Audrey walking.

got Audrey walking on video tonight twice and had to share! LOVE HER!

*disclaimer for the next video: i totally had a "moment" or something (?!!) and 'totally' said "GO GIRL!" cheering on Audrey when she had a spill after walking a few steps....sooooo....sorry in advance, kinda embarrassed upon reviewing the video but i couldn't help it! i got a little excited! haha Melissa says i'm getting her ready for cheer! ;)

first steps, first tooth.

IT FINALLY HAPPENED!! ahh! i am SO PROUD!! Audrey took her first steps tonight! AND she took them walking to ME! she took one step and fell, tried again, and on the third time she took two steps (Will and i decided that it needed to be two steps to be "official"), plopped on her butt and started clapping for herself :) she also got her first tooth today too! i hope all of her teeth come in like this one. she never acted bothered or fussy about it, it's just like it magically appeared! i cannot believe my baby bear is already walking at 10 months and 1 week old! what a great weekend! Will and i had an amazing date night on Friday, fun and relaxing family day on Saturday, and our baby started to become a toddler on Sunday. we are so blessed!

fun run.

guess what???

OH YES! my amazing new jogging stroller is here!! I LOVE IT! i love the colors, i love how easy it is to use, i love how smooth the ride is, and i love how it feels as i'm RUNNING behind it! what an amazing feeling! yes, i went on my first jog since i was in my 2nd trimester with Audrey and running became too difficult. i went really easy at first and it wasn't too bad but after a few minutes of a moderate jog, my incision started to hurt a lot. i backed off a little bit (and remembered that i am pushing 20ish lbs of stroller and 18 lbs. of baby!), but then a fellow neighborhood jogger passed me and said, "you go girl!" and it motivated me to push through the pain and try again. needless to say, my incision is extremely sore and swollen (as are my legs ha!) but the rush of it all was worth it! i'm only 2 months away from my incision re-check and i'm getting a little antsy!

ready to go!

yummy!

miss sassypants after our fun run :)

only my dad would torture me like this! of course now she
favors it over all of her other pacis!

10 months.

Audrey turned 10 months old yesterday! She is now 18 lbs. 6 oz. (30th percentile) and 29 inches (80th percentile). i swear, most of her growth is in her legs! she is getting so tall all of a sudden. i can't believe we are only 2 months away from her first birthday! we were watching Alice in Wonderland about a month ago and i thought it would be fun to do a spin-off and do Audrey in ONE-derland :) let the planning begin! i'm also really excited to take her trick-or-treating this year! last year she was only 12 days old and the most exciting thing we did was go to my OB's office to get some blood work done for my liver issues. we got our holiday pre-sale shipment in at the store this week so of course Melissa (my best friend in Waycross) and i had a blast dressing Audrey up! Melissa and i met a couple summers ago and reconnected when we moved down here. She is such a great friend and i'm thankful for her :) my life was feeling a little "man-ish" since i am always around Will, Cliff, and Will's best friend Trey. i love her! she's also fabulous with Audrey..

Auntie Missa and Audrey about a month ago :)

stopped by the store to introduce
my dad and Melissa

so back to the holiday dress up party we had.... SO MUCH FUN! one of the girls in my mom's group through facebook told me i have the best dressed baby in the group. well, she does have an entire children's clothing boutique at her disposal! i am so thankful to Jen for not only giving me such a great employment opportunity and allowing me to stay at home with Audrey but also for ordering an extra of everything in Audrey's size all the time!

the little witch hat bow is my favorite!

hoping she grows into this! :)

Christmas bloomers eeek! :)

Christmas boa bow!
(a little too much in my opinion but maybe it just looks weird
on babies who already have a ton of hair)

Christmas bibs! LOVE!

on Saturday i also held a mini-shoot with some of our tween models and my beautiful sister (in-law), Ann. we had a great time! i am by no means a "professional" photographer but i thought a lot of my shots turned out pretty good! towards the end of the shoot, one of Audrey's new friends, Ella Kate, and her mom came in to shoot the rest of the Christmas line. it was too much fun! i truly LOVE my job!

