Eight Months

Lots of big stuff happened for Smiley during her 7th month. She began to crawl and pullup all in the same week. Along with the crawling and pulling up came lots of bruises to her forehead! The poor girl has a polka-dotted forehead at all times!

 She has the sweetest disposition of any baby I know. She's so loving and snuggly! Rarely does she cry or fuss unless she is hungry or sleepy. She's taking 3 naps a day. Typically an hour or so for each nap.

 Smiley likes squash, applesauce, blueberries, bananas, sweet potatoes, peaches and carrots. She doesn't care for anything that has chicken in it! She likes sweet potato and banana flavored gerber puffs. She hasn't figured out how to get them in her mouth yet but really enjoys them when I feed them to her.

 Now that she can crawl, she loves to play chase around the house. We will crawl along behind her and tell her "Imagonnagetchew!" and she puts those little chubby-wubs in gear and tries to crawl away from us. She doesn't usually get very far before she collapses from the giggles.

She is babbling up a storm and has been for quite awhile. She's said, "Mommamommamommamomma, and dadadadadadadadada" but we are not sure if she is being deliberate or just babbling.


She loves for anyone to talk to her and can't get enough of Sweet Pea. Anytime Sweet Pea is around, she will practically leap from my arms to try to get to her.

We love this sweet girl! Audrey calls her "my chute wittle baby" and noone can make this baby laugh more than her big sister!

First the beach...

..and now the fair. There is only so much this momma can take! I have some really weird  interesting quirks about myself that I didn't think much about before I had children. You know, like the "not like the beach" thing and well, heres another one. I don't care for the fair either. Did you know that fair rides/workers are not regulated in anyway? That didn't bother me when it was just myself I was concerned about but just add this to the long list of things that changed when I had children.

Despite all of my fears, we took Audrey to a little fair here in our town Thursday night. I drove by it during the day and checked out the rides. It looked as if there were plenty of rides that were appropriate for preschoolers and were not too high off the ground. You know, in case all the bolts came loose at the same exact time and sent her flying-- she wouldn't have far to go and would most likely live through the experience.

The first ride that she and Lyric took on was the motorcycles. From the looks of them, they've had many a mile put on them. Audrey was apprehensive at first but it didn't take her long to warm up to the "fairy". This wasn't Lyric's first rodeo though. She knew what kind of fun she was about to have!

 Next, the waterless boat ride!! Audrey got a little more adventerous with this one and started waving to us! haha!

 Then, the ride that just about sent me to the hospital, the alligator roller coaster. Audrey was feeling confident by this point so she jumped right up and got on the front seat. I was relaxed by then and thinking that the fair wasn't so bad afterall. I mean, Audrey was loving it so how could I not?!

Here she is posing for the camera before the ride started.

 Almost time to start, hold on tight Audrey!!

 Y'all. When that thing started, it jerked Audrey's little head so hard I thought it had surely come detached from her little neck. I could not believe that I was standing beside that alligator as it took off with my baby's body and there was nothing I could do about it. I just knew she was going to come back around and be screaming her head off.

 Nope.

 She loved it. It shook and jerked so violently that she lost her little hat but everytime she came by us, she was smiling this huge "alligator" smile. She even let go at one point and WAVED to the man running the ride. I ended up laughing and laughing and was so proud of my sweet girl. She made it through that ride and then through the bouncy house before it was time to go home.



Smiley even enjoyed her trip to the fair!

After seeing how much Audrey enjoyed herself, I can honestly say we will most likely be going back to a fair one day. Hopefully I can keep her on the preschool rides and not the crazy ones like The Scrambler.

First Field Trip

Audrey's little preschool went on their first field trip to a Pumpkin Patch on Wednesday. It was so cold! The trip itself was nice even though we froze to death outside. I love going to things like this where other children Audrey's age are around. It's reassuring to me to know that she's normal. Ha!

The pumpkin patch we went to is not really a pumpkin patch. It's more like an environmental center and they just have little pumpkin activities for schools in the fall. The day was divided into different little centers and the first center was in the rec room. The children played "Duck Duck Goose" and other fun preschool games.

The little fellow in the brown striped sweater is Audrey's pal, Luke. They sit beside each other at school and she just loves him. Her teachers tell me that he and the little boy with the black and gray coat on (BJ) "take care of her".

After running around for a bit, they went on a "Nature Walk" where they traipsed through the grass looking for ant hills, dirt dauber nests and anything else they may find that was "alive.
This activity surprisingly did not hold Audrey's attention very well. She was more interested in hanging out with me at this point than looking at ant hills. She did step right in the middle of one but thankfully there were no ants out on this cold day!

 My favorite center of the entire field trip was making smores. Audrey seemed to love it also because she ate her entire smore!

 The final station for us was the "Animal Hut". Audrey loved this one as well. I love that she does not have a squeamish personality. I love that she will touch things and explore things that will not harm her. For example, if she sees a spider in the house, she doesn't normally squeal and run away. She'll look at it for awhile before she asks me to "mush it". That was why I wasn't entirely surprised when she was completely okay with the field guide wrapping this snake around her neck. I was proud of her and she learned something in the process.

*I do think she needs to have a healthy fear of critters. Just not the "damsel in distress" type fear. We are working on that!*

 We left right after the Animal Hut. The trip was fun and was going well but Smiley was fussing for a nap and we were all three freezing! We grabbed a pumpkin and hit the road!

