy big girl bed.  I emphasized the fact, that I wasn't going to make her throw them away, she got to do it whenever she was ready.  And as a reward for becoming a big girl, she would get to sleep in a new fancy big girl bed.  

Immediately, she wanted the binkys, and ran upstairs to "take a nap".  So I was pretty sure, we were going to be talking about this for a good long while.  

About 20 minutes later she came downstairs with her binkys and was telling me about them and how she liked them, etc.  About 5 minutes after that, I asked here where the binkys were and she said, they were in the garbage can.  I ran over to take a look and sure enough, there the three binkys were (one sucking-on binky, and two flipping-nose binkies) in the garbage can.  Audrey just beamed up at me, I am ready for a big girl bed Mama.

So the rest of my day was spent purchasing a bed frame, bed and setting the whole thing up.  That night she of course, talked about how she wanted to have her binkies back, but we reminded her that she threw them away.  She has asked for them a couple of times since, but that is it.  We are binky free!!

Overheard

Daddy: Audrey who do you think is the silliest, Mommy or Daddy?
Audrey: Daddy - you are the silliest ever.
Daddy: Who do you think is the cutest, Mommy or Daddy?
Audrey: Audrey! Daddy, I am the cutest one.

First Purchase

For Valentines Day, Gigi (aka Grandma in Pheonix who now lives in Seattle), sent Audrey a Valentines card with money in it - $1 bill. Audrey was thrilled and immediately exclaimed, "mama, I got money! I love money!" Then she ran up to her room and put the bill into her piggy bank, where she puts all of the money she ever gets.

When she came back down she headed straight for her puzzles and I was watching her do her puzzle and realized that she doesn't have very many of the more age appropriate puzzles. So I suggested to her that if she wanted to, she could use some of her money to buy a new puzzle. She loved that idea.

So tonight, we pulled all of her money (she probably has $12 in small bills from Gigi) out of her piggy bank and put it into a baggie and put the baggie in her purse. Then she and I went to Wegman's and had sushi for dinner. Yes, she loves sushi - California rolls are her thing. Afterwards we went over to the miscellaneous goods section and the puzzles were on super sale. So she picked out 2 puzzles and then we picked an empty register with a patient looking teenager and Audrey made her first purchase. She carefully pulled each of her dollar bills out of her baggie inside her V-day purse (I crocheted the purse) and handed them to the cashier. All $1 and $2 bills. Her total for the two puzzles was just under $6, so she waited with an outstretched hand and then put the change back in the baggie and the baggie into her purse and he handed her the bag with 2 puzzles in it and a receipt and you should have seen her face. She was positively glowing! She was so proud of herself for doing something so big. It was adorable.

She also did both puzzles by herself when we got home.

(Pics will follow, but I still haven't found my camera cord).

No concert

Audrey was scheduled to participate in a concert at her school where she was going to be singing a song in English, Spanish and Chinese. However, the night before the concert she was up all night coughing and the day of the concert she couldn't even speak a full sentence without coughing her little head off. So of course, singing was out of the question. The poor little girl is still sick, but last night she had a couple of good 4 hour long rest periods, which she desperately needed. Hopefully she is well in time for Christmas.

Kids say the darndest things

Rhyming is Audrey's new favorite word game. Taka has become "Taka Waca" - which is just so silly.

The other night I asked Audrey to please put her clothes in the laundry basket. She replied, "Yes ma'am" then since rhyming is her new thing lately, she said, "Yes ma'am, damn" and then laughed at how clever she was over and over.

Also, Audrey thinks that I have the prettiest color of eyes - green (mostly) ish hazel. So when we are out and about she will make comments like, "Mommy, that light is green, just like your eyes, it's beautiful". :)

Thanksgiving Day

For Thanksgiving Day we went to Ryan's parents house and had a delicious meal courtesy of Margaret's hard work (she brined the turkey for a day or two ahead of cooking it and it turned out amazing).Audrey loves to help whenever she can. She was put in charge of filling the vegetable appetizer tray with precut veggies. She was also in charge of making sure all the veggies were still good by taste testing them for us :).I think Audrey's favorite part was decorating sugar cookies. She helped me make them the day before and was extremely excited to decorate and eat them. Audrey wanted "traditional" blue frosting for the cookies. She also wanted to help mix it.
She concentrated very hard while she was decorating. She decorated a penguin and a present (my way of using the rest of the cookie dough without having to reroll is to cut squares/rectangles and call them presents).

After she finished decorating her two cookies, she was ready to eat them. We told her she could only eat one, so she picked the penguin which was much larger. She took one lick of the frosting and dropped the cookie frosting side down on the floor. So she ended up eating the present cookie very carefully.Genny, put her artistic talents to good use and basically frosted the rest of the sugar cookies, which were mostly ginger bread men.Ryan and Grandma Margaret being very cooperative for a Thanksgiving picture. :)

We also had a good game of ping-pong and watched "Get Smart" while Audrey took a much needed nap. A great Thanksgiving for all!

Flyaway Audrey

We recently (October) borrowed a book from the library called "Flyaway Katie".

