11 Months Old!

How can our sweet baby be 1 year old in just a month?  This year has really gone by way too fast.  I can't believe she will soon be a toddler, and not a baby.  Although, she will always be my baby... 2 months old or 20 years old.  We had a busy month.  Audrey celebrated Daddy's 30th birthday which we did with a small bash at our house.  We had lots of family and friends come (locally and afar) and Paul cooked lots and lots of bbq and chicken on his Big Green Egg.  It was a great time all around.  1 week later, Audrey celebrated her first Christmas.  We went to NC 3 days before Christmas to see most of our family.  Audrey got lots of gifts including a mini rocking chair, a red wagon, a baby doll, clothes, toys, books, and a push toy.  She loves to push her dino around and walk behind it.  She can also ride on it and loves for us to push her.  We came home on Christmas Eve and celebrated Christmas at home the next day.  We kept our gifts low key and gave her a red car/buggy that she sits in and we push, and 2 recordable books, 1 from each of us.  She got a few stocking stuffers as well.  By the end of it, she was starting to get the hang of ripping paper.  Audrey then spent New Years Eve with Paul's dad and Bunchie and celebrated Christmas there as well.  We were so glad to get to see everyone!

Here are some unofficial stats:
Weight:  Just shy of 17 lbs
Height:  not sure
Diapers:  size 3
Clothes:  9-12 months
She's just a little peanut!

Food:  She still nurses 5x/day on weekends, and 2x/day during the week.  At daycare, she gets 3, 6 oz bottles of BM.  We will soon start the transition to whole milk.  My pumping days are coming to an end.  Thank God!  I will miss nursing but not pumping!  Audrey eats prunes and oatmeal for breakfast, drinks water out her sippy, snacks on puffs, cheerios, shredded cheese, yogurt melts, and veggie sticks.  She eats baby food for each meal and is digging the pouches, which is good since they combine a fruit and a veggie.  I try to introduce new foods to her and she is not a big fan or trying things haha.  We are just being persistent.  She'll give in eventually.

Audrey can pull up on anything.  She has also stood independently for a couple seconds.  She walks around with her push toy.  She still says bye bye to everyone and has occasionally said other words (dada, mama, baba).  Byebye is definitely her signature word right now.  She has started pointing to things she wants which is so sweet and cute.  She likes to play shy to strangers but ends up loving everyone.  Audrey dances (bops up and down), claps, squeals, laughs all day long.  She loves stuffed animals and her baby doll.  She gives them hugs, pats, and kisses all the time.  Audrey started taking "big girl" baths and really loves spending time in there.  Basically, she's a ton of fun.  I can't get enough of her.

So, here I am planning her 1st birthday.  :(  :)  See ya next month when I write the 1 year post!

Sara

Audrey is 10 Months Old!

Which means she will be 1 year old in 2 months.  But I'll just stay in denial about that for a little bit longer.  Audrey had a fun month.  She was baptized on November 13 and then celebrated her first Thanksgiving.  Paul had to work on Thanksgiving, Friday, and Sunday so unfortunately, we did not get to see family.  Our good friends in Aiken were kind enough to invite us over for a Thanksgiving meal.  Audrey came down with some sort of stomach bug and ended up being sick the latter half of Thursday and all day Friday.  Poor baby.  She bounced back though by Saturday.  Anyways, here goes the 10 month update.

Unofficial Stats:
Weight:  ~17 lbs
Height:  25-26 inches
Diapers:  Size 3
Clothes:  9-12 months.  She still can squeeze into some 6 month shirts.

Milestones:  She waves AND says bye bye all the time.  Every single day when I pick her up from daycare, I go to get her from wherever she is and she turns to her teacher, usually Ms. Jane, sticks out her arm, and says bye bye.  It's so cute.  She also very recently learned how to clap.  Her favorite time to do this is when she hands me one of her  toys.  After she hands it to me, she claps for herself.  She's become her biggest fan ;-).  She pulls to stand on EVERYTHING.  I mean, anything.  It doesn't matter if it is too short or too high, stable or not stable.  She will pull up on it.  She's not full out cruising right now, but takes the occassional step when after something VERY important on the coffee table, ie the remote, camera, a cup, etc.  She's a crawling machine.  She's pretty fast now.  My favorite is to crawl behind her down the hallway.  We'll say "I'm gonna get you" and she'll squeal and go fast and then collapse on the floor so we can tickle her.  Besides byebye, she will say "uh oh."  Her inflection is off which makes it pretty hilarious.  She also says mama and dada but I'm not fully confident that she says them with meaning.  Audrey LOVES to drink water out of her sippy cup.  I'm so glad that she's mastered this and I hope that means her transition to whole milk in a sippy cup in 2 short months will be smooth. 

Likes:  Walks in her stroller, crawling, laughing, fake coughing, feeding Stoney food she doesn't like, drinking out of her sippy, swinging in her outdoor swing, dancing to the Hot Dog song, her pacifiers, being held by Mama, giving kisses (BIG open mouthed kisses).

