Feel(ine) The Love

As I've mentioned, Audrey LOVES Scarlet. I don't know if it's Scarlet's fluffy fur (Scarlet has THE fluffiest fur), her tranquil nature (I refer to it as tranquil...Ashley and Corey call it "not much between the ears" or "one taco short of a combo platter"), or her constant reclined position, but Audrey rarely passes her by without strongly suggesting a snuggle. And I do mean "strongly". If Scarlet is actually upright, Audrey wrangles her to the floor in order to plop herself on top. My only comfort is that Scarlet could get away if she really wanted to.

These are some pictures of Audrey's Stalk and Snuggle tactic. She catches Scarlet at her food bowl and moves in for the cuddle.

She doesn't even seem to mind a little tail fur in the eye! And I don't like to dwell on where her head ends up!

Birthday Weekend

I turned 37 today. 37. Good grief...how did that happen? I had a great weekend of celebrating...dinner with Ashley and Paul on Friday, an afternoon out with Natalie on Saturday, a hike with Corey and the girls this morning, sushi for lunch and a devils food bundt cake (made and decorated lovingly by Corey and Natalie) for dessert tonight! Perfect. What a lucky 37 year old I am.
I'm not sure if Paul and Ashley have recovered from dinner out with our girls on Friday night. They were a bit rambunctious , to say the least.
A 2.5 mile hike in pretty hot weather and the only one who complained?

Audrey.

Apparently a free ride in the backpack is just grueling.

Natalie posing with Cactus Audrey

Our desert shadows

You can just feel the cake anticipation through the screen, can't you?

Audrey was a bit reluctant to try her first birthday cake back in May. She's obviously over any uncertainty about cake at this point. I think she would have licked her tray if we'd let her.

Cookies!

Aunt Ammy sent Natalie this super cute Cookie Monster mug. It holds the cookie and the milk! What a concept. Needless to say, our own little cookie monster LOVES it!

All Things Audrey

Audrey has become quite an active (and very vocal) member of the household. Gone are the baby days of just watching the action from sidelines. She's in the game now!

A few of her cutest little quirks...

- As much a we're encouraging words, we still just have "uh oh" from Audrey (said with a big, dramatic "O" mouth). But don't think that stops this kid from getting her point across. She points. She grunts. She points while grunting. When she's hungry, she stands in front of the pantry with her head back and her mouth wide open, grunting. She's going to catch a fly in there one day.

-She will not tolerate her sippy cup on her highchair tray. It has to be on the dining table next to her. Period.

-She loves to blow her nose. That is, make a blowing sound with her mouth (think "pplllph") behind the wad of tissues she's holding up to her nose. It's a very realistic sounding blow! And it's a very large wad of tissues.

-If you ask her to point to her nose, she does it. If you ask her to point to her ear, she points to her nose. If you ask her to point to her mouth, she points to her nose. You get the picture.

- I've mentioned her love of snuggling and how she feels compelled to curl up on top of anyone lying down in this house. Well, Scarlet is lying down 99.9% of her day. Audrey can't resist this and often settles on top of Scarlet for a snuggle. I'll get a pictures soon, I promise. I'll also start discouraging it, but, honestly, Scarlet seems to like the attention.

-It's too bad the printed newspaper will be extinct by the time she's old enough for a paper route. It would be the perfect job for her. She rises for the day anywhere between 4:45 and 5:30 am. It's utterly painful.

-She has this new smile. A scrunched up nose, squinty eyes kind of smile. If she sees the camera aimed her direction, she sports this new smile. It's not overly natural nor sweet, but she must think it's a great picture face. We have a family portrait scheduled in a few weeks. This ought to be interesting.
new picture face.
another one!
Such a cute little bug!

Snip

I totally massacred Audrey's bangs the other night. I was so tired of them getting in her eyes that I decided to just make a few strategic snips until I could take her to Natalie's next haircut appointment for a proper trim. Well, of course, she moved quickly while I was snipping and I could tell by the chunk of hair that fell in her lap that it wasn't going to be pretty. I was right. And instead of just literally cutting my losses, I tried to make the rest of the bangs shorter to call less attention to the mishap. This is so typical of me...making a relatively small mess much, much larger in a failed effort to make it better. So, now she has very short bangs and the mis-snip is still the focal point.

Thankfully, hair grows. And hers grows fast. And she has no idea her mother botched her bangs so she smiles her best smile anyway. Phew.

Teaching Moments

One of Audrey's favorite activities is to collect all the CDs we store in a little end table and make sure they are properly strewn haphazardly about the living room. The other night I asked Natalie if she would pick them up and put them away and after a very dramatic SIGH she said, "it's about time this kid (Audrey, of course) learns to pick up after herself!" I felt like saying, "right back at you, babe!" but I refrained.

It was comical listening to Natalie explain to Audrey how to put them away. Audrey couldn't care less how to put ANYTHING away. Right after Natalie had put all the CDs back on the shelf, Audrey was in hot pursuit to undo her efforts. Natalie's solution? She just kept moving the table away from Audrey until it got so frustrating that Audrey moved on to make a mess elsewhere.

