Audrey and I go to NY

Last weekend Audrey and I went to NY to visit my mom. It was a nice visit but a lot of work. Audrey is at the age where she wants to be moving and therefor sitting on a plane is not much fun. Our flight out was on a day that the east coast was having storms so airports were a mess and everything took forever. She did alright....not good....but not awful either. We got in at 8ish on Thursday night. I handed Audrey to my mom and she freaked out. And that was about what it was the whole trip. She wanted to be with me the whole time. She wouldn't let anyone else hold her if I was around. My mom or someone could get her up from her nap and have some time with her but only if she didn't see or hear me. She was also pretty tired the whole time because there was so much going on. But even with it all she did pretty well.

We were able to go out to eat with all my aunts on Friday night which was really nice to see everyone. We went and looked at a couple of houses with my mom. We visited with my cousin Caryn and her girls and went and saw my grandparents. Lauren spent the weekend with us and we spent a lot of time with Greg/Tina/Sam.

It was a really nice weekend and we were glad to see everyone.

Audrey in the Salt Lake Airport as we were getting ready to leave


Some pictures of our trip. We weren't able to get very many because of Audrey not letting go of me. These were all on my mom's camera, I wasn't able to get any on mine.






My mom was holding her and I snuck up behind them for the picture. Audrey didn't know I was sitting there






Major bedhead after a nap












Bathtime in the kitchen sink




In the airport on the way home




Colin had fun in Utah while we were gone. They kept really busy and went skiing twice. He did a lot better than the first time but Paul thinks he'll still do better with someone else.


We were able to skype with Colin a couple of times while we were there. He was really excited to see Audrey

Colin's directorial debut

Paul has been letting Colin play with Audrey in her crib. It's his new favorite thing to do. Here's a video of them playing. I think Colin does a pretty good job videotaping.

It happened so fast.

Just last week she was rolling around or crying for us to move her. Then she started army crawling and pulling up to stand over the weekend. Now she's crawling across the room and pulling up to furniture to get what she wants. It was a month ago when I said that I thought she'd be crawling at 9 months. I guess she was just a week late.

Getting Stuck

It was a few weeks ago, on a Wednesday evening. I was walking out of work talking to Paul on the phone. He says "So much for that snow storm they were calling for, it's not even snowing". I agree with him that it's not and go get in my car. As I drive out of the parking garage it starts snowing. It is warm so it's a mixture of rain, ice, snow. The drive to get the kids is kind of slow, it takes about 30 minutes instead of the usual 15-20. So far it's not going too bad.

I get back on the highway after getting them and head home. As we near our exit, I see that it is backed up. It takes me awhile to figure out why but realize it is because people are slipping and getting stuck. The exit goes up a hill and the cars are not making it up. I'm nervous about making it but it goes okay. I have to weave through a dozen cars that had gotten stuck to make it up the little hill. It took me about 30 minutes to get off the exit.

We keep inching along up the hill towards home. We come to the light at Big Cottonwood Canyon. I am in the left lane because I always go through that light in the left lane. I realize that there are a ton of cars not making it up the hill after the light. I'm stuck in the left lane and can't get over to try to avoid it. I think that maybe since I got up the last hill where cars were stuck that I could get up this one.

I was wrong. We were stuck pretty quickly. And we stayed stuck there for 1 1/2 hours. I had both of the kids in the car and they definitely did not enjoy the experience. Audrey was due for a bottle so she screamed for awhile until she fell asleep. Colin was scared and wanted Mommy to "sit by me" which I did for awhile at one point. The traffic kept coming behind us so I couldn't get a chance to try to get free. After awhile a couple of plows came through. They squeezed in right next to me, so close that I thought they were going to take my mirror with them. I decide that if I can finally get some sort of break in traffic that I could probably make my way into that plow line to get free. Eventually I was able to do this and we were on our way.

This was a picture I took from my cell phone of the "parking lot" of stuck cars.
(the bus and the car infront of me to the left are the only ones moving)



We keep driving until I get to La Caille restaurant. There is another big hill there. There are tons of cars stuck on it. I decide I'm not going to even attempt it and turn around. We drive away from home and go to a Smith's grocery store. I go inside with the kids to use the bathroom and buy Audrey some baby food. Paul had been trying to get to us this whole time and finally shows up. We decide that since it is almost bedtime we better get Colin fed before we get back in the car. We go to a Subway that is in the parking lot and get some food. We head home in the Enclave and make it no problem.

On our way home, Paul realizes he doesn't have his work phone. He thinks it must have fallen off his lap when he got out of the car at the grocery store. A couple of hours later Paul and my dad head back out to go get my car. While there, they check the parking lot and find Paul's phone buried in the snow, still working.

Last weekend Paul put snow tires on my car. Noone is wanting that to happen again.

Snow Days

I'm playing major "catch up" on blogging right now. I'm sick this weekend so kind of stuck on the couch. It sucks but it has definitely given me some time to get caught up on some of this.

Paul has been excited about taking Colin skiing from the first day we found out I was pregnant. It's about all he's talked about. A couple weekends ago we gave it a shot. Paul took Colin up to Alta on Friday just to play in the snow, enjoy the nice weather(it was an inversion down here), and give him a little preview of skiing.

A preview







Then on Saturday we headed up to give skiing a try. The weather definitely wasn't quite as nice but Colin was excited.

Nervous about getting the boots


Don't feel bad Colin, walking in ski boots is hard for everyone.


Here he is all bundled up and getting ready to go.



