5 Months Old

My sweet girl is 5 months old today. Bittersweet.

Cool Aunt Monica

My friend Monica was in town from LA and brought Audrey a cute little thermal dress from her favorite boutique out there. She always has something fabulous for Audrey and I have designated her as Audi's super cool surrogate aunt.

Gone Huntin'

Barker went out to the ranch to use the new gun I bought him for Christmas. Audrey was still napping when he left. She woke up just after he took off so he came back to the house to give her a squeeze goodbye.

Best Daddy ever!

Audrey's 1st Christmas

Audrey really enjoyed her 1st Christmas. She sat for an hour and a half before breakfast, unwrapping gifts and playing with toys. She must have been a very good girl this 1st 5 months cause she made quite a haul this year!

Audrey surrounded by her stocking stuffers...bibs, diaper covers, bath toys, Gerber puffs and tons of bows.

Trying to get her hands on her counting maracas.

She liked unwrapping the gifts more than I thought she would.

Not quite sure what to think of her Brobee. Her Daddy scoured the internet for this thing.

With some of the bows from her stocking. I never thought Barker and I would ever have a baby with such little hair!

She loved her stacking cups...great idea Daddy!

We stopped by Patty's for a minute to give the boys their gifts.

Sweet face.

Fisher was sick, poor little guy.

My 2 favorite people.

She liked the keys her Aunt Weenie gave her.

Then we had dinner at my Dad's and Audrey got to open two shopping carts worth of goodies from Toys R Us.

She really likes her kitchen.

And this little worm thing.

All smiles.

Still loving those cups.

My house no longer has a living room. It has been replaced by a toy store. And there are a ton of things we haven't even taken out of the boxes yet. I think we're going to need a bigger house sooner than we thought.

Audrey's 1st Christmas Eve

We started out Christmas eve at Barker's family's get together. All the excitement knocked Audrey out.

But we finally made it home for Audrey's 1st Christmas eve. We watched a few minutes of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, baked cookies and checked out Santa's location on the radar.

Gifts all ready for Audrey to tear into them.

Peeking into her stocking.

Excited!

My loves.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.

Barker does great stocking stuffers.

I couldn't fit all of his stocking stuffers in there. Some had to hide under the couch.

Special goodies.

We baked Cookies for Santa.

Two weeks with Daddy

I think Audrey is really going to enjoy Barker being off work for two weeks. She normally only gets a couple of hours of fun daddy time in the evenings but now she gets him all day! Let the games begin.

Audrey loves paper

Audrey loves paper. It doesn't matter if it's an envelope or wrapping paper...either way, she's all over it. And she's an excellent helper when it comes to wrapping gifts.

Audrey's 1st visit with Santa

We went to the mall today to finish our Christmas shopping and let Audrey meet Santa.

We thought it was going to be a crummy day because it looked quite yucky outside but it actually turned out to be a great day. First off we arrived at the mall and found that it actually felt quite nice outside. Then we were able to get Audrey's 1st Christmas ornament engraved. After that we went to see Santa and we were just 2nd in the line. There was a little girl in front of us and Santa already had some kid on his lap. Well that 3 year old decided to POO all over Santa. It was so bad that they had to shut down the North Pole, let Santa go change and have the custodial service come steam clean the chair. So we came back after an hour, got right to the front of the line and got our portrait package for free! It was awesome. Well, awesome for us. Not so great for Santa or the little boy who is now on the naughty list and getting coal in his stocking.

What to do when you're stuck indoors...

It's been too cold to get out and do anything so we've spent a lot of time cleaning (not even so much as a dirty sock in the house) and playing on the floor. Audrey thinks she's so big. She's sitting up and wants to crawl in a bad way and gets so upset when she doesn't get anywhere. She's just 4 months so I'd rather she take her time with these things and stay little forever.

Bear's Wedding

My friend Bear became Mrs. Dustan Simmons this Saturday night. It was a lovely wedding and the food was really good! The bride was beautiful and Audrey was pretty darn cute herself in her first little black dress.

The new Mr. and Mrs. Simmons talking to Momma Jeanne.

Audrey and I with the beautiful bride.

Our little family.

Audrey and Daddy.

In her cute little dress.

When we got home we figured we should take a couple of pictures in front of the tree before she passed out.

Holding her own bottle

Audrey doesn't take a bottle very often but now when she does, she thinks she needs to hold it herself.

Needed...tall ladder

Barker put up the Christmas lights this weekend but as you can see...he can't reach the 2nd story. (I told him to just see if Tom would come over and let him stand on his shoulders.)
So if anyone has a super tall ladder we can borrow, we'd appreciate it. I was hoping the Arlington fire department would bring a truck over. They have huge ladders and trampolines to put under him in case he falls. But I doubt they assist with Christmas lights. Maybe if we throw Winston up a tree they'll come over.

Cereal Update...The next morning

I had read in several books that people believe cereal makes a baby sleep through the night because the time to start cereal sometimes coincides with the time that some babies are ready to sleep through the night. I asked Audrey's Doctor about it and she said cereal is not some magic food that makes babies sleep. Every kid is different and they sleep when they're ready. She said some kids don't sleep through the night until they're 5! (Can you imagine?) And I have friends who's kids are much older than Audi and they don't sleep through the night. One friend who's son is a year and a half just started sleeping through the night recently. I'm sure she's quite grateful. And another friend who's baby is 11 months old told me about a month ago "He only gets up like twice a night." I thought "I would die if Audrey still got up twice a night." And last night, thanks to cereal, I about did. I had heard the old wives tale about cereal making kids sleep but I had never heard about it keeping them up. Audrey was up a ton last night and she finally gave up on trying to sleep super early this morning. I'm used to her just getting up once at 4 or 5 am and then going back down until 8 or 8:30 am. So I'm walking around here half comatose this morning. Thank you so much cereal. I'm tempted to put you down the garbage disposal so you feel how I feel this morning.

The grass is always greener

Audrey is always staring at our food as if she is envious of us and our solid food. I have never let her have any because I knew giving her cereal before 4 months could cause allergies. Barker has to take shots for his allergies so I'm doing my best to save Audrey from that. But we went to the Doctor last week for her 4 month appointment and she gave us the okay to start cereal now, if we wanted. Tonight she was staring at our food so we thought it would be the perfect time to give it a whirl. However, she soon decided that the grass is always greener on the other side and she'd rather have milk any day.

Audrey checking out the box..Earth's Best Organic Whole Grain Rice Cereal.

The before picture.

Already not too sure about it, just from the smell.

And discovering that it tastes just as bad as it smells.

Not happy.

Daddy trying to persuade her.

She finally caved and put down a good portion but she also put up a good fight and cry. When she was done with all she could stand of the cereal, she finished her milk and went right to bed. So all and all it was not what I would call a fun experience for her, but she's a Barker...and we love food. So if she ever wants to make her way up to BBQ or Gumbo...she's going to have to get used to the rice cereal. Life is tough at 4 months!