Every Mother's Day, our church has a baby/parent dedication. It's a special time to commit ourselves to raise our children in a Christian home so that one day they will trust Christ as their Savior.
Audrey wore a little white eyelet dress that I wore as a baby. It has a little pink ribbon running through the bodice and along the border of the skirt. So sweet.
She was not having the bow, and since we were approaching nap time, she was, let's say "vocal" during much of the dedication time, which everyone seemed to love. ; ) She was all smiles!
She is all. over. the. place!!! Crawling is second nature, and pulling up to hang on to things is getting to be that way, too. She is fearless and doesn't seem to be afraid of falling, much to our dismay.
She still just has the two lower teeth, but she sure is working hard on the top ones!
She's still a skinny minny and we've taken to fattening up her food. The doctor had initially suggested butter in her cereal, but now that we know she's allergic to dairy, we're putting coconut oil in her food. Don't really know if it's helping all that much, although I'm afraid that if we weren't, she'd be losing weight or just maintaining with all the exercise she gets!
Just this past week she's started saying "da da da da da" and Erik is super excited. He feels a bit guilty, so they practice "ma ma ma ma", too.
I started to make Audrey an Easter basket out of fabric and cording, but it sits, even now, unfinished on my bedside table. I *will* finish it, though. I can just use it as a decoration, I guess. Once I admitted to myself that I would never finish in time, I ran to Michael's and found this basket, ribbon and ruffle in under 15 minutes. It was super easy to put together...I just basted the ruffle with some quilting thread and attached the bow with a pipe cleaner. Done.
Just a few empty eggs, some bath toys, and crinkly toys. We completely forgot we bought a bedtime book for her and just gave it to her last night...oops!
We went to Sunday school and then took Audrey home for a nap. She's always sooo exhausted after both church and Sunday school, we knew she'd never make it all day at with the family if we didn't let her sleep.
We spent the day at Nanna and Grandaddy's with all the family, including Nana. Good food and good times!
The girls wore their bunny t-shirts that Lisa and I made one day using a tutorial Lisa found on Pinterest. It's always so hard to get a good picture of all three of them! Such sweet girls!
We had a chance to snag some family photos in the bluebonnets this spring. We went out first as a family and Erik and I took turns taking pictures in a field down the road from our babysitter's house. Later, we met up with my brother and his family and took turns taking family photos. Audrey did great for such a long day being out and about and we saw some really beautiful flowers!
I figure I need to get up a 7 month post before Audrey turns 8 months old!
Our little girl may be small, but the girl is strong and agile and has some spunk! She's crawling, can go from a crawl to a full sit, and can pull herself up and even take a few steps hanging on to a couch. Everyone who watches her describes her as "busy" and they are right. She loves to watch people and really doesn't know a stranger. She's not saying much these days aside from 'ahhhh'. She's such a happy girl and most people wonder if she ever cries. I assure you, she does! But not much ; )
Lots of little things are happening around these parts. As the weather has been fairly nice, we (Erik) had a chance to get the first mow of the year in this weekend and we also started work on our backyard. Now that we have a fence, although it is yet to be stained due to the road construction behind our house, we can put in some flower beds and a little vegetable garden. We may be a little late in preparing soil for a garden since we could have started planting by now, but we won't be too far behind. I hope to start out small and get the hang of it so we don't dive in over our heads. I'm really excited!
I'm also doing a LOT of spring cleaning. It has to come in spurts, usually during nap time, but the parts of the house that are finished are soooo much better. I started in the kitchen. I moved all of our china (that we never use) to the hutch that Erik built in the breakfast area. It had been spread out in the upper cabinets all over the kitchen, so now it's all in one place. We took all of the entertaining dishes and got them together above the fridge since we don't use them often and then just continued to get all "like" things together. You think that would have happened when we moved in, but you see, I STILL have boxes that need unpacking in the attic. It is a never-ending saga. We also donated a lot of stuff to make space and I really like my organized, functional kitchen!
I moved the spring cleaning into our bathroom and that's where I'm stuck right now. My goal is to get all the cleaning supplies and medicines corralled so we can put baby proofing thingies on those cabinets, and it's taking longer than I thought. The closet is next. We have got to take control of the laundry situation we have over here!
Audrey is still reeeaalllyy close to crawling. Through a combination of scooting, pulling, rolling, etc, she made it all the way across her room on Saturday.
She seems to get really active and squirmy when she's tired, and she hasn't been napping well lately, especially on the weekends, so it's been a little crazy. I say that, and she's been asleep for almost an hour and half now. She must be worn out after the weekend! We took her to the nursery for church and Sunday school, and she fell asleep on the way home and STAYED asleep in her car seat for over 30 minutes. She hasn't done that since she was a newborn!