Dislikes:  Green foods, ANY finger food besides puff (more info on this below), her infant car seat (she never got over this one), when Mommy leaves the room without her (Is using the bathroom THAT important?).

Food:  I'm starting to think we may have a picky eater.  She's a great nurser, she takes her bottles of breastmilk well at daycare, and she drinks water out of sippy like a champ.  Food, on the other hand, is a different story.  She is now VERY clear about foods she likes and doesn't like.  I'm trying to get her to eat finger foods, but she's very against it right now.  She decides she won't eat it even before trying it.  OY.  She LOVES puffs, but that's about it.  I've tried pieces of bread, waffles, bananas, cheerios, wagon wheels (they are similar to puffs) and she will not eat them.  We will just keep trying!  She likes to feed Stoney food that she doesn't want haha.  She does still eat baby food.  She LOVES her breakfast of oatmeal (made with breastmilk) and pureed prunes.  I know you are salivating just reading that!  YUM!  Haha.  She pretty much loves all fruit.  But, she has a very mean Mommy who knows that veggies are important.  We don't see eye to eye on this topic.  She'll eat sweet potatoes.  Yeah, that's pretty much it.  So in conclusion, we've got some work to do in this area.

December brings much excitement.  For me personally, December is the start of working in my company's new clinic in Aiken.  No more commuting for me!  I'm so excited to be 5 minutes from home and 2 minutes from Audrey's daycare.  I will be the main PT there and I'm fortunate to work for such a successful company!  Most importantly, Audrey will celebrate her 1st Christmas.  Our house is decorated, her new stocking is hung, she met Santa just yesterday and had her picture taken, we took family pictures today for our Christmas cards.  We are READY!

Till next month,

Sara

A Special Day

Today was a special day for Audrey.  She was baptized!  We did it at St. Johns United Methodist Church in downtown Aiken.  This is the church that Paul and I plan to join soon.  We've gone to it a few times, but once his schedule changed, it has been hard to go since he works every Sunday.  When we went to meet the minister a few weeks ago, we found out a few fun facts.  The minister, George Howle, is from the McBee area.  He knows Paul's mom and was a few years older than her in high school.  He even told us that he had a crush on her and wanted to date her but her dad was too strict to allow it!  Such a small world! 
So today was Audrey's big day.  She has lots of family come to celebrate with her including my mom & dad, Leila, Ryan, Connor, Paul's mom, Paul's dad, Bunchie, Emily, Aunt Vicki, Kerry, Blake, and our friends, Kat and Ashley.  We feel very blessed to have people make the effort to come be a part of this day.  Audrey wore a beautiful heirloom Christening gown from Paul's side of the family.  It is over 50 years old.  Audrey's great great grandmother got it from Spain, where it was made by nuns.  It has been worn by Paul's mother and her siblings and by Paul and his siblings.  It was beautiful and so special wear something with that history.  She also wore a necklace that her great grandmother, Mimi, wore for her baptism in 1932.  Check out facebook for pictures.  I should have them up in the next few days. 
Overall, Audrey did well.  She's been a little more attached to me the past few days, so she wasn't ready for Rev Howle to carry her.  He made the quick decision for me to walk with him down the aisle carrying her instead and that seemed to work out.
We came back to our house afterwards to enjoy a meal of bbq and chicken - both smoked on Paul's brand new Big Green Egg!, pasta salad, macaroni and cheese, fruit salad, red velvet and lemon cupcakes (made by Desserves), and chocolate chess pie.  Yum!

Thanks again to everyone who celebrated with us!  We love you all!

Sara

Audrey is 9 Months Old!

Another month has come and gone all too quickly!  Audrey girl is 9 months old!  Here is a little picture for fun, 9 months in and 9 months out!

 

We had our 9 month well visit.  Audrey had Hep B and flu shots which she handled well.  It was also discovered she has an ear infection and is now on antibiotics.  She HATES getting her ears checked.  It was the worst part of the visit.  I wasn't too surprised she had an ear infection since she had already started with a cold and 2 babies in daycare had ear infections.  That's just how it goes in daycare.

Anyways, here are Audrey's official stats

Weight:  16 lbs 3 oz (10th percentile)

Height:  25 3/4 inches (10th percentile)

Head:  17 inches (25th percentile)

Conclusion:  She's a little peanut.  But nothing to worry about.  You've met her mama, right?

Diapers:  Size 3

Clothes:  9 month

Milestones:  So many!!  Crawling on all 4's and she gets faster and faster everyday.  She's building up endurance too.  It's hard work crawling and when she follows me down the hall, she often has to sit and take a break ;)  She also goes from lying down to sitting to crawling easily.  She can pull up, usually to her knees, but once or twice all the way to stand.  She loves to pull up on anything.  We have some figuring out to do about keeping her safe in the family room.  Our current method is watching her like a hawk.  She can also play ball by rolling a ball with me.  So cute!  She can wave and say "byebye."  She does this a lot since her daycare teachers really encourage it.  It's so sweet.  She also says "ba" for ball and "mama."  

