Our sweet girl just turned one year old! Since she didn't get monthly written updates on her progress during her first year, I'm condensing a year's worth of sweetness and fun into one mega-post. Sweet is truly the best way to describe Audrey. She has such a big heart and loves to cuddle and smile and play. She is a mama's girl to the extreme, which I don't mind at all. But she also has a feisty side that crops up every once in a while and lets me know she is going to be a strong, smart, funny girl on top of being the most beautiful little lady in the world.
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| Snuggle Bug |
Some fun and cute stories about our girl that I want to remember:
She likes to play games, including one where I pretend to fall asleep on floor and she rushes over to kiss my face, aggressively snuggle me or climb over me in an effort to "wake" me up. She loves to race her brother in their ride-along cars: her in the Mickey Mouse car, Ryan in the Construction one. Matt or I will push her as fast as we can go in a circuit around the house and she bounces and smacks the steering wheel with excitement. And sometimes, if she's feeling calm, I will scratch her back while she just relaxes and occasionally giggles and twitches.
Her favorite activity is reading books, which just makes my heart soar! She goes to her bookshelf or to the table of books in her playroom and searches through the piles until she finds something that catches her eye. Her current favorites are lift-the-flaps, anything with dogs or other animals, and trucks with faces. Sometimes when she gets a new book, we will sit down to read it and once I close the book at the end, she flips it over and demands we read it again immediately, multiple times. If I am sitting in the playroom, she will grab some books and crawl or walk them right over to me and thrust them in my face with a smile. I hope to always foster a love for reading with her so we can exchange books when she's older :)
She's already getting good at her animal noises. When she sees a dog (in real life, a book, on TV), she will pant and stick her tongue out. She can hoot like an owl, and does a mean lion growl. And she's currently working on monkey noises as well.
Speaking of dogs, Jordan has captured Audrey's affections, much like she did Ryan's. Audrey loves to crawl over and pet Jordan's fuzzy head and pat her on the back. She thinks it's hilarious to feed her treats, Whenever we are snacking, she hands half of her food over to the dog. If I tell her not to feed the dog, she will pretend that the treats are for her by putting them in her own mouth, then turning away from me and taking them out of her mouth to feed Jordan. Such a cute little friendship that makes me grateful for our great little pooch.
Her best friend, however, is definitely her big brother Ryan. He is so sweet to his Sissy Missy, and she just adores him in return. I will sometimes be working in a separate room of the house and hear them both giggling wildly. When I go to see what's so funny, Ryan is just making faces at her or making a weird noise that she finds hilarious. If Audrey wakes up before Ryan in the morning, it is a struggle to keep her away from his door - she wants to go over and knock to wake him up to play. Ryan will hold "his" baby while they watch cartoons together, or they will crawl around on a mattress together pretending to be dinosaurs.
Her hair is getting so much lighter these days, going from a dark brown to a very light brown that borders on blonde in the sunlight. I've already had to cut her bangs multiple times, otherwise they fan over her eyes and down to her mouth where they get in her way. And she's now old enough to pull headbands off, so haircuts are the easier option. Still not enough length anywhere else to style, but just so cute.
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| #longhairdon'tcare |
In terms of mobility, she started crawling around 8 months old and got around well that way. When she would crawl, she preferred to do so with an object in one or both of her hands (washcloths, toys, anything she could find on the floor). She started walking fairly early, taking her first lone steps on 7/29/16 at the age of 11 months. While she walked, she laughed and laughed, amused and amazed at her new skill. Now, she is an incredibly persistent and determined walker. She will pick herself up after falling again and again without getting frustrated. And if she wants to hold on to my hands, it means she has somewhere she wants to go fast, and will nearly run with my help.
She has a love for all things music and musical, and I think she will be a lover of the arts. She likes to play her xylophone, recorder, triangle and drums. But what she really loves is to listen to pop or hip hop music on my phone and dance to it. If she hears a song with a good beat, she is all smiles and bounces. She also loves to color (although we're still working on the part where you don't eat the crayons in between scribbling). Since I have very limited artistic ability, it is so cool to see this side of her emerge.
She's got 3 little teeth right now - 2 on the bottom and one that just came in on top. But that hasn't stopped her from trying every food we offer to her. From the time she cut her first teeth, pizza has been her favorite meal to eat. She also loves spaghetti, gnocchi, potatoes of any kind really, and mac & cheese. Her favorite food overall is probably just whatever fruit we have that day, be it grapes or blueberries or mangoes. If she sees fruit coming, she tosses everything else off of her high chair to make room for it. (We affectionately call her "The Tosser," as she likes to walk or crawl around and toss anything she sees in her path off to the side or behind her.)
I'm sure there are a million more little things that I'm forgetting right now, but those are just a few fun things about my girl. She brings so much joy to our lives and just completes our family in a way that I could have never expected. I feel so lucky to be her mama, and I'll try to do a better job of jotting down the cute stories about her so she can read them someday if she'd like!
