Audrey,
My sweet little angel baby. You are such a pleasant, happy girl! Even yesterday after your 6 month check up (over a month late due to snowy weather), you got 6 shots and were hardly fussy at all. I could tell you weren't feeling well because you woke up at 1am with a fever but even then you fussed for a bit, had a bottle, a new diaper and some Motrin and then went back to sleep til 8:30. You are eating every type of stage 1 baby food they make now and still hate rice cereal. We'll try oatmeal with bananas or some other fruit and see how you like it then. You are learning to sit up. You have abs I am very jealous of because you try to sit up all the time on your own. You still tolerate your brother poking you and pushing you in the swing or bouncy seat pretty well. You love to blow raspberries and play with your brothers cars or your Audrie doll. (She was already named that when she came home with you from the store.)
Thank you for being my little angel, my sunshine, my Tootsie!
Love,
Mama

Easton,
What a whirlwind the last few months have been! You are growing up so quickly and you continue to amaze me with the things you say. Sometimes they're funny, like when you said your "eyes stuffy" (I think you meant sleepy???) and sometimes they're sweet "share you mama" (share with you) but they're always amazing and smart. You don't miss a thing these days. You love to look for a crescent moon every time you're outside or looking out the window. You love helping me with laundry (longy) and love to eat your sis's baby food. Heck, I'm certainly not going to tell you no on that one! Squash? Sure you can have some! You continue to love most veggies except you HATE green beans. Even succotash gets gobbled up and you usually ask for more. Sure thing, sweet pea! One of your favorite words right now is mayonnaise. I have no idea why but it sends you into fits of giggles every time you say it. Somehow it's not nearly so funny when Mama or Daddy says it though. You had a great time over Christmas when your cousins and Aunt Leslie and Uncle Terry and McKayla came to visit. You still ask for "Lexa" a lot. I wish we lived closer to them so you could play together more often! Maybe someday. One of my favorite things is when you say "Hi, sis!" You say it with such a drawl that it sounds like "Ha seeee-us!" It is too cute! You love Thomas the Train and the Wonder Pets and sometimes still love Elmo. Your bears are still your favorite buddies and sometimes your giant monkey too. Most of the time you refuse to ride in the shopping cart at the store although after this last trip to the grocery store when you ran off laughing down the aisle, you will no longer have a choice in the matter. Sorry dude. We'll try again in a few months, ok? You are still fascinated with cars and trucks and really vehicles of all kinds. Today I took down your jungle decals in your room and put up ones of cars, planes, trucks and trains. You love to count them (1,4,5,6, 7, 10 YAY!) and greet each one by name. "Hello red car. Hello yellow truck. Hello Thomas."
I love you, my sweetie boy, my lovie, my Toodles!
Love,
Mama

I originally was not going to post this first picture but couldn't help myself. Sorry, babe!

Whew! I am worn out! Oh and by the way...Merry Christmas! It's been a busy 2 weeks since my last post. Audrey is sleeping better now, thank goodness! Easton is doing ok too. The past couple of weeks have been filled with writing several short papers and one 15 pager, finishing up a class (Child Development - I got an A!), shopping for Christmas, working on some craft projects, cleaning and getting ready for our Christmas company.

I wasn't sure if they'd be able to come or not due to the snow we had (TWO FEET!!!) but Jason's sister, Leslie, her husband Terry, their three kids and Jason's cousin came to visit on Monday. We had a really fun time. It was good to see the kids playing together and good visiting with everyone. We did some shopping to help Santa out with a few Christmas presents, went to D.C. to see the sights, played, cleaned, cooked, ate, played, cooked, cleaned some more. I decided that although I LOVE having people come visit us, our house is WAAYY too small for ten people! That and my kids have entirely too many toys. I think in the next month or so we'll be going through all of the toys and getting rid of some of the ones that don't get played with so much. We just simply do not have room for all of this stuff!

Christmas today was really fun. The kids woke up early and we opened presents and had our Christmas breakfast casserole. Then we cleaned up the kitchen just so we could start cooking Christmas dinner. We had apple butter ham, stuffing, green bean casserole, rolls and pumpkin pie. Whew! I'm so tired! Glad that Miss Audrey will be sleeping back in her own bed tonight and not in our room so I can finally get some sleep.

Some pictures of the big snow we got here last weekend:

Easton and Yellow Bear in the snow

Audrey all smiles and bundled up in her warm snow suit.

My hard working hubby taking a break from shoveling snow



I think we used to have a car under there

Is it a table or is it a big snow cone?

Here are a few pictures of our Christmas Eve trip to D.C.:

Riding the Metro

We're seasoned Metro riders by now. Well, OK. Not really. But we should be.

One of the dinosaurs at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

The Washington Monument

The White House

I can't take credit for this one. J's sweet cousin McKayla took this one. Great job!

Christmas pictures:

This is a lap full of cute right here. Easton and Alexa waiting for Santa.

Easton reads his new Thomas the Train ABC book.

Audrey loves her doll

Alexa, Mason, Addy, Audrey and Easton.

Audrey and Easton Christmas 2009

Oh, man. Coming back from our trip has really thrown Miss Audrey off her sleeping schedule. Not that we had a very rigid one to begin with but once we got home? Forget it! Tonight is the second night in a row we've listened to her cry herself to sleep. Ugh! I hate it! I know she'll be fine and won't be scarred for life or anything like that but I sure do hate to listen to her cry. Must have been all that rocking and cuddling all of her well-meaning family did when we were in Oklahoma. ;) Not that I wouldn't have wanted them to do that, of course but now she doesn't want to sleep unless we're holding her. Some nights we'll get her to sleep 3 or 4 times in our arms but every single time we put her in her bed she wakes up crying. I love holding and rocking her but lordy, I can't hold her while she sleeps...I'll never get anything done!!! So I polled my mom friends and got just the answers I thought I would. All but one mom said they let them cry it out. We had already decided this is what we'd do but I was glad to hear we're not the only ones who do this. We did it with Easton and it didn't hurt him any so I guess we're OK. :)
In other news, I can't find my camera. I saw it in the car seat when I got out of the car from our Oklahoma trip so I know we got home with it. But I can't find it for anything! Our bags are all unpacked, things are (mostly) put away and still no camera. And wouldn't you know it there've been at least half a dozen times since then that I've wished I had it handy. I have to find it!!! And SOON!

What keeps me from blogging lately:

I left the room where I was playing in the floor with the kids to go wash my hands. While I was gone I noticed it got awfully quiet so I asked "Easton, what are you doing?" He said "Sit Sis." What??? Yep. Sure enough when I got back in the room he was sitting right on top of Audrey. She wasn't unhappy or anything, just looking up at him like "Hey, what do you think you're doing?!" Little stinker! Then I said to Easton just one of the million funny things I never thought I would say. "We do not SIT on our sister!" This was followed just a few minutes later with "Easton, we do not MOW on our sister either!" He loves that noisy plastic mower but his sis sure didn't!