Let's Catch Up!

Well it has been almost a year since my last post. oops!! So let me see if I can catch up on all that has happened up to this point. My last post was when Aubrey turned 1 in March.

APRIL- Easter

Aubrey's daycare had an easter egg hunt for her class. It was really cute to see them crawl towards the eggs and shake the heck out of them. They did not get the concept of putting them in the basket and were trying to steal each others baskets. It was super cute!

These were her Easter Pictures that I was able to take one morning that Easter weekend. She really loved those ears and basket and we still have those scattered around the house and she still plays with them.

Baby Dedication

In the end of April we had Aubrey's baby dedication at church. It was a lovely service and very sweet dedication. My parents were able to come as well as our good friend Rebecca. 

MAY- Mothers Day 2014

We celebrated Mother's day at home. My parents came into town. Aubrey just loves her Grandma and Grandpa! 

Oklahoma Trip! 

Aubrey had her first Swing/Slide experience and LOVED it!! She was laughing so much and didn't want to stop. She also liked taking walks with Grandma. We got to visit with Uncle Alex and Mr. Ryan who also who came into town! They are moving to OK soon and we will have Uncle Alex closer!! 

JUNE- Daycare End of Year Swim Party

Aubrey's daycare had an end of year swim party which mainly consisted of sprinklers and Aubrey absolutely hated it! She screamed the entire first half, but once taken away from the water she was happy. She enjoyed the exiting part best, in the wagon with her best friend. Thanks Mimi for the cute bathing suit!! 

End of Year Work Pool Pary

My office had an end of year pool party at my coworkers house. I was worried how Aubrey would do with the pool since she hated the water at her daycare party. But she LOVED the pool. Couldn't get enough of it! Thankgoodness, because swim lessons started that next week at Emler. 

15 Month Picture! Love her pigtails! 

At the end of June we went on our First official Vacation - St. Louis to visit Uncle Alex and Mr. Ryan! We flew and to our surprise A did fantastic!! She loved it and even did her sign for more when we landed. We went to Budweisers Petting Farm and got to see the Clydesdales which Aubrey absolutely loved! She even got to pet goats, ride a train and see other animals from a distance which she didn't understand why she could not get off the train and go play with those animals. She is an animal lover! We also took her to the Children's Museum which was a place my parents took us as kids so it was really fun to now take my daughter. It is one of the best Children's Museums in my opinion. She had so much fun, especially in the water! We ate lunch at a delicious Oyster Bar, where we all had ate at when my brother graduated college and now we were there years later before he officially left St Louis for bigger and better things! We all went to on a tour of Busch Stadium which was really cool and sadly better than the Ranger Stadium Tour. We took a brief visit to the Zoo but it was so hot so we only lasted an hour but Aubrey got to see the seal show; which she thought was fun! We visited a small town called St. Charles which was just darling!!! Cobblestone streets, gorgeous buildings/shops. It was a beautiful day and ended with us running to the car as a thunderstorm opened up on us.  While in St. Charles Aubrey was introduced to Chocolate. Not on purpose but by complete surprise. Grandma gave her a clear bag of cholocate not thinking she could get into it, well Aubrey showed her! She eventually had that bag ripped in half and was stuffing her face with it while we were looking at wines. All of a sudden my mom; who had the stroller; screams my name and I turn to find A with both fists of melted chocolate and her face covered. It was as if she knew she had to get it in fast!!! this all happened within a matter of minutes because we had just arrived at that wine tasting room and the chocolate was still in the bag when we lifted stroller through doorway. Silly girl!! Grandma also introduced her to a snow cone....tsk tsk!!

 loved playing in the suitcases! 

July 2014: San Antonio Trip/Conference

I had a National Conference for work in July that happened to be in San Antonio. So of course I went and got to visit with family in the evenings. Grandma came with us and kept A busy with family while I was at the conference. The swam a lot at Great Grandpa and Great Grandmas. They visited Momo and Popo. We also got to see some of our extended family on the Ortiz side at a birthday lunch. 

 Swim Lessons
In June Aubrey started Mommy and Baby Swim Lessons at Emler in Southlake. The first 3 weeks were rough, cried most of the time and absolutely disliked our teacher...I think because he was A. a stranger and B. a male. He was so sweet and patient with her though. After that third week she started warming up and would only cry during a specific activity that she hated. By July though she was loving it all and laughing through everything. She was giving her teacher high fives and going with him willingly. She had started to hold her breath for up to 5 seconds under water before coming up and no panicking. She really enjoyed the water and I look forward to more classes every summer with her.

Little Gym;

In June Aubrey also started gymnastics at the Little Gym. Once again it did take her awhile to get use to her teacher (a male) but she loved all the activities from day 1. We were lucky to find a class that was on daddy's days off so it was a family activity each week we got to do. She loved it and loved running around the gym during free time. She is a dare devil and loves crawling up and down things but not always the safest way (head  first) so these classes started teaching her to go to her tummy and slide legs first. She really enjoyed the balance beam and was actually very good at it - holding my hands of course. 

Story Time at Library:
This Summer we also attended the Toddler Story time at the Keller Library. It was so much fun and she really enjoyed the books. She also enjoyed just running around with other kids her age.

AUGUST

17 Months! And first day of Daycare Class Toddler 1!

Big Girl Bed Already!! 

