July 31...Day 186

Since we don't get to see Ava very often, she is going to be in my picture of the day again! This is my favorite expression from her, so cute!!!

July 30...Day 185

Little Ava and her mom and dad came to visit us for a few days!! We are very excited to have them here!

July 29...Day 184

I bought Audrey two brand new toys today. I'm not sure that I have ever bought her brand new toys before. Most of her toys were given to us, or they are from a garage sale. But today, I was at Wal-mart and saw this Fisher Price telelphone, an updated version of one she played with at my mom's house that she loved so much. So I decided to get it for her. It was such a splurge...it wasn't on sale, we didn't need it, I paid a whole $6 for it!! But it was fun, and she was very excited when she saw it. Then tonight I had a $10 off any purchase coupon at Kohls that was about to expire. (Those are my favorite because you can get stuff for free or very close to free!). I ended up paying $1.34 to get these blocks/shapes for Audrey, and she just loves them.

July 28...Day 183

So it's about the halfway point for the photo a day blog...can't believe I've been posting pictures for 6 months already! It's been fun so far though!
This cup is empty, but earlier tonmight it was filled with a yummy peach shake. That's right, our Sonic is now serving peach shakes! I already loved Sonic, but the addition of peach shakes makes it even better. When we lived in Joplin, that Sonic had peach shakes during the summer, and they were so good. I have been waiting for our Sonics in Springfield to start serving them...now they do, and it's going to be dangerous, both for the budget and the waistline.

July 27...Day 182

Tonight I hosted my annual New Catalog Open House for Stampin' Up! It's a free night for all of my customers to come over and stamp and check out the products in the new catalog. I always put a ton of work into this event, and I always question whether it is worth all the work. Especially this weekend, after having a migraine and dealing with Audrey not napping well and Daniel being gone...I was very stressed out trying to get everything ready for tonight. But everything got done (as it always does) and I had a pretty good turnout and a fun time at the open house tonight. Now that all the work is behind me (and I've made a little money!), I'd say it's definitely worth it!

July 26...Day 181

Tonight was the Big Block Bash at our church. It's a big party in the parking lot where everyone in the neighborhood (and around town) is invited, and it also serves as a kickoff to our VBS this week. There are bounce houses and games for the kids, free food, and live music....featuring my husband (and many others, but I'm posting the picture of Daniel, since he is my husband and all). There seemed to be a ton of people there tonight, and the weather was perfect for an outdoor summer party!

July 25...Day 180

Audrey and I sat and played on a blanket in the backyard tonight since it was such a nice night. At one point, Audrey thought it would be fun to crawl off the blanket...until she felt the grass. She did not like that scratchy grass one bit and quickly scooted herself back onto the blanket. So funny!

July 24...Day 179

Daniel made it home safely from Kansas City, so our whole family is reunited again. Maggie is excited about all the attention after spending the past week all alone at the kennel.

July 23...Day 178

Audrey, Maggie and I are back home! Audrey was pretty excited to see Maggie today, and Maggie was pretty excited to be back resuming her duties as Squirrel Watch Dog for our backyard.

July 22...Day 177

Grandma went to the grocery store today and came home with two new toys for Audrey. Needless to say, Audrey likes visiting Grandma's house!!

July 21...Day 176

Tonight I left Audrey with Grandma and went with my brother to see the newest Harry Potter movie. I enjoyed the movie, and I especially enjoyed the free popcorn at the theater. At the Kerasotes theater here in Keokuk they have Bargain Tuesdays. Every Tuesday, admission is only $5 AND they give you free popcorn too! We have a Kerasotes theater in Springfield...why don't our theaters do that? I guess there are a few perks to living in a small town.

July 20...Day 175

Audrey didn't want to take a very good nap this afternoon. So instead of trying to get her to sleep, we had a little photo shoot instead. My brother is letting me borrow one of his lenses, and I'm also trying out Adobe Lightroom for editing. I am super excited about all the pictures I got this afternoon; they turned out so cute. I'll be posting more on the other blog soon.

This one is my attempt to be a little more artistic. I just love her long eyelashes (slightly wet from all her crying during our nap attempt), her chubby, chubby cheeks, button nose and pouty lips. That's my baby!

July 19...Day 174

Audrey loves Uncle Seth. He lets her play with his fancy phone...what a nice (and brave!) uncle!!

Also, I added a picture for the July 17 post...scroll down to see it.

