An Audrey Update

It's after 10 PM, and Aud is sitting next to me on the loveseat. She had issues going to bed while Eric & I were in Las Vegas; even now that we're back, my easy bedtimer isn't so easy anymore! Audrey woke up still tired this afternoon from her nap and seemed ready to go to bed after dinner and a bath, but as soon as she got up there by herself she got very upset. I tried to leave her up there for a while this evening, but as I went back up to get Conner in bed she was standing in her crib with tears and snot running down her face. I know she's dead tired but she just doesn't want to be up there by herself! Hopefully she'll get over this soon.

Otherwise, Aud's doing great. She's got a new tooth coming in, but unfortunately it's not one of the front ones! It's one of the 2-year molars in the back (at least those are on time!). Every day I'm amazed with her words - we have a couple of picture books that I think she knows every word in... you all may not understand what she's saying, but Eric and Conner and I do! She's become very interested in actually hearing the stories from the books instead of just looking at the pictures ("read!").
New favorite phrases: "I got it", "I did it" and "I see" (Conner always said "me" everything, so I'm happy hearing the I's!)

Her hair has grown an amazing amount since just this summer, though Audrey's not happy with having barrettes in it - maybe that will just take time? Hopefully. She's also been doing great at going potty and has had a lot more dry diapers. I don't think it will be too long before she's dry and wearing panties! What a big girl.

With all of the snow this week, Aud and I have spent a lot of time inside. Eric and Conner, though, have gone sledding a couple of times - today being the most recent. They met some friends at Eastfork Lake this afternoon and had a blast. Conner actually came home and fell asleep on the couch (until he fell off and woke up!). He really needs to get back to school - hopefully Monday will be the day. He went last Monday but we've both had snow days ever since!

We spent some time on Thursday playing play-doh while the electricity was out - it was pretty funny! Conner likes to build stuff, but Aud was more interested in taking the empty cups and stacking them up. At least she didn't try to eat it!

We played Play-Doh. . .

And we danced.

What a week!

Eric and I left early Saturday morning to drive to Indianapolis (approx. 2 hours away). We caught a 9:18 AM plane to Minneapolis, then took another plane to Las Vegas! This trip was planned by the company Eric works for - it was their "Christmas party". They'd gone 5 years ago, but as I was 8 months pregnant with Conner, I couldn't go. I was definitely on board for this one!

We had a great long weekend. We spent Saturday afternoon and evening wandering around Fremont Street, which is where the Golden Nugget is located (the hotel/casino we stayed at). Sunday we toured the Hoover Dam and wandered around the Strip with another couple. On Monday we had breakfast with Eric's boss (among others) and then went with them to a place called Primm, which is right on the Nevada/California border. There are 3 casinos there, one of which had a roller coaster that Eric wanted to ride. We drove past the "Welcome to California" sign and then did a u-turn in the median of the highway (just so I could say I've been to California!). From there we went to the Red Rock Casino, which is on the western side of Las Vegas - it was really nice!

Our plane left Tuesday around noon, and the car rental people recommended that we return the car around 10, so we didn't get to do anything else on Tuesday. Everyone was worried about getting home - the word from Ohio was that they'd had a bunch of snow with more to come! Not great traveling weather. Everything went ok with the planes, though, which was a relief (it ended up being a good thing traveling back to Indianapolis instead of Cincy!). The drive home from the airport was an interesting one; it took about 4 hours instead of the 2 that it should've. But at least we made it safely!

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I'd actually planned on calling in sick on Tuesday but ended up not needing to because of the snow - we actually had a snow day! After getting home around 2 AM on Wednesday morning it was nice to hear that we had a day off Wednesday, too! Our electricity went out Wednesday morning, so we drove up to Milford (Eric's folks' house) for dinner and a shower for me just in case I had school on Thursday... which I didn't! Three snow days in a row! I'm not sure that's happened in the 8 years that I've been there. So far we're scheduled for school tomorrow... but I'm still hopeful for at least a delay! Still, I can't complain about a one-day work week.

Happy birthday Audrey!

100 posts!

Wow... I can't believe this is post #100! Crazy. It's been almost exactly a year since I started. Just to think of all the changes the kids have gone through is amazing.

Because we didn't have school today (MLK Day), we met some friends at Chuck E. Cheese's. I'm not sure that Audrey's been there since she's been walking, so she had a great time wandering around and climbing on stuff and playing!

Check out the static!

They have a machine that draws your picture, and I like to get one when we're there with the kids. I thought this one turned out pretty good (I was tickling her to get a smile!) but the one of Conner and Audrey not so much.

Audrey's party

We had the grandparents (all 4) and Uncle Andy and cousin Levi over on Friday night to help celebrate Audrey's birthay. I'd planned on doing it this coming weekend, but Eric and I will be heading out to (hopefully) sunny, warm Las Vegas next weekend! The party wasn't anything big - we ordered pizzas and had a My Little Pony cake from Walmart (Audrey loves horsies!). She very much enjoyed opening her presents, though I'm worried that she's going to start expecting them every 3 weeks or so! I guess that's the bad thing about having a birthday so close to Christmas.

All in all it was a fun evening and the kids had a great time.

Last night we invited some friends from church (Steve, Amber, and their 2.5 year old son Brendan) over for dinner and to play some cards. I found a recipe for Brown Sugar Chicken (for the crockpot), made some rice and corn, and even pulled out the bread maker to make some bread! Yum. Another fun evening - the boys ran themselves silly around the house while Aud did her own thing. I tried to put her in bed somewhere around the normal time but she was having none of it, so she didn't get to bed until close to 10.

