most adorable kid.

i have TONS of updates but i just wanted to pop in really quick and ask all of my readers for a BIG FAVOR! Audrey was selected as a finalist for this weeks Most Adorable Kid photo contest by Parents Magazine!! i submitted her picture a few weeks ago and completely forgot about it until I received an email this morning letting me know that she was in the contest and the voting was open! You can vote every day multiple times (if you vote from both your phone and your computer) until the voting closes at the end of the day on April 1st!

Here is the picture that I used for the contest:

if you click on this link: http://photos.parents.com/category/vote/photo/1225005
it will take you to her page! just click on "Vote for Me" under the picture and you'll be asked a question to verify you're a real person and that's it! Also, if you're on facebook you can "like" the picture as well! 

Thank you for your help! 

UPDATE: Audrey is in 7th place right now!!!!!! Thank you for your votes!

found it.

when i was looking through the diaper bag for Audrey's immunization log before her appointment last week i found a disc of pictures from thanksgiving that i thought i had lost in all the crazy traveling, packing, and unpacking we did during christmas. i popped the disc in my computer and couldn't believe how teeny tiny Audrey used to be! these pictures mean a lot to me -- Will's aunt (Nanny) did a great job capturing everyone meeting our sweet girl for the first time! she was only five weeks old when these pictures were taken...

peeking at Auntie Ann

my tiny little cupcake :)

Will's dad meeting his first grandchild

Will's Poppi

Mama Pat

Will's brother Cliff meeting Audrey for the first time

holding onto "Uncle Simba's" finger

proud daddy!

Mama Pat, Nanny (Audrey's "Gran"), and tiny bear

How Audrey spent her first Thanksgiving dinner :)

a rare picture of all three of us

5 months.

Audrey turned 5 months old yesterday!

to celebrate, she got to try her very first food -- avocado! she also wore her new bib from Aunt Jenn and long distance boyfriend Gavi :)

hmmmm...

i think i would like my spoon please!

okay, here it goes...

ummm mom? i don't know if i like this!!

she was not terribly thrilled with avocado but she didn't hate it either. we ended up splitting the dish in half. i took a bite and she observed. then she would take over with the spoon and take one very small, timid bite at a time. she loves to feed herself, although it ends up being very messy. i love that she's so independent about it though. she showed off her spoon feeding skills to my dad at dinner this past weekend. we had a great time visiting with him!

Audrey supervising in the kitchen

sleepy girl!

lately, over trial and error, i've realized that Audrey does have a bit of separation anxiety and is very clingy at times. hopefully it's something she'll grow out of soon! don't get me wrong, she's very social and likes to interact with people....but only if i'm holding her.

Audrey's new-found interests are touching other people's faces (aka jamming her hand up your nose, in your mouth, and poking you in the eye). She's so curious about faces right now. Here's a quick little conversation she had with Will the other day, while touching his face:

She also loves her feet!!

Crib sleeping has slowly but surely gotten a lot better! After a long first few nights, she finally settled into a rhythm and was only waking up a couple times in the early hours of the morning. I've also been putting her down for her three or four daytime naps in her crib and i think that's been helping a lot. I'm totally guilty of sneaking in her room when she's napping to just stare at her and be totally in awe of my precious girl. Oh, and taking lots of pictures too :)

crazy crib hair!

Shelby the seahorse (Fisher Price Soothe n Glow Seahorse) is a must have for crib sleeping and naps. Audrey usually falls asleep patting Shelby. Yesterday afternoon Shelby "died" (her batteries ran out) so Will had to play doctor daddy and fix Shelby before Audrey went to bed last night :)

best friends!

i've also been trying to get Audrey to part with all of her "stuff" that she usually needs to hold in order to fall asleep. So far the only thing I haven't been able to take away successfully is her nap blankie, which you can see in every picture above.  We've also only been giving her a paci for naps and bedtime and hopefully will be able to do away with it by the time she's a year old. I had my paci until i was 4 years old though, so we will see :)

Last but not least, Audrey's new favorite activity -- jumping! At first she would hop on one foot and then the other. It looked so funny, like she was doing a jig! She's gotten the hang of it now and loves to jump and bounce around. Her hair is super crazy from her nap!!! Oh, and I tried to get her to blow everyone a raspberry, but she will still only do it for Will.

Oh, and she is rocking out her Michigan gear like a proud little wolverine! Thanks Kuisells annnnnd go blue!

changes.

lots of new things happening here lately! Audrey did great at her appointment last Monday -- showing her pediatrician how she could stand up (holding my fingers for support) and stomp her feet, and also be really dramatic about getting her check up :) at 20 weeks old Audrey weighed 12 lbs., 9 oz. and was 24 inches long. For length, she's still in the 15-20th percentile range, but her weight dropped below the growth curve that she's been following so her doctor recommended that we start cereal and solids a little sooner than planned to help give her some extra calories each day. she normally eats 30-36 oz. of milk each day, which seems like a lot for her to be taking in and still not weigh very much. so we started with oatmeal cereal (which she was not a fan of) and then rice cereal (loved) and then a combination of the two, which is shown in this video below. she's wearing her new "i love my aunt" bib from her Aunt Laura! note at the very end how Will is encouraging Audrey to blow raspberries at me with a mouth full of cereal -- he got booted out of the kitchen shortly after :) she did really well at spoon feeding! after a few messy tries, she started opening her mouth for the spoon and most of the cereal ended up in her tummy instead of well, everywhere else. she actually started getting really impatient when i was taking too long in between bites. we decided to start with avocado as her first food and are going to give it to her on her five month birthday (Monday) to celebrate! i'm going to try my hand at making my own baby food! i already have a magic bullet so Laura, Audrey, and i browsed through Target a few weeks ago and i found a baby food steamer, sterilizer, and defroster on sale and got some 4 oz. tupperware containers to freeze everything in. i'm pretty excited!

