6 months old

Here is our big girl, eating carrots for the first time.  She also decided that blowing raspberries while eating those carrots was a good idea; the picture might be too small but little orange spots were everywhere!

Her 6th month stats: 

18 lbs, 80th percentile

28 inches, 98th percentile

Yep, she is wearing 9-12 month clothes, which actually works quite well because she is no longer opposite season from Haley's old clothes.

Love her

Best of buds

Well, really, I know they will be the best of buds coming soon, now it's more like Haley is the little mommy and Audie is the doll.

 This is her "happy" smile.

 Haley does everything with her baby that I do with Audrey, even at the same time (notice the doll behind Audrey in the jumper).

Papa Loves Mambo

Do me this favor and if you have a toddler, please show them this video and see if they are just captivated by it. Consider yourself warned however, that it may lead to asking for Mambo several times a day, to the point where the YouTube counter is now up hundreds from when you first discovered the gem.



This is Haley's absolute favorite thing. How did we find it? My dad watches old Lawrence Welk shows and Haley happened to see this one while we were visiting and thanks to my dad rewinding it several times, she got addicted. Then, a big thank you went out to Heidi for finding it on YouTube for us to enjoy over and over again.
She is content to just watch it and point out the different things they are going to do (get out of the crib, toe-toes in the air, get back in the crib...) but she really likes to dance to it. Here is a little clip, however when the camera comes out she gets focused on that so this is about 1/2 the enthusiasm she normally has.

Audrey's Photo Shoot

As you can tell, we got new family pictures done. We really got it for Audrey but we sat in on a few. Here are some of the highlights, seems like not too long ago we were trying to get a 4 month old Haley to smile for the pictures.

Trunk 'r Treat

Our very first family Trunk or Treat. It lived up to all the hype. Haley was much more interested in dropping candy into the sacks than she was in getting her own. She likes "numa numas" (M&M's) much better but I've found that Smarties are the best kid candy, not messy, dissolves, I don't like them... Audrey was great and just let me do whatever I wanted with her. Here are our little 50s girlies.

Who looks like who?

Nana and Bompa's house

Wes had a conference in San Jose last week so we decided to go out with him and spend the week with my parents.  Fun was had by all.

Blue's Clues on the Ipod to the rescue.  If only Audrey would watch.

Cousin Liesl and Haley are 5 months apart, it'll be fun when they actually have fun playing together.

Staci flew out for the occasion too.

I'm not really sure if Aaron and Alyse normally allow them to dance on the table.  Sorry about that.

Audrey Alice with Great Grandma Alice.

Only Grandpa can give Jelly Bellies for breakfast and it be okay.

4 girls and 1 boy.  Can you imagine how fun it's going to be in a few years?

And look who we got to see while we were there!  Wes' mom happened to be visiting an aunt in Sacramento also!

I wasn't planning on giving her a bath but I've since learned that anything that she can put her hands in requires a bath, fingerpaints are no exception.

All of our babies

plus this one

These babies are with us throughout the day, everyday.  At least one of them, without fail, tries to sneak out the door with us whenever we go. 
Also, just in case you ever need this bit of information, you can wash dollies in the washing machine but you will then have to poke pin holes in each of the extemeties so the water can drain out through the body (which you'll need to of course leave out to dry).  I'm getting pretty good at this myself.

The perfect little ball

This picture is darling because everything about it is round, round face, round cheeks, round position.  Love her.

Am I a Mean Mom

when my daughter is calling for me and crying because she is stuck trying to climb on the bed and I go for the camera instead of helping? Maybe. She was her holding on for dear life for a good minute. I guess that isn't very nice.

First Rolling Over

Audrey was 16 weeks last week and she rolled over for the first time.  I'm going to confess that I don't give her nearly enough "tummy time," so as this was the first time she's been on her belly in a couple of weeks I'm not sure if she could have rolled sooner or not, but here is the very exciting moment!

Fishies anyone?

I obviously left the bag too close to the edge of the table because she got a hold of it and took just as many as she wanted.  These are the faces that I got when I told her to smile for the camera.

Autumn Celebration

There are far too few parties in our lives so why not make some up?  Yesterday we had our Autumn Celebration, complete with chili and cornbread (nevermind that yesterday was in the 90s), pumpkins and orange rice crispy treats on plastic spoons (if that doesn't scream fall, I don't know what does).

 I think these might go on the list of favorites.

I also think that dressing in orange really helped get us in the mood (as do the leaves on the walls).

(Did you know there are 3 songs in the Children's Hymnbook dedicated to autumn?)

Just a bunch of pictures

I was trying to think of a title or some theme to put these pictures in but I can't, so I'll just post them.

Haley giving Audrey something to play with.

 I can't help but think that Audrey will jump up at any moment and do some Jazzercize.

The afternoons can get long, we have to think of something to keep ourselves entertained.

"Smile for the camera."

Book of Mormon Stories

The Book of Mormon is Haley's favorite book, by far.  Since she's figured out how to climb up on the rocking chair in her room she'll sit there for quite a while and flip through the pages (often tearing them, we have a very "loved" book), usually she'll do this a few times a day.  Reminds me of Elder Bednar's talk from General Conference in April.  Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but maybe not.

"Youth of all ages, even infants, can and do respond to the distinctive spirit of the Book of Mormon. Children may not understand all of the words and stories, but they certainly can feel the 'familiar spirit' described by Isaiah."

This was the other morning while I was doing things around the house.

She's learned how to Zerbert

Also, let it be known that we are reserving the fun for Daddy only (just in case any visitor wanted in on the fun).

Zoos and fun

We had some good old fashion zoo fun yesterday with the Zollinger clan.

Haley loves anything that is her size.  She'll crawl over everything just to climb it.

Yes, it was THAT close.  They were feeding it right before I took that picture.  Haley was fine until the giraffe started to walk around.

Aren't there a few things that just make you smile?  One of those things is when I come upon something that Haley has done throughout the day when I'm cleaning up for the night. 
Like when I find Dolly nicely placed in Audrey's bed, swing or car seat.  Haley is such a little mommy and it makes me smile to see her little sweetness (especially after she's nicely tucked into her bed for the night).  Aren't kids great?