10 Months

Audrey is 10 months, sob, less then 2 months as a stay at home Mom with my two girls.  Ugh...  In anycase, this month has shown as that Audrey is a bit of a trouble maker.  She gets into a lot, more so then Celia ever did.  She gets this little grin on her face before she touches something that she really should not touch.  A few times she has started laughing prior to snatching the tv remote off of the coffee table.  She really likes to test the boundaries when Pete watches her, he has learned that it does not always work to multitask.  Twice now I have caught her playing in the toilet, fun times!! 

She really wants to walk and I think if she realized that while standing up she could just take a few steps, then we would be in trouble.  She can stand on her own for a bit and she can walk while holding my one hand most of the time.  Celia did that for awhile though prior to walking so I am thinking that she will walk right around the time that Celia did.  Audrey is slowly sleeping better.  Lately she has bypassed her normal wake up at 2:30 for 4 or 4:30, this week I am going to insist upon the 4:30 time and then push her the following week to 5 am.  Once she reaches 5 am, I am okay with that.  I will have to get up around that time anyhow for work so i might as well get used to it!!

She is wearing primarily 6 to 9 month clothes, but can still fit into some of her 3 to 6 month clothes. I can even put some 6 to 12 month clothes on her.  Pants are still big in 6 to 9 month sizes, especially if they are carters 9 month pants (really the same as 6 to 9 months).  I have to keep pulling them up during the day, even with her cloth diaper butt. 

Audrey loves to eat and she is able to sign more and eat and a few times I think she has tried to approximate the sign for peas, her current favorite food.  She recently tried my homemade calzones and really loved them too.  The sign for more lately seems to just mean "I want that" because last week she was in the hallway upstairs and signed more to me.  I asked her if she was hungry and she looked at me and signed more, then crawled into the bathroom and stood by the tub and signed more and then looked at it.  She wanted to take a tubby, she loves her tubby.  She loves to cuddle too, she can give you the biggest hugs.

 Look close because our biggest surprise this month was a shiney new tooth!!

As I said, she gets into trouble a lot.  She loves to make messes!!!

Doing the laundry can be fun

Audrey loves to help with laundry.  She is funny, she will lean way in there now and try to find certain items.  Sometimes if she picks the wrong ones she will hand them to me.  One day we actually had a good system going, she would search, hand it to me, I would fold it and by the time I had the item folded she would hand me another.  It was nice.  Then she decided to go searching through the folded clothes and I was not so happy.  It involved me saying no, a certain baby also shaking her head and saying no, and then a certain baby being plopped far away from the laundry basket.

Of course right now laundry is a big pain for us as our washing machine is awaiting a brand new motor that should be here in 2 to 10 days.  Thank goodness for neighbors, otherwise I would be handwashing those diapers which I basically did on the day that the washer broke.  Can you stand the bubble butt in the picture? I love the cloth diaper butt.

Vacation part 2

The pictures do not match up with the paragraphs, just highlights from the trip!

So... the second week we were watching Irene. My Mom and I suspected that on Friday we would be asked to evacuate. Wednesday evening I took Celia to the pool and I talked to one of the staff members who indicated that we would have plenty of notice and that no one was meeting to discuss it until the next day. Ok, sounds good. Well... my Mom received a text from my sister around midnight tell her that all non locals on Duck (where we were staying) were being evacuated Thursday morning. She woke me up at 12:30, about an hour after I had gone to sleep due to Ms. Audrey and a good book. My Mom decided that we should leave then and not risk getting caught in major evacuation traffic. Okey Dokey... So I rushed off to return the double stroller I rented, rushed back, packed the car, woke the kids, and by 2 am we were on our way back to my Mom's house.

