Audrey's New Chair

Brett's mom and dad bought Audrey this awesome chair this weekend. What's especially great about it is that it is made of foam. As you can see from the pictures, this is necessary for Audrey. Besides sitting in it, she bends it,

stands in it,

throws it,

tries to recline in it, etc.

Who knew there were so many uses for a chair? But she LOVES it and has been playing with it all afternoon. Thanks, Granny and Grandpa Wright!

Swimming

Well, our days seem to be filled with swimming this summer which I LOVE. Now, I don't LOVE getting in a bathing suit but anyone who has experienced the heat/humidity of the south knows that you do what you have to do to keep cool. :) So, thanks to my parents neighbors for letting us come crash in their pool! These are some of the pictures that I took from that day.

Audrey and my sister, Natalie




The look we all get when Audrey is tired of being entertained.

She loves her aunt, Natalie!

Future Pianist

Music to my ears...





And when she was removed from the piano for trying to climb on top of the keys....




Oh, give me the strength....

(if you click on the last picture, you can see the tear streaming down her face- soooo sad!)

My Monkey

Such attitude.



I am raising a monkey- at least that's the way it feels! Ashley, if we lived close to you I have no doubt that Audrey would be at your house every day climbing your rock climbing wall. Just think of her as Jake's little protege! :) There is nothing that she doesn't think she can climb and lately I have been making myself little treats at night to celebrate the fact that she's still alive (and to relieve the stress of the day). I might survive this phase but I will be 20 lbs heavier! This afternoon I was outside grilling chicken and while I was waiting for it to cook, Audrey decides that she is going to climb up the slide. Our house came with a nice little playset that has a pretty large slide for a 1 year old. Climbing up the slide is nothing new but she never gets anywhere and it's been pretty funny to watch her try. So, I leave her to play for a minute while I walk over to the grill to check on our dinner only to look over and see her literally half-way up the slide. Of course, I jump through bushes and dodge tree braches to get her off before she falls down and breaks her neck and she just looks at me and laughs. AGHHHHH! Needless to say, she was sent inside to watch me grill from the back door.

As a side note, Audrey is LOVING her swim class. She is one of 3 kids in the class and the other 2 are not crazy about the water and prefer to stay attached to their moms. Then there is Audrey who starts squealing with excitement as soon as she sees the pool and practically jumps out of my arms to get in the water. She is all about splashing (she conveniently obeys when Rachel, the teacher, tells her to splash hard enough to get mommy wet- so glad I am paying for that) and today we practiced going underwater. While the other 2 cried, Audrey just looks at me like, "What else you got? I've been dunking my head in the water since I could sit up in the tub!?!?" It's really funny. I am glad that she loves being in the water.

Father's Day

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Okay, so I am mainly posting this just to see if I am becoming more savvy with all this technology stuff. I can't believe all these programs make it so easy to post on blogs and websites and I just had to see for myself if it was REALLY as easy as this program made it seem.

While I'm testing this out, can I just say that I am loving all this digital scrapbooking stuff?! It makes my life so easy! In fact, my 2 favorite words are becoming "Click and Drag." I always wanted to be this big scrapbooker and I think I lasted one semester my freshman year at college (no thanks to Katie the super-scrapbooker who could create the most incredible pages in like 5 minutes!). :) I really enjoy doing creative things but I am rarely satisfied with anything I create. It could be this problem I have with perfection... Doing things for Brett is fun because he doesn't know any different and thinks anything I create is a masterpiece (he's probably lying to me, though, because he can't handle the tears! ha ha).

Anyway, this is Brett's Father's Day gift. This is the first time I have done a digital scrapbook and I think it turned out quite nice. Hopefully, he will think so, too!

Wedding Weekend

Well, my sister Ashley is officially married! It was a fun but exhausting weekend. Ashley and James headed to the Bahamas today and I feel like they should have paid for us to go, too! I need a vacation!!! Audrey had a great time and wore me out at the wedding. There was a bench at the front door and all she wanted to do was climb up on it and play. I tried a million times to distract her and take her back to the party but she would squirm out of my arms and walk back to the bench. Thank goodness for my sister, Natalie, and my grandparents who gave me a break at different times so I could eat and visit with people. And yes, Brett was there but you would have thought that someone in HIS family was getting married... he conveniently found all sorts of people to talk to. Kind of funny, kind of not! ha ha

Anyway, now that all the fun is over, I am sitting here with a blank calendar and no motivation to do anything. Audrey and I will be starting a parent/tot swim class next week with my friend, Erika, and her son, Dawson, so that will be fun. Hopefully, Audrey will enjoy that as much as she enjoys playing in her baby pool.

