Our baby is ONE!!!

Where has the time gone? I have been really emotional the past couple weeks and it has been hard trying to accept the idea that a year has already gone by and my little baby is ONE. Also, I have now (as of Wednesday 10/28) officially stopped breastfeeding, so that is an emotional thing in itself. For the past month I have only been nursing her first thing in the morning and the last feeding of the day and she loves the bond that she has when we nurse. I think it is much more of a comfort thing to her than the need to eat, so this makes it that much more difficult to wean. She loves to cuddle and stick her hand in my shirt and just lay on my chest...it's been "our" time. I hate the feeling of telling her no now, but I know it's time. I'm ready...and she's ready.

So what has she been up to...

• She weighs 21 lbs and 10 oz (65 percentile)


• She is 29.5" tall (75 percentile)

• She nods her head "yes" when she wants something and you ask her "You want this?"


• She loves to read books...over and over again!


• When she wants something she puts her arm out with her hand palm up and opens and closes her hand.


• She sings and dances anytime she hears music. (She loves the Black Eye Peas, but will dance to anything!)


• She grabs the phone and rests it on her shoulder as she says "Hiiiiii" and then she jibber-jabbers on it. Such a girl, she already loves talking on the phone!


• She LOVES to eat! (Macaroni & Cheese is her favorite right now)


• She likes helping me do laundry because she gets to ride in the laundry basket as I push it all around the house. (Now we have her wagon and she wants rides all the time!)
  
• She loves pumpkins!


• When I take her outside for a walk all she wants to do is stop and pick up every leaf and acorn...in the same hand. After we have a handful we stop and sit and go through them all...so cute and so much fun!


• I take her in her wagon to go and check the mail and I put the mail in the wagon and head home. A couple minutes later I look back at her and see her flipping through catalogs...one page at a time. Already a little shopper!


• She loves stuffed animals! Her favorites are Uglies, Monkey and Teddy Bear.


• She falls asleep for her naps and at bedtime laying on my chest as we lay on the couch together. (Especially since we stopped breastfeeding, which is so nice to still have that sweet time.)

Tonight after her one year photo session just the three of us went to Goodson's in Tomball for some great Macaroni & Cheese for her Birthday Dinner! She ate the whole serving and she was so happy!

As made it through her birthday today I kept looking at the clock and remembering what I was doing at that time a year ago. Audrey has been such a blessing, more than a blessing! She is the sweetest, most loving little girl, and I can not imagine my life without her now. She lights up our lives where there was no light before.

Happy Birthday Baby! You have made the past year the best year of my life and I am looking forward to everything else you have for us in the future years! WE LOVE YOU AUDREY!!!

Birthday Party!

The Birthday Girl!

A poster I had made of our little pumpkin!

Abby, Allyson and Audrey

Aunt Arianne and the birthday girl!
Grandma Marcia with Audrey

Lara, me, Audrey Pappo and Mammo

Enjoying opening presents!

Giving Mom a big kiss (loves) for helping her open all her gifts!

The cake and her smash cake
Getting ready for yummy cake...

"Wait a minute...that cake doesn't look so yummy!"

"Okay I'll try it..."

"Okay, I've had enough...please pass my juice."

She wasn't too excited about the cake or the icing for that matter. She had a couple pinches of the icing and gave up. I guess the has the rest of her life to eat cake on her birthday!

Mammo and Pappo gave Audrey this awesome wagon so Audrey and Abby went for a ride down the street. So much FUN!!!

Happy Birthday Audrey...here's to so many more FUN birthday parties!!!

A new playroom!

Bryan and I decided to redo our home office into a playroom for Audrey as her Birthday present from us. We have not stepped foot in the office for years (except to pile more junk in there) because since we both have laptops now there is no reason to go and sit at a desktop. So I found some material that I liked online and we bought some furniture at IKEA and put it together (with a weeks worth of late nights). Bryan made the pillows (yes, he sews!), Grandma Marcia made the cushions for the storage bins, and I designed the room and did the art work. I am so happy with how it turned out. I LOVE IT and Audrey loves it too! She crawls in there a couple times a day by herself and plays for 20 minutes or so. (Plus it got all of her toys out of our living room and our house is starting to look like our house again!) ha!

Anyway...Here are some pictures of our birthday gift to Audrey. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY!

Ahhhh...Loves

Here are a few of Audrey's favorite things right now...

(Monkey, Uglies and Reville the puppy)

When she sees these stuffed animals she gives them a hug and as she does it she makes this "ahhhh" noise that I call "loves". Here she is hugging her Teddy Bear that Bryan and I made her at Build-A-Bear when we found out she was a girl. "Ahhhh...Loves!!!"

