Pumpkin Patch

Last weekend was this sweet girl's 8th birthday!

Eight! Time flies! My sister was pregnant with her when I got married. She was born during the second week of my first teaching job-- I wasn't able to take a day off to see her so I drove an hour and a half and then back home after work on the day she was born! She was beautiful and still is.

I didn't get a digital camera until 2002 so I don't have any pictures of her during her first year. Here she is at my first house. She was a little over a year old.

She's changed so much!! Clay pointed out during Gracie's little celebration that when Audrey is the age Gracie is now, Gracie will be driving! AHH!!


On the way down to see the birthday girl, we stopped at a pumpkin patch. It was way colder than I thought it would be so we didn't stay long. I didn't dress Audrey for 55 degree weather!!




The town I grew up in has a very pretty "town square" and they have decorated it for the fall. We took Audrey up there to try to get her to smile for a pumpkin picture. Laura went with us and she did a great job of entertaining Audrey!


Too bad Audrey's days of sitting and smiling at the camera are long gone!

Halloween Party- OINK!

I took my little piglet to a Halloween Party Monday that our Mom's group put on. It was pretty fun and had lots of CUTE costumes and Halloween themed food! Audrey had a great time Trick-or-Treating and running around in the yard!

Her cute little costume comes with a pig hat but Audrey will only keep it on for about 2 seconds! Not long enough for me to get a picture-- yet!

There was a ton of food for the kiddos! The pizza was made by Whole Foods and they arranged the cheese to make each slice look like a piece of candy corn! Here's Audrey's sweet friend enjoying a slice!

Here's Audrey trying out the "brains" and other icky stuff---

We even made our own trick-or-treat bags!

After Audrey ate her slice of pizza, a piece of cake, made her bag and trick-or-treated, she was ready to go home!

Sesame Street Live!

Clay and I took little miss priss to see Sesame Street Live a couple of weekends ago and she loved it! She doesn't have a clue who any of the characters were or what the storyline to the show was, but she loved the music and dancing!


The show lasted about an hour but we only stayed until intermission. At that point, Audrey had had all the singing and dancing she could take! She wanted to run and play-- so off to the lobby we went and let her run and climb on the furniture!

McWane Your Brain!

After the little cold spell we went through last week, I knew that I wasn't going to make it all winter with a baby that LOVES the great outdoors unless I had something major for her to do while she was inside. So.... we joined the McWane Center and went 3 times last week!! It was well worth the money and I can't wait to enjoy it with Audrey during those cold winter months!

Her favorite activity there is to go to the grocery store. Unfortunately, there are only two shopping carts in the entire exhibit so I spend the majority of my time stalking other children, just waiting for them to lose interest so Audrey can have a go at the carts!



She also enjoys these interactive screens. If you stand really, really still the butterflies that are flying around on the screen will land on you. Audrey is just amazed by them flying all around her. There is no chance she will be still long enough for them to land!!




Another screen has falling beads. If you stand in the stream of beads, they will fall all around you or you can "catch" them. No, Audrey doesn't care much about standing still for the beads either!

She does love making her own music on the giant piano!! She runs and runs up and down the keys! Loves it!


Audrey spends a lot of her time at the gigantic light bright-- it is a baby magnet!!



By the time Audrey has ran around here for a couple of hours (and I've chased her!) she is ready for a major nap! :) We are quickly making a routine of playing our hearts out, eating at the cafe, and then she gets to nap all the way home. Fun times around here!!

Babes in the Zoo

Audrey takes a class once a month at the zoo. We went last week to our second class and she loves it! It's called, "Babes in the Zoo", and is for kiddos from age 6 months to 2 years. The youngest child is around 10 months and the oldest in her class is 18 months. The first class we went to was "Down on the Farm" and she got to see/touch an owl, rat (yes!! a big, huge RAT!), a porcupine, and a handful of other baby animals but I can't remember what all they were.

During her second class, "South American Animals", she got to touch a chinchilla.



An armadillo- ugh.


A guinea pig and she got to see up close-- VERY CLOSE-- a hyacinth macaw. This bird was LOUD and kinda scary because he was so close to us! Audrey was a little frightened of the big old thing! The zookeeper said that he could break an adults finger in his beak.


Audrey's favorite parts of zoo classes are the toys at the back of the room....


.... the open door that leads straight outside....


....and this little boy who is only 4 months older than her. He is so kind to her!...



Her next class is, "Reptiles and Amphibians". It should be interesting!! According to the teacher, we are going to "examine" a snake.I'll make sure to take my camera!!

Road Trip

Audrey and I took off last week with my mom on a 6 hour road trip to visit my aunt and cousin in Arkansas. They live in Cabot, which is a suburb of Little Rock. I was VERY concerned about how Audrey would handle this trip but she was as sweet as sugar! Thank goodness my momma was with us to help!!

We left on Sunday and it rained the ENTIRE way there.

We didn't leave until around 8:30 that morning, thinking she would sleep most of the way to Memphis (halfway). She didn't. That's all I've got to say about that. :)

Mom and I traded out driving and sitting in the back with Audrey. That made the trip seem to go by very quickly!


In Memphis, we stopped and ate at an O'Charley's and then did some shopping in good ole' Target. We stayed there probably two hours-- just letting Audrey have time out of her carseat. While in Target, Momma bought Audrey a portable DVD player. Now, Clay and I are not big TV fans but we've come to find out that Audrey is mesmerized by the Wiggles. So... Momma got her "Pop Goes the Wiggles" and a "Baby Einstein" DVD. We "wiggled and popped" the rest of the way to Arkansas!! Best investment ever for car rides!!

While in Arkansas, we did LOTS of sight-seeing but my favorite thing we did while we were there was tour the Bill Clinton Presidential Library.

I've never been to a presidential library before and it was pretty neat! Audrey particularyly liked the long pathways that she could run up and down!
Isn't this a classy campaign button? I thought it was pretty ironic considering his circumstances..

This is my mom and her sister peeping into the "Oval Office".

Me and my precious one... notice the thumb. She was getting tired of Bill...


After the library tour, we went to the river area of Little Rock. It reminded me a lot of Savannah's river district-- just not as big.



The last day we were there was my aunt's birthday. We went out to eat at "Fat Daddies" and if you have too many meals there, it will certainly make you a "Fat Daddy or Momma"! It was a good old seafood buffet! Yum! Yum! Afterwards, my cousin and his family came over to celebrate my aunt's birthday and bid us adieu. Audrey had quite a time running around with her fam-damily!



Audrey was laughing so hard milk came out of her nose!

On the way home, we stopped in Tupelo to visit with Elvis a bit. Here's Audrey and her Granny with a replica of the car that Elvis' daddy drove him and his family in to Memphis to escape poverty.

Here's his house...

... a lot different from Graceland!!

And finally, here's a picture of me, Audrey, Momma, and Aunt Mary Faye at the Bill Clinton Museum.


Now, our next trip will be to see Sara and all my Savannah friends! We will be going over there the first week of November but I am hoping we will be flying rather than driving. We'll see. I have a feeling I will be driving!! :)