"look ma, no hands!"

Today has been a good day!

We went to church this morning and had invited my new friend Brianna & her husband Jeff to join us. I just met Brianna for the first time about a month ago but it feels like we have been friends for a long time. As silly as it sounds we met through Instagram! (a social networking app on the iphone). We found out through chatting on Instagram that we both live in Phoenix so we decided to meet for coffee. The hour and a half we spent talking felt like old friends having girl talk. She is a sweet lady and I'm so happy to have her as a friend! Our husbands seemed to have a lot in common and hit it off pretty good as well. After church we took them out to lunch at one of our new favorite local restaurants Liberty Market. The owner of this restaurant has two other restaurants in town that we just adore, Joe's Farm Grill & Joe's Real BBQ. We ate delicious food and talked and laughed with one another, it was the perfect afternoon!

Later on in the evening my dad stopped by for visit because he was in the neighborhood. He was telling me about how he is having all of our home videos of my sister & me as children transferred from VHS to DVD. I remember watching them as a teenager and thinking how lucky I am that my parents had a video camera and was able to capture those moments that my memory couldn't allow. This got me thinking about the home videos I have taken of Audrey and that someday I will show her them so she can see herself as a baby. For some reason I have always thought I had to have a good reason to record video of something but I have seen so many home videos that my grandparents took of their children just running around, playing, eating, etc. That inspired me to just record Audrey doing whatever she does and make a home video for her.

Turns out today was a great day to do that! She just so happened to decide to practice standing on her own!!  The actual video was about 5 minutes long so I asked Matt to edit and cut it down a bit and add some tunes. The best part is that every time she let's go of the table to stand on her own she puts her hands straight up in the air and I can just picture her thinking "look ma, no hands!"

I hope Audrey will enjoy this video someday and I hope you enjoy it too!

9 months

Audrey is 9 months old today!

 

 {Audrey's stats}

weight:  20.6lbs (76%)

height: 27.5" (57%)

head circumference: 44cm (50%)

Audrey has been developing immensely right in front of our eyes! 

Aside from crawling ALL over the place, she pulls herself up holding on to the table, couch, wall, pretty much anything and "cruises" (walking alongside). This is such a huge step from crawling and her pediatrician informed me that it is early for her to be doing this. To me it is not a big surprise, Audrey is a STRONG girl and has been showing so for quite some time now. I expect she will be walking before she turns one years old but we will just have to wait and see!

Since Audrey has hit 20 lbs it is time for a new car seat! She will still be rear-facing until her first birthday but the new "convertible" car seat will just be turned to face forward and she will use it until about 70 lbs. I can't wait until she can face forward and be able to sit up right and see me better. It will also make it easier for me to figure out what she needs in the car. I think she will just enjoy it much better. 

Audrey has also been expanding her appetite! We have been feeding her more of the softer foods that we eat and that has been a fun experience for both her and us. She likes pancakes, bananas, mango, blueberries, steamed veggies, and cake..... yes, we gave our baby sugar. She also really likes popsicles which has been a fun treat to keep us cool in this crazy crazy heat! 

There really isn't much that this girl doesn't like and she is in a good mood most of the time. She has been such an easy baby and we are very blessed for that! I look at her and get so excited to watch her grow into a beautiful young girl.