Hand Foot and Mouth...

...made its way into our house. I had been so thankful that Audrey Grace was able to dodge the stomach virus and strep throat that every child in her class had. Unfortunately we got the ugliest virus of them all. I was due to go back to work Tuesday, January 17th. The Thursday before, I picked up AG from school and could tell she didn't feel good. No fever, but within 2 hours she had 102.5 fever. The doctor was able to see us that day. I was happy because I thought great, we can wipe this out quick...WRONG! The doctor could only find a red throat and thought she must have upper respiratory infection. The next day she had a mild rash around her mouth that I thought her pipi must have caused...WRONG AGAIN. By Saturday morning this is what her mouth looked like

This picture isn't very good, but she was in no mood to take a picture. She ran fever and felt so bad for about 2 days. The rash on her face took an entire week to go away. I was so scared it was going to scar, but thank goodness it didn't. She never got the rash on her hands and only mildly had it on her toes and booty.

Some brotherly love

As far as I am concerned we have one of the best dogs ever. Miller is our Golden Retriever that Ryan gave me for Valentine's Day in 2004. He is so loving and loyal. I just knew when I had a baby he was going to love her so much. Well, he does love her and has always been sweet to her, but he keeps his distance most of the time. I am sure the lack of attention hurt his feelings since he was our "first baby". The more active she gets, she pays some attention to him. I usually say they just ignore/tolerate each other. She does call him by name and usually says "no mimmer". If we are outside and he disappears she will call for him, it is really cute. Lately they both have been interacting with each other a little more and more. I was doing some laundry and when I came around the corner this is what I saw...

When I saw the above picture it melted my heart. I have waited for the day that she would love on him. He doesn't look thrilled but I was! I said Oh Audrey Grace that is so sweet and then she did this...

New Year's Weekend in Smith Lake

It has been a tradition that the weekend of New Year's, we get together with my mom's side of the family. This year we went to Smith Lake and rented a cabin. It was beautiful! The cabin, the lake and the company! The weather was so nice we were able to go outside some but also have a fire at night. The cabin had a game room with ping pong and fuse ball, which was enjoyed by all. We danced to Wii dance, played bored games, ate too much, watched LOTS of football and even had a singing competition on New Year's Eve (Lucy's game choice).

MiMi and Becky with AG and LL

Audrey Grace thought she could get into the baby stroller
Auntie Amy reading to LL and AG
Lucy picking up sticks for our fire
Ryan bringing up some wood. Notice his pants rolled up :) talking to Ho Ho Ho and Mrs Clause That is the "I know I am not supposed to be climbing up these stairs" look Annie and AG Wii Dance Daddy being silly We were playing the game, Headbands. Amy's phone rang and she got into a deep conversation with her headband on. You had to be there but it was really funny. We had to snap a photo. By the way, if you have never played, you should! It is really fun. Uncle Jeff and Aunt Becky with the "baby girls" This picture makes me laugh. Laura Lea thinks AG is her baby at times. She was reading a book to her We must attempt this picture at every family event. One day we will get it!

Merry Christmas 2011!

After much anticipation, Christmas morning finally arrived! I think, well I know, Ryan and I were more excited about this morning than Audrey Grace. It was so exciting to think that Santa was coming to visit!

Santa Came!

Checking out her new kitchen

On to something else...

Back to cooking and giving Mommy a taste

Riding the pony

Books! Her favorite

Christmas afternoon we headed to Columbus to have Christmas with the Lowe side of my family.

Grandma, Joyce and AG discussing the manger scene
Lucy and Amy with Lucy's new American Girl doll, Julie

AG playing with Daddy Bud

Allie and Grandpa

Laura Lea and AG arranging the manager scene

The best we could get...

Getting good at opening presents

Love how she gets on top of her presents to open them

Ha!