This last photo is of her classmates who were still there at the end. Missing: Taylor, Reese, Audrey and Ms. Jill

Loving the Fall Weather!

The time between when Audrey wakes up from nap and Clay gets home from work is the hardest time for me to fill. I'm not sure why but I can't seem to plan activities for us that are both fun for Audrey and Smiley AND don't wear me out. Ha! Since a cold spell was coming in on Wednesday, we decided to make use of our time and play outside for awhile Monday afternoon.

Smiley had just woken from her nap. She wasn't so sure about being in her car either. Now that she's crawling, she wants no part in anything that will tie her down.

Bubbles are pretty fascinating no matter how old you are...

 She wanted to pour her bubbles into her sand table. I should've just let her. I've got to get better about choosing my battles wisely. It really wasn't that big of a deal- it's not like she doesn't have 50 bottles of bubbles or anything. I have many of these moments-- I shoulda, woulda, wisha, kinda moments.

 Happy again and serving Sweet Pea some soup. Sweet Pea enjoyed it and came back for seconds.

 After making soup with our acorns, she thought they needed to be painted royal blue. That took lots of concentration!

We then painted sticks, leaves and rocks. About that time Smiley decided she was tired of being in her car so we headed back inside to make supper. Fun afternoon with my precious ones!

Pumpkin Patch

We took the girls to a birthday party at the Pumpkin Patch Saturday but before I get into that, here's a little downward dog for you..

 Little miss Smiley decided that she wanted to crawl last Monday when we got home from the beach. Now, she's all over the place. She is even pulling up onto her knees and if you give her just a tad bit of support, she will stand! Her big sister crawled at 8 months and walked at 10. Smiley is crawling at 7 months and I am praying that she won't be walking before Christmas!

 A birthday party at the pumpkin patch is the way to go if you have a Fall birthday. We love going and it only made it better that we had cupcakes to eat in the middle of the fun!

Audrey wanted to find the smallest pumpkin in the patch. She said she wanted a teeny tiny one because she was teeny tiny.

Audrey and Addie- friends again. Ha!

Amanda and her precious birthday girl, Josephine. I love these two. This momma is absolutely nothing like me but then we have a lot in common! I'm sure that makes no sense! This picture is of Josie opening her present from Audrey which was a stuffed tarantula and a stuffed spider. Josie made a "birthday list" and the snake was on it! The tarantula wasn't but Audrey wanted to get it for her!

This isn't the best picture we got of our girls but it's the one that makes me laugh the most. Audrey was trying so hard to please me and to "smile" at the camera. Looking at this picture makes me think I put her through torture sessions when I ask her to pose!

Beach Day Twenty Five

After packing all our stuff into mine and my sister's car on day 24, we were ready to go home bright and early Monday morning.


But first, we had cake for breakfast.

Both my sister and my niece celebrate birthdays this month. We didn't find the time to cut their cake on Sunday so we did it Monday before we left. My sister is three years older than me and looks about three years younger. She's always had the prettiest skin- no wrinkles, crazy brown spots that seem to pop up everyday, and no random pimples. She's also always had that black hair and she is just about the only person I know that can actually wear red lipstick and look good in it!

After two days without a nap, Audrey crashed pretty hard in the car. We were not in the car very long at all before she conked out. It was a nice little drive with two sleeping babies.

Then Shelby Claire decided she needed a bottle so we had to stop. Once she got her belly full, she was back to her Smiley little self.

After a short stop at my mom's house, we finally made it home around 5:00 that afternoon. This was waiting for us on the door.

We are so glad to be home. :)

Beach Day Twenty Four

We said goodbye to Addie and Amy bright and early Sunday morning. This picture is of Audrey giving Addie a goodbye "hug". Um, yeah, more like a tackle. Audrey and Addie had "issues" throughout their little visit. That's all I'm going to say about their three-year-old tactics. :)

 It wasn't long after they left that my crew showed up! We were so excited for my family to be able to get down to see us. We typically live about 4 hours from them and while at the beach we were only an hour and a half.

 Of course we went to Seaside for awhile Sunday. We ate at Pickles and Audrey had a $6 hotdog bun. Ha! Her kids meal was $6 and all she ate was the bun from the hotdog. :)

 Momma kept Smiley for me and I got another afternoon of playing with Audrey at the beach. We built one more drip castle and soaked up the October sun. It was a high of 81 Sunday and could not have been more perfect.

After our fun in the sun, we took the girls to the pool and then cleaned them up for a photoshoot on the beach. That totally stressed me out. Audrey would not cooperate and I had procrastinated until the last night we were going to be there and I was really wanting to get some good pics of them. Recipe for disaster, huh? Bribing her with candy corn didn't even work. That's going to be a whole blog post all of it's own though. Thankfully Smiley, Gracie and Laura cooperated!

Since my mom and sister were there, I took the opportunity to pack all of our stuff up! We reserved the condo until Saturday, the 15th but we were missing Clay. I also knew that if I didn't do it while they were there, I'd have to make MANY trips up the elevator with a baby on my hip and a three year old attached to my other hand. There wouldn't be much room for our belongings doing it that way. Our original plan was for Clay to come back and get us on the 14th/15th but we wanted to go home!