Fun Times!

We spent today cleaning and packing and getting ready for our trip to Joplin tomorrow. While we were getting all of our clothes together, Audrey had so much fun playing in the suitcase! She climbed/dove in and out over and over again. It was cracking me up!

And here's a video of Audrey walking with her walker and then walking on her own. She had a major breakthrough with the walker tonight. She has been walking with it for months now, but she could never figure out how to turn it around when she ran into something. So she would walk a few feet, run into something, ram the walker into that object over and over, then raise her hand in frustration, waiting for someone to come help her move it. But tonight, all of a sudden, she figured out how to back up and turn around with the walker...and a whole new world opened up! She can now weave her way through narrow doorways and back around in circles with the walker...like she's been doing it that way all along!

A Night Out (on a budget!)

Last night Daniel and I went to St. Louis for an early anniversary celebration. Our anniversary is not until December 20. But we will be busy with our Christmas production at church that weekend, and the show I wanted to see was playing now, so we decided to celebrate a month early. When we got married, we decided that instead of getting presents for each other on our anniversary, we would go out and do something together. We haven't been able to go away for a whole night in a while, due to having a baby and being on a budget. But we left Audrey with a trusted friend for the night, and we took advantage of some really good deals that made it an affordable night for us. We were able to enjoy a $300 night away for around $100.

First we checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Crowne Plaza in downtown St. Louis. It was pretty nice, and our room had a great view of the riverfront and the arch. Our hotel is the building right next to the Hyatt. It was an older hotel, but it was still nice.
This is the hotel lobby.
To get a good deal on the hotel, I used Hotwire.com. I love using Hotwire to get good rates on nice hotels. The only downside is that you don't know what hotel you will be staying at until after you pay. You chose the location and the star rating of the hotel, then book your room, and then they tell you where you will be staying. I've used it several times in the past and have always had a great experience. This time we got our room at the Crowne Plaza for just $52 (plus fees/taxes which made it about $65 total). This was our room.And we were surprised that the room had a balcony with a great view of the riverfront and the arch. I wasn't able to get a picture of the whole arch (because I forgot to pack my other camera lens, and the one I was using does not allow you to zoom in or out, making for limited picture taking of big objects like the Arch!). But, from our room, you could see the entire arch and riverfront. Here are a couple of shots of the view from our balcony. I couldn't stay on the balcony too long, because we were on the 20th floor, and I'm a bit afraid of heights! This first one was as the sun was setting on Friday night.
And this was the view from our room when we got up this morning:

After we checked in, we walked down to the riverfront. It was a pretty nice day for November! Again, it was a bit difficult to take Arch pictures with the lens I was using, but Daniel was able to get a fun angle with this one.

And here's Daniel at the base of the Arch. He looks so little!

For dinner, we ate at a little place called 400 Olive. It was in the downtown Hilton hotel, which was conveniently located directly across the street from our hotel. It was a nice place, and the food was pretty good. Here we are at the restaurant. They had these little circular booths, which looked really fun but they were a bit awkward for seating.

For a good deal on our dinner, I used restaurant.com. It's another website that I really like, but I don't get to use very frequently because they don't really have any restaurants in Springfield. But if you live in a city, there are all kinds of restaurant options. On restaurant.com you can buy $25 restaurant gift certificates for just $10. But they often run sales, like they did last week, where everything is 80% off. Then you can get $25 gift certificates for $2! So that's what I did. If you use restaurant.com, be sure to read the fine print! Our $25 gift certificate was only valid on a $35 dinner. So you can't really get a free meal as there are always stipulations for using the gift certificate. Our meal was about $47 after tip. But with the gift certificate, we only had to pay $22, which saved us quite a bit!

Then it was time to go to the Fox! This was the 5th musical that we have seen there; we just love going to see shows! Going to see professional shows is a very expensive habit, so it's been a while since have been able to go together. This time we were fortunate to have received a $100 gift certificate to the Fox as a Christmas gift. So we got 2 great seats in the first row of the balcony for just $7 total!

We saw In the Heights and loved it. It was really good. If it is playing in your area, you should go see it! It's a fairly new musical (I think it originated on Broadway in 2007), so I don't think too many people are familiar with it. The theater was not very full, which surprised us. And it kind of made me sad, because a lot of people missed out on a great show!

So, we had an enjoyable night out, and it was made even more enjoyable by the fact that I didn't feel like we were spending too much money! I love getting good deals!

New teeth and a new trick!

