Peek-a-boo!

Aubrey enjoyed playing at Amy's Ice Cream on Sunday evening -- they have a fun playscape and yummy ice cream!

Water Sprinkler Park

We took Aubrey to a fun & free water sprinkler park on Saturday. She liked running around under the fountains and watching all the other kids play. We also did lots of climbing and sliding on the playscape. We are enjoying scoping out all the parks near by -- we went to another park earlier the same day and saw tons of geese, ducks, ducklings and turtles swimming in the pond.

Aubrey loves to reach into my water glass, grab the lemon wedge, eat it and ask for more. She also loves pickles and anything else sour or tart. She rubs her hands together, scrunches up her nose and says, "sour"!

17 months

Here are Aubrey's new interests and accomplishments:
-coloring with crayons, playing with stickers & stamps
-playing with play dough & cookie cutters
-stacking legos
-watching, "American Idol". Every time I turn on the tv, she says, "la, la, la", referring to the signers and has started saying "Soul Patrol". She's a Taylor Hicks fan, so hopefully he'll win tomorrow night!
-fedding her "baby dolls" their "baby bottles" and putting them in their "baby bed"
-greeting objects. She like to say hi to everything like, "hi, abadado seed" (avacado seed), "hi, apple juice", etc...
-learn people's names and talk about that person all day
-still climbing on everything and loves to go to the park everyday
-starting to use sentences: "I want ______". She'll insert whatever it is she wants, like ball or doggie. I guess I'll have to work on "May I please have_______ "!
-she surprised me today by saying half of the alphabet! A-K and then she can fill is several other letters after that.

She is such a joy to be around and is definitely full of personality. She amazes me by what she knows and how quickly she picks things up. I can't believe she is almost 1 1/2! I still have 1 month left... Here's a recent picture of us at Old Settlers Park.

-

"Tofu, mmm, yummy!"

Just thought this was a funny thing for Aubrey to say as she sipped her tofu-berry smoothie...

First Bike Ride

Robert got a bike seat for his birthday from his Mom so we can take Aubrey on bike rides around the neighborhood. We tested it out this weekend and she really liked it. I don't think we'd used our bikes since Aubrey was born so it was fun to be able to all go together. Robert picked up this cute pink & purple helmet for Aubrey and now we're considering making her wear it, not only in the bike seat, but around the house with all the climbing and falling that she does!

Wedding Weekend

This weekend my good friend and college roommate, Amber Cornwell, got married to Gordy Quist! It was a busy but fun weekend for all of us. Aubrey had 3 babysitters in 2 days and did really well for all of them. Even though she is almost 17 months I still wonder if she'll eat her dinner, go to sleep with out fussing... Thankfully, she napped the entire time she was at my friend Jessica Pavy's while I was at the bridesmaid luncheon. Friday night, Aunt Joy watched Aubrey while we were at the rehearsal dinner at the Saltlick. Yum! Saturday, Robert's parents, Pam & Isaac, and Aunt Susan came to babysit durning the wedding. I had a great time catching up with all my college friends and fellow bridesmaids. Also, their wedding was at the same church, same reception site and with the same Pastor, so it was neat to relive me and Robert's wedding almost 4 years later! Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera but hopefully I will get pics from friends via email and post a couple soon.

Happy Birthday, Robert/Daddy!

Today is Robert's 29th birthday! It is on a Thursday, Robert has a tennis match and we are busy with a wedding I'm in all weekend, so maybe we'll get to celebrate more next weekend. Robert, I hope you have a good birthday even though we aren't doing anything extra special and I hope you know how much Aubrey and I love you!

Very Observant

Pointing at the little horse on our license plate
Studying a "baby bug" or roly ploy with Nana

16 months

Okay, so Aubrey has been 16 months for almost 2 weeks but I still wanted to mention all the cute new things she's been doing lately. She loves to:
-walk backwards.
- stand on her head and occasionally do a somersault.
- point at objects and say what color they are. If she doesn't know she says, "ret" and if that's not it she'll guess, "boo".
-count. She can count to 12 but usually not straight through -- she'll either do 1-5 or 6-12 and only if she is in the mood. I can't get her to do it on cue, but I was able to capture it on our video camera!
-watch for rain. Anytime she hears a lawnmower or a truck go by, she thinks it is thunder. She claps, says, "tunder" and runs to the window to see if it is raining.

We went to the pediatrician a month late for her 15 month check-up and Aubrey has dropped down to somewhere between the 5%-10% in weight. She is a very busy, active little monkey who likes to climb everything! She is still tall though in the 75% for her age... We'll see if that trend continues. Anyway, here is a picture from our drive home from Dallas this weekend with her two new friends, Po and Kermit.

