This Morning

Our poor video camera has been collecting dust lately, so I pulled it out this morning to capture a few moments with Audrey.

Audrey loves to open and close doors. She especially loves to slam the doors closed as hard as she possibly can. She's been doing this since before she could walk and has yet to slam her fingers in the door...but I am sure that day will someday come. Our newest game goes like this: Audrey tells me bye-bye and slams the door. I open the door and say hello. Audrey laughs and giggles, then says bye-bye and starts the game again. Of course, since I had the video camera out, Audrey wasn't all that interested in playing the game very well today. But there is still plenty of door slamming in the video below.

(As you watch the video below, you may notice that this is a dangerous game for Maggie, who likes to try to run through the door at the same time that Audrey is closing it. Don't worry...even though it looks like Maggie gets hit by the door in this video, the loud sound that you hear is my hand hitting the door to stop it. It is not Maggie's head. No dogs were injured in the making of this video!)

Audrey often goes up to the piano bench and says "B-i-b-i-b-i", which meands "B-i-b-l-e", which means she wants to play the piano. (We play and sing the B-I-B-L-E song together a lot).

Remember these videos from last July? Audrey has come a long way in her piano playing skills in the past 9 months. Back then, she used the palms of her hands to bang loudly on the keys. Now, she often uses her fingers to play one key at a time (and she figured that out by herself, I didn't even teach her!). Back then, Audrey had to sit on Mommy's lap to play the piano. Now, she can sit on the bench all by herself. Back then, Maggie howled annoyingly in the background. Now, oh wait...Maggie hasn't changed a bit!

I am very impressed that Audrey can recognize the tune to Elmo's Song after hearing only a few notes. (We must let her watch her Elmo's World DVD too much!)

I have more videos, but that's probably enough for one post. I'll save the rest for another day!

Eating with a fork

As I posted on my Photo a Day blog, Audrey has been eating with a fork lately, or at least trying to eat with a fork. She hasn't quite mastered it yet, but she thinks forks are really fun! As usual, I took a series of pictures to capture her eating adventures tonight!

All done and ready to wash my hands!!

Words

Since I am sentimental and like recording all of Audrey's milestones and since I am also too lazy to get out her baby book and write these things down, I'm going to start a list here of all the words Audrey is saying. Mostly for my own record-keeping...maybe someday I'll actually get all of these things written in her book.

Audrey is almost 18 months old, and here are the words she is saying now along with her pronunciations and my commentary on what she is saying. She says a lot of things consistently, but she consistently pronounces many words wrong (as is to be expected from an 18 month old!). Often I am the only one who understands her!

Words:
1. hi
2. hello (when pretending to talk on the phone)
3. bye-bye
4. ball
5. baby
6. up
7. hot
8. hat
9. coat
10. boat
11. dog/doggie ("doa" or "da-ya"is how she says it, she hasn't quite mastered this one yet and normally just says "woof woof" when she wants to say dog)
12. cat (she is really good at saying cat though, and often emphasizes the "t" sound)
13. bubble (an early favorite!)
14. apple
15. wow
16. cookie (she doesn't quite say this right, but I can't remember how she pronounces it)
17. milk ("Gilk")
18. bananana ("ba-ba")
19. water ("wa-wa")
20. cracker (I don't think she quite gets both "r" sounds in, but it really sounds like cracker when she says it)
21. Light ("ight", she often leaves off the first consonant of words...I think that's a normal thing)
22. Walk ("ock")
23. Clock (I don't think she really pronounces the l, so it sounds more like "cock", she learned this just the other day from watching a Baby Einstein video)
24. fish ("eesh", mostly in reference to Goldfish crackers)
25. teeth (she pronounces this various ways, but it is almost always accompanied by a motion like she is brushing her teeth)
26. help ("elp", which really sounds like up)
27. cheese ("eez", she is starting to say this anytime she sees the camera!)
28. keys
29. boy and oh boy (sometimes she says "bee" instead of boy)
30. yellow ("we-woh", this is the only color she knows, but she points to things that are yellow and will say "we-woh")
31. rock ("ock", as in rock in the rocking chair)
32. eye
33. go
***Added the week of 4/26/10***
34. shoes ("foos")
35. all done ("ah da")
36. please ("Pease")
37. TV (I'm a bit sad that she has already learned this one.)
38. flower ("fowfa")
39. Ice cream ("i cree")
***Added the week of 5/9/10***
40. cow
41. goat
42. car
43. no (I'm surprised it took her so long to learn this one, but now that she knows it, it has become an instant favorite!)
44. ham
45. book ("gook")
***Added the week of 5/16/10***
46. chair
47. green beans ("bee bees")
***Added the week of 6/13/10***
48. ice
49. tent
50. towel
51. rock
52. doorbell (She doesn't really say this clearly, but I know what she is talking about)
53. nose
54. mouth
55. arm
56. ear
57. tongue (sounds more like "dun")
58. trash
59. juice ("Jew")
***and now I am officially giving up on this list! I know there are so many more words that she can say. She is constantly repeating words and saying new things every day. I just can't keep track of it all anymore! Maybe my next list will be Audrey's First Sentences. But so far, she is just sticking with individual words for now.***