She has been teething like crazy, which probably explains her napping issues, constant drooling, chewing on her thumb and rare bouts of whining. She never really fusses, so when she gets whiny, I know she's not feeling good. Her gums around her front top teeth, #E and F, are super swollen, so I know she's working hard!
We welcomed a new cousin last Sunday and got to visit again this Saturday. Carter is the first boy on either side of the family. He's quite outnumbered by the girls right now!
I've decided to periodically talk about some things I use around the house, or with Audrey, that I just love. They make my life easier, I will never stop buying or using them, and I think they might be helpful to other people, too. No one is paying me to do this or giving me anything, I just like hearing what makes other mom's lives easier, so if anyone ever reads this, it might help them, too.
I don't know where I learned this...but Biz is amazing. I started buying it in my first year of dental school to get the smell of gross anatomy lab out of my scrubs. I know that sounds pretty gross (haha), but listen, if this can get the smell of cadaver out of your clothes, it's pretty amazing. Most of my classmates just bought a pair of scrubs that they only wore in the gross lab and threw them away at the end of the year. I thought it was 1) disgusting to wear smelly scrubs a couple of times a week, 2) a waste of time to change into and out of those smelly, yucky scrubs, and 3) a waste of money to buy extra scrubs just for lab and then throw them away!
So I used Biz. It's great. No cadaver smell whatsoever!
So then I had a baby and after the first baby poop blowout, I rinsed and washed and dried that sad little onesie just like normal, and - voila! - the baby poop doesn't come out. I had no idea. But if you soak it in Biz first? It comes out. Like magic.
I get the powder in the box. I really just use it to treat stains, but you can boost each load with it, too. LOVE it!
Audrey was born on the 30th of August, and February doesn't have 30 days, so what do you do? Well at least this February had 29 days, so we got pretty close!
Audrey is so close to crawling I joke with Erik in the evenings that I'll send the video of her crawling to him at work the next day ; ).
She's had rice, oatmeal, peas, butternut squash, and avocado. Daddy loves feeding her every night! We saw today that her two bottom teeth (#O and P) have cut through the gum, so we're on our way to more exciting foods!
She's still working on sitting, but it took a while for her to even agree to stay in that position because she loves to push up and stand. She's sleeping 9-11 hours at a stretch and is getting better at napping in her crib. For a while, the swing and the holiday version of "Fireplace for the Home" is what got her to nap. We've upgraded to the jogging stroller and she loves going on walks!
We're looking forward to her dr. appointment on Wednesday, so we'll have her updated stats. Although I feel like she's been so much in the past two months after an allergic reaction, ear infection and then RSV, we have a pretty good idea of where she stands!
Dairy and I have always seemed to butt heads. From what I understand, when I was an infant I screamed a lot. And it turned out to be dairy's fault. Once on soy, I hear I was a wonderful baby ; ) Even as an adult, I've had my fair share of issues with certain dairy products, especially sour cream, and find that the only dairy I'm truly at peace with is yogurt...probably because of the active cultures and all that. I experimented with lactose tablets and whatnot, but it didn't seem to help me tolerate lactose. I finally concluded I must have some mild dairy allergy. Who knows.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago when my 5.5 month old, who is breastfed but has been given formula a few times in her life, breaks out in hives all. over. her. body after 2 ounces of Similac. Thankfully, Erik was watching her and took her in to the doctor. Strangely enough, the hives pretty much resolved on their own, but we of course still gave her the OTC allergy med to clear it all up. 2 weeks later, we gave her a skin test at home per the dr's recommendation using 2% out of the fridge. Sure enough, a little red patch appeared, began to spread, and little hives popped up. Aside from some ongoing congestion from the virus du jour, she has no other complaints. Just the rash.
So...I get to drop dairy from my diet to help Miss Audrey make it through her breastfeeding year (God-willing). We'll have some blood drawn and see an allergist to see what her antibody levels are for cow milk protein and see if soy makes the list. It would be nice to know we have a back up in soy formula/milk if we ever had to go there. Just hate to draw blood from poor baby girl. After a cold and now RSV, she certainly needs a break from being poked and prodded and given treatments she's not too fond of.
Since I'm finding that dairy finds its way into just about every processed food, it seems I may not just be going dairy free, but also a bit in the "real food"/"whole food" direction as well. At least it will be easier to know if dairy's in my food or not if either God made it or I did. We'll see how serious this gets...
