Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Adventure Disney



I entered a video contest to win a trip from The View and Disney Adventure- it was a ton of fun, and I don't know if I have won or not, but we had a great time making the video. It starred Audra, Ben, myself, and Audra's little boyfriend Cache. Audra absolutely loves Cache- it is so cute. He is the son of my fantastic and amazing friend Jen and her husband Curt who are in our ward, and at church Audra and Cache will hold hands and coo at each other. It is SO cute! (Jen, I stole these pictures from your blog- I hope you don't mind!!!!)
If we don't win the video contest I will post the video next week on the blog. They announce the winner on The View on Monday, May 5th- so you all need to watch to see if we won!!! If we did, we win a 7 day trip to anywhere in the world that Disney Adventure travels. It is really cool.

Friday, April 18, 2008

11 Months Old




Audra turned 11 months old today! We are excited because she gained a pound last month- she is now 17.4 pounds! Yippee!!! For those of you unaware, weight gain has been a problem, so we are glad that she is gaining at least some weight!
We took her swimming for the first time today- she had a pretty good time. We were afraid she would yell and scream the entire time, but she did not- she splashed, played "chase" with daddy, and climbed in and out of the pool. It was a lot of fun!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Sunny Days



I didn't want to post without a picture, but couldn't find a recent picture that I thought worthwhile, so this is a very old picture of Audra- she is probably about a month old here...
Anyway, I have been getting some flack from my family about calling Audra a "monster" and implying that she may not be the sharpest tool in the shed. When I say "monster" I refer to the fact that since she is walking (at age 10 months), she is getting into EVERYTHING and is making a mess of EVERYTHING. Now, however, she reminds me of the monsters on Monsters Inc in that she is super cute and cuddly (I must admit, she is about the cutest baby I have ever seen- I have the right to say that, I am her mother- every mother should think that about their baby!!!), but she is definitely entering a challenging stage at this point of her life! She is very curious, much to the dismay of her parents.
As to her not being very smart, I merely mentioned that in the video because she just could not come up with a way to stand up without touching the grass- it was so cute (she often is). In fact, Audra is probably too smart for her own good. Here is an example: she knows that she is not allowed in the cupboards. However, she likes to go into the cupboards. When she goes into the cupboards, Ben or I will say "uh-oh" and put her in "jail" (this sounds much meaner than it is- jail is the corner and we put her there for about 30 seconds. This is a little 'Love and Logic' discipline we are trying and it seems to work, even at just 10 months old). So, now she goes to the cupboard, looks at us to see if we are watching her, and then will either quietly walk away as if she had never gone near the cupboards, or adamantly defy us and brazenly open the cupboards to see if we will really put her in jail. Then, when we go to get her, she run away really fast. It is quite funny!
It is about 80 degrees today, but tomorrow it is supposed to snow- ughh!!!

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Don't Eat the Grass!




We took Audra to the park for the first time in between conferences last week- the weather was gorgeous, although you wouldn't know it because this week it snowed- twice! Anyway, she enjoyed walking around the park, but absolutely hated the grass. It was so funny, and you can see in the video how she would fall down, but not know how to get back up without touching the grass. It was pretty funny!

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Walking




Here are some more recent pictures. A fun one of Aud and me, then I got Ben a Wii for his 30th Birthday. I have never seen a man so excited! He now wants to play Guitar Hero every night. Or, Super Mario Galaxy, which he absolutely loves. Either way, as long as he is playing the Wii, he is very happy.
Then, Audra decided (at 10 months old) last week that she should start walking- so, now she walks everywhere, and can climb stairs! This has been quite the excitement for Audra, but quite the nightmare for mom. I thought she was hard to contain before, now it is almost impossible.

Christmas



We has such a fantastic time in Seattle for Christmas- it was great to see all of my side of the family, we had a fantastic time!

Halloween Aud-Pod

We call Audra our little "Aud-Pod" so she had to be a pea pod for Halloween! Apparently, Ben was not too happy about this, I am not sure why he is not smiling!!!!

Audra Michelle

Of course, on May 18, 2007, Audra Michelle came into our lives- wreaking havoc and happiness to all around! She is so beautiful, but those first few months were hard with her GERD and everything. We are very grateful to be over that stage!!

The New Blog!!!

I finally decided to start a blog, and I decided that I should start from the beginning! Four years ago tomorrow Ben asked me out on our first date- to go see The Prince and Me. I couldn't believe what a gentleman he was, and we absolutely hit it off- I think even from just our first date, we knew this was something different and better than either of us had ever experienced.
On January 15, 2005 we were married in Bountiful, Utah, and we have been enjoying wedded bliss ever since! I feel like we are the luckiest people in the world, and we certainly could not be happier. He is such an amazing husband and father!