God Bless Audrey Elizabeth Larson

Our baby girl was baptized on Sunday, February 19, 2012 at the 10:30am church service at our church, Shepherd of the Hill Lutheran Church in Lockport.

It was a wonderful service where both Audrey and another little boy were both baptized.  Audrey was such a good little girl.  She didn't even cry when the holy water was poured on her head.  

After she was baptized, Pastor Dealy and his assisting minister, Meredith, "introduced" Audrey to the congregation as the newest member of the church.  She looked so beautiful in her gown!     

Carl and I asked our good friends Cynda and Andy Marr to be Audrey's Godparents.   Cynda and I have been best friends since High School and we've experienced a lot together.  They are really important people in our lives, and it was an honor that they want to be so involved in Audrey's life.  Audrey is so lucky to have Cynda and Andy as her Godparents.  They care about her so much and are such great role models for her.  Even though they live in Springfield (about 2 1/2 hours South of us), I'm excited for our families to grow up together.     

Audrey's Godparents: Cynda and Andy Marr

Pastor Dealey

Grandma and Gramps Patton

Great Grandpa Hahn

Grandma and Grandpa Larson 

Aunt Amber & Aunt Ashley

We wanted to celebrate the occasion with our family and friends and have them all over to our house for a luncheon celebration.  

We had a lot of people travel in from out of town to be with us:  

• Audrey's Godparents, Cynda and Andy Marr and their son Colby (10 weeks old) came up from Springfield
• Cousins Kadie and Bella also came up from Springfield
• Cousins Keely, Matt, and Chloe traveled here from Indianapolis
• Aunt Faye and Uncle Jim and Grandpa Hahn came up from Decatur on Saturday
• And of course my parents (Grandma & Gramps Patton) and Ashley came up from Decatur/Forsyth on Saturday morning

It really was a beautiful celebration.  Grandma Patton is so creative and so talented and worked so hard planning for this party.  Isn't it just beautiful?  We cannot thank her enough for this amazing party!

We moved out the furniture so we could fit the tables and chairs

Beautiful fresh flowers decorated each table and the dessert table.
These containers are the same ones that we used for the pew decorations and
cocktail decorations at our wedding.  

The main feature was the dessert table.  Grandma Patton made the sign, all the
tissue pom poms, and the paper chain. Isn't it amazing?

Desserts: Cupcakes, White Chocolate Covered Pretzels, Jordan Almonds, Hershey Kisses,
Puppy Chow, Wint-o-Green Mints, M&M's,  Sugar Cookies in the shape of a Cross,
Iced Rice Krispie Treats, Pirouettes, Sugar Cookies shaped and decorated as Baptism Gowns,
White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake Squares (not pictured), and Cream Puffs dusted with powdered sugar (not pictured).

As soon as the church service as over, Amber and Ashley started cooking.  Here, they are making the pasta for the salads and the soups.  

We served homemade Portillo's Chopped Salad, Pasta e Fagioli, and La Gondola (Decatur, IL) sub sandwiches 

Grandma Patton and Aunt Amber

Gramps Patton, Great Grandpa Hahn, Ryan, Kadie Patton, Keely McClure

Keely with Audrey

Gramps Patton and Great Grandpa Hahn

Great Grandma & Great Grandpa Bockelmann, Aunt Janet, and Grandma Larson

The Larson's: Carl, Uncle Tom, Aunt Jeanie, Aunt Cheryl, Ross,
Uncle Ross, Aunt Keri, Jennifer, Jill, and Grandpa Larson

Aunt Faye with Audrey, Matt and Chloe McClure

Last picture... I have to post it.  Check out Audrey's bloomers!  She wore them under her baptism gown.  Love them!

The bloomers were a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Grider

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Carl's 31st birthday was on Saturday, February 18th!  Carl is such a special guy, the best husband and Dad that Audrey or I could ever ask for.  It was so fun getting to celebrate him on his birthday.  Here is a pic of Audrey and her Daddy on the morning of his birthday:

Audrey just loves her Daddy.  She laughs at him and is always smiling at him.  And whenever she gets fussy, Daddy can really soothe her by just holding her.  She really adores him!  And it really is a sight to see Carl playing guitar for her.  Sometimes she just watches him, studying his hands and his face and the guitar; other times she shouts out in excitement.  She is such a happy girl spending time with her Daddy.

Audrey wanted to give her Daddy a really special gift for his birthday:

Underneath Audrey's picture is a guitar pic that is engraved.
It reads, "You rock Daddy! Love, Audrey"

Carl go to spend his 31st birthday getting ready for Audrey's baptism.  Lucky him, right?  We really put him to work making him run errands and clean and move furniture.  But the cool thing is that we had a lot of family in town.  It was neat being able to have them over to celebrate his birthday.  On Saturday night, we had Grandma and Grandpa Larson (Carl & Joyce), Aunt Jennifer, Grandma & Gramps Patton (Tim & Donna), Aunt Amber, Aunt Ashley, (Great) Aunt Faye and Uncle Jim, and (Great) Grandpa Hahn over for Nancy's pizza and black forest birthday cake (at Carl's request of course).