Lores got Justin Beiber perfume!! OMG

Christmas Eve 2011

Christmas has been so much fun this year! It is so cool that having a child brings out the child in you again during Christmas. Audrey Grace of course didn't understand about Santa, but she knows he says HO HO HO! She would even sing a song about him. She would sing something and then HO HO HO, it was really cute. She loved all the yights (lights). Everywhere she pointed was to yights or HO HO HO! She loved to look at our Christmas tree and point at the ornaments. She never tried to pull them off or mess them up. We have a nativity set. We would sit down with her and talk about Baby Jesus and the Christmas Story. After a few days she started saying Jesus or something like it anyway. She would stand at the nativity and play with the figures. Really sweet and I hope by doing this yearly she will understand the true meaning of Christmas early on.

On Christmas Eve, we stayed home. Ryan, Audrey Grace and I put a gingerbread house together. As much as I wish I could say how fun it was, it wasn't. It was a sticky mess and Audrey Grace kept wanting to eat the small hard candy. Not a good idea for an 18 month old.

Mark, Dru, Hunt and Hank came over to eat a steak dinner and open presents. The boys are so sweet to Audrey Grace and she is so unsure of them. I don't know why but she eventually warms up about the time they go home. We enjoyed spending our Christmas Eve with the Holdiness's!

Having a oreo cake ball that Aunt Dru made

Audrey Grace with her boy cousins

The Holdiness's

18 month check up

Our sweet little Audrey Grace turned 18 months on November 24. We are behind on our doctor appointments so she didn't have her check up until December 22. This little girl amazes me every day. What an exciting journey we are on and she reminds us of this daily. She is so much fun to play with and talk to these days. It continues to shock me how much she knows and how observant she is. I think she can work our phones better than we can! She knows exactly how to unlock it and take off pressing buttons. She still loves books more than anything but puzzles are close behind. She did get her first baby doll for Christmas so we are playing with babies a little but she doesn't seem to into them yet. She does love clothes though! Probably one of her favorite things to do is sit in the floor (or carseat) and take her shoes and socks off and put them back on over and over again. She is a pretty good eater most days. She has days she will hardly eat anything. Brocoli, green beans and froot (fruit) of any kind, mac-n-cheese and chicken nuggets are her favorites. She has 14 teeth. She talks up a storm. She will repeat anything you say. Her vocabulary probably consits of 75 words and she is starting to put words together. She has learned to say peaz (please) and ta too (thank you) at the appropriate times. She still loves to sing and tries to sing Rock a bye baby and the ABC's. She has added knee, leg, toes, feet and teeth to her body part vocabulary. She can count to 5 but doesn't usually. She will usually say 2 and 5 but if you catch her talking or "reading" a book you may hear her counting. She does use "ck" or "t" at the end of words sometimes. She says sheet instead of sheep or tock instead of top. She has also learned the word NO! It is really aggravating me too. She has known the word and would say it some but usually just shook her head no if she didn't want something. Well, all that has changed and she says NO over and over to get her point across. I could really do without it. I was doing so good at keeping up with things she was doing on a monthly basis. As I sit here and try to play catch up, I can't. She seems to be doing so much more at a more rapid pace that it is hard for me to sit down and remember it all. Guess that is why they say "write it down"! It is really amazing how smart they become so quickly. What I can tell you is that she can make any bad day better. I do enjoy working, but picking her up from daycare and coming home as a family is the highlight of our days! It melts my heart to pick her up and hear her squeal and shout MOMMY as she runs to me with open arms. She loves to be in our presence and we cannot imagine life without her. She has defiantly been keeping us busy and on our toes. One of her new favorite games is to chase each other.
Her 18 month stats were: Weight 26.4 (75th percentile) and 33.5 inches long (90th percentile).
Dr Smith told me I could introduce potty training if I was ready but not to get too pushy with it. I can say that Audrey Grace is NOT ready. She knows that she tee tee's and poo poo's in the diaper and will point to potty and say tee tee but she doesn't want to go anywhere near it! Oh well, I am not too concerned with it at this point anyway.

Newman Family Christmas

We did Christmas with the Newman's the weekend before Christmas this year. It was GREAT! We were not rushing to get anywhere and able to relax and enjoy our time together. Audrey Grace was really into the whole present thing this year. She appreciated each present. She would open and play with whatever it was and we would have to bribe her to open another present.

Audrey Grace's first baby doll! Daddy could not get it out of the box fast enough!
Loving on her new baby Showing Uncle Mark her new babies
Hank, Cole and Hunt in their new jackets