Right before school started we transitioned A to a big girl bed. All summer she hadn't been sleeping well. She would always go to sleep in her crib but wake up several hours later and not be able to sleep all night if in the crib. I noticed if I took her into the guest bedroom with me she would zonk out and sleep the rest of the night; which allowed me to get sleep. I hated bringing her to bed with me but a momma has to get sleep when she is doing both night and day shift. Then in August the week before school started back up I had a light bulb moment. We had this mattress in our other guest bedroom just laying on the floor because we had thrown out the headboard. So we did a test run and that first night she slept all night in there, stayed on the bed...no problems! I was shocked!! But she is a violent sleeper and moves all over the place which I think was the problem in the crib...it restricted her. So after a few weeks of doing that in the guest bedroom we decided to break down the crib and move the mattress into her room. It was a sad day because my baby officially was no longer a baby. But I have been so proud of her because she will stay in her bed for the most part, never has rolled out but we surround her with pillows. She now can climb out of her bed, open her door, and come find me in my room when she is scared or I'm taking to long to come to her according to her standards. ha ha. 

Outside:
Aubrey loves being outside!! She enjoys walking up and down the sidewalk, visiting the neighbors that may be out, collecting acorns, and riding in her wagon!

SEPTEMBER

Daddy had a rare weekend off so we went to visit Mimi and Papi. Aubrey just loves Mimi and Papi's animals. It's her own personal petting zoo! She has no fear of the horses and loves sitting on them. She also loves all the dolls and toys they have from her older cousins. 

OCTOBER

Halloween! 

    Daycare Halloween Parade/Party!: They were all so cute!! Aubrey was a sweet bumble bee! 

Aubrey and Mommy's First Pumpkin Patch in Oklahoma with Uncle Alex and Grandma! She had a blast with the big pale of corn, and being queen of her pumpkins!

NOVEMBER

School photos which led us to have our own photo shoot. 

Thanksiving!

My family celebrated Thanksgiving early to work around everyone's work schedules. We all had a blast and were so stuffed with all the delicious food! I love that Aubrey is getting to see her Uncle Alex more and getting more comfortable due to being more familiar with him. 

For the first time in several years we were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with Dave's family because he was FINALLY off on Thanksgiving. Typically he has to work which prevents us from going due to his sleep schedule. So this was so nice to see everyone together and introduce Aubrey to two cousins she hadn't even met yet as well as her 2 uncles and 2 aunts. She was very intrigued with the kids and would watch from a distant as they ran and played. However, to watch her interaction with her cousin William was sweet, since he is closest to her age. She was very attentive to him and very gentle which I loved watching. She's going to make a good big sister one day. We also were able to take a family picture all together!

DECEMBER

Christmas Card Pics

Aubrey and I went to the park one morning and did a photoshoot for Christmas Cards. We were supposed to do a photoshoot with my girlfriend/photographer but due to bad weather had to cancel and could not reschedule in the time I wanted. That just means Mamma pulls her camera out and does a photoshoot herself, but photoshoot by yourself with a toddler is exhausting. I finally just sat down in one spot on sidewalk and let her run back and forth and would shoot when I got her to stay still long enough. ha ha! Good times! 

Santa Pictures
Pictures with Santa were interesting. We waited until the last minute because going to do Santa by myself on the weekend wasn't my cup of tea so I waited until I was out of school so Dave could be with me and luckily mom was there too. So she was all pumped to see Santa, would say ho ho ho and nod yes every time we asked if she wanted to go see him. However, I know my daughter and figured that was just not going to happen since we have a huge stranger danger sense right now. Well sure enough she walked right up there to him holding Grandma's hand and was ready and confident but then she realized he was real and the breaks went on. She screamed and cried and clung to Grandma but we got her to sit briefly with Santa to grab a few pictures. Poor girl, she will laugh with us someday. Of course daddy came to the rescue and bought her the pink horse she was eyeing earlier so all was well in the world when we got home.

Christmas Eve Service: 

Dave and  have been trying a new church (Good Shephard Catholic Church) over the past few weeks. We wanted a church that we could go as a family which required a Saturday service. We got married in a catholic church that we love in Coppell but hadn't found a catholic church by the house that we really liked. I loved the church I had been going to the past few years but it was getting hard because Dave could never attend since service was only on Sunday. So we decided to look farther out at catholic churches and found Good Shephard. It was so homey and friendly. So we decided to take the family there for Christmas Eve service. Aubrey did very well and the service was very nice. Even ended with Santa going up to the baby Jesus, getting on one knee to pray before getting up and exiting. I had never seen that before but LOVED it!!! 

Christmas Morning
We celebrated Christmas here at the house. My family was all here with us. Aubrey understood the gifts this year and to see the joy on her face and excitement/shock was priceless!! She really enjoyed pulling the wrapping paper off. She didn't fully grasp that she had tons of gifts to open. She would open one, get excited and run to go play with it until we called her back to open more. Her favorite was the slide Santa brought her. She had that thing mastered with Uncle Alex's and Grandma's help in no time. She also loved the broom and dustpan that Great Grandma got her.

 Whew that was a lot to catch up on!!! We are busy busy but I woudn't have it any other way! It was fun to look back and see how much she has changed since March. I cannot believe in 2 months I will have a 2 year old!! Thank you God for this sweet blessing!!!