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This time of year usually has me frazzled, planning visits with family, preparing gifts, decorating, etc. But not this year. This year was incredibly relaxing and I really enjoyed it! Maybe it was because I have Audrey to take up my time or that this was my first Christmas as a wife making new traditions with my family, whatever it was I liked it.

The day before Christmas eve my younger sister Brigitte spent the night and that was really special. We don't get to see each other very often because she lives almost two hours South of us so it was really nice to have some sister bonding time.

Audrey had her 2 month doctor's appointment that day and was given three shots. I had been dreading this day all week. The nurse came in and weighed her and she now weighs 10.5 lbs, still a little peanut! They have me take all her clothes off except for her diaper and then we wait for the doctor to come in. The last few times we have been there we haven't waited very long but that day must have been busy because we waited for 20 min which felt like an eternity considering Audrey was having a complete meltdown. I tried everything to calm her but nothing worked. I thought maybe she was hungry so I tried nursing, I tried to rock her, I tried swaddling her, nothing worked. I started to get really frustrated, we hadn't even seen the doctor yet let alone get her shots over with. Matt was nice and calmed me down and finally the doctor came in to talk to us. Audrey was still crying so Matt rocked her while I talked with the doctor. She said everything looks great with Audrey and she is growing beautifully. She asked a lot of questions like "is she smiling, cooing, recognizing mom & dad?" and we answered yes to all of them. She also asked how she is sleeping and if she has rolled over yet. I told her that Audrey has been sleeping 6-7 hour nights which she said is considered sleeping through the night. I told her that she had rolled over 4 times and she told us that only 20% of babies roll over this early, that it usually doesn't happen until 4 months. She held Audrey and listened to her heart and as she handed her back to Matt she commented on how well she holds her head up. It's pretty cool to hear the doctor tell us how coordinated she is, maybe she'll be an early crawler! We'll be baby-proofing our house before we know it! The nurse then came in and administered her shots. Matt helped hold her still and I sat on the side. I just couldn't watch. I looked over at one point to see Audrey's whole face beet red! Luckily she wore herself out so much from crying she fell asleep shortly after and took a nice long nap. For the rest of the day, anytime she woke up she was a grump but I don't blame her. Shots are no fun!

waiting at the doctor's office

I'm pretty sure this is what my face looks like right before shots

we went out to lunch after to Pei Wei for Thai food

Brigitte's first try of Pad Thai

We saw this at the grocery store! We thought it was pretty clever.

We spent the rest of the night baking holiday treats and watching Christmas movies.

Brigitte decorating gingerbread cookies.

Chocolate Peppermint Bark

The next day, Christmas eve, we went to my dad's house for dinner. It was a lot of fun visiting with them and exchanging gifts. Audrey had the most gifts to open out of everyone and she slept through the whole thing!

Matt, Audrey and I left dad's house and headed to Church for the last Christmas service.

we each shared our flame until the whole Church was lit up.

It was a beautiful way to celebrate Jesus' birthday.

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Today Audrey is 2 months old! I can't believe how fast time has passed. She has grown so much since birth and can do a lot of cool things now. Her talents include holding her head up (90% of the time), sitting in her Bumbo chair (which requires head stability that she is still working on), she rolled over (three times!!), and most importantly she sleeps at least 6 hours through the night (sometimes more)!!! So, her skills are not perfection but she is doing so great. We are really proud and excited for these small milestones.
My friend Jenny takes a photo of her daughter every month to show how much she's grown and I love this idea so I thought I would do it with Audrey. We missed the first month but we will start today with month two.

Audrey in her Bumbo chair

Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with Christine and Peter because they will spend the holiday in California with Matt's Grandpa Pappas. Christine cooked a delicious dinner of stuffed chicken breast, yams, salad, green beans and a double chocolate bread pudding for dessert! After dinner we sat around the tree and opened presents. I wish I took more photos but this is all I have from the day...

Audrey's morning bath

Playtime with Uncle Alex

Audrey hanging out with the boys

Daddy love

It was such a nice day. There are a lot of fun things ahead this weekend, I can't believe Christmas is already here!

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Okay, I simply couldn't resist. I had fun today with Matt's awesome professional camera (Cannon 7D) and took this collection of photographs of our dear Audrey.

Grandma Christine and Audrey

Audrey looks so cute in her punk rock hat!

So tired and so cute.

This is a video I took of Audrey a few days ago. She smiles and laughs so much it's the most adorable thing I've ever seen. And she has the cutest dimples!

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Audrey is my favorite person in the world.

I love spending my days (and nights) with her & I'm really feeling the mother/daughter bond everyone told me about. It's funny how for 9 months I heard story after story of other mother's experiences with their baby and don't get me wrong it was wonderful to hear but it really means nothing until you experience it for yourself. And now that I am, I totally get it! Audrey is SO much fun & probably the happiest baby I have ever met. It definitely helps when I'm woken up at 4am for a feeding and I reach into the crib and as soon as Audrey sees me she stops crying and smiles up at me.