Names:
1. Mama
2. Dadda
3. Audrey ("Au-dee")
4. Mimi (for grandma)
5. Papaw (for grandpa)
6. Elmo ("melmo" though it often sounds like Mama)
7. Amy ("Mamy")
8. Katie (she says this perfectly, emphasizing the "t" sound)
9. Cael ("Cae")
10. Natalie ("Na-na")
11. Heidi
12. Seth ("Feh")
13. Elliot ("Aaaaaaa" or "au-dee" She can't say her buddy Elliot's name, but she consistently says these things when she sees him, so I'm writing it down. There is a video on Facebook of Elliot and his brother screaming "aaaaa" that Audrey loves, so I think that's why she associates "Aaaa" with Elliot. Elliot recently learned to say Audrey, and he says it every time he sees her. So now I think Audrey associates her own name with Elliot too)
***Added the week of 5/9/10***
14. Tik (our neighbor)
15. Evie ("beebee", Tik's daughter, Audrey gets so excited every time we mention her name!)
16. Ernie (from Sesame Street, we don't really watch Sesame Street but she is learning these names from the Sesame Street books that we own)
17. Abby (from Sesame Street)


That's all I can think of for now. I'll try to update this list as new words are learned, and we'll see how long I can keep up with it!

Audrey and the Mural

So Audrey loves this mural that is painted in the hallway of the children's area at our church. Every Wednesday night she takes off straight for this area (saying "Woof, Woof" and raising her hands to ask where's the doggie?). When she gets there, she runs around to give all the characters a hug. The difficulty of trying to give a hug to a flat painting doesn't seem to bother her.

I wish I would have had my video camera with me, because that probably would have captured her cuteness much better. But these pictures will have to do for now.

First, she gives the brown doggie a hug.

Then it's time to hug the dalmation.This doggie was special enough to get a kiss!And the boy (or "bee" as Audrey calls him) gets a hug too.

And don't forget about the girl!

Last, but not least, she saves a hug for the squirrel.

The Zoo

Audrey and I went with Lindsey and Simon and Elliot and Simon's friend Mikayla to the zoo this afternoon. This was the second time that we had been to the zoo in a week! Daniel and I took Audrey last Friday as well. Both times, I was surprised by how unexcited Audrey was at the zoo. It's not that she doesn't like it; she just doesn't get as animated as we would expect. Outside of the zoo, she gets so excited when we see a dog, cat, squirrel, bird or duck. She laughs and wants to run up and say hi. But at the zoo, she looks like this most of the time: This is Elliot's zoo face, slightly more enthusiastic:

Simon and Mikayla took time out from seeing the animals to put on a show for us. They were acting out some version of The Wizard of Oz.

Here are Elliot and Audrey, watching the show.

That picture of Elliot and Audrey watching from the stroller reminded me of this picture, where they were watching Simon and Natalie go on the carousel at the mall:

And this picture, where they were watching Simon ride on the swings at the fair:

Poor Audrey and Elliot...always on the sidelines!!

Happy Easter!

One thing I love about blogging is being able to go back and read old entries. Take a look at last year's Easter entry (http://lifewiththesheltons.blogspot.com/2009/04/happy-easter.html) to see how much Audrey has changed in the past year!!

We had a nice Easter. After church, we had some friends over for lunch. I cooked a ham (for the first time) and made homemade rolls (for the first time). Our friends brought some more yummy food, and we had quite the feast! Audrey and her friend Hannah got to play and have a very quick Easter egg hunt (it was thundering and about to rain, so we had to make it short!). It rained a few times, but then it was bright and sunny and nice for most of the day.

(These next pictures were taken a couple of days ago when we had an Easter photo shoot and a practice egg hunt!)

I have more pictures that I will post to a Facebook album soon, but Facebook is not letting me upload pictures tonight. Check back soon for the link to those pictures.

(OK, Facebook is working now. You can find more pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=413870&id=521110244&l=6dfefb7b82)