My sister turned 28 yesterday and for her birthday all she wanted was for me to update my blog. So Melanie, Happy Birthday, this one is for you!

I'll start back at Halloween. Audrey got to borrow Isabel K's costume and it was just too precious. Thanks Jenn! She was the sweetest little butterfly. Our neighbors had a Halloween Party and all the families dressed up for a costume contest. I think we should have won! I was a flower in a pot. After much coaxing, Chris finally agreed to dress up as a butterfly catcher.All the families had a theme (we were not the only ones that were this cheesy)! I thought it was great! If Audrey had a clue what was going on, she would have thought it was great too!! Chris loves us a lot and that is really all I can say about his attitude!!!

Family Halloween Picture

(Sorry Chris, I couldn't resist posting this picture. I left it small on purpose.)

Audrey got to meet her not-cousin Jack around Thanksgiving. Jack and his parents came to spend the night with us. We all had fun! Jack could have taught Audrey a thing or two about sleeping (that night).

These are my favorite pictures from Christmas. I love her little Santa Claus vest. We went up to the Hoover Rec to meet Santa and she was wearing this vest. It is a really cute picture. I wish I could post it too....Audrey in the kitchen floor will just have to do!

Santa came to some friends' Christmas party. Audrey did okay with him. Maybe next year she will love him!

We took a million pictures for our Christmas card. This was not it. Her eyes were too funny and I couldn't do the red eye reduction well enough to use this one. I think it is precious. Thanks Sally for helping me "stage" my tree. It really made the picture!

I can never get the stupid layout to look right. I have now given up caring. Sorry to the five of you who actually read this. I hope it is not too confusing.

Here's a cute, yet somewhat pathetic story from a couple of weekends ago. My neighbors' daughters were at our house selling Girl Scout Cookies. The sixth grader was letting Audrey play with her shoe laces while I was writing a check for my cookies. She asked me if it bothered me that Audrey was playing with her shoes. I said no and then she said,"why would you, you're not her mom." I said, "Um, yes, I am. I am her mother." To which she replied.... "Oh, I thought you were her sister." Now when Audrey is 20 and I am 49 this will be a complement, but when she followed it up with, "You look younger than my 22 year old sister," it was not a compliment! A little funny, but not a compliment! The funniest part to me is that I immediately began yelling at her that I am almost 30, which not four hours before had really upset me. I do hope I still have this problem when Audrey is 20!!

Audrey loves to play the piano with her daddy! It makes fun, loud noises, why wouldn't she?











We went to the park for Audrey's cousin Reid's 2nd Birthday. As you can see, she loved the swing, but didn't care much about the slide.

We tried food for the first time right after she turned 6 months old. That was fun! She had sweet potatoes. Really, all she wanted to do was grab the spoon. Chris had to hold her hands back while I put food in her mouth. Don't be too fooled by the picture, I think she liked them just fine! Since then we have also tried a little oatmeal and some applesauce. I don't think she really likes to eat, but I'm not really sure. She eats several bites sometimes and then other times she wants nothing to do with food. She ate a good bit of applesauce from Chris last night...maybe he is the key! I am making most of her food and I think it is fun! I have tried a little bit of everything too. So far I have made zucchini, asparagus, nectarines, plums, sweet potatoes and applesauce. It is all frozen and my plan is just to pop out a cube or two and thaw it whenever she is ready to eat. My parents gave me their deep freeze, I don't know what I would do without it.

This was about a month ago, but I love this picture. The doctor said she sits up like any good 8 month old!

My baby is resilient! I can drop her, feed her a poisonous plant, expose her to a nasty stomach bug, let her fall out of her Bumbo onto the tile floor or let her sleep with ants and she is still alive and kickin'! Seriously, those are all things that happened since my last post and most of them in the last week. I can laugh a little about this now, because she is doing just fine! A few explanations...She flipped off of my lap and fell less than a foot flat on her back. I had done a little internet research to decide if I needed to get the peace lilly out of the floor, but I never moved it. The articles said that she had to eat a lot of it for it to be poisonous. For future reference, a lot for a six month old equals one bite. The good news was that I had not left her alone for more than 3-5 minutes and she had thrown up the leaf before I ever knew she had eaten it. 1800-222-1222 is the number for poison control. They are very helpful and even call back to check on you! We no longer have plants in the floor. I did move the Bumbo off the bathroom counter and on to the floor because I was sure she was about to wiggle out of it and, sure enough, the next day, she did...finally, I did do something right! She still wasn't happy when she fell a couple of inches onto the tile, but that is a lot better than what would have happened had it still be on the counter! The poor kid woke up with what looked to be ant bites on her wrist one morning. I couldn't figure out where she would have gotten the bites until I found four or five ants in her dirty clothes pile. Ants in laundry, whose ever heard of such a thing? I guess I need to start doing her laundry more than once a week. Oh, and I was really sick last week. She never got it.

Thank the Lord that we don't have to be perfect, because I obviously never could be. Thank the Lord that He was and that he protects my child when I don't do the best job of it myself. Once again, here's a reminder, I can't do this on my own.

I guess it is time for my monthly update since a few people have said something to me about it! Jenn, the pictures are a little bigger this time too! Audrey is doing a great job sitting up. She has gotten a lot better since I took the picture of her in the blue nursery chair. She has also started to seriously scoot around the floor. She is army crawling! Chris said a few weeks ago that he thought she would be crawling by Labor day, but I said Halloween. She is on her way and he may be right!!

