Blogging Commitment

Lexi and I decided to make an agreement to blog more. Not for your entertainment, but more for ourselves. I love going back and re-reading my blogs and plan to have it printed annually, so I need to actually keep up with it if it I want that in the future. So our plan is to have a weekly blog date where we both sit down and blog on Sunday nights. Last night was the first night, and I missed it. I have no excuse. I was on the couch watching this new tv show that Josh and I are getting in to and I just completely forgot to blog. So here is the overdue blog of stuff we've been doing lately.

 I've been home now for about two months, and so far it is working out wonderfully! I feel rested, less stressed, calmer, and happier. Audrey seems to like having me home too. Every morning I cook our eggs and toast and we enjoy our milk and coffee together, and I love that I am able to take a nap with her in the afternoons sometimes. I love that our evenings are calmer - instead of rushing to get dinner on the table, clean up, get ready for the next day, baths, bed, and then fell asleep myself, we are now able to actually enjoy our nights together and have even had some movie nights in the living room! I know Josh is enjoying it too - we get time each night to spend together after Audrey goes to sleep and neither of us are exhausted anymore.

 Most of my day with Audrey is spent reading books (who is surprised) or outside. That is ALL she wants to do! For the most part, she'll only play by herself for a short while before she is running towards me with a book in hand. I've found some activities for us to do together aside from reading so that we can have variety day to day. I threw together some color boxes and we look over them together and talk about the colors. I thought she was too young for colors, but around the time I took her out of daycare, they were just introducing color games to the toddlers, so I guess she is the right age. I also used my laminator and made her a matching game with the book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear". I got the idea from a blog, and it has been a successful game with Audrey. It took a few times for her to figure out what I was asking her to do, but now she does it easily if I can keep her focused the whole time. She is getting really good at coloring now that her motor skills are getting stronger. We even had a milestone - crayon on the wall! It is right next to her coloring table, so I think her hand slipped and marked up the wall. Surely my sweet girl would never actually color on the wall. Or the toilet seat. Or the tile floor. No, not my Audrey.

 We've been so lucky this winter - so much sun and warmth and very little dreariness. I'm loving it because it means we can spend lots and lots of time outside. Audrey gets so restless in the afternoons (and I admit, I do too) so on nice days (pretty much every day lately) we put on our coats and go out in the yard. Amazingly, we already have some little yellow flowers blooming out there. She just finished taking a class at the Rec Center every Wednesday and right behind the rec center is a walking path. We checked it out last week for the first time and its very cool. We didn't get very far down the path, though, because Audrey wanted to stop and look at every log, leaf, and bug we saw! We've made friends with another mom and toddler in the class and have hung out with them once, so hopefully we will have some new playdates with them.

We went to Frying Pan Farm Park last week with some friends and got to see the new baby animals. The day was perfect outside and the kids were in just the right mood. Audrey saw the sheep and started 'baa'-ing and mooing at the cows. Although she doesn't say the names yet, she knows all the animal sounds and had so much fun pointing them out to me.

 We went back on Saturday with Joy and Ian and didn't spend as much time there, but still had lots of fun. We rode around the farm on the tractor and enjoyed some ice cream!

So now that I have Lexi to hold me accountable, I really am going to have to blog at least once a week! I want to do this for myself, anyways, and with Audrey getting bigger and smarter every day, I'm sure I won't have any trouble finding something to write about. So I'll be back here next Sunday night to write more! Maybe, if I am *really* responsible with my time I'll write before then.