Carl's birthday also marks the 1 year anniversary of when we found out that we were expecting a baby.  We had no idea then if our baby was a boy or girl and what he/she would be like.  It's an understatement to say that being Audrey's parents has really exceeded our expectations.  She is the best!  So fun and so beautiful and funny and happy.  We could have never imagined being so lucky to have Audrey as our daughter.

It's hard to believe that last year we were on a Metra Train Pub Crawl celebrating Carl's 30th birthday, and this year we were celebrating our daughter's Baptism.  What a difference a year makes!

Audrey is 4 months old!

Audrey turned 4 months old on February 15th.

We were scheduled to have her 4-month checkup with Dr. Tess on Thursday, 2/16, but Audrey was sick all that week with a bad cough.  So we rescheduled to today, 2/21/12.  Overall, she looks really good.  Dr. Tess was really pleased with her development, growth, and overall health.  She had to get 1 shot today.  Thank goodness it was only 1 shot... it was a combo with 3 shots in 1.  I held Audrey on my lap while the nurse gave her the shot in her right leg.  She took it like a champ!  No crying at all!

Weight:  12 lbs 15 oz (30th percentile)
Length:  25.5 in (75th percentile)
Clothes:  size 6 months (3-6 months)
Diaper: size 1-2 Huggies
Food:  Breastmilk with 1 feeding of rice cereal mixed with breastmilk at "dinnertime".
Sleep:  Audrey is sleeping through the night!

My Mom's friend, Mrs. Grider, gave Audrey this headband. Isn't it the cutest?!

I can't get enough of these leggings!

Audrey still continues to entertain us and make us laugh.  Her smiles are the best thing in the whole entire world.  Here is a recap of this month in pictures:

This is our "Snap Out of It" picture.  It makes me laugh so hard, and now anytime anyone needs a "snap out of it", this is what we email.  So funny!  We've joked that I should send this in to Ellen, but we need to come up with a good caption/back story first.  Suggestions welcome!

One early morning before daycare: 

Audrey loves her teachers at daycare (or "school" as we call it), Ms. Andresson, Ms. Craig, and Ms. Hill.  They are so nice and really enjoy Audrey.  When we get to daycare in the morning, Audrey looks up and just smiles at Ms. Andresson.  And in the afternoon either Ms. Craig or Ms. Hill will be watching her, and she just looks over and smiles at both of them, too.  That's reassuring to me.  I love seeing our little girl happy.  

Audrey is now sitting up with the help of pillows around her.

Audrey sitting up in her Boppy pillow

Audrey still loves sucking her thumb.  She loves bringing both of her hands together then bringing them to her mouth together to suck her thumb.  Now, she's interlocking her fingers a lot, too.    

Audrey taking a nap one morning.

Audrey loves to nap at daycare.  If she only naps for 2-3 hours on a given day, Carl and I joke that "we got our money's worth" that day.  Many days she naps from 9am-1 or 2pm... 4-5 hour straight without waking to even eat!  She's still sleeping through the night (for the most part), so we aren't concerned.

Audrey and Aunt Jennifer

I love this girl!  Look at that face. Seriously.

"Look! I want to wear bows in my hair when I play sports, just like my Auntie Amber does."

Seeing Audrey smile is the best thing in the whole world.  She has even started laughing a little bit, especially when Chief "speaks".  Love it!  And she really "coos" and makes a lot of sounds.  We have conversations sometimes where she will "razz"... like a wet gurgling sound that she makes.  Once she makes that noise, I will make it too.  We go back and forth.  I wonder what she's trying to say!

SuperBowl Sunday. Aunt Jennifer got Audrey this onesie, and ironically, this was the only outfit she didn't poop on that day.

Audrey now rolls over from her back to her stomach.  It's been about a week now that she's been able to do this, and it's really fun to see her playing on her activity mat.  The only problem is that now she's rolling all over the place in her crib.  She'll roll over to her stomach and start crying, not wanting to roll back over to her back.  As a result, naps at home have been a little more challenging. 

 

 

We started Audrey on rice cereal at "dinnertime" on 2/10/12.  Here is the video of her first taste of cereal.  It's runny, but it's cereal.  So cute!

We are just feeding the rice cereal once a day, but in about a week, we will add in another feeding.  By 5 months, Dr. Tess wants her to have 3 rice cereal feedings a day at standard mealtimes (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner).  Then at 6 months, we will start with baby food.  Oh boy!

Each day keeps getting more and more fun with Audrey!  We love our little girl!