I really enjoy the time right after she's eaten and had a diaper change and we just sit looking at each other smiling and laughing. She has now started to respond to us talking to her with her cute little "coos". I love her blossoming little personality.

This week has been a lot of different things. It has been painful, exciting, fun, busy, and exhausting. Let's start with painful...
On Wednesday I had 2 wisdom teeth pulled. They were both grown in and I had enough room for them but unfortunately they both had cavities. I put off visiting the dentist until I wasn't pregnant anymore and so the time came to have them pulled. It wasn't as bad as I always anticipate (even though I've had like 9 teeth pulled before) but it's never a good time. Matt was working all week so Peter took me to the appointment while Christine cared for Audrey. When I got home I was a little groggy but I felt well enough to bake Matt's birthday cake. Which brings us to the exciting part of the week... we celebrated Matt's 28th birthday on Friday December 17th! Unfortunately he was working that day but we were able to sing to him and eat cake, and took him out for a Sushi dinner.

On to the fun part of the week, Audrey at 8 weeks old ROLLED OVER for the very first time. Now mind you, this most likely is a fluke (even though we are certain Audrey is a prodigy child) because we haven't seen it happen again since BUT the best part is I just so happened to be filming her when she did it! So here it is.

Listen for the cute little squeal she lets out as she's rolling over.

As I mentioned before Matt has been working all week which is where busy comes in. He has worked on many different things including a pilot for a local woman starting her own Martha Stewart-ish show, an Mtv2 show filmed at the raceway & HGTV's Celebrity Holiday Homes where he got to spend two days at Kurt Warner's home here in Phoenix. Matt has been working so hard these last two weeks with extremely long hours and not a day off! For him, this week has been exhausting.

Here are some fun photos taken this weekend of Audrey, of course.

This is a winter hat I found at a local childrens consignment shop called Hissyfits

Audrey & I are pretty hip.

My good friend Taylor came over for lunch on Sunday

We ended the night with a stroll in the park using my new Baby Bjorn that both Audrey & I really enjoy. That was an almost full moon behind us.

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I have to admit our blog has been neglected. Our last post was about Audrey's birth and she is now 2 months old! It seems that time flies even faster when you have a baby. So with that realized, my new years resolution is to blog more often in 2011.

I will try my best to fill you in on the last two months, although a lot has happened.

The first few weeks of Audrey's life were precious and so happy & exciting for Matt and me. I was so grateful of the help I had from my mother along with Matt and his parents while recovering from the birth. Halloween was low key this year, Audrey was only 9 days old so my sister Natalie came over and we carved pumpkins, drank hot cocoa and watched Hocus Pocus. My mom came to visit for Audrey's birth and stayed for almost 3 weeks which was such a great help. She was extremely sad to leave but looked forward to our visit to Chicago in just two short weeks after she left.
The next 2 weeks were hard for me because I struggled with breastfeeding and was feeling very defeated. I was determined to make it happen and was not willing to give up! Unfortunately we weren't able to have a consult with a lactation specialist during our stay in the hospital due to the fact Audrey was born on the weekend so we decided to meet with a woman who runs her own breastfeeding business from her home and it was extremely beneficial to us. There are many reasons I did not want to feed Audrey formula so I was excited to finally nurse her successfully.

Before we knew it, it was time to leave for Chicago to visit my family for Thanksgiving. I was given a lot of helpful advice for flying with a newborn and Audrey was absolutely wonderful. I nursed her during take off and she slept the rest of the way, I was proud of her. You wouldn't have known there was a newborn on board.

Chicago was pretty cold but we were blessed with gifts of warm clothes for Audrey, we might have even over-dressed her at times ha ha.


And my favorite...

The main purpose for our trip to Chicago was to introduce Audrey to her 93 year old great-grandmother. It was such an amazing thing to see Grandma hold Audrey and interact with her. Although Grandma is doing well, we know at her age her days with us are numbered and I can't explain just how special it was to me for them to meet.


We were also able to spend a lot of time with friends & family whom we miss dearly. There were so many people and places we wanted to see while in Chicago which made it a bit overwhelming at times, especially it being the week of Thanksgiving. I think the whole city was chaotic. It was quickly learned that making plans & having a newborn do not blend well. We did the best we could to see everyone and really enjoyed our time in Chicago but it felt good to come home to our "normal" everyday routine. Something exciting that happened recently was getting to see Audrey smile! She is such a happy baby and now smiles & laughs all the time. It is such a beautiful smile.



Since being home from our trip life has settled down a bit. Matt has been working everyday which has been great. He has worked on so many different movies/tv shows/commercials it's hard for me to keep up! I pretty much ask him everyday, "where are you going today?" I think he enjoys the ever changing schedule, how could someone get bored of a job that is different everyday! However we look forward to a break in work for the holidays so we can spend time together as a family, just the three of us.