Audrey - 2 months

So our little girl is growing up quickly. We took her to her two month appointment yesterday and learned that she has shot up from 60% weight to 80% (12 lb 2 oz) and from 60% height to 75% (22.75"). Her head circumference is at 55%. She is doing really, really well and is only getting up one time a night, most nights. She can sleep for 4-5 hours at night time which I am really thankful for.

She is finally spending her nights in her crib upstairs while Mom and Dad have regained ownership of their bedroom downstairs. We spent a week in the guest bedroom upstairs, but Ava kept asking us why we were sleeping in her grandpa's bed so we figured it was time to move back down to our domain.

In other news, Jim got a title promotion from VP to Senior VP! This is a great achievement for him. He's been working really hard and had hoped to make SVP within the next year, so it was a welcome surprise when he got the news Tuesday. Way to go, Jim!

Audrey's Sip n See

This weekend my awesome friends Kelly and Heather hosted a Sip n See for Audrey at our house! For those of you who don't know a "Sip n See" is a Southern thaaang. It's basically a casual party for a baby who's not your first born. Being a second child myself, I wanted to make sure she had something to celebrate her birth that was all about her. We had originally scheduled it for earlier in the month, but had to move the date due to some personal conflicts. I couldn't cancel it... my baby had to have her party!

My girls didn't let me down. They brought a gorgeous cake and laid out an entire spread including swayte tay (sweet tea), lemonade, etc. As well, my good friend Colleen brought the most amazingly cute cupcakes I've ever seen. She even made all the little toppers herself (see the pics.)

Ten very good friends were able to make it for the afternoon, as well as several kiddos who wanted to see the baby. They all quickly found the playroom upstairs however and enjoyed their time with Ava up there :) All in all, a great time was had and I'm so thankful for everyone who came to celebrate Audrey with our family.

Audrey's beautiful cake. Love the little booties!

Me and my girl!

How cute are these cupcakes? Thanks Colleen!

Our beautiful spread where I even got to use my china. Woo hoo!

Mommy and her girls after the party. So sweet!

Easter

We had a wonderful Easter weekend. Carolina weather cooperated perfectly at 70 and sunny. We started off the day be going to church, then went over to Eli and Colleen's house for brunch. This has become a tradition the past three years that we enjoy very much. They were kind enough to have Easter eggs hidden all over their back yard for Miss Ava. She loved finding them and of course eating the contents. After brunch, Ava brought down every stuffed animal they own, laid them all on the couch, and proceeded to talk to them for the next hour or so :)

After the girls' afternoon naps (and while watching 6.5 hours of Masters coverage) we enjoyed an Easter dinner at our house, courtesy of Honeybaked Ham. I mean really, who wants to cook when Honeybaked can do it quicker and yummier? Anyway, back to golf. Ava can correctly identify Tiger Woods and tells us that "the man missed the ball" when she sees someone take a practice swing. We hope to have her first set of real clubs in hand by her birthday, as our park across the street is the perfect size for her to start teeing it up!

I'm confident in saying we have the world's cutest girls.

Egg hunt!

Our first family picture as a foursome!

Easter Egg Hunt

This past Saturday was our neighborhood's annual Easter Parade and Egg Hunt. What an event! We had no idea what to expect, but knew Ava would love it no matter what. We started out at the Turtle Fountain where the Easter Bunny came in on a firetruck and passed out candy. From there, the parade went down the street to the "egg patch." At first, Ava wasn't sure what to do, but she quickly picked it up :) After the egg hunt, everyone headed over to the "Lion and Bear" park across from our house for an afternoon of fun and games. Lunch was catered by McAlister's (yum) and there were all kinds of activities for the kiddos. There were stations set up for cookie decorating, arts & crafts, face painting, and knap-sack races. The Easter Bunny even had a special place where a photographer took pictures of each child with him. Too fun!

On another note, Grandpa Putsey had cancer removal surgery on Friday that went very well. The tumor was removed and he is recuperating very well. Hopefully he will be out of ICU soon and can go home shortly after that! Pop Pop Vaca is also having some minor surgery mid-month, so we ask that you keep both of our Grandpa's in your thoughts and prayers this month!

We're looking forward to Easter. The Easter Bunny may have gone overboard this year, but what can you do? It's the first time Ava's old enough to get it, so we're excited to add to her happiness. We'll start off the day by going to our church's first service nice and early. Then we're going to our friends, the Clark's, house for brunch. Last but not least, we'll celebrate His resurrection with a complete meal from Honeybaked Ham (who wants to cook?)

Little Audrey is doing great. She's 8 weeks old and loves to eat! She's 11 1/2 pounds already and has nice chunky legs that mommy loves to squeeze. She has also started smiling at us which puts us over the moon. What a cutie!

Firetruck with Easter Bunny

Jim and Ava walking in the Easter Parade
Egg Hunting!

Lion and Bear Park

Ava always wants pink flowers painted on her cheek

Ava and Mommy doing crafts together

Ava & Mommy with our finished craft

Interestingly enough, this is the exact way she looked at Santa in December.

