Audrey Joy is One

Audrey turned one on November 18th. We didn't do anything too crazy on her actual birthday since the birthday party will be on the following Saturday. Fear not, though, because she got plenty of love, kisses, hugs, and love (did I say that?). 

So what is Miss Audrey up to these days? Well, this month, she went from taking one or two steps to taking walks across the room. She doesn't exclusively walk, since sometimes crawling is just faster, but she definitely is walking. It's no longer a question as to whether or not she can do it. What is so funny is that she practices by herself when she doesn't think anybody is watching. Her big accomplishments seem to happen under the radar, on the side of the room or around the corner. I've really had to secretly watch her to catch her picking up speed and distance for the first couple of times. She takes her time with new things but works hard on them once she gets it in her head. I love her determination.

She doesn't have new teeth yet (although the early morning of her birthday consisted of me rocking her to sleep, which is unheard of, and then laying with her on the couch because she was so distraught over her mouth pain) but she can eat anything she wants. Those top two and bottom two do just fine. She must have gone through a growth spurt followed with minimal growing because she went from eating more than Josie to being picky and only wanting milk or water. Now she's back to eating, but she's not quite as easy as she used to be with food selections.

No bottles, no more formula (hallelujah), and no more bottles at night or before bed. She is still waking up with a dirty diaper every other night or so, but we are so glad to have broken the early morning feeding she absolutely insisted on up until this month.

I got out all of Josie's 12-18 month clothes and combined with what Audrey already has, we have enough to dress like four kids. Needless to say, she has options. She's pretty average sized although she feels so small to me compared to when Josie was this age. Part of it is the mobility, part of it is that her hair is still "baby hair," and part of it is that she truly is a little leaner than other kids her age. Don't be fooled, though, she has the sweetest baby rolls on her legs. I just love them. I'm not too eager for her to walk more because I know they'll disappear in a blink of an eye.

Audrey keeps up with the big kids pretty easily. She is getting a little more assertive and lets it be known if someone has wronged her. At the same time, she is pretty easy going. I've seen Josie or other kids take toys away from her and she barely bats an eye. She usually just moves on to the next thing or toy without a second thought but every once in a while, she'll declare war for the toy and it surprises everyone. I love it.

She's more clingy than she used to be. Frequently, I'll look down to her giving me the eyes, you know the ones, begging to be picked up. If I do happen to make eye contact and don't pick her up, she is not happy. She'll scream and throw a mini tantrum until she gets distracted or until she gets her way. Then, of course, she's not interested in me at all once I've picked her up. I'm merely a tool to get higher and to a better location with more fun things. But I don't mind so much that she wants to be around me. It won't be long before she's too busy playing with her big sister to give her mom the time of day.

Her vocabulary is the same. She hasn't really added more words but does have a lot expression. Her favorite new face is a big O mouth with wide eyes and a bit of a cheeky smirk. See below for an example.

Audrey is constantly bring out smiles in everyone around her. It sounds cheesy, but she is just a gem and everyone catches her contagious happiness. I can't even begin to describe how  much we love her.

To prove she doesn't always smile... 

I still can't believe she's already a one year old.

Big day around here

Guess what.

It's Audrey's birthday!

This girl is no longer counting each month because she's...

She's the real deal now. Watch out, Josie. Audrey's catching up!

(full twelve month post coming soon)

Audrey Joy, 11 months old

Audrey Joy turned eleven months old on October 18th. 

This month went way too fast. Audrey grew more than she ever has this month. The proof is in the pictures. Seriously, she looks so much older. Hey, she even acts so much older. There's no getting around it, she's losing her babyness faster than my head can spin.

This month was big for milestones. She started talking here and there with her first word being "mama" and "dada" was close behind. Her first real word (because mama and dada seem to be a given) was actually her own name! How is that for narcissistic? Or we just say it to her over and over all the time. She also fake sneezes, which sounds quite similar to her name. :) I have a video at the end of of her saying these words and it just makes me grin like a fool. She's the sweetest.

She also took her first steps about two weeks ago! Although she isn't walking, she will take a few steps from point A to point B if there is a friendly face on the other side. She walks around all the time hanging on to furniture or ledges but doesn't do much more than plunge forward (to her knees or stomach) when we try to encourage her to walk on her own. She thinks it's hilarious though, so she'll egg you on like she might just do it and then bear hug you instead. It's not so bad to be bear hugged by a busy eleven month old!

