Quote of the day

"Mommy, you're getting big."
-Audrey

Big Sister Tour

We had our sibling tour at the hospital this afternoon. There were several big sisters and brothers that got to learn about what Mommy is going to be doing at the hospital. Audrey had a lot of fun learning how to correctly hold a baby and how NOT to ever try to walk with the baby. She also got to see the room where the baby will be born and got to take a ride on the automatic bed. Audrey also got to look at the new babies in the nursery and then see where Mommy and baby will be for the rest of the hospital stay. It was a lot of fun, and as you can see Audrey got a lot of great accessories and now refers to herself ans "Dr. Audrey."

Learning to hold a baby

New Dr. hat

Trying out the automatic bed

Showing off the new loot

Weekend with Grandma and Papa

Grandma and Papa came to visit last Friday and we were all sad to see them go. They helped finish some things up with the nursery and entertain Audrey. I am not feeling very "bloggy" this week, so I'll let the pictures tell the story and keep this text short and sweet.

Baking with Grandma

Taste testing

Quality control on all ingredients requiredIt is exhausting being a princess!
Showing off the new outfit Grandma made
Cheesing for the camera
The new quilt Aunt Barb made for the nursery

Practice makes perfect

Audrey is of course obsessed with babies right now, and she finally found one to hold! This is baby Quinn, her good friend Rory's little sister. Look how excited she is to be holding a real, live baby! Great practice for the little brother.

Super Hero Man!

While we were snowed in today we decided to hit Build A Bear and use a gift certificate we got a while ago. Audrey decided to build a bunny for baby Ben. His given name (on his birth certificate) is Super Hero Man, but she has decided just to call him bunny. I think his super power is that his shoes fall off a lot and that the real super hero (Mommy) has to put them back on all the time.

Snow Day

The rumors were flying everywhere yesterday....2-6 inches of snow...100% chance. Low and behold our weatherman came on late last night and changed his story a bit. The story changed to a light dusting or maybe a few inches. Anyway, we got about a half an inch, which was enough to cancel school and of course, pre-school too. Audrey got out early before everything melted and turned into mud and played in the snow with the dogs. There was enough to appease her though, and she had a great time. Here are a few shots of Audrey with the dogs and the "winter advisory."

The boys

Audrey trying to scoop enough snow to do something with
Catching snowflakes on her tongue

30 Weeks

Here I am at 30 weeks. A side by side by side comparison shows that I am a little (a lot) bigger and carrying higher than I was with Audrey. Feeling great though and about to hit the home stretch.

30 Weeks pregnant with Baby Ben

29 Weeks pregnant with Audrey

Is that....

Hannah Montana? "No, it's me, Audrey." I don't think Audrey has ever seen the Hannah Montana show, or has a real clue who she is, but she sure like to wear the wig. Audrey loves the cards that play music at Hallmark and Target and there is always a Hannah Montana singing card that she picks up and will let it play as long as possible. Today Audrey was rockin' out HM style with her guitar and wig from Christmas.

"It's me, Audrey."

Work in progress...

Ok, so as promised here are a few pictures of the nursery. The bedding is Audrey's old stuff recovered by my mom. Kudos to Jeff for getting the chair rail up in a timely manor, and good luck to me getting the rest of the details together in the near future.

Bouncin' Ballerina

Well, she's actually going to gymnastics dressed like this, but she still says she is in her "balleting" outfit. I was trying to get a picture of her super-poofy-80's-perm-looking hair that was achieved via the blow dryer this morning. I blew it dry once last week and now it looks like I'll be doing it every day from now on- she loves it! If your not careful though, the curls will take over! But, Audrey would not sit still long enough, so we have bouncing pictures. Not too much going on this month so far. We are getting the nursery ready, and I should have some pictures of that later this week. Audrey is very excited and really, really wants to dress baby Ben up in his clothes. She has already practiced on all of her baby dolls. I can only imagine that she will literally smother him with love. Oh, and I'll try to slip in a new belly picture soon- after I attach my wide angle lens, that is.

Happy New Year

Happy new year to everyone! Our family spent New Year's day in the car for 10 hours on the way to Grandma and Papa's in FL. The weather was beautiful there and we had a great time playing outdoors, but most of all seeing our family. Audrey got to spend a lot of time with her cousins, Ana and Isabel and Tia and Uncle Eric too. Audrey had the thrill of opening a second round of Christmas gifts, going to the beach, fishing, and baking gingerbread people with Grandma.
I've got several picture to share, but will need to wait for Grandma to send me some of hers to share everything, but this post will get you off to a good start. I hope you all had a wonderful start to your year too!

Sittin' on the dock of the bay with Daddy

Checking out the fishing prospectsA kiss from Mommy

Apparently there was an unwritten rule that all Berry women must cut their hair in 2008.Sandy sweetheartPlaying in the sand with IsabelChasing the seagulls with AnaWalking on the beach with huge MommyHow do Grandmas do it?3 jealous girls all in one lap

Christmas Morning

We had a wonderful Christmas at home with just the 3.5 of us, plus 2 anxious dogs and a cat who could care less. Audrey woke up at 7:15 Christmas morning and said, "we need to go downstairs, I think there are more presents under the tree." She was so excited and produced all the oohs, aahs, and "oh boys" we could have hoped for. (It's on video but we have not gotten around to that yet). The big gifts this year were the Tinkerbell tent, the nursery care center and baby boy doll and the bookcase (who cares about that, right). Jeff and I and the puppies all opened our gifts and enjoyed ourselves as well. We had Christmas dinner that late afternoon, which was followed by red velvet Happy Birthday Jesus cupcakes. The best part (for Mom and Dad) was the morning after when a normally early riser woke up singing and went right into her playroom where she played contently with her new toys for 3 and a half hours. We slept in. Yes!

Making cookies for Santa

Quality control
The tree before Santa visited
Santa ate most of the cookies and the reindeer feasted on carrots
Cinderella in the Tinkerbell tent
Feeding her new baby
Trying on some of Great Grandma Mac's gifts
Hannah Montana wig from Yaya
Murphy is exhausted after playing with his new toy

High Five!

This morning while I was lying in bed Audrey had her hand on my belly and felt the baby kick. She said, "Mommy, baby Ben gave me a high five!" How cute. We also got to go to the Dr. today to see more pictures of the baby. Audrey was very excited, and of course we were too. The baby now weighs 2.5 pounds and is supposedly in the 65th percentile for size. Everything looks good. Here are some pictures from the visit.

Rain on my Parade

No rain today...that was ALL last week. However, that did not stop Audrey from going outside in her rain coat and new Little Pony umbrella ($1.50 special at the consignment store) and pretending it was raining. I told her it wasn't going to rain today and she seemed ok with pretending that it was raining. It is apparent that she changed her mind and decided that pretend rain just was not much fun to play in as real rain.

The face of disappointment.