July 18...Day 173

Today we had the official class reunion events, beginning with a picnic in the park. Even though it is the middle of July, it was freezing today! And I was not a good mom and didn't bring any jackets for Audrey. We had her wrapped in a pillowcase from my mom's house for part of the time! My friend Katy bought Audrey and Daphne (my friend Lizzie's baby) these toy giraffes (it's Sophie le Giraffe, born on May 25, 1961, to be exact). Daphne and Audrey loved them. And we also found out that these giraffes are good for all five of a baby's senses...so that's a good thing too...wouldn't want Audrey to play with any toys that weren't good for her senses.

July 17...Day 172

Amy, I'm starting to be like you with this blog...I don't have a picture to post again, and I am very sad about it. I'm in Keokuk for my 10 year high school reunion, and tonight I got together with some friends. It was my first time to meet their babies, and I was so excited to get to meet little Daphne and Emmy. Naturally, I wanted to take a picture of Audrey playing with them. So I got out my camera...and my battery was dead. And I realized that I had left my charger at home. So I don't have a picture. My friend Lisa did take some pictures and she is going to send them to me when she gets the chance, so someday I will add a picture here (even though it's breaking the rules because I didn't actually take the picture, I'm still going to post it because I want a picture to remember this night).

I am going to try to find a place in Keokuk to buy a new battery or charger, and if that doesn't work I'll borrow my mom's or brother's camera. I am going to find a way to take a picture each day...because I can't go another day without a picture on this blog...then I really would be like Amy!!! (just kidding, Amy...sort of...)

July 16...Day 171

Do you see Audrey in the background of this picture? Today, she crawled the longest distance I have ever seen her crawl (when I say crawl, I mean scoot on her belly, kind of like an army crawl). Normally she will only go a few feet to get to a toy or something nearby that excites her. Today she started in the living room, where I was standing while taking this picture. She got excited about something she saw, and I figured it was the toy that was near her. But she passed the toy and kept going. And she kept going through the closet and into the piano room. She finally stopped when she got to the chair! I was so impressed that she noticed the chair from that far away, then put in all that effort to scoot herself all the way over to it.

She seems to be doing a little better today...no fever and a little less snot, though her head is still pretty stuffy. After waking up a few times after we put her down last night, she ended up sleeping from 10-7, so we all got some much needed sleep!

July 15...Day 170

I had several cute pictures I wanted to post tonight, but they weren't a very good representation of this day (so I'm going to post them on the other blog instead). It has been a rough 24 hours for Little Miss Audrey. She woke up screaming at 9 pm last night, only 45 minutes after we put her down, and has been having a rough time since then. She hasn't been completely inconsolable, and she has had a few happy moments, so I guess it could be worse. But she has not been sleeping/napping well, she has a runny/stuffy nose (as you can see from this picture), a little bit of a fever and she has been very irritable.

So what's wrong with her? That is the mystery of the day, and I would love to know the answer! Teething? Just a cold? An ear infection? My first guess would be teething, because surely it's about time for her to get a tooth! Over the past week, I have noticed a bump on her gums. But it's not where her front teeth would come in, it's further back on the bottom right side. I tried to get a look at it tonight (I practically had to pin Audrey down to get her to let me look inside her mouth!), and it looks like there could be a tooth trying to push through there. But I don't know what a tooth trying to come in looks like, so I could be wrong. Maybe it's just a cold; hopefully it's not an ear infection again.

The most frustrating thing about her not being well (besides the lack of sleep for all of us!) is that we are supposed to leave on Friday to spend a week in Keokuk. She was sick the last time we were with my family in Keokuk. And I would really like to take a well, happy Audrey with me for this trip and not a sick, grumpy Audrey. So, I hope whatever is wrong with her gets better by Friday!!

July 14...Day 169

These are the cards that we made in stamp club tonight. I love my stamp clubs...meeting with them each month is one of my favorite things about my job.

July 13...Day 168

Audrey wore me out tonight, scooting herself all over the place and exploring the living room. She is getting pretty good at army crawling now, though she has to be motivated by something super cool to get her moving. In this picture, the front door was her motivation. She seemed to discover it for the first time tonight and was staring very intently at it before crawling over and patting it with her hand.

July 12...Day 167

When are we ever going to learn that it doesn't work to put all of our babies together for a picture? We tried again tonight at the Ketchum's house. Here is my interpretation of what our babies were thinking during this picture. Audrey: "Why do they always torture us like this?" Norah, the older and wiser one: "It's OK. Just keep crying. If you cry, they will stop sooner." Elliot: "Will somebody help me already? I'm not old enough to sit up yet!"