She and Josie are playing more and more every single day. They will sit next to each other and read books, exchange blocks, throw towels on each other (their favorite game in the whole wide world), or tackle each other. Rarely does it end in tears and Audrey is slowly starting to hold her own. 

Sleep hasn't changed. Still waking up once or twice at night for that wonderful pacifier and/or a change of diaper. Bedtime is 7:00, wake time is usually around 7:30, although we've had some good late wake ups around 8 or 8:30 a couple of times this month. Those are strange. I've been looking for signs of switching to one nap but that doesn't even seem like it's on the horizon at this point. She desperately needs that morning nap and sleeps great in the afternoon too. 

She still eats almost everything in sight and has only refused a few things. Off the top of my head, I remember she didn't like sliced turkey (?), canned carrots, and frozen carrots. So carrots are not her friend. Other than that, she loves everything. She needs to, too! She needs a lot of food to keep up her crazy reputation.

This girl moves. She moves and wiggles and race-crawls and squirms all over the place. She doesn't get into things (all things, safe or dangerous) like Josie did but she just keeps going. Rarely will she sit and play with one thing for very long and she is constantly climbing up my leg, my lap, my arms, and then back down. She loves to practice walking with one hand held and like I mentioned earlier, she thinks its hilarious to "walk" to me by plunging full force in my direction. She's lucky I'm usually paying attention because if I wasn't she'd face plant for sure. She must trust me or something.

She's just finally starting to sit still for stories when I try to read (as fast as possible) a book to her. If I time it right (fastfastfast) and point all over the page, she'll sit still until the end (as long as it's under 5 pages). We're working on it. We hang out at the library every once in a while and I usually let her crawl around in the children's corner but I cannot leave her side for a second. Hello, tornado! One kid grows out of that stage and the other right into it. :) Thank you God for the Moby Wrap (and that she still fits in and tolerates it). 

Her health has been awesome and we definitely don't take that for granted. No ear infections, no rashes (other than a bad bacterial infection in the diaper area that we got antibiotics for. That was no fun.), and no colds/flu symptoms. I'm praying that we make it through the winter without breaking this streak.

She's waving and clapping too. She loves doing both and grins and grins at whoever the recipient is. That smile never ends. Until it does. Then it is an all out screamfest. She has some theatrics in her. We love her ooooh so much!

11 months old, looking pretty different these days. Audrey obviously didn't get the rash that Josie sported for almost a month, and the hair just doesn't compare.

And the video! It's not too long, definitely worth a watch (or two).

Audrey Joy, ten months old

Audrey Joy turned 10 months old on September 18th. This mama actually got the pictures taken with days of the 18th. A true September miracle. 

Full disclosure: I took all of these pictures in about two minutes, some of which was spent running with the babe under one arm to get the comforter (fabric for the month) off of our bed, pulling the shades up for more natural sunlight, getting the babe in place and camera ready, and quickly earning these smiles before the buzzer went off on our oven indicating supper was ready. It was hectic but perfect).

Oh this girl. She continues to crawl around like crazy, pull herself up on all things big and small, and walk with assistance (just one hand though) as often as she has the chance. She's a mover now, completely, for sure!

She is still a big eater, eating any and everything with no dislikes. With big sister throwing mini tantrums every other meal, it's great to have at least one kid who will eat whatever I give her. While she eats all things food, she does get frustrated if it isn't easy to pick up. That's understandable, of course, so we don't hold it against her. She's also very loud if we don't give her enough food. What can I say, girl likes to eat.

Still drinking formula, we're down to only two to three bottles a day (four to six ounces a time) and she has finally figured out how to drink out of a straw, making life easier for all of us. She has her own little water bottle floating around and knows how to pick it up, rehydrate, and go on with her day. It's wonderful.

Sleeping great, goes down happily when she's not starving for her bottle (milk, of course), but is up and ready to go when she wakes up. No more lounging in bed. She stands up, screams out (happily) and ,as always, gives her biggest smile when you come to retrieve her.

She points now, and also says "I'm almost one!" Okay that last part is a guess.

Right around her 10 month birthday, she learned to clap and wave. Cutest.thing.I've.ever.seen. We encourage it often.

