Austin Rodeo

First real pony ride -- she cried when the ride was over b/c she didn't want to get off

Kissing a donkey in the petting zoo -- I did wash her mouth off as soon as we found a bathroom
Admiring the sweet baby goats
Aubrey would do "hook em horns" to any and every animal we saw with horns. She's also started calling all burnt orange cars "hook em horns cars" with out any prompting 

It's really a...

BOY! I ended up having an ultrasound at my 34 week check-up today and my doctor finally confirmed that we are indeed expecting a baby boy in about 6 weeks! We were okay with not knowing for sure, but it is also nice to be able to focus only on boy names and get the nursery ready, etc. Thankfully, everything looked good on the ulltrasound so we're praying that the last stretch of this pregnancy and the delivery will go smoothly. You can also pray for Aubrey as we enter this transitional time. She was really funny at my appoitment today. For some reason she loves Dr. Love and she is always so well behaved and patient at my appoitments. Normally she is so active and doesn't like to sit still, but she quietly looks at books and makes conversation with the doctors and nurses in the office. Today during my ultrasound, she was talking to Dr. Love and he said, "You annunciate your words very well, Aubrey" and she replied, "I surely do".
I don't even thik she knows what annunciate means, but it was a fitting response.

Family shots

Grandma Pam & Grandpa Isaac came to visit this weekend. Aubrey enjoyed practicing throwing & catching this blue ball and screaming and squealing really loud the entire time
33 weeks down, about 7 weeks left until baby #2 arrives! 

After painting her nose she said, "Aubrey's a clown"
Playing dress up with lots of beads at Aunt Joy's apartment
They just cleared the last open lot on our street. Aubrey wanted to go play by the "cactus mountain"
Rolling & diving on the big yellow ball 

Park Day

Squatting down to admire the geese on the playground
Taking a rhino ride
Conquering the climbing wall -- she made it all the way to the top, no fear of heights for this one!
Taking a water break after all her hard work

We both enjoyed playgroup at the park yesterday -- it was in the mid 70s with lots of sunshine. It really felt like spring and I even noticed that our cheeks got rosy -- time to break out the sunscreen. Aubrey especially enjoyed feeding the ducks and playing with all her friends from church. 

We survived...

Aubrey dropped her bunny, so this tennis ball was the next best thing to snuggle & suck her thumb with.
Aubrey saying "cookie" yesterday at our church picnic.

Aubrey got her first stomach bug last weekend and I can finally say I think she's completely over it. She only threw up on Saturday, but then had a fever for 2 days and then it took a few more days to get all her energy and appetite back. Thankfully, yesterday and today she has been eating everything is sight. She'll eat a huge breakfast at 7 ish and then be ready for lunch by 9! We spent several days staying in our pajamas and watching videos all day, so we were ready to get some fresh air yesterday at our church picnic. Aubrey saw the cookies right when we arrived and kept asking for one while Robert played a softball game. These aren't the best pictures, but I don't have many to choose from in the past week or so. Hopefully, this week will be much better and I'll have more to post soon. 

First faces

I was folding laundry today and I looked over and Aubrey had drawn several faces! I had never seen her do this before. Before she had drawn lines, zigzags, and circles. I asked her about her pictures and she pointed out a "piley(smiley) face", "straight face" and a "frowning face". She drew them on her Aquadoodle which disappears in a few minutes, so I had to take some pictures to record her new accomplishment!

Girls Lakehouse Weekend

I had a fun weekend catching up with my 4 closest friends from college (Amber, Laura, Jenny, Jessica & me). We went out to Jenny & Tim's family's lakehouse and did lots of talking, cooking, eating, and relaxing. It was so much fun to catch up with all the girls and get away for the weekend. Robert took great care of Aubrey while I was gone. They went on lots of fun outings -- bike rides, walks, to her first movie, out to eat, to an inflatable jumping place, to church... I think they had a great time, too! 

Aubrey's favorite activity for the week, playing with her Aquadoodle which she calls her "Aubrey-doodle"
Making heart sugar cookies for Valentine's Day. Aubrey's been extra cute lately -- she likes to call me and Robert "Sweet little darling Mommy" & "Sweet little darling Daddy"

Aubrey's out of control static in her play tent!
A 28 week pregnant shot of me & Aubrey at the park
Aubrey had lots of fun at her great-grandparents in Dallas this past weekend
Aubrey walking down the little path around my grandparents garage. I remember doing the same thing when I was little.

