Audrey is 9 months!

Audrey had her 9-month check with Dr. Linsmeier last week. In the national percentile, she is still at 75% for height, and 90% for weight, but her head is finally 50% rather than 25%. (Actually I'm grateful for small-headed babies. For one thing, it makes dressing them easier.)

Audrey passed all the milestones and health checks. She's crawling, pulling herself to standing-- even standing for some seconds unaided, peek-a-booing, clapping her hands, pulling things out of drawers, making messes, eating everything, and today she's grown her 2 bottom teeth. Jane got some shots while we were there, too. She was very brave getting her pokes and did some good pilates prep, as seen below.

St Patricks Day

We went to the park to celebrate the warm weather and Shamrock day. I arranged a hunt for a pot o' gold...which the kids FOUND using the awesome shamrock clues I made. A bag of gold and some Irish head gear for all! Carolyn made green cookies, Kate and Jenny brought conversation, the kids were thrilled at the park, and I felt pretty Irishly lucky.

Tag

A friend of some friends started this tag:

TAG!!!! I challenge all who read this plea, to put down their craft projects, and t-ball trophies---just for a few hours, and let me see the human side of your lives. I'm not asking for a video account of you losing your temper after one of your 45 sons pees in the garbage can. Maybe just a picture of an unmade bed, or a mole with hair growing out of it. Just listen to your hearts on this one post, and then get back to business as usual.

Well said, Jodi! I mean, it made me laugh. So here's to life and its imperfections. Looking over my blog, I realized this won't be the first time I post in this nature (chicken pox, dumpster diving, etc) but why not one more? The other day I found Jane quietly chewing on this block of cheese because I hadn't fed her breakfast or lunch. (It was about 11 am). Horrible mother! I'm just glad she can open up the fridge and find something to sustain her sweet little life. Well done, Jane.

Old friends

These 3 gorgeous girls and I danced together in Fresno. I missed Rachel's and Carissa's weddings (the 2 on the right) and actually hadn't seen Carissa in like 6 or 7 years.... And we finally got together! We've only been 3 hours apart for the past year, but Adam and I decided to go to the Minneapolis temple and they were right on the way. We were pregnant at the same time with these 2:

And here are our 1st-borns:

I love this girl!

Girlie house

Sometimes Jane and I play dress-up, going-to-the-store, or talking-on-the-phone. Here are some of our props.

I guess I like to relive my glory days!

Vids of Jane

This video is from a while ago. I like it because it's fun to see how kids make animal sounds at this age, and also because she is so obedient when I tell her to scoot over. That doesn't always happen these days...

With the help of Leap Frog, Jane has been learning her abc's. My favorite things are her "lmnop" and "z." Whenever I sing to Jane I shake my head around on the long notes to keep things interesting and you can see that she has picked that up on "z." The "Yeah!" at the end is in keeping with a long tradition of Bennion-style singing. Thanks Mom and Dad.

I've got that lovin feeling

This morning Jane was the last one to wake up. As Audrey and I were cleaning dishes downstairs, I suddenly heard Jane's little getting-out-of-bed patter. I raced up the stairs to find Jane much sooner than I expected on the landing outside of her room rather than in it. She saw ME much sooner than she expected, too, which made us both thrill from the surprise of it and the joy of seeing each other. We couldn't help but laugh right out as we basically tackled each other and I listened to her excitedly tell me that she was awake! What a great start to our day together!

(It reminded me of a time that Adam and I bumped into each other in a very similar scenario in the RB at BYU--the exact kind of giddy anticipation as this morning was probably one of the first moments I knew I loved him. Remember that, Adam? We went and got apples down the road right after?)

Jane

When Jane wakes up in morning, before she even opens her door she usually puts on her shoes. She likes her white church shoes the best. Today she also brought her dress out so she could dance, and we just slipped it on over her Cinderella pajamas. It made me laugh (in delight) to see Jane embrace her femininity. So I took a picture. She insisted I get the bow in the back as well.

And here's a little static electricity worked up from the couch in the winter weather.

7 month Spotlight

I just love closeups of Audrey.
Audrey is scooting around--you know the army crawl?--and getting from room to room. One of her favorites is the bathroom where she tugs at the back of the toilet. Yep, I'll be keeping that door closed now.
Another favorite destination for Audrey is any trash can. Those plastic liners are so alluring.

I dreampt I went to church in my slippers. I didn't realize until the end of the 3rd hour. Mortifying!

Chicken Pox and a little fun

Porter got them from Samuel who got them from who knows where. Poor kid had them over Christmas. But lucky for us, we were there for his entire run and broke out a couple days after getting back to Milwaukee.
Audrey's were mostly on her head. All together she had about 85. We had 2 nights of restless sleep, but otherwise she was just a bit more clingy than usual.
Jane just had one on her chest for a few days, but ended up with 6. Even while Porter had the chicken pox she insisted that she had two "picka pox"...horizontal from each other and the exact same size...positioned on her chest a few inches down from her shoulders and more medial...and you can see them in this picture as well.
And now for that little bit of fun. Check out this person who walked into our office!










Just kidding! It was Adam and Jane!

Faces to go with the row of cups

Christmas in California

Christmas was wonderful! Everybody was home on the Bennion side, including the newest in-laws, Krissy and Ida. Cute place settings, Mom!

Well our Christmas was full of comforting traditions. A little backgammon...

A dozen artichokes...

Lots of family eating...

A couple hidden almonds in the tapioca...
And a long row of cups with our names on them.

Jane had her "comfort" belly button. She introduced her ring to it quite nicely.

Jane got lots of things to wear for Christmas. A tiara, sequin purse, tu-tu, shoes, boa, Princess pajamas, and the lovely ring. She's in heaven.

Now for this sweet little Audders: Doesn't she look sweet? Well, she is! But she is also very strong and very into chomping her little gums into everything that comes along. See how discombobulated my hair is? Audrey. See the bruise on my chin? Audrey's mouth. (Side note. See also the black pearl earrings? Adam!)

Here is Audrey's process in action:

I love how we are all just watching like it's a boxing ring. 5 bucks on Audrey! haha. Just kidding, I rescued Jane pretty fast.

Sunny Cali

Our stay in California was beautiful! Yes, it was rainy and a bit overcast some days, but we really had some lovely days as well. I took a few pictures of one of our walks. Jane is crying after Uncle Porter and Uncle Samuel because she wanted to ride a bike like they were. Isn't that truly the worst moment as a child--being left out? But Uncle Richard let her help walk Jens (their Cockapoo) and the world was sunny again (metaphorically speaking).

First time for everything

Hi there. So this is my first time contributing to my own blog. I think it's been running for about 8 months - but whose counting. Laura does a wonderful job posting cute pictures and eloquently writing about why we are "lovin livin." I sure do love her.

I've been somewhat busy as of late. I am actually too busy to make this a long blurb about how I would rather be oil painting, horseback riding, finishing my basement, starting my cedar wood strip canoe, buying a 4-plex, and buying an ice-cream franchise. Instead I just want to say thanks to my wife for doing a most amazing, selfless, and loving job raising our girls. Sometimes I feel like she is raising me :). The little ones are obviously cute and adorable, but that's because they got their mom's charm. The girls got all their good looks from me since Laura still has all of hers.

Thank you all for writing comments and keeping in touch. You make it all worth it!