Friends

It is so fun to watch Aubrey interact with other kids. Here are Aubrey and Anna Grace holding hands and running around at church. Anna Grace just turned 2 and is a very sweet, affectionate friend to Aubrey. She always gives Aubrey hugs and shares her toys with her when we play at their house. When we're at home, Aubrey likes to look at a picture of Anna Grace and her sister and say their names, "Anna"(she can't say Grace yet) & "Laura".

Water Baby

We made our third trip to the neighborhood pool this afternoon. Aubrey loves watching the older kids jump in the pool and splash around. She spends most of her time wading in the baby pool, but sometimes likes to go in the big pool with Daddy. It has been fun to meet some neighbors and other kids around Aubrey's age. We might check out the neighborhood play group on Monday to get to know some more playmates. We are liking our new house and feeling much more settled. We jumped into painting our living room this afternoon -- we hope to finish up while Aubrey is asleep. We have several rooms to paint, so that should keep us busy for the next couple weeks. Robert has also been playing Tennis a couple times a week with the Round Rock Tennis League. He has enjoyed getting out of his cubicle and into the fresh air! That's about all that is new with us. Here are some pictures from the pool...

Happy Easter

We had a fun and busy Easter today! Robert's parent, Pam & Isaac drove in this morning from Bastrop and went to church with us. Then, we came home and Aubrey took a nap which she greatly needed after having a mini-meltdown at church. When she woke up, we went to the Dodd's house (a family from church) for an Easter egg hunt. Aubrey liked opening her eggs to see the candy inside. Thankfully, she doesn't know what it tastes like yet -- she just likes to see the pretty, shiny paper. The kids also saw a little wild bunny in the backyard when they were looking for eggs! After that, we went to the Imken's house for Easter dinner (another family from church). We had a nice dinner and Aubrey enjoyed running around their house, saying hi to everyone about 20 times and climbing on furniture. She found a little red rocking chair just her size that she carried around and sat in all evening. She also got to see the Imken's two pet hamsters and their next door neighbor's horse! After all that excitement, we came home and put Aubrey right to bed. I'm pretty tired from chasing her around all day, so I think I'm off to bed, too! Here's a pic from the Imken's tonight... By the way, Happy 24th Birthday to my brother, Tim!

Cutie Pie

A couple recent pictures...

A visit to Aubrey's great-grandparent's house in Dallas.
Aubrey's temporary room while we were in between houses.

Family Photo

My mom requested a family photo and here is the most recent one, its 3 months old!

15 months already!

Aubrey is 15 months old as of a few days ago! Thankfully, she is handling the transition of moving really well -- sleeping pretty well and really enjoying playing with Keith and Lauren's chocolate lab, Sydney. She squeals or screams every time she sees Sydney, claps and says, "happy"! She likes to point out Sydney's eyes, ears and paws. Aubrey has added a few more words into her vocabulary lately: "Elmo", "Barney" and "Baby Bop". She used to hardly ever watch TV, but over the past few weeks as I was packing and get ready to move, I resorted to using the TV as a babysitter. Now, she wakes up asking for Elmo! Aubrey's other new tricks at 15 months are... pointing at the moon, marching, singing "la,la,la", turning light switches on and off, and she's starting to use a fork or spoon to feed herself. I will capture some of these new accomplishments on camera and get back to posting pictures regularly once we set up our computer next week. We can't believe we are this close to being in our house. We are really excited about getting settled and hope this is where God will have us for a long time!

Moving Day

Tomorrow is the big day to get all of our furniture loaded up and put in storage for a couple weeks until we close on our new house! We'll have a couple more days to clean everything, touch up paint and get the carpet steamed cleaned before we're out of here for good. We'll be starting out our time in-between-houses staying with some good friends, the Ellistons. We'll probably unhook and pack our computer tonight, so I probably won't post anything new until we are in our new house and have internet service established there, which will be sometime after March 30. We'd love your prayers -- that everything would go smoothly and that we would all (especially Aubrey) handle all the transitions well.

Pig tails

Aubrey's hair has been long for a while now, but she would never let me touch it. Today, she finally sat still long enough for me to get her hair in two cute little pig tails. Now, she really looks big!

Story time

Aubrey's preferred pastime is reading books (she calls them "ga-books" for some reason). She will bring me or Daddy book after book and say, "lap", sit in one of our laps and read 10+ books in a row. She loves to point at everything and identify all the objects she knows. Lately, her favorite books are Dr. Seuss's ABC, Good Night Baby!, & Ten Little Eggs.