Some teaching moments are a little more successful, however:




These are some pics of the two of them coloring the other night. It's so sweet to see Audrey try to do everything Natalie does. Except, she eats crayons. Thankfully, Natalie does not do that!

Take me out to the ballgame!

Corey took Natalie to a Diamondbacks game last Friday night at Chase Field and they had so much fun. Natalie came home so wired and said, "Mommy, tonight I tried a treat called cotton candy! I love cotton candy!" She was literally bouncing off the walls as a direct result of as well as in celebration of this discovery!

Her other favorite moments were when the roof opened up and they set off fireworks. Cotton candy and fireworks?? Boy does that place know how to create young baseball fans or what?

Seriously?

One of Natalie's favorite treats is an ounce or two of the tonic water left over after Corey makes his favorite summer drink, a gin and tonic. He even gives her a lime slice with her "spicy soda", as she calls it. She loves it and she begs for it every time she sees him preparing to make one. She knows if she's already consumed a lot of sugar earlier in the day, the answer to her endless begging and pleading for tonic is usually a "no" and, sure enough, today was a too-many-cookies-and-jelly-beans day. So, naturally, she came to the table tonight ready to negotiate.

When her request was denied, she gave Corey a sneaky little smirk. "Well,Daddy" she said confidently, "what if I give you back your wedding ring that I took off your desk the other day and you give me some spicy soda?"

Uh?

Our responses were the obvious:

"you took what?"
"when?"
"how?"
"why?"
"and you're holding it for a ransom of spicy soda???"

"are you serious?"

I added, "why was Daddy's ring on his desk and not on his finger?"

Corey got back to the real issue at hand...our daughter had not only snatched a piece of jewelry but was now using it as leverage to get something she wanted!! Where did she learn this type of blackmail bargaining? I swear all we let her watch is PBS Kids!

We asked her to produce the ring.

She led us to her bedroom where she'd carefully hidden it beside her bed in (her words) "a place where Audrey could never find it" inside a little organza bag that she had, (brace yourself) stolen from my dresser drawer! The plot just kept thickening!

The ring looked just lovely, gift wrapped and cared for in the little ring-sized bag. She said she had seen it on Corey's desk and decided hide it and see how long it took for Corey to ask for it. Corey is not fessing up to how long it's actually been missing. Natalie insists she just took it yesterday.

Good grief. Should we be worried??? I mean, she did take excellent care of the ring but, honestly, I'm going to put the rest of our jewelry under the mattress as a precaution!! She insisted she was just doing it to be funny and we insisted she never do it again. Life is never boring around here!

Sick Day

Natalie had a random sick day in Michigan. One morning she woke up with a high fever, no energy and a very sad face. The LAST thing she wanted to do in Michigan was take it easy inside for a day. We worried that this was going to be the beginning of something. The kind of something that would lead to more days on the sofa than on the tree swing. Luckily, this little something turned out to be nothing. By the next morning, she was back to her old self. Phew!

But during her sick day, she wanted lots of cuddling. This is not a girl that typically tolerates much cuddling so we all happily obliged. However, Miss Audrey (the official family snuggle bunny) was not so happy about this cuddle competitor. She pouted and she fussed and she let us all know that she did not like to share the family laps, especially mine.

I thought it was too funny when she randomly picked up this book to read to herself when Natalie was down and out and showered with attention!

Trip to Michigan

What a great time we had in Michigan a few weeks ago. The weather was perfect. We enjoyed a few rainy days and cool nights...something we haven't had in quite a while in AZ. It felt great to be chilly!! Our time with Nana, Kristen and Papa Franc was awesome and we also enjoyed time with extended family and friends.










Natalie picked blackberries, took walks in the forest, made wildflower bouquets, collected dead cicadas and live lightning bugs, had a sleepover in the camper with Aunt Kristen, made brownies with Nana and Audrey, "drove" the tractor, had one very random high fever day, ate about 8 lbs of blueberries, swung on the tree swing any chance she got and carried a fuchsia glitter handbag while doing all of the above.







Audrey picked and ate her birth weight in cherry tomatoes (most of them green), also swung like crazy in her very own baby swing, picked all the red blackberries, enjoyed showing off her stair climbing abilities, kept most of the house awake 6 of the 10 nights we were there, and loved chasing after the poor cat.








Corey made up for all the lawn mowing he's missed out on since we've been in AZ, caught enough blue gill for a fish fry, introduced Natalie to Duck Tales and ET, and managed to work amongst the activity.



I exceeded my yearly movie-in-the-theater quota (2) as well as my new-pair-of-shoes quota (also, 2) in a single week, enjoyed a wonderful afternoon with Corey in South Haven, and learned how to make the best cobbler on earth!

It was a restful but fun-filled vacation! Thanks for such a great week, Nana, Papa and Kristen!