a good birthday

Last Saturday was my 31st, and it was a fun birthday weekend.  On Saturday Aaron woke up early with Audrey and let me sleep late, then that evening we went to dinner at the Keg in Plano, one of my favorite steak places.  We decided to take Audrey with us because I wanted to celebrate my day with my 2 favorite people!  On Sunday my parents, Stacey, and Granny came over to celebrate my birthday and watch the super bowl.  It was a great weekend!  I love this family picture at dinner Saturday night, Audrey is signing more and saying ice ;) 

aren't they adorable!?

me with my carrot cake, I couldn't even eat half!  It was so yummy so I had

them box it up to take home and I forgot the box on the table :(

My two favorite people!  I let Audrey wear her new Matilda Jane dress to dinner (even though it's a Spring/Summer dress), I bought it on eBay for less than half the original price!! 

Like Mommy, Like Daughter

I recently received a gift card to Vera Bradley so tonight we stopped by to pick up a new bag I have been wanting and then headed to dinner.  While we were in the store Audrey walked over and picked up this little purse and never wanted to put it down.  She walked all over the store holding it while I browsed around.  I have a bag with the same fabric so she must have recognized it.  I tried to get her to put it pack but she was not loosening her grip, and I was not interested in making a scene!  So I decided to buy it for her and now we have matching bags ;)  We went to the register to pay and she gave her bag to the sales lady, who scanned it, then gave it back to her and she gripped it tightly again.  I looked at the register monitor and it said 'Audrey' with the price of her bag next to it.  I asked the sales lady if the name of this bag was 'the Audrey bag' and she said yes.  I told the lady that was my daughter's name and all the sales ladies at once said 'awwwwe'.  It was so cute that she liked this bag so much, and very fun for me to buy my girl her first purse.  Although she calls it her 'bag' instead of purse.  She carried it to dinner and put it in the chair next to mine.  When we left she grabbed her bag and looked over to make sure I had mine too.  She held it the whole way home and then once we got home she started finding things to put in her bag.  My baby girl is growing up so fast!

like mommy, like daughter

Hmmm, what can I put in my bag?

I may need this pig, let's put him in here!

What do we have here?  A bracelet, a pig, a cracker...the basic necessities! ;)

Friends & Birthday Parties

Playing with her friend Taylor, they are so cute together. 

I think they almost look like sistersexcept for their eyes

Playing with friends Brady and Taylor. 

Taylor is 6 months younger than Audrey and Brady is 1 month younger

At friend Chesed's birthday party!

The theme of the party was 'Candy Castle' and there was candy everywhere! 

Audrey was loving it!  Can you tell?  ;)

the birthday girl opening her gifts

At friend Taylor's birthday party

She LOVED the bounce house!

Taylor let all of her friends play with her toys

the birthday girl opening her gifts

leaving the party.  She had so much fun!

We have been busy this week!  I feel like Audrey has played with friends almost every day this week, which is not only fun for her but great for me as well because I get to spend time with my friends too!  Earlier in the week we got a visit from my sister Marci who was visiting from Minnesota.  We had fun spending time with her and Audrey loved getting to see her Aunt Marci again.  And this July Audrey will have her first cousin!!  You can read all about it on Marci's blog.  We are so excited for her and Bryan and can't wait to meet our new niece (or nephew ;)  The rest of the week was filled with play dates and birthday parties.  It's been a busy and fun week!

Family Pictures

Back in November we had family pictures taken for our Christmas card.  I love having family pictures made because it seems like that's the only time all 3 of us are actually in the picture!  Our wonderful photographer was Wendy at Giggles N Grins.  She travels all over the DFW area to meet you anywhere you want to have your pictures taken.  We've used her before and really like her work.  I love the way she plays with colors in the picture and can really make certain colors pop!  Happy New Year everyone! 

Christmas 2009

This Christmas has been so amazing!  It gave us so many wonderful memories and a lot of fun times!  A few days before Christmas we took Audrey to the Gaylord ICE show.  It was beautiful and COLD!  9 degrees to be exact.  We walked through the Gaylord checking out all the Christmas lights and displays then we began our 2 hour wait in line to see the 20-30 min ICE show!  It was worth it though because it was just so amazing to see How the Grinch stole Christmas in an ice display.  Audrey loved all the colorful characters but I think we were all almost frozen towards the end of the show and ready to be warm so we rushed out of there!  Did I mention it was 9 degrees in there?!