Some skiing lessons






The final result


It didn't really go that well. He was very excited but that quickly passed. He seems like he's probably still a little too small. He wasn't strong enough to pick up the ski or really turn them. We also think that he'll do better if we just do a formal lesson. Paul has tons of experience teaching little ones on their first time out but he's still the "DAD" and Colin will only listen so much and is more likely to have tantrums when with us. Our third problem is that Colin was sick that weekend, we just didn't know it yet when we went out. The night before, he had asked to go to bed. He'd never done that before. That Saturday he progressively got more sick and we realized he had "hand foot and mouth" disease and he had a pretty miserable weekend. We're not sure how much that played into the day but it definitely was a factor. Paul plans to try again this year and see how it goes but we anticipate it'll be something he does more next year.

She's in the Army!

......or at least she has mastered the army crawl.



And Colin takes all the credit for teaching her how to do it.

Sneaky and Stories

We found out the other day that Colin has learned to be a little sneaky.

Back story: He likes Audrey's puffs. He would grab the can and eat the whole thing. The problem is that I buy these nice organic veggie puffs and they're not cheap. I don't want him to eat them all because Audrey likes them and they are the only thing she can feed herself right now.

Further back story: We bought Colin a step stool so that he can reach up to the sink to wash his hands after going to the bathroom. He also likes to use it to stand at the counter when we are cooking or whatever we're doing up there that he wants to be a part of.

One day I notice that it has suddenly gotten quiet. I walk out to the kitchen and see that Colin has dragged his stool across the room and the puffs are missing from the counter. I look around for him. I find him hiding behind the curtains stuffing his mouth with a handful of puffs. Definitely getting sneaky!!


Colin is starting to tell stories.

We always ask Colin about his day at school. For the longest time his only answer about the day would be the name of his teacher..."Ashley" or "Gabby". We'd try to question him more but he'd just say "I don't know". This week that has changed. He is now telling us whole stories about his day like

What friends did you play with? "Jonah and Teague but Nikki was in the other room"
What did you eat for lunch? "pickles, beans and bread"
What did you play? "read books and baby doll"

It is so fun to get a whole story out of him. Yesterday when Audrey and I went to the dr's we brought a sticker home for Colin. He was wearing the sticker when Paul got home and Paul asked him where it came from. Colin told him "baby gave it to me from the dr's." He's just getting so smart!

Audrey's 9 month Dr's appointment

Audrey had her 9 month check up yesterday. All looks good. I noticed she's getting her first top tooth in when she was screaming bloody murder when the dr came close to her. The dr gave her a "diagnosis"......Drama Queen! We're in trouble. She threw the biggest fit for the tiniest things like getting weighed, the dr touching her leg, etc. She had to get her foot pricked to check her iron and it is a little low so we're supposed to makes sure we give her the multivitamin. We have it, it is just so hard to get her to take it.

Here are her 9 month stats.

Weight: 16.2lbs 15%tile
Height: 27.2inches 50%tile
Head: (not sure) 75%tile
Height to weight: 20%tile

So she's average height but a little thin and a somewhat big head. Not yet anywhere near Colin's and I hope it stays that way.

Happy 33rd birthday to Paul

Paul's 33rd birthday was this weekend. On Saturday he and I went out to dinner at Christopher's Steakhouse. On Sunday we just spent the day home with the kids and had cake after dinner. Colin wouldn't sing Happy Birthday when we sang but then he decided to sing on his own after.



This video is also a good representation of how moody Colin can be. He was so happy and singing and we made a joking correction and he was all upset after that. He seems to do this a lot.

Audrey is 9 months old!

Well, at the end of my post last month I thought she'd be crawling by the time I wrote this one. She's not, not quite yet anyways. It still seems close and seems to be getting closer though. She has started crawling backwards some and doing an "army crawl" where she doesn't get her belly up to go forwards. So she's still working on it. She also just started to pull herself up to furniture. She isn't always successful with doing it but makes it up on many attempts.

She's been trying a lot of new foods and liking most of them. She's started more real solids, finger foods. She'll eat tofu, black beans, pieces of blueberries or bananas. She still doesn't do very well with feeding herself. She can eat the puffs by herself but it's more of a raking grasp than pinching. I'll have to ask the dr about this at her visit this week.

She sleeps through the night MOST of the time. For the last month she has gotten up during the night about once a week....except the last few days she's gotten up 3/5 nights. She's taking 2 naps. She gets up in the morning around 7, naps at 9 for 1-3hrs then naps again around 1-2ish. The length of her afternoon nap depends on how long the morning one was. She missed her first nap last week when she refused to take one in the afternoon at daycare. I don't know why it happened but she was fine the rest of the night and didn't act overtired.

She loves playing with Colin. If Colin is paying attention to her and playing with her then she is perfectly happy. They play in the ball pit or roll balls back and forth(with some help from me), they play with the baby kitchen or in the laundry basket. He loves to bring her toys to play with.

She is definitely more difficult to keep happy. She always wants attention and someone playing with her. She doesn't play very long by herself anymore.

She's still wearing size 3 diapers and is in 6-12 month clothes. She can fit in 9 months and 12 months isn't all that big on her. I feel like she's really grown lately because she's growing out of her clothes quickly.

How do they do it?

This is how the girls at daycare did Audrey's hair the other day.




I don't know how they do it. I can barely get her to sit long enough to get a clip in it. Maybe sometimes I'll get one rubberband but the parts are never straight and there's no way I could get that many in her.