July 11...Day 166

Daniel hung up Audrey's swing in the tree in the backyard today, and Audrey had a good time breaking it in!

July 10...Day 165

Another self-portrait of us...I took this one in the movie theater parking lot to help us remember the date we got to go on tonight! We left Audrey with the Blakleys (thanks Blakleys!), and we went out to dinner and to see a movie (we saw Up, it was very good!). Going to see movies in the theater is something that we don't get to do very often anymore, so it was a nice treat tonight!

July 9...Day 164

Maggie was so annoying today! She kept bringing her toy upstairs, but then she was too afraid to carry her toy down the stairs. (She has fallen down the stairs multiple times, so she has reason to be afraid). I knew that if she would just drop her toy, she would be able to get down the stairs. But she refused to drop the toy. Instead, she stood at the top of the stairs and whined and whined and whined. Audrey thought it was funny, but I was not amused. I would go upstairs to try to take her toy away, but then she would run and hide from me because she did not want to let go of the toy. But she wanted to go downstairs with the toy. But she was too scared to go downstairs with the toy. But she really wanted to keep the toy. We went through all of this several times today. It's a good thing that Audrey loves Maggie so much, because there are some days when I am about ready to throw her out of the house! But she makes Audrey so happy (and she sometimes makes me happy too), so I know we will never get rid of her!

July 8...Day 163

We had a playdate at the mall today with Simon (not pictured), Elliot (5 1/2 months) and Natalie (6 months)...notice how Elliot and Natalie are sharing the links...so cute!!

July 7...Day 162

Dear Ava,

I am very jealous of your cool new pool. My Mom got me a new pool too...but as you can see it's very small and boring and not nearly as cool as yours. (And she didn't even let me wear a swimsuit or a diaper while I was playing in it today...I was totally naked!) I hope when I'm a big girl like you, my mom will buy me a cool pool with a slide and a dolphin fountain...and I hope she won't take too many more naked pictures of me either; it's embarrassing!

Love,
Audrey

July 6...Day 161

We celebrated Daniel being home for the first evening in what seems like forever by going for a walk in the park tonight. Audrey was pretty tired and grumpy for most of the time, but we finally got her to smile on the swings!

July 5...Day 160

Tonight, while Daniel was working his last night at the Muni, I went wih some friends and took Audrey to her first carnival. She had a great time watching everyone and everything and spent the whole time sitting happily in her stroller. Her friends, Simon and Wesley, were big enough to ride some of the rides...they definitely were having a good time!! I love that only Simon and Wesley are in focus in this picture, and everything else is blurry. It was total luck that this picture turned out that way, but I like it!

July 4...Day 159

Happy 4th of July!! We should be leaving right now to go find a spot to watch fireworks. But it's been raining all day, and it's not very warm...it's not worth keeping Audrey up 2 hours past bedtime to go sit in the cold, wet grass to watch fireworks that are probably going to scare her and make her scream. So instead, Audrey is already in bed. Daniel and I are getting ready to watch a movie and eat homemade apple crisp and ice cream.

We did attempt to do something festive today. There were having a big Taste of Springfield/Lincoln BiCentennial/4th of July celebration downtown today. So despite the rain, we decided to go check it out. But because of the rain, here wasn't much going on while we were there, and it rained on us half of the time. Audrey had to stay bundled up in her car seat the whole time while Daniel and I walked around and got wet. Not so much fun, but what are you supposed to do when it is yucky and raining on the 4th of July!

July 3...Day 158

Audrey was being incredibly cute tonight and was cracking me up. She was especially excited about this laundry basket. She kept making her favorite "oh" face. She makes the best sounds when she makes this face...if only this was a video blog! She tried to pull herself up by holding on to the laundry basket. She can't pull herself up yet, but she has tried a few times. (And don't worry...I was holding on to the basket with my other hand so it couldn't tip over and fall on her)

July 2...Day 157

Audrey hosted a playdate this morning to break in her new play room. Unfortunately, Audrey was very tired and grumpy and had to go down for a nap shortly after everyone got here. But we all had a good time without her!

July 1...Day 156

It is finished! We finally have everything put away and decorated (as much as we can afford right now, I have big dreams for this space!) in the basement. And I LOVE IT! I had my first stamping event last night and one customer made the comment, "I never want to leave this room!" It is really hard to get a good picture down there though. Between the flourescent lights and the blue walls, the color is always funky. I've adjusted the color on my pictures to try to make it more accurate, but you will just have to come see it for yourself to see the actual wall color!