Happy Halloween!

Life has been hectic lately! Michael is working alot & I had to go to training for work in the state capitol. Michael's mom came to visit & Audrey had a great time with her!

And it's Audrey's first Halloween! She was an astronaut, as you can see.
Audrey with her babysitters - Charlotte & Bobbie. Charlotte is holding Kennick, our friends Derek & Karalee's baby, who also stays with Charlotte & Bobbie during the day. And the football player is Charlotte's son, Carter.



Audrey checking out cowboy Kennick.

Ready for takeoff!

Nana & Michael & Audrey


My mom & I bought this outfit for when she was in the NICU - it seemed SO huge then. And now she barely fits into it :) She's doing really well - she's always been vocal, now she's saying ba, ga, da & all sorts of various squeals and shrieks.
Hope you all had a happy Halloween!

7 Months Old!

I can't believe Audrey is 7 months old already! I guess it's true that time flies when you're having fun!

We had some perfect fall weather today! We decided to head out to a local orchard to check ouy their pumpkon festival. It was a neat place, and I'm sure Audrey will enjoy it even more next year. We had fun & even had a little photo shoot. Then we went to visit Michael's boss, and then dropped in on some friends. It was a busy but enjoyable today.


Audrey with Teresa Poston, Michael's boss's wife.


I think this may be my new favorite photo.





Audrey's big new thing this weekend is that she finally noticed that we have a dog. She previously paid no attention to dogs, but this week she was very interested in Rosie. Michael's boss had 3 dogs, and Audrey thought they were hilarious.







And just for fun, another video.

Learning to eat

Hello everyone!

Audrey is doing great as usual. She has such a fun little personality, I love watching her grow.

She is getting big - between 14 and 15 pounds on our scale at home. She will be seven months old on Sunday, I can't believe it!

Audrey has tried cereal several times now, and wasn't too excited about it. So tonight we tried squash, and while she still wasn't entirely sure about it, she was much more interested in the squash than in the cereal. So we'll try it again. We need to be careful and only introduce one food at a time to make sure she doesn't have a reaction, or if she does that we can pinpoint what caused it.

We had several visitors last week, and so we have some guest stars on the blog.

Kris & Candace came down from Lexington for a quick visit & Candace even did my hair for me while they were here!



My dad's good friend Geoff came by for a very brief visit too & got to meet Audrey for the first time.


And here's Audrey in the clearly exciting company of our friend Holly.


Here's a short video of Audrey after trying squash. She originally had a bib on, but it seemed to be distracting her, so we just let her get dirty. She likes to grab the bowl and the spoon - and she kind of sucks and blows on the spoon. It makes a bit of a mess, but that's to be expected!


Audrey's other new trick is grabbing her feet. Right before I took this photo she actually had her foot in her mouth!




Bye for now!

Major milestones

Hi everyone,

Audrey is doing great as usual! She is catching up quickly, it's really hard to tell that she was a preemie now.

She has started to be able to sit up for a short time. She is really strong! She loves to kick her legs, and stand, and she rolls over really easily. She also loves to squeal. Audrey has always been a vocal girl, and she is talking more and more all the time. I'm pretty sure she'll be an early talker!



Tonight was a big night - Audrey tried "solids" for the first time. I mixed 1 tablespoon of rice cereal with 4 tablespoons of milk. It was like a very runny soup. She seemed interested in it, but didn't really know what to do. She did eat some of it, and that's really all we were hoping for. It's more of a learning experience than a nutritive one at this point. We just wanted her to start learning about new textures & eating from a spoon. So it was a good start.




Hope everyone's having a good week!

Experiments with Headbands

Looking through the pictures from the last few weeks, we have obviously been a little more girly with Audrey than usual. Sports teams are a big deal down here, so Michael wanted to get Audrey involved with a little UK cheerleader outfit.

I've decided I was right not to be too excited about headbands - the pink headband left a welt on her head, and even though it didn't seem to bother her I still felt bad.

I keep having the problem of thinking clothes are way too big for Audrey and not putting them onto her until it's almost too late. She shocks me with how big she is getting! I don't have an official weight for her, but would estimate her to be about 15 pounds. I'll try again to weigh her with our scale at home this weekend.

Today Audrey amazed me by almost sitting up unsupported - she did so well I bet she'll be sitting on her own in no time. I've been thinking for a long time that that would be a big milestone for her. She also loves standing and does really well if we just hold her hands. She's getting to be a big girl.

Audrey is so much fun and loves to talk. I think she's going to be a real chatterbox. I'll have to post another video again soon.

Hope everyone's having a good night!

Happy Labo(u)r Day!

Audrey had a good day, squealing and talking and hanging out. She loves her new exe-saucer toy that her Papa bought her. She stands in it and bounces and jumps and has a great time. Here is a short video of her playing - it looks like we'll be able to use this for a long time since she's far from touching the floor even on the lowest setting.


One of my old friends from U.B.C. added a stop on her summer road trip through the south to come see us this week. We were very glad to see Karen again & to meet her boyfriend John.


Although we were cheering her on, Audrey didn't quite manage to roll from her back to front. She got really close though, and then finally did it at her babysitter's house later in the week. I did get to see her rolling first-hand today. She had only been rolling when I left the room, but now she is getting so good at rolling from front to back that she did it three times in a row today and seemed to have an easy time with it. It's amazing how much she has progressed. I watched one of our very early videos of her earlier today, and she could bare move at all. What a difference!

One of Audrey's other new talents is cooking! We're starting her young.




I thought I would also introduce Audrey to the girly hair-bow. I didn't think she would like it, but she didn't seem to mind. We still only kept it on for a minute.



And finally, (really finally) we put together Audrey's crib. She seemed to like it and had a good nap in it already today.





We hope you are all having a great long weekend!