I don't know what time Audrey first woke up (I'm thinking somewhere after 12) but it was the first of many times last night. Either she was just super over-tired or not feeling good (or both!) but I was up at least 4 - 5 times with her during the night. We tried lying in our bed, lying in the spare bed, lying on the couch downstairs - you name it. In all 3 different locations we'd be there for a little bit, fall alseep for a few minutes, then she'd pop up and say "Done!", meaning she was ready to go back to her crib. So I'd put her back in and get back to my bed just in time to hear her start crying again. Ugh. I don't know what time it was when I brought Aud back to my bed, but I guess we were crowding Eric out because he took off for the couch downstairs. When Conner woke me up a little after 8, Aud was sleeping like a baby (finally) and didn't wake up until 9. Conner was really cute - he came in because he'd gone potty and was having trouble getting his pj's back on (they were inside out). He asked me what he should do downstairs because Daddy was down there sleeping on the couch. I told him it was ok to go down and turn the tv on, but to keep it pretty quiet. He seemed happy with that answer!

Aud was definitely ready for a nap when we got home from church (she actually kept saying "nap" on the way home in the car!). I'd rented the movie Iron Man and it was due by 7 today, so after lunch the 3 of us sat to watch it, then Eric took off for his weekly trip to do the food shopping. At some point during the afternoon, Conner started complaining (and then crying) that his head hurt - I'm not sure I've ever heard him talk of a headache before! We were all out of Children's Tylenol (it was on Eric's list) and Conner actually fell asleep on the couch waiting for Daddy to get home with his medicine. Poor little guy. He definitely felt much better after getting some pain-killer!

Right now it's almost midnight - I've heard Audrey a couple of times since she went to bed, but nothing like last night, and nothing that I've had to go in her room about. Here's hoping for a good night's sleep tonight!

I'm embarassed to see how long it's been since I've written a new post!

Conner and I made it back to school (he was just a tad bit more excited than I was to go back!). Although the weather people have been promising snow, it hasn't happened yet, so hopefully we'll get a chance to use our snow days at some point!

We almost had a crisis last night; I was sitting with Aud on the kitchen floor (more on that in a sec) when I realized that it was Tuesday and it was 5:00. Conner's gymnastics class starts at 5:10! Luckily Eric was home early from work, so Conner and I changed clothes really quick and took off for the gym. We were only 8 - 10 minutes late and I think he just missed the warm-ups. Whew. I would've felt horrible if I'd forgotten! They did a lot of fun new stuff last night, too - cartwheels (very interesting), a "Spiderman handstand" (hands on the ground and walk your feet up the wall), some backwards turns on the bar (with help), and other cool activities. It's fun to see him enjoy this so much!

Over the weekend Audrey figured out what exactly she was supposed to be doing on the potty. So now she wants to go constantly. I'm definitely not complaining, but this would be much easier if it were warm out and she could go pant-less! Every 10 minutes or so she wants to sit and most of the time gets something out. The gummy bear incentives might be helping, too! Though honestly, the past couple of times she sat while I was there (this morning and last night) she didn't seem to remember the gummy bears at all. Good thing! We only have the one potty, so it goes up and down the stairs (upstairs mostly in the morning/night before bath, downstairs at all other times). I've been looking for a cheap one on Craiglist so we don't have to worry about carting this thing around.

Happy New Year!

Around 8:00 last night we went over to our friends' (the Coffmans) house to celebrate New Years Eve with friends. We had a great time - Eric played cards with the guys, the kids ran around with all of the other kids, and I played some Guitar Hero (or Rock Band - I'm not sure exactly what it was called) on their Wii. That was so much fun!

Around 1:00 or so (the kids were still awake but Aud was struggling) we decided to leave, so Eric pulled the car into their driveway (we'd parked at a neighbor's). But then Audrey fell asleep and stayed asleep when we layed her down, so we decided to stay for a little while longer. The older kids were all laying down in their living room watching a movie, so Conner was content - he actually didn't stay awake much longer there, either. Eric took our friend Carlee out to see the new Flex and started it up because he told her he'd take her for a ride. Then he got the idea to show her how the door code works, so he closed the door and locked it, then realized that he didn't know the code to unlock it. Remember - the car was running. So it was close to 2:00 and our new (locked) car was in their driveway running. Luckily, our friend Greg offered to bring Eric back to the house (a 30 minute drive) so he could get the extra key. It was a crazy situation! The guys made it back somewhere between 3:30 and 4:00, we played a couple more songs on Guitar Hero, then left at 4:00. After dropping off our friends Shannon and Chase, we made it home and in bed around 5:00. I can honestly say that's probably the latest I've ever stayed up on a New Years Eve!

I'm not sure what time Conner got up this morning, but the rest of us got up at 10:00. I was asleep on the couch a little after 11, then Conner woke me up at 1:00 because he was hungry - Eric and Aud were napping on the loveseat. It's so nice that Conner can entertain himself! There are toys everywhere, but he was perfectly content just to play until he got hungry. Right now he and Eric are napping on the loveseat and I just heard some chirping from the monitor - I think Audrey might be waking up in her crib.

The best thing about today is knowing that I don't have to go to school tomorrow! Normally we go back on the 2nd of January, but because of the timing (it being a Friday) we don't go back until Monday. That at least gives us a chance to try and get back to somewhat a normal schedule! After a crazy night (and day!) we definitely need it.