Below are pictures of Ashley's wedding taken from Natalie. I hope to post more pics once her photographer posts them on her website. Oh, and I didn't get a good picture of Audrey's dress but my very talented sister-in-law, Robyne, hand-smocked it. Her daughter's had matching dresses and they were absolutely beautiful!

Audrey's 1st Pool

Audrey got her first pool last weekend and she was so excited that I could barely get her swim diaper on (so we gave up trying to get the swim suit on). Water sprays out of the trunk of the elephant slide and Audrey was NOT happy about that but once we turned it off, she was in heaven. It was really funny! She loves the water and seems to have no fear of it- which means I have a huge fear of it for her. We were eating dinner with Brett's family last week and his mom had just opened her pool so we went outside to put our feet in. Within a couple of minutes, Audrey was up to her waist (in her clothes- asssisted) in the water and trying to go farther.

We have been looking at this infant swimming class that will teach her this swim-float-swim life-saving technique in case she ever did fall in the water. From what I understand, they will teach her how to do a basic swim (a one year old?? but that's what they say...) along with floating on her back to catch her breath to get herself to the side of the pool and then teach her how to crawl out. They take kids as young as 6 months, although up until 12 months they just teach them how to float on their backs, and I think it sounds awesome. We will be at my mil's pool a lot this summer as well as spending time at the beach and the lake so I would feel more comfortable if I knew that Audrey had a little training. Ironically enough, as I sit here and watch the lovely news- tonight's top story is of 2 kids who have drowned in 1 day. The really sad part is that they were teenagers! Any of you heard of or tried these infant swimming classes?

Maybe...

Okay, so I make NO promises and this may be the only post for the next 8 months, but I will attempt to update this blog. I think it's because there is absolutely NOTHING to watch on TV right now and I seem to have a lot more interesting things going on in my life now. Not that I am a huge TVaholic but it's kind of my down time at night. Brett works until 10 pm and Audrey goes to bed at 8 pm so after the dishes are done and the house is straightened, I need what Brett likes to refer to as "unproductive time" (watching TV- whatever- maybe he shouldn't work such long hours- ha ha). When I last posted, Audrey was only 6 months old and I still wasn't quite sure how you are suppose to be a mom and get other things done. Now, I am doing so many other things that I wonder if I'm being a good mom! Poor Audrey gets dragged all over town but she does seem to love it. On the days when we are at home (which thanks to gas prices and my gas guzzler SUV is MUCH more often) she gets stir-crazy. Seriously, she was so whiny yesterday until Brett and I finally left to go visit his family and suddenly the happy giggles came out. Strange. No, not really because she is just like me.

So, the excitement this week is that my sister, Ashley, is getting married on Saturday and this week should be quite fun. Lots of family that we don't get to see often enough are coming in town and there are several dinners planned, nails to be done, great reception food and dancing- what more could you ask for! I'm excited because her photographer is going to take a family picture of Brett, Audrey, and I and I am hoping that it comes out good because I need to update the current one hanging in my house. Audrey was 4 months old in the old one and I am not one of those good moms that takes her daughter to get professional pictures done every couple of months so it might be good to have a more current picture since she is now 14 months old! (Oh, and by the way- I take a ton of pictures of her but I allow that to suffice for documenting how much she grows. I do print them out and have tons of pictures around the house just in case you were feeling bad for her- ha ha).

Audrey is growing like a weed and full of more energy than I knew could exist in a person. She has currently given me 2 heart attacks in 2 days with her non-stop action and climbing. She first fell down the stairs at my mom's house (seriously sounded like thunder booming- scared me to death and lots of bad words came out of my mouth!). What's even worse is that she was almost at the top when I think she realized no one was watching her and started to scoot down. My mom's stairs are a lot steeper and not as wide as my stairs at home so Audrey gets lots of scooting action and really gets into it by bouncing a lot to get to the next step- consequently, I figure that she bounced too much and rolled down the rest of the way. Luckily, she landed either on her back or bottom and was up and running around within a few minutes. However, I wasn't. First time mom, I know. So, if that wasn't bad enough, the very next day Audrey is in the dining room staring out the window at the guy painting our house. She was talking and laughing and having a great time. The painter needed some water so he rang the doorbell and as I was walking through the dining room to get the door, there is my daughter STANDING on top of the dining room table! SERIOUSLY?!?!? How do they do that? All the chairs were pushed in and there was nothing around the table that she could have used to climb up. After I got the water, I left her alone in the dining room so I could spy on her and see how she did this. Ugh, too smart- she crawled under the table, squeezed herself between the chair and table, stood up on the chair, and crawled up on the table. I may not survive the next year!

Well, here's hoping to another post real soon with more pictures (well, I'm hoping- now that you all have read this, your probably thinking that another 8 months could pass by...). Hopefully, I'll get some pictures from the wedding this weekend so those of you who know Ashley and can't be here can see it.