St. Patty's Parade

Saturday was Charlotte's annual St. Patrick's Day parade uptown. Ava loved it when we took her to the Thanksgiving Day parade, so we thought we'd go for round two and celebrate her and Jim's Irish bloodlines. The parade was a lot of fun. We rode the train uptown (one of Ava's favorite things to do), drank hot chocolate, and watched a lot of cool groups and floats pass by. Ava got a green beaded necklace at the parade that she wore the entire rest of the weekend. She even sleeps with it. Afterwards, we ate at a burger joint uptown before heading back home on the train. Fun times :)

Audrey had her one month appointment last week. She's in the 65th % for both height and weight and the 50th for head circumference. She weighs 9 lb 14 oz... she's packing on the pounds quickly! She already eats 5-6 ounces per feeding which we find simply astronomical! We're not sure when she's going to slow down, but we hope it's soon. Saturday night we watched the Boiler's win in the NCAA tournament at our good friends, The Cains, house. Everyone was in Purdue gear, even Ava and Baby Drew! We're going to Boiler Up together again Thursday night, although we're pretty sure that will be the end of the road for our beloved Boilers :(

Lastly, we finally got patio furniture for our screened in porch! We spent most of Sunday assembling it. Last night Jim and I tested it out with a nice cold Blue Moon in our hands. We got a huge sectional sofa and a loveseat. We also got two club chair rockers that we're going to put on our upstairs balcony. I'll post pictures of everything later this week.

Four Weeks Old

Wow, can you tell we've been busy? Audrey turns four weeks old on Thursday. I'm blown away by how fast time is moving! We're enjoying every minute with her though. She's so sweet. She's an exact replica of Ava as an infant, but somehow doesn't look "newborn". Her features are like that of a three month old. She's just perfect!
When Audrey was just over a week old I had a good photographer friend take pictures of her and Ava together. I've posted a few here; the entire collection is on our family's website (email me if you want the URL). I've also posted some pictures from our visitors.

Audrey is a killer good eater. She loves to eat and hates getting her diaper changed. She also loves being held, as any of her four grandparents can attest to (all have visited!) She has already put on a pound and a half, and is doing really well. Right now she only gets up twice a night at 2am and 4:30am. Not bad! As of yesterday, she started accompanying Mom to the gym in our neighborhood's clubhouse. The workouts are really wearing her out as she sits in her stroller watching :) Mom took her on her first run today through an adjoining neighborhood and both seemed to like that.

So visitors... we've had lots of them! We've been lucky to have all the extra hands and spend time with our loved ones. Jim's parents came, godparents Steve and Jenny, then Michelle, then Mary's parents, followed by Mary's very good friend from college, Kristin, who came for a weekend with her Audrey who is exactly one year younger than Ava. We loved having all of our company here, and Ava especially enjoyed the extra attention and opportunities to play, play, play!

Jim went back to work this week after four weeks at home, but enjoyed his time off immensely. I think it motivated him to retire early he enjoyed it so much! So now it's just Audrey and Mommy at home, but we're adjusting very well. I look forward to spending the next six weeks with her here.

Our New Addition

We are so excited to finally share our new baby, Audrey Reagan, with the world. She arrived without much fanfare (a good thing) on Thursday, February 12th at 3:34pm. Audrey weighed 7 pounds 3 oz and is 19.75" long. She has a head full of dark brown hair and has deep blue eyes. Ava is really excited to have her baby sister here, but doesn't want to hold her because she's "too big" (aka too heavy). I think Ava expected her to be as light as her baby dolls.

Delivery went really well. She was due on February 7th, so our doctor scheduled an induction on the 12th. After a nice big breakfast at IHOP, Jim and I dropped off the dogs at the kennel and headed to the hospital for our 7:30am admission. At 9am they started the petocin (to start contractions). I got my epidural right at 2pm (thank God for anesthesiologists!) and at about 3:05 we were ready to go. Roughly 30 minutes later, there she was!

So "Audrey"... it wasn't on the final three name list, was it? Here's the story: Our final three included Emma, Leah, and Reagan. Every day we had a new favorite, but at the same time none ever came out and grabbed us as "the one." Exactly one week before Audrey was born, Jim came home and said "What do you think of Audrey?" (We love "A" names, by the way.) I said "I've mentioned Audrey at least a dozen times over the last nine months and you shot it down every time." Jim, of course, had no recollection of this. :) One of my best friends from college, Kristin, also named her daughter Audrey so this was my only hesitation. I ran the idea by her just to get her input, and of course she loves the name and was cool with us both having Audrey's even though it might make for confusing conversation - LOL. Woo hoo!

So Audrey it was... her middle name is Reagan. I've always loved Reagan, and of course I'm a big fan of the President, so that was a no brainer for me. This added with the fact she was born on Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday (another great conservative President I admire) made it extra special!

We came home on Saturday to a very excited big sister. Life has been very good thus far. Ava is excited to see her baby sister every day when she wakes up and again when she comes home from school. She runs to her, kisses her on the head, and says "I miss you baby sister." It just melts our hearts. We are the luckiest parents in the whole wide world!

Cupcakes!

Ok, so Ava's gotten a little too demanding recently wanting to watch her new favorite show from Noggin' called "Pinky Dinky Doo" so we're actively luring her away from that thought with other activities. A few nights ago we decided to make cupcakes. She loves to get up on her step stool and help! She poured the ingredients in the bowl, handed me eggs to crack, and even learned how to properly lick batter when you're done mixing it :)

She calls these "happy birthday cakes". Anything with "cake" or "candles" means "birthday" to her. She's quite the little lady these days. She's having a hard time sharing at school lately, but other than that is still as sweet as ever. She's really into singing, and her current favorite is Old MacDonald. He always has a cow, pig, and duck in her version. She also really likes to dance and showed her entire Sunday School class her moves yesterday. Quite impressive!

The weather was 70 all weekend so we spent much of it outdoors at the neighborhood park and in our driveway with her Cozy Coupe. We also had our painter come in and paint our entire kitchen/family room a nice taupe color called Camelback. It is SO much better than the eggshell that was driving us crazy. We also got our office painted the same color blue we had in the last house. Jim really liked it, so we kept it.

In other news, Baby Vaca will be induced and hopefully born this Thursday, February 12th. Woo hoo!