She is sitting in my lap right now and wants to type, this may be a bad idea, but I am going to let her try it...Zh t7gfc t dggbbvt6tr a s gy vgRERFTYUBGMIJOO V UH AUDREY C .,S A V VT.

Back to me now and I did help her type her name. I am really enjoying being a mom. This past week, I realized just how much. I was thinking about how at every previous phase in my life, I always wanted to be at the next one. Now, I don't want to do much else besides be Audrey's mommy. I love this point in life and want it to slow down and last forever. However, I still would really like to get my guest room window treatment and shower curtain finished too. Maybe I will have them sown by the end of next week. That's my goal.



I sat her down and propped her up for this picture. A couple of days ago she "crawled" from her playmat to the coffee table and I didn't realize it until I heard the knocking of the handles.

Audrey and Larabee had a playdate! It was one of the cutest things ever. Audrey pulled her doggie sister's whiskers and neck. Larabee loved the attention. Larabee licked all over her people sister's face. I was snapping away, but missed the best shot. Audrey pulled Larabee's nose up to her face and then put it in her mouth!!! I washed her face and hands, but just had to leave whatever she could have gotten into her mouth. They had fun and we had fun watching!

Audrey loves to put anything in her mouth. People have been telling us for months that she is teething and I have disagreed. We have a picture from the hospital and she has her fist in her mouth. BIG NEWS! She is cutting her first tooth. I noticed last night at dinner that there was a little pokey on her bottom gum. She hasn't been fussy at all. I hope this lasts!! The only thing out of the ordinary is that she has been sleeping a little better lately. She slept almost 11 hours two nights in a row!! If she keeps this pace, teething is going to be a cinch!



I would like to apologize for the crazy layout of this post. I can't figure out how to fix it, so I am just going to leave it so you can see it!

Here is what we have been up to over the past month or so...




...taking super cute pictures in the Bumbo

...meeting Great Gran

... going to church for the first time

...playing with Jenn and Ashley's kids

...swimming at Mimi and Papa's pool

...playing with Emily's kids

...celebrating my last official birthday (I have decided to go into a holding pattern at 29)

It has taken me about 4 days to get this thing finally posted. I really do wish I understood how to have enough time keep up with this! I love looking at other people's fancy blogs. Mine will never, ever be like that! Obviously, I don't care too much! Is anyone really going to blogstock me anyway?

Here's a thought I had the other day. I was thinking about Audrey as a teenager and young woman. I was praying that she would not struggle with sexual sin. I started thinking about how upset I would be if she does and how much it would break my heart. But wait, isn't this exactly how the Lord feels everytime we disobey him? What a change in persepective this little baby has given me! Really, it is The Lord helping me to see things through motherhood as he always does as our heavenly father. What a challenge to pursue holiness and purity in my own life for the pleasure of a God who deserves it!

Audrey's newborn photos- a few more

I had trouble getting these to upload yesterday. Here are a few more of Audrey's newborn pictures. I had way too many good shots to post all of them. She is a precious baby, but our photographer did an amazing job! This first one is my favorite! If you need a talented and reasonably priced photographer, Butch Dill is great! I'll be happy to pass along his information, just let me know. He did our wedding too. We couldn't be happier with all of our photos from him.

Audrey's newborn photos

We have had a busy past few weeks. I never expected that it could take a week to pack for the beach with a two month old! We also decided that we are going to have to get an SUV a lot sooner than we expected to be able to go out of town again!


Chris' parents rented a house in Sea Pines at Hilton Head for a week. Eight adults and four children under the age of three and half made for fun times! Mike, Chris' middle brother, and his family are moving overseas to be missionaries in a few months. It was nice to be able to spend time with everyone before they go. We are going to miss them!


Audrey's cousins adore her and especially her 3 year old girl cousin. Two of the cousins had a cold and since they love her so much it was impossible to keep them away from her! Every time they got in her face or kissed her hands, I immediately got in their faces and gave them a big kiss. Supposedly I can pass along any immunity I have to her since I nurse her. Well, I have been battling the cold for the past several days and she is doing just fine! Maybe her ability to fight it off was a little better than I thought! Let's hope I don't pass it along to her now!


I am sure many of you have been checking this several times a day to see if I have updated it, but, please don't waste too much time. I am really not very good at keeping up with this, Facebook or email for that matter. Please forgive me and enjoy a few more photos of Audrey. I am going to try to post her newborn photos that we got back from the photographer just before we left. Hopefully I will do that soon!

Chris took Audrey into the ocean for the first time. She just got her feet wet, but did not like it at all. We tried again a few days later when the water was a little warmer. She liked it a lot better!

Emily, my sister-in-law, bought coordinating outfits for all of the kids so we could take a cute photo of the cousins. It didn't really work with the grandparents, so you can imagine what happened before we added them in. Audrey looks like she is about to drop out of her Papa's lap!

Our family photo. Chris and I took a picture in this tree two years ago. I think we will make it a family tradition.

Me and my beach baby in the sundome at the beach. It was really useful to keep her out of the sun, but a pain in the rump to try to get back in its carrier. Chris called it the sundumb every time he took it down!

Emily brought a baby pool to keep out by the big pool at our house. I think Audrey loved it!

She was so precious in her little swimsuit and big hat! The hat is actaully 12-18 months and obviously a little too big, but too cute to pass up!