This morning, while Audrey was snacking on some cheerios, I attempted to take a picture for my A Photo a Day blog. I always wait until late at night to take those pictures, and I was trying to be more on top of things today!

And while taking pictures, I got this one...which I am SO excited about!!

Can you see her teeth??? You can actually see all three of them in this picture! This is the first picture that I have of her teeth; she is normally very reluctant to show them off! But she has started to do these cheesy grin where she squints her eyes and smiles really big...and it shows off all of her teeth! The top one is just starting to come in...here's a closeup so you can see those pearly whites a little better!
And some other big news for Little Miss Audrey...she now knows how to clap (FINALLY!). It's been 6 months since I first started to try to get her to clap...and all of a sudden she loves it and wants to clap all the time! And to think I just talked to the Dr. last week about whether we should be concerned about her non-clapping. She just has her own timeline for doing these things, and it is not always the same as what I think it should be. I think we should start calling her Little Miss Independent.

Audrey's Really Big Leaf

Audrey and Daddy found a really big leaf in our yard the other day. Audrey thought it was really cool and carried it around for a while. She's so cute!!

12 month check up

Today, Audrey had her 12 month check up. She weighed in at 20 pounds exactly (35th percentile) and was 29 1/4 inches long (67th percentile). She seems to be doing well, and the doctor didn't have any concerns. Both the Dr. and I think it is odd that Audrey still doesn't clap her hands, but since she uses her hands normally in all other ways, the Dr. didn't think it was anything to worry about. I suppose she will clap when she decides she is ready to clap!

It wasn't a very fun visit for Audrey (or me!) though. She had to get her regular 1 year shots, then she got a flu shot, and then they had to draw her blood to test for lead poisoning and anemia! She did pretty well until it was time to draw her blood. They asked me to pin down her legs and her shoulders (which was a bit difficult). Then the nurse was having trouble finding a vein, so they had to switch arms. That's about the time when Audrey decided she had had enough of being pinned down and laying still. Finally, the nurse went ahead and poked her with the needle. That was about the time that I accidentally glanced over at the needle and Audrey's blood spurting out. I have issues with my own blood being drawn, and I now know that I have issues when someone tries to draw my daughter's blood. Shots don't bother me, but sticking a needle in the arm and leaving it there while blood comes out...that is more than I can handle. So, I start to get hot and nauseaus and dizzy, all while I am trying to hold down a screaming Audrey who is fighting me with all her strength. And after all of that, the nurse was only able to get a small amount of Audrey's blood...not even enough to do one of the tests. So we get to go through the whole process again in 3 months at her 15 month appointment. Daddy is going to have to come along that time to make sure I don't pass out!!

It's now time to install the new forward-facing car seat and make the transition to whole milk and sippy cups...basically we're saying good-bye to our little baby and hello to our new toddler!

12 months old!!

Yesterday was Audrey's 1st birthday. I'll start with a few updates on what she is doing right now, then we'll get to some pictures!

She is getting close to walking. We've been saying that for a while now, but she is right on the verge. She has taken up to 6 steps all by herself, and she is starting to walk very, very quickly while just holding on to one of our fingers for support. She is also starting to crawl on all fours, finally!! She will still resort to army crawling when she really wants to get somewhere quickly, but we are seeing her on all fours more and more often.

Last week, while she had the flu, she also got 2 more teeth. So she now has 3 teeth total, and I'm sure we'll be seeing more pop up in the very near future. Fun times!

We're still working on the sippy cup. She just is not that fond of any of the sippy cups we have tried. She will drink out of it, but her new thing is to take a big gulp then spit it out all over herself. She's still taking a bottle in the morning and a bottle at night. We're going to work on getting rid of the bottle all together in the coming weeks and making the transition from formula to whole milk. I'm sure there will be more fun times ahead with all of that!

She is babbling constantly, but not saying many real "words." For a while I thought she was saying doggie, ball, mommy and daddy in the right context. But right now, her word of choice is dada and she calls everything that! She talks in more of a conversational tone though, like she is trying to communicate but just doesn't know the words to use. She is also pointing at a lot of things now, which is nice because you can kind of understand what she is trying to communicate by looking at what she is pointing at.

OK, here are some Raggedy Ann pictures. We put her in a Halloween outfit, since her birthday is on Halloween and all!

And here she is in her birthday outfit!

The cake!

Audrey thought the cake was quite delicious.

After the birthday party, it was time for a nap. Then it was time to get dressed up for Halloween! She was a pretty cute little ballerina!