I got out a bag of dried black beans on Monday for Aubrey to scoop, pour, measure, etc... Everyday since she'll say, "wanna coop beans" and it will keep her occupied for extensive periods of time. It has also been extra motivation for me to sweep the tile everyday!

Quote of the day: "Mommy walks like a penguin." I guess the comination of being pregnant and bruising my tailbone on one of our dining chairs has made me start to waddle. She also insisted on a game of chase in the backyard, so I'm sure the neighbors got some entertainment if they saw me try to run after her. 

A few funny quotes

I'm not great about writing down every cute or funny thing that Aubrey says, but here are a couple recent ones that come to mind:

-Aubrey calls our gas grill on the back porch a "grill cheese" or a "grill cheese samwich"
-Aubrey asked for "mustache" on her pizza, instead of mushrooms
-She loves to jump off of everything and she'll say, "get some wicked air" each time
-She likes to feed me her snacks and she'll say, "Make sure you chew it up really well, Mommy"
-If I even get her out of her crib and my hair is down, she'll say "ponytail, Mommy". She's so used to my hair being up that she seems concerned if I actually attemped to fix it & wear it down.
-She likes to sing most of the 50 states song that Daddy taught her in the car over Christmas
-She's been extra sweet to the baby in mommy's tummy lately... she likes to bring crayons and stuffed animals up to my belly and say, "Here you go cute little baby".

I also wanted to mention that we spotted Emmitt Smith at our local HEB Plus this morning. He was wearing a shiny green shirt and dancing around the meat section for a commercial. There were tons of people standing around with lights and cameras, but we were still able to get through and buy our salmon. That's all for now...

Playtime with Daddy

Aubrey built this really tall tower, with a little help
Making a lego creation
Giggling as Daddy sings her a song

Snow Days

Bundled up outside watching her first snowflakes fall to the gound
Exploring the icy spots
No, that's not dandruff, they're real snowflakes in Austin, Texas! Icesicles hanging off of the back of our house, they finally all melted yesterday 

First taste of jello -- she loves pickles, lemons & grapefruit, but for some reason the cherry jello got this reaction.
About to slide at Sophie's 3rd birthday. It turned out to be a very rainy day so Aubrey was glad to be able to run around inside at Inflatable Wonderland. 

Ultrasound Update

I had another ultrasound this morning at my 24 week appointment. Everything looked good and Dr. Love saw the outflows of the heart clearly (which is what he didn't see last time). We are thankful that the baby looked healthy and is continuing to grow on track! We were hoping to confirm the baby's gender as well but our little one, once again, was a little shy. Since the baby wouldn't open it's legs we couldn't get an obvious picture, but the doctor said he was pretty sure it's a boy (just not 100% sure). We'll be excited either way when the baby arrives in late April. We're going to go ahead and make the nursery more gender neutral and pick out a boy name, but we might have a girl name in mind, just in case. I guess that's all the news for now!

2 year check-up

Aubrey set up this picnic all by herself.

We went to the doctor today for Aubrey's 2 year well check. She did a lot better than at previous appointments where she cried from the moment we walked in the door. We'd been playing with her doctor kit for a while to prepare her and thankfully, she was done with her immunizzations at 18 months, so she didn't need any shots this visit! She got to stand on the big scale and stand up to be measured this time, which she liked a lot better than sitting on the baby scale and laying down to be measured. She is up to 25 lbs. even and 35 inches even! She jumped up to 25% in weight and she's still 75-90% in height. Other than that, she is developing well and we are very thankful for her health and growth. Her favorite things to do lately are build towers with blocks, jump off anything she can find, line toys or other objects in rows, have picnics & tea parties, read her favorite Bible stories and sing. Her favorite songs lately are "Do a deer", "The doxology" and "Holy, holy, holy". She is also very affectionate to the baby in mommy's tummy. She loves to come up and kiss my belly and tell me about what toys and books she is going to show the baby. She's going to be a great big sister!

Aubrey has been asking for cookies every day since Christmas when she discovered the Christmas tree sugar cookies at Grnadma's house. I'll ask her what she wants for breakfast and she'll say, "A really big cookie". Or I'll say, "Would you like a banana?' and she'll say, "or a cookie?". I only give in to her requests after she eats a good meal and she usually only gets a bite or two of a cookie.
My two sweeties watching the Jonah movie from Aunt Susan
Aubrey loves her new playhouse from the Barfields. Their youngest daughter outgrew it so they passed it along to us. She especially likes opening and closing the door and window and "cooking some lunch" in the kitchen.