 Now that she's moving around more, she's pretty content with life. We've had a few incidents where she found the toilet bowl (lid open, contents questionable) but generally she stays out of trouble much more than her dear big sister did at this age. She loves to find me, climb up my pant legs, get picked up, and then want to be immediately put back down. It's a fun game (for her anyways). She follows her sister around constantly, takes a lot of hits to the head (most of them unintentional), gets tackled constantly, and still manages to smile at me when we make eye contact.

This girl is just so sweet. I kiss her and hug her more than I'd like to admit and am so thankful she's here with us each and every day! I love watching her and Josie interact more and more and her joy is completely contagious.

I'm a little in denial that she's almost one, but not so much that I'm pretending a party won't happen. Invites are partially created (by myself, yo!) and the theme is set. I can hardly handle it, it's going to be fun. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, she's still just a sweet baby (for a little while longer at least).

Those eyes, that smile, that hair (is it brown? red? blonde? nobody knows). She's just gorgeous, right?

Lest you've forgotten, Josie was all over the place at this point so my standards of a "good picture" were a little different. The picture above doesn't represent her perfectly, but it's the best we've got. Her 10 month post can be found here.)

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Audrey Joy, nine months old

Audrey Joy turned nine months old on August 18th. This month was huge for change.

She's crawling, standing, walking along furniture, and interacting with us more and more. I don't think she's too interested in actually walking, but she does love to "walk" with us holding both hands. Don't try to let go of one. She just decides to crawl if you do.

Not so sure how to feel about being laid down on this tablecloth (yes, for real) with a huge silver thing flashing in her face.

She's found her voice! She babbles, squawks, says "bahbahbah, mamama, puhpuhpuh, and continues to pop her lips together. She enjoys whatever her sister is doing, and follows her around unless Josie goes just a little too fast. A lot of times, she plays in her room in the morning while I run around getting things ready for the day. She'll make her way down the hallway and can get about halfway before she needs some assistance. She's so cute sitting in that long empty hallway, always with a huge smile like "look at how far I got this time!" With so much more room to move around in our new house, she's always extra tired by nap or bedtime. I love it.

Audrey is a great eater. She loves everything. I cannot think of a single thing that she won't eat. She eats so much real food that her milk intake is less than half. Now it's more for thirst quenching than anything else. She still has a bottle in the early morning (5-6 AM) and one at night, but other than that she just takes sips here and there. It doesn't matter what I try to do to get her to drink more during the day, she doesn't seem to care and is clearly growing plenty.

Her statistics were interesting this month. She jumped from 38% to about 59% for weight. She weighs 18.8 lbs (she gained 3.3 lbs) and her height is 28 inches (she grew 2 inches in three months). She's quickly outgrowing her babyness. My heart hurts a little when I see her act so old and move so quickly, but then it's exciting and I get over it pretty quickly. 

Sleep hasn't changed. She still naps great and wakes up in the early morning for a bottle. I don't mind, so we haven't tried to break this habit. We put her to bed at 7:00 and she gets up around 6:30-7:00 AM. She can sleep through Josie's crazy theatrics at night so we haven't had too many problems. There was a while where we continued trying to put them to bed at the same time, and of course that was craziness. They egged each other on and prolonged falling asleep for hours. Once we had their bedtimes be at different times, bedtime in general went much more smoothly. 

When she's tired, she moves. I said it last month, and I'll say it again, you wouldn't necessarily guess she's tired by this but it is the surest sign that she's ready for bed. She just.can't.keep.still. She has been a little more clingy towards me when she's tired, but generally she's happy to be held or played with by anybody.

She watches what others do closely before reacting. There has been an occasional wave here and there and she loves to have me clap her hands together. We do "so big!" and any time we are singing, she's in heaven. 

We are definitely out of the 3-6 month range of clothes. With that growth spurt, she's a solid 6-9 month and we haven't really tried anything bigger since the seasons haven't changed. I'm curious to see if she'll jump up in size again since she's gearing up to walk or if that will make her more lean like it did with Josie. 

This girl just makes my heart so happy. Those baby blues and toothy smiles are so sweet and kind of heart stopping. We are so thankful to have her with us, and life is better now than ever before.

Seriously, though, look at that face! So adorable in all her babyness.

No photo shoot is complete with out some big sister action.

And the comparison.

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