How does the chicken go?

"bock-bock-bock"

Audrey is going to be a Fuzzy Little Chicken for Halloween and we were trying on her chicken hat this past weekend...so I asked her, "What does the chicken say?" After showing her a couple times...she now "bocks" when she sees her costume. You can ask her at anytime and she will "bock-bock-bock" for you. She is going to be such a cute little chicken!

Good Riddance Swine Flu!

(Since she was sick and I felt sorry for her, Audrey got to open one of her Birthday presents from Grandma Marcia and Grandpa Craig, early. She looked like she needed a comfy place to lounge so here she is in her new chair. Look how around her eyes are so red...it looks like she had been crying.)

Yes...Audrey had the H1N1 virus this past week, but she is doing great now. It started last Wednesday when I noticed that she seemed really out of it, not sleepy...just in a daze. Well Thursday morning she wakes up with a 101 fever. Thinking that it's not that big of a deal, I put a call into the pediatricians office and give her some Motrin. The nurse calls me back and asks if there are any other symptoms? Nope, not a one...just the fever so she says to just monitor it and give her Motrin if she needs it. By Thursday night her fever is just sitting between 102 and 103 and it really isn't even coming down after I give her Motrin. We had a pretty rough night, so I call the pediatrician again and tell them that I want to bring her in to find out why she has this fever. The doctor sees her and starts leaning to the possibility that it might be a UTI so we do a urine test, blood work, and he mentions the flu test as if it's probably not it (since she has no other symptoms) but we better do it just in case. Well, the flu test came back positive. I almost wanted to tear up in the office. No one wants their baby to be that sick, and with how bad the media has been talking about the flu I couldn't help but get worked up. He them explains to me that it most likely is the H1N1 (Swine) Flu because 98% of all flu's right now are the H1N1 virus. (Now I'm really worried) He prescribes her TamiFlu and tells me that it is really hard to find right now and that I might have to try four or five different pharmacies to find it. (Are you kidding me...is it already this big of a crisis and it's only October?) By this time Audrey had fallen asleep in my arms, so I carry my limp, sick baby out to the car and get on the phone on a mission to find TamiFlu. Luckily a small (mom & pop) pharmacy in Tomball had it! So we started the TamiFlu Friday afternoon. By Saturday morning she had no fever and was acting like herself and has been great since. TamiFlu works!!! I called the doctor today to ask some questions and got my answers about that she is not contagious from the point 24 hours after her last fever (which is great news!) and that she can still get her flu vaccines at her 1year appointment in a week in a half. I also double checked about still having her birthday party this weekend, because I am a paranoid mom and I would be weary of going to someones house that just had the flu, but she said that we (and everyone else) is completely safe and not to worry and to have a great birthday! Yay!!! (I'm still going to do a thorough cleaning of the house and her toys...which was on my to do list anyway.)

So like I said Good Riddance Swine Flu!

(By the way, I have no idea where she could have picked it up at. I'm guessing the nursery at church, because no one I know has been sick and we really have not been anywhere lately.)

(Even though she was sick she was still in a good mood (most of the time). Here she picking out a movie to watch and clapping when Finding Nemo came on!)

Our little pumpkin!

Here are some pictures that I took for Audrey's 1st Birthday invitation. Since her birthday is on October 28th, we went with an orange & black Halloween theme..."Our little pumpkin is turning one." Her invitations turned out so cute and I am really happy with the pictures that we took. It took us one photo session on Sunday, two on Monday, and one on Tuesday to get these...lots of fun! It's hard to get her to smile when it's just me behind the camera. :)

So here is our little pumpkin!

Cheering from the couch today

Well we were supposed to be driving up to Dallas today to see our Aggies BTHO Arkansas, but after a rough day yesterday with Audrey including 103+ fever we now have front row seats on our couch! I have been feeling bad all week, but just chalked it up to allergies and a change in the weather, but when Audrey woke up with a runny nose and fever yesterday, I started thinking that perhaps I was really sick and had now passed it on to her. I put a couple calls into her pediatrician and they told me to just watch her and if anything changes or worsens to call back, so last night when her fever passed 103 I called back and they told me to keep her on the Motrin and if it is still high today to bring her in. Since it's easier for me to run into the doctor I ran in last night and got a flu test that came back negative, so at least we know its not the flu...probably just a cold, at least I hope so. They would not do a H1N1 (Swine Flu) test on me since I am not in the "high risk" category, but I don't think I have it anyway. So instead of being there in person tonight as our Aggies take the field we will be there in SPIRIT! (ha!) I'll update later today with some pics.