Good-bye!

I have decided that it is time to say good-bye to the Life with the Shelton's blog. As you probably know, I also keep a Photo a Day blog in addition to this one. Originally, this blog was dedicated to family pictures/stories, and the photo a day blog was simply a photo from the day.

Lately, the photo a day blog has become more than a photo a day. It has become posts with multiple photos, along with stories and thoughts and notes about our family. As a result, I have not posted much on this blog.

It seems silly to keep up two blogs with the same purpose. Thus the reason for saying good-bye to the Life with the Sheltons blog. All posts will now be on my Photo a Day blog: www.emilysdailyphotos.blogspot.com. I will see you there!

The Great Outdoors

Audrey loves to play outside, and we have not been outside nearly enough this summer. I blame this on the mosquitoes that have overtaken our yard. It is ridiculous. But we braved the mosquitoes tonight and played outside for a bit. Audrey had so much fun. Maggie on the other hand, I don't know. Audrey really likes to tease Maggie with this water bottle.


Showing me her "beez" (leaf).

Watching an airplane up high in the sky!
I love the way she runs with her arms flapping all over the place. It is so adorable.

Counting!

I have worked with Audrey on counting a little, trying to get her to count to 3 mostly. The best she had done so far was saying "one, two" (actually it's "none, two" according to Audrey)repeatedly.

So she completey shocked me today as we were going upstairs and she counted to twelve! She needed a little help on five, but she did all the other numbers completely on her own initiative. Now before you start thinking my daughter is a genius who just magically can count to twelve, you should know that I often count the stairs outloud as Audrey and I go up them...just because I'm a dork and it gives us something to do. I never thought she would learn her numbers just by listening to me say them as we go up the stairs though. And obviously, she's only 22 months old, so her "counting" is really more like making sounds that kind of sound like numbers. She's not so good at pronunciation.

This video isn't her best "counting". She's a little slow to get started, and then Maggie starts barking and distracting her. But you get the idea.

I kind of wondered if she though that the numbers only go with the stairs and can't be used to count other things. But one time today I got her to count to 10 by counting some stickers in her sticker book, so maybe she gets the concept. Or maybe not. She'll probably wake up tomorrow and forget all about our counting adventures today. She is very unpredictable like that!

Dance Party

When in the right mood, Audrey loves to dance. The other morning I babysat Simon and Elliot and they had a good time listening to music and dancing...especially Audrey!

Bows

After Audrey woke up the other day, before I even got her out of bed, she insisted that I put a bow in her hair. So I put one bow in, and then she quickly found another one (bows are everywhere in our house it seems) and wanted that one in her hair as well. So she got to eat her breakfast in her PJ's, with two non-matching bows in her hair...and it was so much fun!

Fear Conquered!

Audrey is no longer afraid of grass...what a milestone! Yesterday, we played such a fun game that she didn't even think twice about running around in the grass. She would "nun, nun, nun" (run, run, run) and pick up a leaf in the yard, bring it to me, then run back out to look for more. This game probably may have lasted all day, but I was being attacked by mosquitoes and finally had to drag her inside.

Play time

This afternoon I managed to get some pictures of Audrey while she was playing. This was a pretty impressive feat because normally if she sees me with the camera (or if she sees me at all), she gives up whatever she is playing with to come and grab the camera (or me). So I normally try to stay away when she is nicely entertaining herself.

But today she was looking so cute in a new dress (I saw it at Kohl's yesterday for just $2.60 and couldn't resist) and she was having so much fun playing with her Yo Gabba Gabba sticker book (a FREE find at a garage sale) that I had to take a few pictures.

I also learned a new trick today for getting Audrey to smile at the camera. When you ask her to say cheese, she does this. (See also my photo of the day). She sticks her chin straight up in the air and often looks away from the camera.

I found today that if I ask her to say names of the characters on Yo Gabba Gabba (can you tell she is obsessed with that show?), then it will almost always make her smile. This is the smile she gave me after saying "Muno", which I think is one of her favorite characters.