Schedule:  She sleeps about 11-12 hours a night.  11 hours during the week (only b/c I have to wake her up in the mornings) and 12 or more on the weekends.  She puts herself to sleep very well and always goes down awake.  Best thing I ever did and I should have started that way earlier.  She's been going down awake for about 2-3 months now. She naps 2 times a day, around 10 and 2.  She needs those naps.  Often they last 2 hours.  Playing just wears her out!  By the way, her naps at daycare still suck.  It's so frustrating for me, but there's nothing that can be done about it.  Babies are loud and scream and cry and she gets woken up.

Eating:  Audrey is just not a huge eater.  I mean, dont' get me wrong, when she's hungry, she's hungry and she expects to be fed immediately, but still, it doesn't take much to fill her up.  She eats 3 solids a day (we're still on stage 2 foods, oatmeal, and puffs).  We're working on the sippy cup still but it's more of a toy.  She still breastfeeds twice a day during the week, and 5-7 times on the weekends.  She gets 3, 6 oz bottles of breastmilk at daycare.  

These 9 months have gone by way too fast.  I'm soaking it all in, but I want it to slow down.  I'm not ready for her to be 1 year old soon!  She is such a joy to be around.  She lights up the room and smiles so big at everyone she sees.  She still lets us cuddle her and play with her and kiss her to death.  I'm loving every minute.

Until next month,

Sara

Musings for Non-Serenity

It has been a while since my last post.  My addictive behavioral traits have been divvied up among other useless and productive assignments lately.  Sara, my wife, has been quite diligent about updating the blog monthly with Audrey's information.  They are a joy for Sara to do.  She gets pretty excited about the pictures and getting to share Audrey's growth with everyone.  We thank you for taking time to read the blog and follow us.

  On to some, not so significant, yet important information containing lack luster adventures of a father-daughter day (s).  Quite a time before this day of awesomeness graced my daughter and I; I began planning a fun-filled day of outside teachings.  As it so regularly happens, in regards to outside adventures, rain was planned by the weather guessers and super computers.  Audrey and I had a tactical redirection committee meeting upon the revelation of rain that would be hindering our previously planned objectives.  After redirecting the missions of the day to incorporate a non rain atmosphere, we were set!
  As the morning of October 10, 2011 emerged from the depths of darkness swept in by the night of October 9, 2011; the sun appeared to me as an alarm clock muted of sounds.  The morning began with Audrey eating some breakfast, drinking the milk de Sara, pooping, laughing, and getting changed.  The wife departed our domicile with thoughts of, "I wonder how this is gonna turn out".  Probably because I alluded to some of our operation awesomeness events.
  I wanted to operate in a fashion consistent with our government. I wanted to operate accordingly to test the availability of accomplishment when no accomplishment was planned.  After thirty minutes of accomplishing nothing while attempting to accomplish nothing, I ended the test.  I concluded from my short experiment that the plan Audrey and I had set out, would not suffice when enacted in a way that promotes idiocracy.
  So we set out to our day like any other southerner with a plan.  We drank some coffee, ate some type of HOT breakfast that included atleast one pork product and an egg, enjoyed some fresh air and watched Spongebob Square Pants.  Because of the impending rain already upon us, we set out on a mission of dual missions, Tractor Supply and Pet Smart.  Ole Stoney Dean accompanied us as we ventured out.  Tractor Supply produced dog food initially.  As I pondered about the day, and the cool rainy atmosphere, I concluded inconclusively that Audrey would need a well-made, sturdy, pretty much the most awesome coat ever type of outer wear.  CARHARTT! Heyyyo!  I purchased her a hooded sandstone coat, that matches her daddies coat, except for the fading that has occurred through out its life as an awesome coat.  Text messages were sent with pictures and Facebook was adorned with HD photos.  As friends and family graced their eyes upon the blue eyed southern toddler beauty, Audrey; out-pours of "oohs and aahs" greeted the photos.  There were some who stated Pink would look better.  As I "shopped" for this coat I bypassed the pink quite quickly in a fast manner.  There is enough of that around here, and I like nature colors, even though I can not see most of them!
  Pet Smart was graced by his Majesty Stoney, with no leash and a baby in the arm.  Rawhide bones were dispatched and purchased in a fast manner with a little urgency.  And that was pretty much it for that.
  As we gathered our thoughts, sitting on the couch counting rain drops, we looked at each other.  Audrey smiled and said, "ksabwguqnbgvuirfdawsqfvuerbqaehfuioehbgfkjsdabuige8890034nbdfksajvdksajnbfvdsa bye bye".  At that point, I knew I had planted a seed that would grow a southern girl who can cross the line between both country and "mommie's envision for her daughter that daddy does not understand".  This adventurous day was filled with adventures (Bushism).  The day that Columbus gave us, in which we celebrate all that is European and conquering, will forever be a holiday that Audrey and I will look to conquer our own dreams of always buying new Carhartt gear.  We will set sail, we will conquer, and we will buy sandstone! Heyyyo.


Disclaimer:  This piece is written with the intent of intending to be funny by using amusing musings and paradoxical/oxymoronic language inconsistent with consistent proper English diction so aptly taught in educational settings.  Thank you and enjoy


Call me Paul.