Our Family has grown by 4 feet

Very Early on Christmas Eve morning, my cousin Justin and his wife Karen welcomed two new beautiful souls into our family. Seth and Lucia were born a few weeks early, but we welcomed two healthy babies despite that fact.
They were very tiny, not yet 5 lbs a piece.
As part of my baby shower gift to the happy parents. I gave them a pregnancy photoshoot, which was my first and I absolutely loved it.
Here is a picture of the beautiful mommy and daddy to be:

AND, I gave them a newborn shoot...which was my sneaky way of getting to smooch the new babies for longer.
What a beautiful pair of little souls.
Lucia was very awake and boisterous!

Seth was so docile and quiet!

I tried to capture each of them in their personalities and then together as a pair.

But the sweetest moments are when you see a new dad and a new mom realize a level of love that they never knew before they were parents/

A few hours after the shoot, we took 5 minutes to allow Audrey to meet her new baby cousins.
She wasnt quite sure what they were and her expressions were kind of funny.
But finally, we allowed her to hold Seth.
And she couldnt help but want to smooch him either.
This picture is so precious to me. It is Seth and Audrey being held by my moms hands and my aunts ( the two grandmas, sisters)

Life is about moments like this.

Camp Out

I had the idea to camp out with Audrey in our living room. Her Uncle Stevie and Aunt Steph gave her a great Bear tent for Christmas.

So, we stuffed the tent full of blankets and pillows and we had a camp out.
After about 1 hr, i moved out of the tent and slept on the couch next to the tent.
At 3:22 am, Audrey woke up, looked over at me and said, Mom...WOW!

She then fell back to sleep....little did she know she made my day.
At 6 am she woke up again and spent the remainder of our camp out on the couch with me.
What a wonderful time we had. Something so simple makes the day of a toddler.

The things you know

I dont have a baby book.
I know, can you believe it?
I have this blog, but no place where I physically write down, your first steps or first tooth.
I take pictures and I blog it. hopefully someday, you can read through your life story through my eyes on here.
Today, you are 17 months and 10 days old.
You have what I thought was 18, but is actually 16 teeth.
I have an amazing sense of balance. You love to climb. You run as soon as you know you are "caught" at something. You like to eat paper, even toilet paper ( off the roll of course).
You love to look out the window.
When you see a brush or comb, you pretend to brush your own hair.
You love music and often sing along to the radio or tv. You know the tune to most anything we have ever sung to you.
You like to pet Molli and you call her Pup-Pup.
You take a nap on your nap-mat and usually sleep for a good 2 hours or more.
You take barrettes out of your hair as soon as we put them in.
You sleep your way through a sickness, but scare us to death when you spike fevers at over 105 or higher. so far, you have had 3 febrile seizures. They have been the scariest days of my life. They are the only thing that I would change about your life.
You bite me when I brush your teeth.
You have a big vocabulary: dad, ,mom, pop, pup pupnk no, please, thank you, all done, a-choo, moo, baa, night night, oh no, uh oh, oh toodles, bye, hi, I love you, ready set go, 1 2 3, where r you,stinky....and probably a few I am forgetting.....oh I know Handy Manny...LOL!
You love to dance in a circle and can do Helshen Melshen on my hand.
You love to climb the stairs and you stick your face in the water when you are taking a bath.
You have a raspberry birthmark on your left eye lid, that really looks just like veins.
You finally love books.
you can color a little, but would rather chew the crayons.
You can poop and pee on the potty, but only when we put you on.
You love outside.
you wear size 6 shoes now.
You love to clap and try to snap your fingers.
You pick your nose and bite your nails.
Your hair is darkening to a light brown.
You have blue tubes in your ears.
You have a wonderful laugh.
You love bananas and yogurt and crackers You eat snacks at your snack table.
You get excited when your dad comes home at night.
You love Dora the Explorer, Handy Manny, Mickey Mouse, and the Backyardigans.
You talk alot!
You love water but won't drink juice.
You give incredible hugs. You are affectionate and loving and not in the least bit shy.
I get to stay at home with you for right now and it is the best job I have ever had.
Your dad thinks you hang the moon and I think you rule the world.
We save for your college. You are the best of both of us.
You dont have a binkie or a lovey and you gave up the bottle about 2 months ago and now just use your Dora sippy cups.
You have all of your shots after thursday.
You have had Roseola, frequent ear infections, and whatever anyone else has, you seem to catch.
We pray that everyone is right when they say that your immune system will be great when you are older.
You love other kids. We go to Rhyme Time and you love to shake the Egg and hate to give the ball back to Mrs. Black.
You can do a front tumbersault.
You sometimes throw temper tantrums or try to get out of the cart at the grocery store.
You have a squinty eyed smile and the cutest chubby cheeks.
You are the love of my life and that will never change.