Audrey loved that book. She was absolutely captured by the little girl who decides to paint herself all kinds of bright colors and spend the gray day in her picture.

Shortly after we read it several days in a row, guess who decided to paint herself on a gray day.

I had my suspicions when she looked out the window in the morning and said that it was a gray day and not long after that asked to do a painting "project". Sure enough, flyaway Audrey was even proud enough of her paint job to pose for the camera (which is a feat these days).

I also loved all of her hand prints all over the paper. :)

Decorating the Xmas tree

Audrey woke up so excited to decorate for Christmas. I have been telling her since Halloween that we can't decorate for Christmas (like the stores do) until the day after Thanksgiving.

This morning we put away what was left of our fall decorations, and started to pull out our Christmas decorations only to discover that we no longer have a tree. I forgot that the base of our broke last year when we were dismantling it.

I had big plans to avoid black Friday shopping by decorating my house and instead, realized that I would be thrown right into the thick of it. I looked online to find out where the Christmas tree door busters were, dressed Audrey in record time and took off to fight the crowds at Walmart. I love Walmart because of the cacophony of humanity that assembles there regularly. Today that cacophony wasn't as bad as black fridays of past years, and I was able to score the $25 6.5 foot tree of my dreams. :)

We decided earlier this year that we were going to do a "fun" tree instead of our usual matchy-matchy fancy tree. With that in mind, I bought the multi colored lights (to Ryan's horror) and we were off. Neither Audrey nor Ryan were very cooperative with getting their pics taken mid-decorating, so the only picture worth posting is Audrey smiling proudly in front of the tree at the very end (holding her curios George snow globe).As for the actual decorating, Audrey got very excited about it. We put on the Nat King Cole Christmas album - a classic if ever there was. Ryan held Audrey up for the high parts and she had a great time doing all the ornaments. She wasn't thrilled about doing the ball ornaments until she got to put the hooks in them and then it was very exciting too.

Happy Thanksgiving message

Audrey told me she wanted to do a message and so I recorded her on my camera.

You can hear in her sweet little voice how she is still pretty stuffed up. Poor girl is recovering from double ear infections.

Halloween trick or treating

Audrey has a little friend named Alexa who lives two doors down and the two of them went trick or treating together on Halloween for much longer than either of them would have alone. It was so adorable to see the cute little kitty cat princess and the monkey holding hands from house to house. The moms ended up holding the pumpkins as they ran from house to house for miles and hours.Also, in case people could not tell what Audrey was, all of her accessories were black cats too - the flash light and the whistle/blinky light necklace.

Audrey loves books

And I finally got around to organizing her "book shelf" (those lovely plastic shelves leftover from my college days). My favorite part of this pic is her crossed legs - so funny and so cute.

Summer Pics

Playing in the sprinklers at Grandma's house.

At one of Audrey's first "Grandma/Audrey days" (where Grandma watches Audrey basically all day every other week - thank you Grandma!!), Grandma took Audrey to the toy store and let her pick out a prize. Audrey picked the squirty animals set seen in the pics and they are still a favorite for all water activities (the bathtub).

Officially a "preschooler"

Audrey and I went and toured Prince William Academy, and she loved it so much that she immediately joined several classes and cried when I told her we had to go home because she wanted to stay.

So after a little more research (especially into our budget), we let the school know that Audrey will be enrolling and she starts on Monday.

We are super excited for her. The maximum class size for her age is 8 students per teacher, and the kids all get to pick 2 languages to learn (Audrey will be learning Mandarin and Spanish). They have bathroom in each of the preschool classrooms (with cubbies for each child with an extra pair of clothes if there should be any accidents). They have a huge gym for winter playtime and a large playground for nice weather playtime and it just seems like a good fit for her.

Audrey has been asking to go to preschool for months now and we told her it wasn't an option until she was potty trained. Well, she is basically potty trained, so she has become more and more insistent that potty training equals preschool. The truth is, the timing is great because Ryan could really use some guaranteed and dedicated study time other than the weekends and Audrey loves to be with other kids.

We are starting her off with 3 days a week 8:30 to noon. One thing she seems very excited about is having her own lunchbox. At 10:00 a.m. all of the preschoolers have snacks that they bring from home.

Higglytown Heros

Today I was vacuuming (using my fancy new vacuum) and Audrey was hiding away from the vacuum. So I could not help but laugh when she emerged from her play area sporting the outfit pictured below. I asked her what she was. She said, I'm a Higglytown hero!

So here is the video of her singing the Higglytown Hero song.

Messages

Audrey attended the neighbors Birthday party yesterday, where all of the other little girl's family was there. I think she is missing all of her family, because today out of the blue she said she wanted to send an email or a message to: Tori, Olivia, Grandpa Kansas, Grandma Seattle, Aunt Dan and Uncle Danielle (she still gets people a little confused), and William.

However, she got camera shy, so her message is just quiet. The test run however, where I showed her how the camera worked and she sang a song is cute. I think this is the first of many more to come. Enjoy.