Christmas Day-2011

Audrey ready for Christmas Eve dinner which consisted of the same old thing for her, bottle of milk and baby food, BORING! Mine was good though!

church dress

She got this cute little broom set to help mommy one day and of course all she wanted on that was the tag!


cute little dress

she got a new laptop




elmo

we decided to splurge on a new car for Audrey since this was her first Christmas....she thinks she's pretty cool!


We were spoiled rotten this year by each other and of course our parents. We truly do not deserve it. It was fun to celebrate this year with Audrey as well, although she didn't quite get the whole thing and would rather play with the box, paper, bows and tags....it was still fun to finally have her with us and I know it will only get funner over time!
We as a family are so grateful for this time of year and everything that it represents. We are so grateful for our Savior and we hope that we can keep him in our thoughts always and not just at Christmas time.

Crib time

I went into Audrey's room today and this is what I walked into.

Little Audrey pulled herself up into the sitting position and officially does it all the time now, we have had to lower her crib down because we have also found her up on her knees, such a big girl!!!

2011-December activities & pictures

Cutest reindeer I ever saw!!!







We went to the Grand America this year with the Nelson side to do this scavenger hunt through out the hotel, it was fun and warm.
Kendell, Cam and Audrey with Santa

They had this cute little toy store inside the hotel and they had this awful headband, I couldn't resist putting it on Audrey while we all got a good laugh! Sorry if you happen to have this particular one, but it's way to big, who would seriously where that??

in front of the gingerbread house


Temple Square with the Stevensons. We rode Trax and the Frontrunner for a different experience. I always love to see the work that goes into the lights at the temple.




our family riding the frontrunner for the 1st time

Diagnosis~ A.D.D. baby

She hasn't been diagnosed by a professional, but I think I'm just about as good. This baby girl of mine is as close to having A.D.D. as a child can get,(in my opinion).
Audrey is a busy body. When she learns to crawl or walk watch out mommy. Her legs and hands are constantly going. When you feed the child, you can tell she just can't even relax her mind for 2 seconds. Her hands are strumming my hair/shirt/burp cloth or they are slamming down on the bottle, not holding the bottle. When I put her hands on the bottle for her to try and hold it, it's like watching a magnet when you put the wrong ends together or like she has just been burnt by the bottle. She can't get them away quick enough. The head is moving from one sound to the next continually dropping the bottle out of her mouth only to have milk run everywhere. Speaking of of her head, the head is where the eyes and ears are and they never shut down. She is so attentive and always has been, to every sound around her. You can tell she is really studying what is going on and truly doesn't want to miss a thing. If you start talking while feeding her, she drops that bottle shoots up to sitting position as if she knows it would be rude to not make eye contact with you, even though your not even talking to her or like she understands for that matter. This trait makes for fun feedings. (sarcasm). I tell Bryce constantly that this child makes me feel like I don't know how to hold a child because she moves around so much.
The legs are the funniest to me. She will have them both bent with one of them forming a triangle on top of the other knee while tapping her toe down on the knee over and over and over. She is doing this constantly.
We love our little busy body A.D.D. girl, but she is a wiggly worm!

