milestones

Milestones are starting to come fast and furious for Audrey. On March 15, she rolled from back to front - and started moving her legs to scoot forward! She did it a few times on her own and it only happens sporatically. She's put down a lot more than Laurel was - she has to compete for attention with the big sis, who can be quite needy at times! We rely a lot on her floor play mat and she is a great self entertainer. And that can lead to exploration! This one may crawl - time to clean! Yikes.

Yesterday, she had her first cereal with Grandma V. I wasn't planning on starting her quite yet, but she's almost 5 months old already! Alex said she seemed to like it and could bring the mixture into her mouth from the spoon. So I bought our own box today at the grocery. Time to get the booster/high chair out of storage! wow.

Audrey continues to grab at everything, extremely curious and eager. She's starting to grab and bring things to her mouth for a slobber:).

It's much easier to get her to laugh and giggle. We used to really have to work for it! But now she smiles all the time, is easily amused and loves a good tickle or funny face. Laurel can really get some great laughter out of her, which is so sweet to watch. Laurel can jump around and act silly and Audrey thinks it's a riot!

And so we now celebrate St. Patrick's Day

In the long list of holidays to constantly look forward to, we're Irish now:). lol. Laurel was very excited for all of the green and I bought her a little sachet filled with chocolate coins - her little pot of gold! She really wanted to decorate, but I don't have much of anything! She likes to put the window stick-ums up and put up her own art. so we made some art and she brought home some cute pieces from school. I'd much rather decorate with her cute pictures than store bought things anyway!

Next up - Easter. I'm going to be facing the challenge this year of starting to explain the religious side of Easter. I tried to take a stab the other day and I really struggled to speak on her level, without mention of dying and making it sad. So we're talking mostly about wearing a pretty dress, hunting for eggs, the Easter bunny...and I'm hoping I'll figure out the rest along the way:). Easter is late this year, so we have a whole month ahead still to wait and plan. Her school is doing an easter egg hunt (after a 2 week spring break after next week - whew!). Audrey has her first Easter dress - a pink one. Laurel's is purple, her newest favorite color.

4 months!

At month number 4! Time sure flies with the second baby. Audrey is growing so fast and progressing so quickly. Like the blink of an eye. We had her 4 month appt. today. Poor thing had to get shots. I so hate doing that to her - she smiles at the nurse right beforehand - doesn't suspect a thing! She was measured and weighed - 13 lbs, 40th percentile - 25 inches, 80th percentile. Growing, Growing! I can only imagine she'll keep going full force because she continues to eat twice during her sleep time. She's well out of her 0-3 and 3 month clothes and fits her 3-6 perfectly. So she'll never make it to 6 months in those clothes. Time to pull out the 6-9, wash and size up the needs for that age range!

yes i am this cute

Audrey can now sit up in her bumbo! This is a super cute outfit of her - love it:).

spending time in the OC

Just recently, Alex's company was closed. So, changes are going to come, but we're optimistic and going to see what happens. There's possibilities in the works and Alex received a nice severence package. This allows him to be at home with us, working on his reel as much as he can. But also gives him some time to take the girls down to visit with family in OC. We're about an hour away, which means we can see them often, but time tends to pass quickly and before we know it, it has been a month, sometimes more! And when babies are growing, a month is a long time! Laurel is crazy for her cousins and asks for them all the time. They all have the best time together and I wish she could be around them more regularly. But visits like these will have to do for now!

Valentine's Day

Finally another holiday! Much to Laurel's delight:). She is now constantly focusing on the next holiday at hand. Megan happily informed her that the next holiday is St. Patrick's day - one that isn't really "celebrated" in our household. We have no plans to drink a Guiness, even Alex, and no plans to be Irish anytime soon:). But it gives her something to look forward to! So that's what we'll be celebrating in March.

For Valentine's Day at pre-school, everyone brought in Valentines that were put into bags and taken home. Laurel made her very own for all of her friends out of foam hearts and stickers we got at Target. We've been in love with the $1 bin lately - easy crafts and fun gifts for cheap. Laurel received a Valentine bag of goodies from us as well. She doesn't really have a sense of time yet, so she knows these holidays are coming up and then all of a sudden, it's the day! Not sure she knows what to do with that kind of anticipation and final fruition.

Audrey lately

Audrey's personality is really starting to show herself now. The verdict - the opposite of her sister:). When Laurel was a baby and still now, she has such strong emotions. She laughs hard, squeals loudly, gets so excited, is up for anything. When she was a baby she giggled all the time, smiled easily, was visibly so excited to see us. She had definite reluctance and was clingy, but her personality is big. Audrey on the other hand is going to be the quiet soul. She is so sweet and passive, very calm. Unless she is very tired or very hungry, she is mostly content. Her smiles are slow to develop and her giggles are few. She is patient and can play by herself on her play mat for quite a long time if I need her to. She can work up a chatter but isn't as loud as Laurel was. She enjoys the nursing cuddle but isn't a rocker like Laurel was. Laurel preferred to be held and Audrey is content in her crib. She's becoming a good little sleeper. It's taken some time and the naps are still a work in progress but the night time is forming a good schedule. Audrey still wakes up twice during the night. She goes to sleep around 6:15/6:30 and wakes to eat sometime in the 10:00 hour. Then she has been going down for a long stretch and not waking until about 3 am. Lately she's been waking me up around 7 am with a quiet chatter and hum in her crib. Such a lovely sound to wake to:). Audrey used to wake up earlier in the morning and I was worried that the garage door underneath her room was waking her up. Either she's gotten used to it or it isn't as loud as I thought it was. I am not sure when she'll get around to sleeping through at night. I think by most standards, babies can sleep through the night without eating at 4 months. She doesn't really seem anywhere close with 2 wakings still.

Her naps are slowly starting to lengthen, at least one of the 3 is usually a good 1.5-2 hours. Sometimes the morning nap is the long one, sometimes the mid day nap is long. She still needs three naps, usually one long and two short. Maybe in the next month or two she will take the two short ones and make it into one long so we'll have two long naps every day. She's pretty much calling the shots on her sleep schedule. I really tried to read up and force the issue and I am following her lead now and things seem to be falling into place on their own. At about the time she hit 3 months though, she began to be able to stay awake up to 2 hours in time. I had her on a 90 minute wake schedule before and she started to cry for long period instead of falling asleep so I moved her naps further apart. Seemed to work out!

Audrey is starting to play with her toys, with us. I have a little bag of rattles, spinning toys, little noise makers. She grabs for them and holds them with quickly improving coordination. I have a little toy strand across the handle on her car seat that she plays with in the car too. She puts on quite a cute little concentration face:).

Audrey does chatter with you one-on-one. She doesn't talk much otherwise unless you engage her in a long "conversation". She is learning several new sounds and is interested in the sounds we make. Her little whines and calls from her crib or when she's sleepy sound like a little cat:).

The times when she is actually upset, she has very little patience. And she has no slow work up, she goes from happy to frantic in a snap. If she wails out of no where, she's hungry. If she's overwhelmed by too many faces around her, she will start to put on a very sad pout and then will scream. The other day she was over tired before bedtime and I had her up on my hip and she threw her arms out and her head back and wailed out of no where! Poor thing!