Christmas

We got to see Santa roll up on a fire truck at Howelsen Hill a few weeks ago. He went straight inside to take present requests while we stayed outside.

Here are the out-takes from posing by the tree, there all cute right?!


















We asked and Santa delivered, presents!


Audrey was more interested in playing with the unwrapped toys than opening any presents, but we eventually convinced her to open them. She also enjoyed delivering presents to the rest of us, such a sweet little elf.


Here's Audrey playing with her new musical instruments.



And Julian watching.

Boxing Day brought us Mary and Dan for a super fun visit,



they blogged about it here and caught some really cute video footage.

Thanksgiving

Here's a bunch of cute pictures of the cousin gathering in Denver. We spent the long weekend with all the Denver folk joined by Brian, Ashley, Jake and Lucy as well as Dan McG up from Durango. I'm very slow in posting partly because anytime I pick up the iPad Audrey sees it and yells "my turn! I need a turn on the padpad!!" and grabs for it, and partly because I have been absorbed in book 5 of the game of thrones series, but I'm done with that now and Audrey is napping so here's my chance ;)

We all ate at Lisa and Rahja's



and played

and bathed.

Cousin Lucy is four months older than Audrey.







Here's Gammy with six of her eight grandbabies: Jake (1), Noah (5), Lucy (2), Julian (4mo), Audrey (2), & Oli (10)

Roll over

Julian did his first rolls today. Two consecutive belly to back, here he is contemplating a third:






Audrey did a bit of coaching by showing him how she does it and by helping him push himself over.

Halloween

Audrey is two years old

...but if you ask her she will tell you she is "six nine".
I have no idea where she came up with this but when we started talking about her upcoming birthday a month ago she started saying it and has stuck to it. The other funny number thing she does is counting to 10, it sounds like this "one, two, three, four, nine, ten, eight, nine, ten", followed by clapping.
Audrey is a little explorer, discovering new fun uses for things,

creating interesting looks,

sometimes causing mischief, but generally just having a good time.
She got her first black eye a few weeks ago when hit by a stray flying cup at daycare.

She still loves to read and is sharing that joy with her baby brother.

She was very proud of the pumpkin she painted at her friend Piper's pumpkin painting party.

One last adorable anecdote, anytime you ask Audrey about what she dreamt about she will tell you "cows" and sometimes "cows eating nannies (trans:bananas)" or if it was an especially complex dream maybe daddy was eating nannies too.
So there's the snapshot of the life of Audrey at two, and here are the pictures we took on her birthday.

Two months

Things are different with kid number two, less stressful and worrisome, less attention to tiny details, such age in weeks. Parents have this quirky way of answering the question of "how old is your baby" with way more precision than necessary, leaving the person asking with a little math problem on their hands; for example I once heard a parent say the baby was 50 weeks old, not sure how tongue in cheek that answer was but it left for some calculating. Why not just say your kid is almost one?! Okay, I did that too, with Audrey, up to a certain point, but its just not happening with Julian, he has been two months old for the past couple weeks and probably will continue at that age until he is three months. But don't worry, I am keeping up with the weekly photo

Julian had his two month well child appointment today. Poor baby got poked three times for immunizations. Brave mommy held him for comfort. Another second baby difference: when Audrey got her two month shots the doctor had to hold me for comfort while I bawled my eyes out.

He is growing like a weed, he's gained about 5 pounds and grown just over 4 inches since birth, bringing him from 30th percentile at birth to 70th percentile now! He is 12 1/4 #, 1'11.75"

First snow storm

We got a foot of snow on Friday, so Audrey asked to pull out the skis and do a couple laps in the front yard.