tender moments

This past little while I have been thinking of the things that my little Audrey does, that I just adore and I wanted to write them down because it won't be long and she will have moved on to something else and I will soon forget.....
The first thing that I have to type down into history is one that she already doesn't do anymore and I miss it so much and could never catch it on film because it was a sneeze. When Audrey first started to sneeze she would do 1, 2 sneeze and then on the 3rd would do just the acting of the sneeze saying "a---chu" totally breathing out this long "chu" sound at the end, with no actual sneeze coming out. Bryce and I would just laugh and laugh and would find ourselves totally listening intently every time she would sneeze not wanting to miss it and of course being so disappointed when she didn't do it. She only did the "fake" sneeze for a few months but I still find myself listening for it every time she happens to sneeze.
I absolutely love how we start our day off. I love that Audrey wakes up so happy. First thing in the morning, from a nap, or if I have to go wake her up. She always puts that cute smile on her face and then digs her feet into the mattress to lift her back. I'm so glad she is a happy camper and I hope that is something that will continue as I wake her for school over the years.
Bath time is one of my favorites. I love that there is no cell phone dealing with work, no TV, Audrey has just been fed so she is happy and I am as well. It's just me and her and nothing else. I find myself getting irritated through out the day with sometimes the smallest things like changing a diaper as she rolls all over the place after I have just strategically placed the diaper where it needed to be, I'm sure there are other mothers out there like me right? Bath time isn't one of those times. I just love watching her kick and splash as I sing and make her smell good. It is almost bringing me to tears as I write this, thinking that those days will soon pass as I have seen how quickly her 7th month will be here.
Smile... need I say more?
The next is the car. I loved it the moment Audrey figured out where I was. I will hear her little head move on the fabric of her car seat and I know she's looking at me. I will unsafely look back over my shoulder at her and all I can see is one big eye looking at me. She will stare for a moment and then turn around only for me to hear that fabric sound again finding that we do this over and over and I continue to drive very unsafely. If you people could only share that moment with the one eye, I think you would understand. I can't NOT look!!!
Audrey since day one has loved her blanky. She does this thing when she is falling asleep where she is holding on to the blanket with one hand and then with the other hand pulls the fabric up towards the sky like she's playing a harp or guitar. I can't quite figure out why that is relaxing, but it seems to be for her.
She loves tags. A tag on anything and Audrey can find it. Blankets, burp cloths, bibs, toys, play mats etc...She will roll it through her fingers over and over like it's a little silky. That ends up being more entertaining that the actual toy that it's on, for some reason.
Talking/screaming/concentrating. Audrey gets so excited and let's out the loudest screams at times. If your holding her, you can totally feel her abs tighten up as she pushes out every breath of air she has. I also just plain and simply love listening to her coo 's and caw's and the things she thinks are words. When Audrey is studying something, trying to figure out what it is or how to get it in her mouth or play with it. She puts her little lips together making them look like a duck and then the eye brows furrow down, she usually bounces her head around while slapping and kicking at the object. I love this look.
Late at night, when it is time for Audrey's bed time, she gets really giggly. I love when her daddy starts to nibble on her neck and belly and she just laughs uncontrollably. There is nothing sweeter than a child's laugh. It is music to the ears and I'm so grateful for a husband that takes the time to continually put a smile on both of our faces.
Don't get me wrong, it's not all happy thoughts, lolly pops, rainbows and unicorns over here all the time! But I do have many of these moments where I'm just so happy. I think it is so much easier to appreciate these moments if you sit down to think about what your thankful for more often and for me, writing them down. It always makes me think about things and puts a smile on my face as I re-live the moments that I have had with my little girl.
These are just a few of the things I love about Audrey, I can't name them all, but this is what sticks out at the moment. I love her so much and am so thankful for her in my life and for the memories we are making.

losing mommy points

This morning as I went to bed at 1:30 am and my little Audrey decided to wake up at 5:30 am and again at 6:00, I was quickly reminded of how much this little girl is dependent on me. I of course went into her nursery to stick the binky into her mouth and I did check, in my behalf to see if she had leaked out of her diaper and onto her sheets, but that was the extent of it. I went into get her this morning changed her diaper like I do every morning, she had pooped sometime during the night and as soon as I laid her down and went to pick up her legs to wipe, the screaming started. Her little bum was so red and sore. I think you can only feel that way as a mother, complete failure! The fact that I could have prevented the pain that my little girl is in every time I touch her/ bathe her/ wipe her. I feel terrible and I have definitely slipped down her top 10 list. I however am hoping to bounce back by refraining from posting pictures of her very cute little but red bum at this time, knowing that it would only cause her humiliation in the cyber world that she would find hard to live down as she gets older and is reading this here diary. I love you baby girl, even mommies aren't perfect and if it makes you feel better on this particular day, I'm sure I'm bound to do worse things to you accidentally in the future. All my love, mommy.

Stevenson family pictures

We got our pictures taken a few weeks ago with the Stevenson clan and here was the out come.....

who needs to crawl??

Audrey is not crawling yet, with that being said, she sure gets around a room. She does the, "rolling over and over" method to get from point A to point B and then she also does the "beep beep, I'm backing up" method. She actually used a combination of both of the method's mentioned above to get herself into this little pickle.....


Sheesh, she sure is cute though, even stuck under a hutch. She has recently started pushing up on her arms lately, so I really don't think she is that far off.

Arcade Family Fun

We went to Boondocks last week and played the arcades, we did pretty dang good if I must say so myself. We tore it up in the ticket department but didn't know what the heck to buy, so we are going to save them, go again and see if we can get something bigger!

teeth on the horizon

We have teeth on the prowl people! I can't believe that my baby girl is old enough to be getting teeth, what is she thinking? Doesn't she realize mommy is not quite ready for this....it's to soon! She has been a little ornery, but nothing way to extreme. They have finally broken through the gums slightly so maybe it won't be so painful for her, well, I guess until the next one comes in huh?