Celia thought this experience was the greatest thing on earth. She listened to her CD player, talked to us, at snacks and slept for all of 20 minutes. Audrey was out after an hour. Honestly they both did not seem that phased by the experience. About an hour from my Mom's house I could not drive anymore and my Mom had to take over. I was so tired. When we got back to the house I decided to have Audrey sleep in her own room and Celia and I would sleep together. For some reason Celia back very angry and ended up sleeping on the floor. I am still trying to figure out how that was a punishment to me. We slept for a little over an hour. Yes.. A little over an hour is all it took for Celia to be energized. Needless to say she had some extra tv time that day.

We hung out at my Mom's house for Irene. Celia and I actually went out to hobby lobby just to check it out the morning Irene came to Richmond. We did lose power that evening but it returned midmorning the next day. Celia thought that was great also. We had a great time visiting with my Mom and Monday morning we headed home. It was a good vacation, but I still want my 2 missed days from the beach. I did not get to say goodbye to the beach. The water was even nice this year!! We will be back next year.


It was nice to see Celia have so much fun this year. She was very confused when we got there because we chose a different house. She told me many times that she liked the other house better, primarily because this house had some freaky clowns hanging in the dining area. But the owners of the house actually sent us 2 cheese cakes. One of those cheesecakes was left behind when we evacuated.

Audrey for some odd reason fell asleep quite a few times on my Mom.  She is the only one that Audrey does this too.  She never falls asleep on me anymore!

Our Vacation Pics Etc Part 1, a bit late

It seems like since we came home from vacatio things have just been so busy.  Audrey still does not seem to be back on track and I can not say it is from vacation, I just think she is adjusting her sleep pattern.  Naps have been somewhat short and we are still, still, still working on getting her to sleep through the night.  She is tough.  During vacation she woke up as much as 4 or 5 x some nights and at the least 2x.  It was not fun, being at the beach was a blast, being sleep deprived was not so great.

It is a good thing she is so cute!

So here are the highlights.
Celia, Audrey and I arrived at my Mom's house in Virginia on a Wednesday and we enjoyed the pool, a short visit to Lewis Ginter gardens, and just fun times with Mom Mom.  Pete came down Thursday and left early Saturday morning for the beach.  We arrived on Monday.  This works out well for us because Pete gets some groceries, makes beds, and gets some time to himself.  We go down with no traffic!!  So we had a great time the first week.  Celia was a little fish in the pool and had some fun playing with a little girl named Madeline at the beach.  Audrey loved her peapod tent and had some fun in the sand too.  We had amazing weather, not too hot and it never rained that first week.  Pete left on Sunday to go home.  The next day was the worst weather day, but really it was not bad weather.  It was overcast in the morning that is what I mean by bad weather!!  That was not a great day though as Celia was not in a good mood, throw a major fit in the car as my Mom and I were trying to figure out why my check engine light was on.  I later found out after stressing greatly about it that I just need a new gas gap. 

Audrey in her peapod

Celia enjoying the rocking chair on a Mommy and Celia night out.  I took her to get icecream then we picked out a treasure, the treasured little turtles are no where to be found now!

Celia have an attitude? Nah...

Pete with the girls!

In anycase the next day we had the earthquake, I believe that was on Tuesday.  My Mom was at the beach at the time and the two girls were taking a nap.  I was reading on a chair and I felt the house shake a bit but what I really noticed was the deck shifting from side to side.  I called my Mom and asked if there had been a very bad gust of wind.  She indicated that there had been a slight wind but nothing bad.  I then thought that perhaps Celia was jumping from the windows or something insane.  I was surprised to find that her room was very quiet, she was actually asleep.  A few minutes later, Pete called to tell me that they had an earthquake.  Oh...  I was a bit glad to hear that as at the moment I was contemplating grabbing the kids and leaving the house because evidently a slight gust of wind can move the deck. 

I never post pictures of myself, but here I am in all my glory, in my workout gear.  But see how calm the bay was?  Isn't that pretty?

Infant see

I am not sure if I have written about this in the past but today we took advantage of the infantsee program for Audrey.

http://www.infantsee.org/

This program provides a free eye exam to babies under the age of one. It is a full eye exam, they even dilate the pupils. It does not sound like fun but in my opinion it is worth it. I learned about the program years ago when a Mom on baby center who posted about it. Her little girl was diagnosed with a serious eye disease that if not treated could lead to loss of vision. Pete has poor vision and part of his vision issues can be hereditary. So Audrey and Celia need to be followed.

