The Dotsons

It is so hard to believe that this sweet girl has already been a part of our family for a whole year!  She really is the sweetest thing!

Whew!  Where is this summer going?!  I am a terrible blogger!  Aubrey is now closer to being 12 months than 11 months, so I figured I'd better get this post up.  Hmm...let me see what I can remember.  The days and months tend to blur together.

* First ear infection (left ear) diagnosed 6/1....also first conjunctivitis (right eye)!

* Started saying "ga" and "da" around 6/5.  (she also says "na")

* Her new thing is raising both arms in the air and then slamming them down in front of her while shouting "ga!"   She also loves to slam her hands down on her high chair tray.  She thinks that is hilarious.

* She managed to squirm herself in a forward motion about an inch on 6/6.  Then on 6/16, she moved forward several feet for the first time!  So she is officially army crawling!  It is the strangest army crawl I've ever seen, too.  She rocks and rolls side to side to gain momentum while attempting to push off her back legs.  She is slowly getting a little faster at it.

* She is finally rolling around a lot when on the floor.  I can't believe how long it took her to really get her roll on!

* She got her 6th tooth (top right lateral incisor).

* She is still in 9 month clothes, but should soon move to 12 months...mostly for length.  Still in a size 3 diaper for both day and night (4's are just too big and she leaks out of them at night...that is a no-go!).

* She got a snotty/congested nose a couple weeks ago and for some reason while she was sick, she decided she would start taking her bottles again!  So odd that she would do that while sick.  I am not complaining though.  It is much easier to just give her a bottle than to have to mix up baby cereal + formula and get her set up to spoon feed her so many times a day just to get the formula in her.

* So since she's back to taking bottles, she takes 3-4 ounces per bottle (still not stellar, but better than nothing) 4 to 5 times a day.  Most days, I do not get her up to feed her after she's gone to sleep anymore.  Some days I will if she for some reason didn't drink enough that day.  Praise the Lord that she got back on track with the bottles...an answered prayer for sure!

* I finally started giving her table foods.  I probably should have a month or two ago, but I just never did.  She LOVES cinnamon swirl bread the most, I think.  She will eat an entire piece.  She also loves toast and will eat an entire piece of that too.  She must get the love of carbs from her mama!!  She also likes scrambled eggs, shredded cheese, cheerios, and banana pieces.  We tried mac n cheese and I think she liked it ok...it was just difficult for her to pick up.  I also gave her some ground beef and she seemed to like it, although it is a little difficult for her to chew up.  She works on the same little piece for a while before swallowing it!

* She still goes to bed between 7:30-8pm and sleeps until 7-8am.  She usually wakes up around 7am, and on occasion, she will wake up in the 6 o'clock hour.  Half the time, I really don't know when exactly she wakes up because she is so quiet.  She always wakes up happy and she will turn her mobile on and just watch it.  She does talk some, but not so loud that it immediately wakes me up (although I keep the monitor turned up fairly high).  Rhett says he usually hears her when he's up and in the kitchen at 7am.  Actually, sometimes I think she wakes up and then goes back to sleep after a bit because I don't go get her immediately.  She is so patient and chill in the mornings.  What a blessing for this non-morning person!!

* She's down to 2 naps a day instead of 3.  Her morning nap is usually from 9:30-11 or 11:30am and her afternoon nap is from 1 or 1:30 to 3 or 3:30pm.  She always fusses when she realizes that it's time to lay down (her clue is me getting the sleep sack ready and turning on her noise maker).  However, I just put her down and she is asleep within 10 minutes (usually)...sometimes almost immediately.  She really loves her mobile, so I've started just laying her under it and she will turn it on herself and watch it for a while before going to sleep.

* As I already said, she LOVES her mobile in her crib.  Caleb loved it too so we have definitely gotten our money's worth out of this thing!  She knows how to turn it on with her hands, but she actually prefers to kick it on with her feet, LOL.  She is always kicking her feet!

* She is probably the only 11-month-old in existence who is still sleeping at the highest level in the crib.  We have not had to lower it yet (because she's barely mobile and she for sure does not even attempt to pull up). Crazy!

* One of my favorite sounds is Aubrey laughing at Caleb in the backseat.  He has started trying to make her laugh by acting goofy and fake laughing and it cracks me up.  I think she laughs the hardest for him.

* She LOVES to read!  She loves being read to and she also loves just looking at books and babbling.

* She loves Tag and giggles at him for no apparent reason.  Caleb also favored Tag when he was a baby.  I don't know what it is about Tag that the babies love.

* Some things that haven't changed......still a thumb sucker (right thumb), still terrified of people, still a mama's girl!

We started the month with being attacked by mosquitos!  They have been terrible this spring/summer!!  (you can see all the bites on her face, arms and legs)

Then a day later, I started noticing that she was getting some little dark circles/bags under her eyes.  I didn't think much of it at first but after a couple days, her eyes started oozing gunk.  I took her to the doctor and turns out she had conjunctivitis AND her first ear infection.  Poor girl!

She loves chomping down on my phone case.  It is now covered in teeth marks.  It's probably pretty germy, now that I think about it.  Maybe I shouldn't let her chew on it, ha!

6/9 - first time swinging outside

One thing's for sure - she did much better than Caleb did his first time swinging.  He hated it for a while.