1st Halloween

Well we had Audrey's first Halloween and boy oh boy was she cute!!! If I had just picked her costume out without asking Bryce what HE wanted her to be, she probably would have been wearing some cute tutu with some wings of some sort, but I asked Bryce, and he wouldn't sign off on any of the 100's of costumes I showed him. She had to be this......




but I have to admit, it turned out pretty cute, she loved carrying around her golf bag and she is the cutest little LPGA Golfer I have ever seen!! I had to buy each individual item online at different stores, of course they don't make 6 month golf costumes that I could find anywhere online. So needless to say it took me awhile to find it all, crossed my fingers it would get here in time and that it would all look good together. I think I did pretty good if I must say so myself! I'm sure it will hit way to soon when this kid is actually carrying around the real clubs, but when she does, daddy will be right there behind her to be her caddy and take them off her hands.

Happy 6 months

Happy 6 months baby girl! Audrey went to her 6 month appt. and she is growing like a weed and everything is looking healthy. Her stats are: head-16-1/2....33% weight-16lbs 4oz....55% height-28-1/4....99% Not quite sure where she is getting that height, but height she has!
Here is a picture of her laying on the table about to get her shots....

beware of binky

A couple of weeks ago I went to Women's Conference and Bryce had Audrey all to himself. Bryce had to run an errand with her and while she was in the back of his truck he heard a scream all of the sudden. The same scream she made when she got her shots. He knew something was wrong, so he quickly reached his hand back to her mouth and she had her binky jammed/ wedged inside her mouth and she couldn't get it out. Bryce said that he had to pry it out, he didn't even know how she did that. Obviously that binky is to small for that big mouth so we had to move up to the 6 month binky a little early. So beware, you don't always go off of the size it says on the box :)

just because..........

My dear sweetheart brought these home yesterday for no reason. What girl couldn't use flowers?? I have the best husband ever, I know that, sometimes it's nice to be reminded though.

complaining get's you nowhere

Well the title post couldn't be more true, but yet, I still do it. After my previous post of being sleep deprived, Audrey sure showed me what happens when you complain. Right after I had written that post, she was an angel. She slept through the night finally for a good week just to give me a taste of the good life and then the cold came. Yes, my baby got her first cold and it is sad, don't get me wrong. I don't like the feeling of being helpless when your child is sick, especially when they are to young to really give them something. Thank goodness it's just a small cold and nothing more serious than that! So I put the humidifier in her room, and she suddenly turns into a newborn again. Waking up every 3 hrs. What the crap?? I love this little girl to pieces, but I really don't need a 5 month old teaching me lessons on what happens when you complain, little smarty pants. Did I mention that my child is smart? She doesn't like to sleep but she sure is smart.

sleep deprived

I can complain cause it's my blog, so I don't want to hear about how bad you had it or how easy it was for you when you were a parent of young children... just listen to me vent and say how sorry you feel for me.
The fact that I work, makes it difficult to give my child a complete schedule, therefore leaving our nights not sleeping very well. She had a couple of nights where she slept the whole night through, but then we went on a few vacations and that messed everything up. She has been doing the 4:30 thing on me and yes it's killing me.
I think Bryce wrapped it up in a nut shell when he said, "I don't think it matters if she sleeps the whole night or not, getting up at 7:00am is hard. I'm just the kind of person that needs to sleep in later." I agree, however, I don't quite know what he's talking about, like he gets up with Audrey, nor does he ever hear me get up with her. Poor Bryce. NO! Poor me remember, this is my blog, I'm taking the little time I do have to right this thing, so you will all feel sorry for me. hehehe
I've been trying the binky thing when she does wake up. She does go right back to sleep, but of course it takes me 2 hours to get myself back to sleep because I'm a freak, lot's going through my mind. Who's gonna rock me back to sleep? This last week Audrey has had a couple of nights that she didn't wake up, but of course that's when the dog wakes me up to take her out to potty because she ate some sort of garbage on the job site or I happen to be up sneezing and blowing my nose with allergies or I'm just being a freak and looking at the monitor to see if she's ok.
I guess the question really isn't when will Audrey sleep through the night, it's when will I?

pictures

here are some of the things my baby girl has been doing lately


riding Abbie.....

throwing up on Abbie.....

falling asleep on her new toy....


she has a chic clown nose....

welcoming October in her scary skeleton pj's....