WW: Gracie (According to Audrey)

Describing Audrey

                 

Audrey, at 18 months, is full of life and joy. The past updates I've done on Audrey have been about her accomplishments and the milestones she's met. This post will be like that too but I won't be listing all the words she can say like I've done previously. This girl can talk! The entire post would be about the words she says if I did that-- but I will write about the sweetest ones she says that we absolutely love. I really just love the pure, innocent sound of her sweet little toddler voice!

• She will say, "illovu" when asked to say, "I love you".
• When Clay is at work and I ask her, "Where's Daddy?" She'll respond with a rowdy, "wort" almost everytime.
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  She is a big milk drinker and is pretty demanding when she wants it. She will repeat, "milp, milp, milp", over and over and over until we get it made for her.

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  She will call for me when she wakes by first quietly saying, "maaammmyyy", if I don't come then she'll resort to a little louder, "mooooommmmy", and finally-- when she's frustrated-- "MOMMA!!". I love to hear her call my name!
• After we say our blessing before meals, she will wait for us to look at her, bow her head, lift it up and say, "MEN!" rather than "amen".  She once did this while she was sitting at her little table that Santa brought her. She was right in the middle of eating her snack and she bowed her head and yelled, "Men!"
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  She puts her babydoll highchair right next to hers in the kitchen during meals. If Audrey gets grapes for dinner or snack-- we have to give the baby some on her highchair too. When Audrey finishes eating, she promptly eats her baby's food as well!
• Likes to clean ("keen") and will get wipes from under the kitchen sink to clean up her messes.                            

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  Has "up" and "down" and "push" and "pull" confused. Wants me to "push"    her in the wagon and "pull" her on her Cozy Coupe Car!
• Can identify all her body parts including random ones such as her tongue, neck, teeth, elbow, wrist and hips. We are working on shins, calves, and ankles.
• Takes off her pants and diaper and tells me it needs to go in the trash. Will then lie down and tell me to "keen"-- or in other words give her a new diaper.
• Identifies the colors blue, purple, pink, white and "geen". Can sing many songs but looooovvvess "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes". She can point to the appropriate body parts as she sings but skips shoulders and knees and just does head and toes. 
•  Her friend, Jackson, gave her some mini M&M's for Valentines Day. That was the first time she'd ever had them and she loved them! I now keep them in my purse and pull them out when we are in restaurants and she has hit her "limit". They will usually buy us 5 or 10 more minutes!
• She loves new clothes, shoes, hair bows, or jewelry. She says these things are "pweettyy" (pretty) and "toot" (cute).

• She picks out her hair bows every morning. She always goes for the largest, wildest bow she can lay her eyes on. Lately, she's even wanted more than one bow in her hair! I let her wear them until we leave the house. :)
• She's a tad obsessed with socks. No one can walk around the house without socks on!
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  She's always enjoyed playing hide-n-seek but she has changed her strategy lately. Rather than hiding herself, she hides objects/toys under her legs (while sitting) and throws her hands up in the "where is it?" sign. She loves for us to find it and tickle her to pieces!
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  She is really into rocking ("rock, rock") her baby dolls and feeding them a bottle.
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  Her favorite thing to do is still to just play outside.

• Clay makes her a bowl of chocolate ice cream every night before bed. She's now realized where it is and what it is and will request "cream" at random times throughout the day. Such as right before we brush her teeth, in the middle of putting her clothes on, etc.

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  Clay gives her a bath every night. She loves the idea of a bath and will tell him when it is time to go take the bath but she screams and cries when it is actually time to take the bath!

• After the bath, Clay gives her what we call "Baby Spa". He slathers her down with lotion. Clay refers to the lotion as cream rather than "lotion". She loves it and will point to the bottle of lotion and ask us to give her "cream". She'll rub it on her legs, hands and cheeks and then come back for more!
• She's in a "mommy" phase right now and has been for about a month. I am reveling in it while it lasts!
• She's just now started to want her babydolls, lovies, etc. to sleep with her at night or during naptimes.

We love her dearly and are so thankful we have this sweet girl! Thanks for hanging in there and reading to the end-- you must love us if you did! :)

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Cupid came!

Sweet little Audrey had cupid come visit her on Valentine's Day and he brought her some of her favorite things!

"Colors" for the bathtub!

Bracelets for the girly girl...

... and a huge container of bubbles!

I made her heart shaped pancakes and strawberries for breakfast but...

... she wasn't very interested. Starting on Thursday, February 11th, Audrey went on a hunger strike and didn't eat anything until Monday, February 15th. She did drink lots of milk, just no solids. Notice what she did with her strawberry in the picture below.

I guess she thought Angel may like it better than she would.

Clay and I went out for dinner Saturday night and Audrey stayed with a babysitter. I think it was the second time she's stayed with a sitter and she loved it. The babysitter said she didn't cry at all and they had a great time together. She was brave enough to pull out the finger paint and let Audrey make us a Valentine card!

This last photo is after church Sunday. She was wrinkled from her carseat but I wanted to add it because the dress is a size 24 months. That is significant because Audrey is small for her age. She is just now wearing size 12-18 month clothes and she will be 18 months Sunday. I know that the dress is a little big and it was probably incorrectly sized but stillll! It's a 24 month!

We head back to the doctor for Audrey's 18 month appointment Monday. At her 15 month appointment, her pediatrician off-handedly said, "Let's try to get her to 22.5 pounds by 18 months!". He made that remark as he was walking out the door but I have taken it seriously. We were doing really well and thought we were going to make the 22.5 pound goal until Audrey decided to stop eating for 5 days. When Clay and I weigh her here, we've gotten her to 22.2 pounds fully clothed. I'm just praying she will be at least 22 pounds. After Monday's appointment though, I am letting it all go. I have stressed about what she was eating since she entered the world and as of Monday.. I am letting it go! She is smart, hits all her milestones, yada, yada, yada, and she will eat when she's hungry!

Wordless Wednesday

Our own Snowpocalypse

Well, not exactly like DC but still lots of snow!

Audrey liked being out in the snow today but was a little "under the weather" so we didn't stay long. I opened all the shutters in the house in an effort to bring the outside in for her.

We went out three different times but didn't stay out 15 minutes total! She signed "outside" and said "side" about a hundred and fifty times today!  This was the first trip out.

We don't have a winter hat for Audrey because up until this point she hasn't let us put anything on her head other than a hairbow. Well.... during her signing episodes this morning, I told her we couldn't go out without a hat. I went digging around and all I could come up with was her pig costume from Halloween. She LOVED it! She's worn it all over the house today! I tried and tried for WEEKS to get her to wear it at Halloween but nnooooooo-- no, no, no! I think I have laughed more today over this hat than I have in a long time! Isn't it so cute!!!

                 

                 

Clay came home early to "take care of his girls" and we took our second trip out in the snow. It was so hard for the two of us not to break out in a major snowball fight. We both tend to lean toward the competitive side and he started it by throwing the first one at me. I tried to use Audrey as a shield and get close enough to him to bust him with one but it never worked out. My mommy side of my brain beat the "kill him now" side of my brain and I took Audrey inside. We'll see about tomorrow though! 

In these pictures, he is trying to hit a snowball and make it explode on me ( and his one and only precious, SICK, baby girl!). Can you just see the pure JOY on his face?!?  

                     

                                            

We took our final trip out because I majorly overexposed the pictures from trip #2 (I tried to salvage them by making them b&w and tinkering with the contrast. Let's just pretend I meant for them to look that way!) and we had to have a redo.

                                                  

Hopefully sweet little Audrey is fever free tomorrow so she can actually put her hands in the snow. Maybe even throw a little at Daddy???