Girly

When Brent picked Audrey up from daycare today she was sporting a pony tail. I have never tried this with her since she always rips barrettes out. Our thoughts are they thought she was looking boyish with her Vikings jersey so they were making her more girly. We both loved it, she looked so different.

Christmas all weekend!

We pretty much wore Audrey out the last 4 days celebrating with family every day. Today we finally got to get together with Curt and Christine. It was wonderful and we were glad they could come down when traveling was safer. We enjoyed a new board game while Audrey was napping. Once she woke up she entertained us.


Audrey is getting the hang of the new tent/tunnel system.

Audrey is watching dad, hoping he doesn't get stuck in the tunnel.

Audrey was ready to go I guess, she put on her new coat that Christine and Curt got her for next winter, she just couldn't wait until next year to wear it.

We also got to celebrate Christine's birthday with some awesome cake, it was a big deal when she was cutting the cake as you can see, cameras at every angle.

Colorful Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. Spending time with our parents and Audrey was wonderful, it was snowing outside and nice and cozy inside. We didn't get to see Curt and Christine because of the snow, so hopefully Sunday will be nice enough for them to travel down.


Here is Tina getting high on Christmas with her cat nip fish.

Thor enjoying his new toy.

Not sure who enjoyed this box more, Audrey or Thor.

Doug and Bev poured some hard work into this book shelf for Audrey's toy room. It turned out so nice. Doug built it and Bev painted it, it's a perfect fit.

Audrey got a sweet table and chairs from Grandpa and Grandma Sonnek, she could hardly wait for them to get put together. Here she is reading to her sock monkey.

Snowy

Brent spent some time getting the snow off the roof today, this is some seriously heavy snow.

Audrey finally started to enjoy the snow, I pulled her around the neighborhood in her sled and we played on the incredible snow pile at the end of our street. Here we are bugging dad while he was making some appetizers.

Happy Birthday Aunt Christine!

We miss you today, but enjoy your birthday and we can't wait to see you on Sunday!


This is Audrey and Christine last year on Christmas.

O Christmas Tree!

Our Christmas tree ornaments have a lot of history and a lot of stories behind them. We have no theme to our tree at all, it's just a bunch of ornaments we have collected over the years. I thought it would be fun to blog about them.


Audrey loves checking out the ornaments.

This is a cheap ornament from back in my college days when I lived in the funeral home in Roseville. My roommate and I bought all our ornaments at the dollar store:)

This is our tree this year with a brand new tree skirt. It's fun to get something new every year for the tree.

This is one of Brent's ornaments from when he was younger.

My aunt makes a new ornament every year, this is a Santa made out of an acorn.

Heidi made these for me the year we were married with petals from my wedding flowers.

This is one of the ornaments I got from my grandma's collection, she gave me all of her decorations.

Oooooohhhhhhhhh!

Audrey has been making this face a lot lately, ha. We have been letting her open the Christmas cards and this is the face she made today when we let her open the card from Curt and Christine. All we have to do now is ask her to do this and she does, it's too funny!

Audrey is learning so much lately, she is full of conversation. She can repeat a lot of words that we say. She knows what a dog, cow, duck, and monkey can say. Lately I have been hearing her say 1, 2 and repeating it over and over. Before bath time she goes in her room and can take her socks off and put them in her hamper and she can take her shirt off , but not the pants yet. She learned this week at daycare to take off her hat, mittens and coat and put them on. She is doing pretty well.

Audrey gets frustrated very easily lately, so we try to distract her right away if something is not going well. I think she wants to do so many things by herself , but not everything comes easily so it's frustrating for her. Communicating is a challenge with her limited vocabulary, she knows what she wants, but we don't always know what she wants. It's very exciting the more and more words she picks up, something new every day.

You and that camera sure are funny mom!

Audrey has started to realize when I get out the camera to be funny and pose, she was cracking up.

Reaching in her bag for some goldfish.

