Audrey Does Gymnastics

Today Audrey had her very first gymnastics class.

But at her age "gymnastics" is a word loosely defined as bouncing on trampolines and hanging on things.

The hanging on things was definitely her favorite part.

And she's pretty good at it too.

Grandparents

Thanks for a great visit, Nana and Oms! We love you guys!

Stamps

We're really into arts and crafts lately. She loves to draw with markers and crayons, glue anything to a piece of paper, and stamp.

Who knew stamping could be so much fun?!

Apparently it's even fun to stamp your nose when mom isn't looking...

So very glad I bought the washable kind.

Catgirl

I bought her this mask to decorate and wear.

She refused to decorate it at first. She'd rather draw on paper.

Or herself.

I finally got her to put a couple of feathers and scribble on it a bit.

We've already lost a feather.

She really loves this mask. She even tried to put in on her baby.

And as a bonus... You can't see her black eye while she's wearing it!

Score!

She's a Baby on the Move

She's not quite crawling yet, but she sure is close. And her lack of knee-arm coordination isn't stopping her from getting where she wants to go. My sweet little baby is on the go. And she's notlooking back!

These Boots are Made For Walkin'

And running, and playing, and dancing, and spinning...

A couple of months ago I bought Audrey these really cute rain boots.

She loves them.

LOVES them!

She asks to wear them all the time. To the grocery store, to the library, to her music class, to church.

She even wears them around the house.

With nothing else on but her diaper.

I never imagined her getting attached to a pair of shoes.

She's such a girl :)

Hey You! Yeah You There!! Where's My Milk?!?!

Eating out at restaurants with the two babies is not something Mark and I have done too much of by ourselves. Until recently we've waited until family was in town to either go out by ourselves or help us when we bring the kids.

But we've gotten braver the last month or so.

Audrey is a late talker but she understands everything. She now knows that this person coming over to our table is there to bring us drinks and food. She knows that the first thing we do when we see the server is ask for our drinks. And she knows what she wants to drink. Either milk "muh" or Juice "uice". And she'll start saying this to the server.

The server, however, has not been trained in Audrey-ese like I have. But that doesn't stop her from trying and trying (and trying!) to let this poor person know exactly what she wants.

A couple of weeks ago we took the kids out for dinner to Applebee's. We requested a booth and we were promptly seated in the bar section.

Where there are lots of waiter-type people walking around.

When our waitress came and took our drink orders Audrey was VERY enthusiastic about telling her exactly what she wanted to drink. This night it was "muh" (aka Milk). And she told her repeatedly that she wanted "muh". And she told the other waiter that happened to walk by the table.

And she yelled (seriously. she was yelling at the poor woman) it to the bartender.

And to the customers in the booth behind us.

And to the people sitting in the dining room to the right of us.

And to anyone else that walked.

It sounded something like this... "Muh! Muh! MUH! MMMUUUUUHHHH!!!!!"

It's seriously embarrassing. (And also really funny at the same time!)

Kayla, on the other hand, is a doll. Rarely even makes a peep and is happy just watching the people walk by. Oh how I hope and pray that this mellowness lasts into the toddler years! Mark won't have a chance at stopping at two kids if she's this good next year!

Gotta love the weather in Colorado...

We've been visiting friends and family in Colorado for the past week and we've been having SO much fun! Audrey got to see snow on the ground for the first time (at least the first time that she remembers..) She was pretty nervous about this cold white stuff. It took quite a bit of encouragement to actually get her to walk in the snow, much less touch it.

And then she fell in face first. That didn't make her very happy. Not at all.

But look! She found a rock! So maybe it was worth getting a facefull of snow...

Yay!

We have a fully-functioning computer again! Complete with our picture-storage hard drives and SSD card slots and everything! Yay!

Say What???

Audrey still isn't very good at talking. She can say maybe 20 words or so, if you count "bah" for ball, and "ba" for bath, and "wa" for water, and "muh" for milk, and "aya" for Kayla... She's seriously struggling with this whole communication thing and it's the major source of meltdowns and temper tantrums in our house.

I let Audrey tell me what she wants to eat every morning for breakfast. She almost always wants a bagel ("guhl") and milk.

So this morning she gets her bagel like normal and instead of milk, asks for the juice ("uice" - hey that's almost a full word!!!) she sees in the back of the fridge.

I get her settled in her high chair, put on her favorite TV show (I have no idea how the whole I have to watch TV while I eat breakfast thing started, but here we are...) give her her bagel and juice and settle myself right here at the computer so I can have a wee bit of "me" time before Kayla starts crying (which she is right now) and Audrey starts demanding a lot of attention (also happening right now... But don't worry I asked Audrey to go entertain Kayla and so far it's working. At least she can understand me for the most part!)

All of a sudden Audrey is throwing her juice on the floor having a nice tantrum and begging for milk. Really kid? YOU are the one that asked for the juice. But I get her a cup of milk anyways because she really is a creature of habit and I was really surprised that she wanted juice in the first place...

I give her the cup of milk, put the juice on the counter by the sink and return to my computer for a couple more minutes.

And she starts screaming. Hysterically. Really.. And I think through the tears and the snot and the crying that she's asking for her juice again. So I pick up her milk and put it on the counter and give her the juice back.

Still not what she wanted. I'm seriously confused. I'm sorry baby, I just don't speak your language that well. Can you please try speaking mine a little bit more??? Please???

Yeah, she wanted milk AND juice.

Why didn't I think of that.

(And I would have put a picture of her right here but I went to upload one and discovered that my husband has disconnected our hard drive. So then I was going to get one off of my camera, but the little slot on the computer where my card goes is gone... So you can blame the lack of cuteness in the post on my husband. Because even if I knew where that little slot had disappeared to I would have NO idea how to put it back in...)

Sneaky Girl

Usually when I go to the bathroom Audrey happily follows behind me. If I try to close the door screaming and crying and little fingers poking underneath the door and sad voices asking for "Mama???" are sure to follow. It's a rare occasion when I get to pee by myself!

Today, she did not follow me.

Today, she did this.

You can tell by her "Uh-oh! Mom just found me where I'm not supposed to be!" face and the very quick and frantic climbing back over the couch that she knows she shouldn't be back there.

It's a good thing she's cute...

Happy St. Patty's Day!

I had every intention of putting these pictures up yesterday, but the two little people I live with had other ideas for me. They wanted attention, they wanted food, they pooped but didn't want their diapers changed, they wanted me to play with them... They wanted me to act like their mother. Kids these days...

Yes, I know I have a very rough life!

I took about 50 pictures of them yesterday morning and these are the best ones. It's amazing how hard it is to get a good picture of two babies at the same time. Especially the older one. She's getting to be opinionated and stubborn and cranky when she doesn't get her way. Not AT ALL like her mother. Nope.

Kayla had her 2 month appointment last week. She already weighs 15 pounds and she's about 23.5 inches. (99th percentile for weight and 85th percentile for length!!!). She's freaking huge! That shirt she's wearing is a 6-9 month size and it's only a tiny bit big on her. She doesn't really fit into 0-3 month pants anymore because her stomach is too big. But she doesn't fit into 3-6 month either because her legs are so stumpy. You should see this child's legs. Seriously. She's got more rolls than the Michelin man. I always did love fat babies. I suppose that's a good thing since mine definitely aren't petite!

It's not easy...

But they're worth it.