Today is Sponsored by the Letter K

Everyday we do a letter of the day.We sing the song: K says ka, K says Ka, every letter makes a sound and K says Ka....or whatever the letter is that day.
Today , of course, was K. We sang our song. We colored a Kangaroo...and then we hopped like one.
We then made a Special K King ( which looks like Pop used to with his mustache).
AND, we made our own King's Crown.
Oddly enough, Audrey LOVED her crown and decided to wear and it to show Daddy.
We also gave lots of kisses today.
Ahhh...the Letter K, how we celebrate you!

A trip to Chocolate World

Saturday was a perfect day to make an early morning trip to Chocolate World. It has been many years since I have gone and I always enjoyed the ride. So, Gammie, Pop, Mommy and Audrey packed up the car and headed out to Hershey Park to enjoy their winter opening, the famous Chocolate World. We learned all about how they make the chocolate that we liked to eat.

Audrey got to meet a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup and we got to enjoy life through the eyes of our favorite kiddo. There is so many things we hope to do with Audrey and this was just one way to rediscover what life felt like when I was a kid. And, it was all free.:)

The Snow is coming

And we already have enough bread, eggs and milk.
So we got ready in our own little way today.
We made snowflakes.
I cut. Audrey colored.
We did visits to the door to look for the snow that is coming.
We hung the snowflakes on our front windows.
we checked to see if there were any birds at our homemade and regular feeders.
simple is nice.

Too Many Sick Days

We have been out of daycare for 1 month now.
Our main purpose of this big change was to improve Audrey's health and build up her ever-wavering immunity.
On Friday, she woke up out-of-sorts, lets say. She wasnt hungry. She was testy.
I checked her temperature. It was 99.8. Not too high, but higher than her typical 97 something.
As the day progressed, it rose to 100 and 101 and seemed to hover there.
We dosed her with tylenol and ibruprofen, but it didnt seem to go down.
And then, it went up.
Ugh, I start to get that sick worried feeling every time that thermometer reads anything over 101.5. It's like my internal mommy clock knows that it means I will see bigger numbers as the day progresses.
And we did. At around 8 pm, it went up to 103.3 in her ear, which means near 105 rectally.
We dosed her and I headed to bed. At 10 pm, I took the ear temp....104.5 OH DEAR GOD!
In mere minutes, after 2 calls to our dr, she vomited and we headed to the Holy Spirit ER...this time we drove, and skipped the ambulance.
We headed to room #2 after a few minutes wait. When they took her temp, it was 103.8 rectally.
They checked her out and 3 hours later, they sent us home with a dose of tylenol and oxicillin for whatever she is fighting, as we don't know.
So, the last 2 days have been spent cooped up here at home battling an unknown illness, with a fever that seems to want to dwindle about a little while.
Today, it is down. She still has no symptoms other than the fever and loss of appetite.
I realize that fevers are necessary, but jesus, please make my kid well.
I am a nervous wreck when she gets sick because we end up at the ER every time.
I just want these stupid seizures to go away and the fevers to go away and the sickness that seems to always get to her to go away.
I am frustrated.

Our first two days of Mommy daycare

Since Audrey will be spending her time with mommy at home now, with the occasional sitter, i decided to make a more structured day for her.
Yesterday, was our first day at home with mommy on a regular schedule.
Here are some of the things that we did:
We learned about the letter B, so we did things that started with B.
We focused on BIRDS.
We painted a Birdhouse. Much of the paint ended up on the painters. LOL!

We went for a fun walk outside in the winter air.

We made pinecone birdfeeders and found 2 great spots to hang them.


Today, we woke up late after snuggling together and sleeping in...mommy seldom gets to enjoy it.
We went to the grocery store together.
We made bottles filled with beads to shake and colored water and a blown up balloon to admire.
Then, we made cottonball lambs.
What a wonderful gig mama has!