Happy Weekend

It was such a great weekend after our very loooooonnnnnggg week. It was a rough week at our house with Audrey having her ear infection. The doctor mentioned at her appointment last week that she was the perfect storm with a double ear infection, a cold, and teething. Every night from the minute she got home from daycare until bedtime, which is only an hour, but seemed much longer, she would cry. It was terrible and very draining on Brent and I. On Friday night after she went to bed I just thought, is this every going to end, her medicine has to be kicking in. Not to mention the fact that her medicine made her constipated, ugghhh, fix one problem, get a new one. Saturday when Audrey woke up she was a new girl, well, actually just back to herself. It was awesome. We enjoyed a fun filled day at Nickelodean Universe at the Mall of America thanks to my parents and we checked out the Body Exhibit there, which was very interesting. We timed everything just right, we wore Audrey out on the rides and then had lunch and she slept through the body exhibit.

Today we went to church for the first time in a long time because it was the children's Christmas Program. Audrey lasted about 5 minutes in church. She is a hard age to sit still, so she hung out in the nursery the whole time. Then it was time to leave and she freaked, she was having so much fun with all kinds of new toys. I did some annual Christmas baking today with my mom and it was great as always. We have tons of Christmas goodies now. Even Lucy and Heidi came over to sample some of our treats and hang out.






Brent and I had to try out this coaster, it was freaky. I forgot the camera, so thank goodness Grandma remembered hers.

Audrey's favorite ride, the Big Riggs! She loved it because their was a steering wheel and horn. Grandpa Dan was so proud!

Much better ride on the carousel then our first one at Como Zoo, she was not into it then.

We were the only passengers on the train.

Dora the Explorer bus ride, it was my favorite kiddy ride:)

Neighbors

Did I ever say we have the best neighbors ever? We came home from work this evening and our driveway was all plowed. It was so incredibly nice to come home to that, one less thing to have to take care of at a busy time of the day, getting Audrey supper, bath time, getting ready for bed. It was so great! We love our neighbors, especially whoever plowed.


This picture shows that our cats still can be friends, when they think we are not looking. These two sure changed after we moved, but slowly they are becoming pals again. I neglect them and never post them on the blog anymore, so this is just a random photo of Tina and Thor, since Audrey has been so crabby we have really slacked on pictures. Audrey loves the cats, every night she waves goodnight to them and even tries to share her sippy cup with them when she thinks they are thirsty. I think they are getting more and more used to her and actually kind of like the attention she gives them.

Off the market

So, today went from being frustrated to feeling incredibly bad for our little girl. We finally decided this just isn't like Audrey to act this way, their is no way this could just be toddler tantrums and a phase. I called daycare to see how she was doing and she had a few episodes of crying and acting out. Brent took her to Doctor Williams and wouldn't you know, she has a double ear infection, plus a cold, plus teething. Not a good combination. I guess when she slapped me this morning it meant my ears hurt mama. We were actually glad he found something wrong, it all makes sense now and we totally can deal with this more knowing that she is acting this way for a reason. We have medicine and she is loving it, so hopefully in no time our girl will be back to normal:)

Toddler for Sale!

What happened to my sweet, easy going girl? Okay, it's been a seriously long day. I guess it all started yesterday afternoon with Brent. Audrey is teething we think, getting those sucky molars. She keeps chomping on her paci in the corner of her mouth and is drooling like mad. She has had tantrum, after tantrum, after tantrum today. Brent and I both feel as a loss here, we don't know how to make her happy. We have given her some teething tablets and are hoping that gives her a little relief, but we just can't win here. She just lays on the floor and screams. We had Lucy over this morning to try and cheer her up and we ended up putting her in her crib while her friend was over. Uggghhhhh, she slept for 3 1/2 hours and we were so excited that she had a great nap and we would have a great afternoon, not the case. It sucks to watch her act like this and we would do anything to make it stop. We have never experienced this so far, so I have to say we are pretty lucky. I sure hope this ends soon, it's draining and I hate for daycare to have to deal with this.

A tree in my living room!