Sitting by a Christmas display in the Gaylord

We went with Stacey and Chad to the ICE show!

Waiting in line, chasing Audrey around

looking fashionable in our ICE show parkas

with the Grinch

my poor baby!  these were the smallest parkas they had

Audrey on Christmas Eve with her 'owie'

The skin around her thumb started to crack because she sucks her thumb so often.

 Her dr told us to keep it moisturized and wrapped.  After 2 days it is completely healed!

Our Christmas Eve blizzard.  This is the view from our garage after

we arrived home from church on Christmas Eve

Family picture by the tree on Christmas Eve

Audrey before bed on Christmas Eve

This is was the room looked like after Santa came!

Audrey got a table and chairs with coloring books and blocks

more blocks

gifts from Santa under the tree

the view from our front door on Christmas morning.  A beautiful white Christmas!

Audrey finding her gifts from Santa

She really likes this farm and is quickly learning what each animal is called

coloring with daddy on Christmas morning

opening her 1 wrapped present, we got her Hooked on Phonics for Toddlers

opening stockings

she loves toothbrushes and we are constantly losing them all over the house,

so she got a new one in her stocking ;)

playing with her watercolors santa left in her stocking ;)

opening Christmas gifts at Nana & Pop's house

opening gifts with Stacey

Audrey with her Granny

opening more gifts at Grandma & Grandpa's house

I don't have a picture but Aaron gave me a beautiful Ruby ring which is Audrey's birthstone so that makes it even more special.  I gave him a new AV Receiver for our home theater system, something he's been wanting for a while so he was really excited to open his gift!  This whole month of December has been very special and memorable for us.  Last year Audrey was only 4 months old during Christmas so we didn't participate in many Christmas activities.  But this year we took her to a tree lighting ceremony, a Christmas light display, an ICE show, we read the story of baby Jesus' birth to her every night this month, she went to big church with us for the first time on Christmas Eve instead of the nursery, she said 'Amen' for the first time after praying on Christmas Eve (it is so sweet to hear your 1 year old say amen :), and to top it all off we had our first ever white Christmas!  We have so much to be thankful for this year!

Someone loves gelato!

Tonight we had dinner at La Madeleine, one of my favorites! Afterwards, we walked next door to Paciugo for some gelato. Audrey had not had gelato before tonight. I let her have some of mine and she ended up getting her own spoon ;) She didn't really like Aaron's peppermint chocolate but she sure was a fan of my hazelnut chocolate!

This video is basically the after-effects of too much sugar!!  :)

16 months

The month of December so far has been a busy month and we are loving it!  Audrey is now 16 months old and she is becoming such a big girl.  She's doing so many new things every day.  Here are just a few of the things she's doing:
- she loves to say the word baby. everything is a baby, even Santa ;)
- she knows the sound of an airplane and will point to the sky and say 'that?' and wave
- she still sucks her thumb when she's sleepy
- she wears a size 3 diaper
- she loves to go bye bye.  she will bring me my shoes and say bye bye and walk to the door
- she loves books and will sit and look at books for the longest time
- she has learned a few new signs including:  Thank You, Please, and Help
- she says the word Bible and runs to find her own Bible
- she absolutely LOVES to play in my make up bag and will pretend like she's putting make up on also
- she likes to wear my headbands like a necklace and my hair bands around her wrist like a bracelet
- she loves shoes!  She says shoe and points to them in books and she tries to put her own shoes on
- her favorite foods are broccoli and raspberries (where did this girl come from?? ;)
- she likes to do everything for herself, including wiping her own nose!
- she can put all of her shapes into her shape sorter and knows what each shape is called
- she's really good at using her spoon and is a pro at using a fork

These are just a few of the things she's doing now.  There are so many more it would take forever to list them all.  She definitely keeps me busy!  Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks. 

My beautiful girl before the game

Me and my baby (with her toothbrushes)

at Cowboys Stadium for the Texas Tech v Baylor game (we won of course! ;)

there were almost 72,000 people at the game, and the stadium holds 80,000

Audrey, me, and my beautiful sister Stacey.  And let me just assure you, Audrey is not

doing 'sic em bears' in this picture! :)

with Nana and Pops

watching her video on the couch

she loves to ring a bell ornament we have on the tree

she calls the santa on her jammies 'baby'  it's really cute

helping Daddy pull the car into the garage

playing with her buddy Anthony

these 2 play so well together!