Aubrey loves watching the pups.  She giggles at them.  Roux lays next to her a lot so she got to  "pet" her.....or  grab her leg, rather.

"crawling"  (sorta)

happy girl kicking her legs (one of her favorite activities)

I left the room for a bit and then heard her slapping the wood floor.  I  checked in on her and she'd  managed to escape Caleb's room!

first time trying mac n cheese.  I think she liked it ok, but it was too hard for her to pick up.

She LOVES books and will get after any you put in her path.

She does this all the time....like she's doing sit ups.  If only she'd just learn to sit  herself up...

eating shredded cheese for the first time

she loves it!

see, told you she loves it!  (this is another day)

and what her lap looks like after eating cheese - a total mess!  I finally got smart and bought one of those bibs that catches food and it's so much better!

This might be one of my favorite pictures!  Aubrey reading with Daddy!

look at that happy face!

this is what happens while taking bear pictures now!

and this too....   "Wait, what is this on my head?!"

"a bow?"

"I am NOT wearing this thing!"

"....ever again!"

Happy July 4th!  We had a busy day today.  Rhett was home and that just felt weird since it's Wednesday.  I kept thinking it was Saturday!

This morning, Rhett went over to a neighbor's house to help him install a ceiling fan.  He took Caleb with him and he played with their kids who are 6 and 2.5.  Caleb had a blast but I don't think Rhett did...took them about 3 hours to get this ceiling fan installed.  Normally it would only take maybe 45 minutes to an hour, but they ran into some problems.  Aubrey and I stayed home and while she napped, I finished up the last of the wallpaper removal in our master bath.  We are knee deep in updating our master bath - oh my!  It has been......probably the worst home project we've done.  All I have to say is WALLPAPER.  Have you ever tried tearing that stuff down?  and then re-texturing the walls?  It is not fun....but that is another post entirely!

Anyway, Mark and Megan came over (Rhett's sister and her hubby) and while Megan studied for midterms, Mark helped Rhett work on the crown moulding in the master bath.  Well, we thought we were going to do crown moulding, but it did not work out.  After they worked on it for several hours, they gave up because we have some really crazy wall and ceiling angles in the bathroom.  It would have taken FOREVER to do it right and even then, there would have been some sketchy areas.  Rhett decided it wasn't worth it and so we scrapped that.  Then they had to remove what they had gotten up and in the process, parts of the wall (that we had just finished re-texturing) got damaged....so then Rhett had to repair those areas, wait for that to dry well enough, and then re-texture again.  Oh man, it is a process!  We are hoping to put the first coat of paint on tomorrow night.  I will try to do a post on the update when we're done!

So other than that, I did not get too much done because my little lady gets her diaper in a bunch when "strangers" (aka, anyone other than mama, daddy or Caleb) come over.  She gets so needy and just wants me to hold her or sit right next to her if anyone is over.  She has the worst stranger anxiety EVER...and yes, to her, family members are strangers, ha!  I really hope she gets over this soon!  I tried to take a picture of her to use for her birthday invitations (so behind on planning that!!), but that wasn't the easiest task to do alone.  Plus, it was HOT outside and she was a little iffy about sitting in the grass.  In the end, I got one that is good enough to use but not exactly what I had in mind.  Oh well.  I also wanted to take pics of the kiddos in their red, white and blue!  HAHA!!  Try taking pics of a fussy, hot little girl and a wiggly little boy.  Not easy.  Needless to say, I would not make a good photographer....at least not for babies and children.  I do not have the patience.

We grilled burgers and hotdogs for dinner, then Megan and Mark went home.  By that time, it was bath and bedtime for the kids.  We got Aubrey in bed and then I went out to the garage to paint bathroom cabinet doors.  It sounded like WWIII outside with all the fireworks.  Kinda was wishing we had a burn ban this year, ha!  I used to love doing fireworks but now that we have little ones, I am not crazy about them because they are loud and happen after bedtime!  But I will say, we have two kids who seem to be able to sleep through them!  Anyway, Rhett put Caleb down and then came outside to see the fireworks.  We decided to get Caleb back up so he could see them too (he'd only been down for a few minutes).  We walked across the street to a neighbor's yard and watched from there.  Caleb loved it and kept shouting "wow!" and pointing out the "big ones" when he would see them.  The neighbor's daughter did some small ones in the street and he liked those too.  He also got to hold a sparkler for the first time and loved that.  I did not get any pics but wish I had.  He had fun!  Around 10pm, he said he wanted to go to sleep.....um yes, that is a sign that my child is beyond tired because he never wants to go to sleep at night!  (he did not nap today, so he was extra tired).

So anyway, we had a busy work day but ended with some all American fun!  Maybe next year, Aubrey can watch the fireworks too!

Here are the few pics I got of the kids in their patriotic colors.  Aubrey was infatuated with her dress and picking grass...oh and playing with her hairbow that she pulled off!  She was not interested in looking at the camera.

The only one I got where they were both looking in the general direction of the camera!

Caleb being a goober!

She did NOT want to wear her bow!

This started out sweet......

.....and ended in tears.  That little one is a drama queen!

"Mom, I told you I do not want to wear this bow!"

love those squishy cheeks!

what a sweetie!

look at those eye lashes

and two little teeth

and her very slow-growing hair!  :-)

my sweet boy!  (if only he was as innocent as he looks...)

why do little boys have such pretty eye lashes!?  I am jealous.