Audrey did very well and actually had fun except for the eye drops part! The doctor was very good with her and had some neat toys. I would suggest taking a baby after 7 or 8 months because they are able to sit up more and pay attention more to the toys used in the exam. I did learn that Audrey's eyes are healthy except that she is nearsighted, so more then likely by the time she goes to school or earlier, she will need glasses. He wants to see her in 2 years. At this time it is not bad enough to correct it but he seemed to think that basically correction would be needed in the next few years. It is something to watch closely as she could need them earlier, he said that the condition in her case will not get better but could stay the same or get worse fast or slowly.

Celia is due for another exam and we are going to get her in soon. We will see how she cooperates with getting the eye drops!

Carrie

The real story

In Celia's parking lot picture, she looks so sweet and so smiley.  Well.... if you can believe it, seconds before the smiley photo she was screaming at me and sobbing.  Celia has been not sleeping during her nap time, which is fine with me as long as she stays in her room.  But the problem is that Celia needs her nap time.  She fell asleep when we got in the car and was not happy to be woken up when we arrived at the birthcenter.

Prior to the picture being taken we had experienced a time out and numerous fits.  We were just about to give up when Celia turned to me and said "Momma, I will let you take a picture of me and I will smile".  What???  But she did it!

Parking Lot

2007

2008

2009

 2010

2011

4 Years Old

 I took this picture of your little legs, look at those muscles!  You are so strong.  They help you swim, which you learned how to do this year.

 You love going to Longwood Gardens, especially the tree houses and the childrens indoor garden

Yes you are cute, very cute but you have an attitude

 A big attitude

 You are a bit silly and crazy.  In this picture, you pulled a bean bag onto Mom Mom's guest bed to take a nap.

 You are so pretty

 You are so smart.  You use words like hydrated and enthusiastic.  You know all your letters and sounds.  You can write all your letters and most numbers now.  You even draw peoples and they are not always stick figures.  You love to read chapter books now, but they do have to have some pictures.  Right now, Mercy Watson is your favorite.

You loved the beach this year, you could not get enough of the pool. 

 

Perhaps, this person is your favorite right now.  The two of you share a mutual love and right now that is great.  I am not expecting it to last, hopefully it will.  But for now you announce proudly that "I am Audrey's favorite" and that is probably the truth.  The two of you laugh and play together.  Of course both of you get a little too rough, one more then the other, but that will work itself out soon, hopefully.

Happy 4th Birthday Baby Girl

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School Days

School Days have begun for Celia and I am going to miss my little second in command while she is in school (just 3, 1/2 days a week).  Audrey and I will have some bonding time, just the two of us and that will be good.  You know, like right now when I am watching Hoda and Kathy Lee and she is talking to the tv...  Don't judge me, this is the first time I have really been able to watch this in a long time and Audrey is having a blast.  I am also exhausted, Audrey has been getting up 2 to 5 times a night for over 3 weeks.  I am done.

So onto Celia.  Today was her first day in Ms. Anna's classroom.  She was a it nervous and we had some rough points this morning as no one slept well in our house.  Celia got up at 11 pm, due to Audrey, and one time on her own around 4 am.  We had picked out her dress the day before however I guess that we should have also picked out her shoes...

So here was little Miss Celia last year

And here was Celia today

She will turn 4 on Monday and I can not believe it.  I am okay with it though.  I enjoyed her cute little three year oldness but I am ready for it to be done and to see what 4 brings.  Ms. Anna's classroom is a center based preschool classroom and Celia will have lots of fun I am sure.  They follow the creative curriculum, I am not a fan of that particular curriculum but I think that the school does not follow it to the T and the activites seem like fun.  I do love centers in a classroom though, personally I think that is the way to go until you hit upper elementary school.  But that is just my teaching style.