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. 

Christmas in Dallas

Looking at her stocking that her great-grandmother made
Sitting in great-grandpa's big blue chair
Pointing to her new cozy coupe car
Sitting in her car and brushing her cabbage patch kid's hair


We had a great Christmas with my family in Dallas. We got to visit with lots of family, eat lots of good food and watch Aubrey run around non-stop for the whole visit. She is definitely not a laid back, calm child. She has tons of energy and never stops running, jumping, playing, performing or singing for the group around her. She really remembers all of her family members now and enjoys all the time she gets to spend with them. Robert and I enjoyed seeing everyone, as well!

Merry Christmas!

We didn't get our Christmas cards out this year for the first time since we've been married. We hope everyone has a safe and Merry Christmas and enjoy celebrating the birth of our Savior!

Aubrey's 2!!!

We celebrated Aubrey's birthday last Saturday and had a record tying temperature of 80!
Last year Aubrey tasted one bite of her birthday cake and was all done. This year was a different story. She wanted to taste all of them. She ate a few bites of one and then grabbed another one and tasted it. She did this a couple more times to end up with 4 or 5 cupcakes on her plate.
What a big girl! 

Happy 2nd Birthday to Aubrey!

Our new baby girl!
A year ago today on her first birthday!

Today at 2:38 pm, Aubrey will officially be 2 years old, which I can't believe! These past couple years have flown by, but are filled with so many wonderful memories. Aubrey has been an absolute joy and blessing to our family and we love her so much!

It's a ...

BOY... we think! We had our 20 week ultrasound today and got to see our cute little baby kicking and moving around. The baby's legs were together and folded, so our Dr. couldn't get a great view, but he said he was pretty sure we are having a boy! I am going to have another ultrasound in 4 weeks anyway, so they will confirm the gender then. I'm not going to rush out right away to start buying everything in blue, but I think we will go ahead and start brainstorming boy names. Any ideas? Anyway, we are thankful that the baby looked healthy and on track and thrilled to add a boy to our family this spring!

Here are a couple pictures of Aubrey playing dress up in her Christmas dress this afternoon. Her hair has gotten so long, we may get her first haircut next week right before her 2nd birthday! We are staying busy Christmas shopping, getting ready for Aubrey's birthday and vacuuming up pine needles at least twice a day! Aubrey is really enjoying the tree and all the Christmas decorations around the neighborhood and we have had lots of cold weather and freezing temps at night, so it actually feels like Christmas! The only other news is that we have our 20 week ultrsound on Tuesday, so hopefully we'll know the baby's gender in just a few days! 

A year ago...

This is one of my all time favorite pictures of Aubrey. It was taken exactly a year ago, which I can't believe!!! We used it as her "1 year old" picture and in our Christmas cards. She looks so different now -- bigger, taller, lots more hair & teeth and not like a baby!