My little Model

Here is my little girl posing oh so perfectly for me to test the light for a photoshoot!

San Clamente

Here is the massive amount of pictures from our trip down to San Clemente at the end of September. I went down without Charles for the week with my parents to stay in our timeshare and enjoy some beach time. Charles was able to join us on the weekend and actually got Audrey to enjoy the beach, whereas she was mostly scared of the sand when she went with me. We had a blast even though i suffered from major soar throat and flu, sleep deprivation, and loads of frustration at driving, heat, pregnancy, and being a single parent for most of the week. Although my parents were wonderful and I would say we survived out one room tiny quarters with positive memories.

Motherhood brag moment

Audrey has been able to identify and say all of the main colors (rainbow and a few others) for a few months now. I was impressed by this. I don't really read a lot of books or anything so I don't know if I should be overly proud at this learning triumph or not. Is 18 months a normal time frame to know this sort of thing?

Well, after she had that down pat I figures we better move on to bigger and better things. So we rehearse the alphabet and numbers on a regular basis. At first she wouldn't even say 3 or "w". Then she had her favorite numbers, 2 and 9 and her favorite letter "o". Then we swiftly in the last couple of days became really good at saying all of them.

Last night Audrey counted from one to ten in a row, very distinctly all by herself!

Is this normal, should I be as amazed as I am? Well, I still am!

A fun Day

Pregnancy

How funny life is. There is nothing that changes your life as a woman more than pregnancy and children. The first time everything is so exciting and new. You dutifully run out to get the "What to expect" books, you ask your doctors all your concerns. You NEVER forget to take your prenatal vitamins, you eat well knowing that it all feeds your growing baby also. You count each week to the day and record every little change and movement. You don't even really mind the kicking once baby gets bigger and more powerful because it is all so magical.

Then you hit the last three weeks and you can't sleep, you can't breath, you can't stand it anymore. Then you go into labor and you swear that you will never do this again!!!

Then they hand you this little bundle of joy, and all of a sudden your hormones hits the ROOF!! Not only are we fooled into being fine with no sleep, and endless crying. But changing diapers ever 5 minutes, because that is how often newborns poop! And then we are further fooled as your baby gets older and a little more easy to manage and we go through this certain phase of amnesia and we decide to DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN!!!

So, here I am 32 weeks. Thank goodness I only have 8 weeks left. Unfortunately my doctor told me I can't be done yet! So I guess I wait it out...and "enjoy" the kicking, sleeplessness, awkwardness, waddling, back pain after standing for 5 minutes, and all the other unmentionables that the joys of motherhood brings!!!

Recent Events

This is what my daughter wanted for breakfast this morning!!!
A bowl full of olives! So weird

We went to the cabin for conference and my heart sang to be in the mountains where it was so nice and COLD! I am so tired of being hot I could scream. Fall certainly took it's time getting here. But I am very grateful it has.

Audrey figured out already how to manipulate the system. Aly noticed no difference in pulling two people around the kitchen floor. What a trooper!

A couple months ago mom and dad brought home this fairy costume, Audrey wanted nothing to do with it and threw it across the room. I snuck it on her this morning as we got dressed and as you can see, it is too small! But, I thought ever girl needs a magic wand so we spent the morning having craft time. She helped me cut the ribbon and put it all together. She is very good at saying star "tar", and bell "bawl" and loves to gingle it around!

Labor Day weekend we had all the Graf's over for a super yummy crepe breakfast and swimming. Josh slaved over the stove till everyone had their fill. I kept asking him if he wanted someone to take over, or water, or a fan, but he pulled through it!

I want to apologize to the world of dog lovers. I just don't get it, but I suppose I am glad that there is another level of companionship in the world. I just wish it weren't so dirty, loud, hairy, and smelly! And that didn't run over my little daughter!

By far Audrey's favorite pastime is to look at "pi-chures" I can almost never get anything on the computer done without her walking up and incessently repeating this word till I let her take over and run the screen saver for her of all the pictures. She can sit there forever and just watch!

Our biggest news of the summer is that Audrey took swimming lessons and it helped her to learn to swim totally on her own (with the swimmer floater) Call me crazy but for a 20 month old that is pretty impressive. She is amazing at it. I swear that overnight it all clicked: to kick, use her arms to keep herself upright, and direct herself, and is totally confident. I don't even really have to watch her. The one downfall of the experience is that by going to the rec center, we think Audrey caught something or was exposed to more chemicals than her little skin could handle. She broke out in this awful rash everywhere that took weeks to get rid of. She was amazing though and never scratched it. If we ever were looking at it she would knit her little brow together with a very concerned serious look and say "owies".

Audrey's second favorite pasttime is now watching Pooh! She gets the little bouncer chair and sets herself up with pillows and blanket and milk or juice and watches it on my laptop. Super cute, till she got a little too atached to it and wanted to watch all the time. I think we have broken the habit though of asking all the time at least.