Isabelle, Ann, and Grace! such sweet girls!

Ella Kate melted my heart! she is such a sweet girl!

Audrey and Ella Kate playing in the trunk of boots!

sharing her Lily & Laura bracelets with Audrey

"no, no baby! don't put it in your mouth!"

oh christmas tree :)

poppa's visit.

"HI POPPA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

 words can't even express how thankful i am to have such an amazing dad who made a 7 hour trip just to spend a few days with us! we had such a great time in swamp land :) Audrey had such a great time playing with her Poppa and showing off all of her new tricks -- like clapping for herself when she finishes a task and dancing (my new favorites!). there were a few times when i went to take her from Poppa (the horror) and she clung to him for dear life and refused to come to me, which has never happened before! what can i say? she is Poppa's girl, after all :)

play time in her new dress from GG :)

"sharing" her rattle (aka shoving in his face), how sweet!

one of  my favorite things that we did was tour the swamp and all of my favorite places! Aunt Becky, you will be jealous to know that your brother ate at the infamous Hog-n-Bones! i realized that from an outsiders perspective, when someone (me) says they "live in the swamp" one might assume that this is a boggy, algae covered, stinky, slimy type of swamp. it's actually one of the most beautiful places i've ever seen! years ago when i first visited Will in his hometown, his dad asked me how i liked the landscape on my drive down. i said that it was beautiful and that i especially loved the trees surrounded by little ponds everywhere. he said, "oh, you mean the swamp?" to my surprise, their "swamp" wasn't the type of swamp i had pictured when Will told me where he lived.

what i thought swamp land would look like

what our swamp actually looks like

everything you see in the above picture is actually on water! pretty amazing, right? so amazing that we have one of these:

oh yes! the Okefenokee Swamp Park (or as Will calls it, the Redneck Zoo). it was too hot and humid to do the boat tour and see everything, but we did manage to have a first hand encounter with the boss of the swamp food chain:

this picture was taken about 15 feet from OUR PARKING SPOT! the beauty of the swamp park is that most of the wildlife is not contained in a cage. alligators, primarily, roam about the park unrestricted so there is a chance that as you are getting out of your vehicle after parking, you may stumble (literally) across one of these guys! on the way out, my dad was debating walking down closer to the water but he wanted to make sure that our little friend from earlier wasn't lurking in the bushes, waiting to make a snack out of his leg. right as he decided it was clear to continue, this little guy lurched out!

eeek!

aside from the parking lot encounters, we had a great time!

the walkway back into the heart of the swamp

my favorite! :)

possibly checking out Poppa's bald spot ;)

open marsh

new growth after the big fire last summer

the long road back to town

since Audrey is back to taking two 2-hour naps during the day, we did spend a lot of time at the house. it was really nice to talk and catch up while Audrey slept. my amazing dad also gifted us with two much needed baby gates and even installed them for us :) i didn't know how Audrey would react to them (i've seen some babies freak out and others don't even notice) when the magically appeared after her nap -- well, she did notice them and LOVES them! um hello, mom - something new to hold on to and jump up and down and dance and shake and it makes noise and ohmygosh what's not to love?

Audrey also loves.....LAUNDRY BASKETS! we currently have one in front of the TV stand, which most of the time effectively blocks her from playing around the Wii, DVD player, etc. and if she does feel the need to go after those things, is most of the time distracted by the laundry basket and then wants to play in it more than mess with electronics :)

ahh!
sooooo close to taking her first steps!

we also dined at a few of our favorite local places such as the much anticipated Hog-n-Bones, Fujis, and our gourmet dining selction - Ruby Tuesday! Audrey was treated to a plate of spaghetti squash, which she loved!

Dad, we were sad to see you go, but Audrey will always smile because of you:

so...thanks for that ;) LOVE YOU!