i'm reeeeady!!

yummy!

the weather here has been so nice lately so Audrey and i have been going to the park almost every day! this weekend, Will went with us and Audrey tried out the park swing for the first time!

check out my sneakers! :)

now that our sweet girl is almost 5 months old, we started talking about moving her out of our room and into her crib in the nursery. ever since we brought her home, she's been sleeping swaddled in a rocker next to my side of the bed. this has worked out great and it gave me peace of mind having her right next to me. it's also recommended that babies sleep in their parent's room until around 6 months to help reduce the risk of SIDS. we bought an angelcare monitor to put in her crib to ease my mind about having her "so far away" (aka the next room over) at night. a sensor pad goes into the bottom of the crib on a plywood board underneath the mattress. it can detect her breathing movements and an alarm sounds if there is no movement after 20 seconds. i was worried how she would adjust to sleeping in her big crib when her rocker is on an incline and 'hugs' her. we thought maybe it would help for her to get used to sleeping without being swaddled first. when i woke up one morning last week and found her like this:

i knew it was time to start unswaddling her at night. doesn't she look so proud of herself? :) the first two nights went really well. she put herself to sleep within minutes and woke up only 30 minutes earlier than usual. when i checked on her an hour after she fell asleep, she had both of her arms by her head, holding little tufts of her hair in each hand.

for some reason the third night didn't go as well. then, we went into daylight savings time and her sleep pattern was all over the place. we took a chance and put her in her crib, swaddled, for the first time last night. she went to bed as usual at 8:30 and after an hour and a half of fighting sleep, a little fussing (and probably confusion), she fell asleep and stayed asleep until 4:30 a.m. after i got up, located her paci and gave it to her, and she fell back asleep until 5:00 a.m. but was back up at 5:30 a.m., then 6 a.m., then 6:30 a.m., then 7 a.m., and finally at 7:30 a.m., we brought her into our room and laid her down in the rocker where she slept until 10:30 a.m. Whew! We're going to try again tonight and hopefully it only gets better.

i've been really thankful to meet some great friends who also have October and November babies. a few are located nearby and some are as far as Canada, California, and even Alaska! it's been so great getting to know them and it's so helpful to have others who have babies the same age and are going through the same things at the same time. they have all been so generous as well; many times when i go to check the mail, i find sweet letters and coupons and little gifts from her "aunts."

pink camouflage wipes case from Aunt Lucy :)

tutu and matching bow from Aunt Andrea :)

my friend Jenn (from Canada) and i talk on the phone once a week! she's so sweet and we have so much in common. Her son, Gavi, was born 4 days after Audrey and was also early (our due dates were the same, 11/11/11) because Jenn, like me, had Cholestasis. they also both weighed exactly the same when they were born! a couple weeks ago she picked up some matching bibs for Gavi and Audrey -- so sweet!

i've talked (a lot) about Audrey's fascination with her mermaid from Aunt Susie and Uncle Larry. she loves that thing so much, i was hesitant to add a moose into the mix. Lamaze toys are so great and i highly recommend them to anyone. we received Mortimer the Moose as a gift but since Audrey loves her mermaid so much, i wasn't sure if she could find any room in her heart for sweet Mortimer :) she still loves her mermaid the most, but now she has one hand on each when she plays and looks back and forth and them and laughs. 

oh hey, mermaid!

oh hey, mr. moose!

Laura gave her the stuffed elephant (Ellie) the first time they "met" when Audrey was out of the NICU so we keep her close as well. Audrey just loved to be surrounded i guess! Even when she naps, she is a little hoarder! she has to have her nap blankie (my old baby blanket) under one arm, her wubbanub under the other arm, her ring of links in one hand, and another blankie to tuck her in. it's a lot of work getting it all together every time she takes a nap but i kid you not, it's almost impossible to get her to go to sleep without those things!

another exciting change is Audrey's wardrobe. it sounds silly but the girl has been wearing 0-3m clothes forever now so i was thrilled that a few of her 3-6m outfits finally fit. one of my favorites was a gift from great grandma Hammersley, osh kosh overalls!

night #2 in the crib is tonight! i'll let you know how it goes. in the meantime, i'm going to take a nap! :)

one year ago.

at 7:30 in the morning, Will and i found out that we would be parents. it was such an amazing moment to discover that even though i felt completely normal, i was carrying a new life inside of me. throughout my pregnancy, i wondered if we were really ready to be parents. we felt ready, but there were so many unknowns. we read the books, had a lot of long talks, made plans and goals, and tried to be as ready as possible to be the best for her.

but, nothing in the entire world could have prepared us for the profound joy we have in being Audrey's mom and dad...

we love you sweet girl! :)

audrey laughs.

this pretty much sums up the majority of my week with Audrey:

annnnnnd one minute later....

just ask my dad -- our dinner together this week was a bit...challenging :)

so far to date, Will has been the only one to make Audrey laugh simply by being his silly self. i resort to tickling and making obnoxious noises to get some giggles. enjoy!

our highchair came on friday and after a good solid half hour of construction time, i finally got it together! the verdict? she LOVES it! so far we've just used it to help her learn to reach for toys and sit and observe, but if she's feeling up to it after another round of shots at the doctor tomorrow, we'll try out some good old fashioned baby oatmeal for dinner!

she looks soo tiny in there! her feet don't even stick out yet :)

raspberries for all!

um mom, now what??

thanks again great grandma and great grandpa gertz!