Oh, no! She's starting to dress herself!

I knew the day would come when Aubrey would want to dress herself, but I didn't know it would come so soon. She definitely does not know how to dress for the weather. When it's 90 degrees outside, she will come out with a sweater on. When it's 50 degrees outside, she will put on shorts and a short-sleeved shirt! Here are just a few pictures of her idea of dressing herself...and accessorizing!



Now, she did let me dress her here, buts she added her own touch with the hat, bunny face, necklaces and the oragnge ribbon is supposed to be her belt!

Here, Aubrey has on her new Hello Kitty rain boots, shorts (and there's a short-sleeved shirt on under her coat) and her coat. According to Aubrey, she "matches" because it's all pink!

Alexandra Crawling!

Alexandra is crawling at 6 and a half months old! Wow! She's beating Aubrey's time by a whole month! Her poor little knees are already red! I think I may have to invest is some knee pads for her.

As of now, she can't make it all the way across a room in one try, but she will take a tummy break and then she's up and going again! Look out, Aubrey and Anna, because she's going to be close behind you!

Communication is a Great Thing!

It's such a great feeling when I say something to Anna now and actually get a response I can understand! She's just now starting to say a few words, but she understands most everything that is said to her and she will nod or shake her head in response to a questions.

Why is it that kids always learn how to say "no" before they can say "yes?" She definitely has the word "no" in her growing vocabulary along with some other favorites: please, thank you, bye, daddy, mama, yaya and cup. She will say most anything you ask her to say, but most of the time it doesn't sound anything like the word.

She still likes to point and whimper to get things and sometimes, I just have to guess what she's wanting. Today, she was pointing to the refrigerator while we were eating lunch. She still had some of her sandwich and chips on her plate and her cup was in reach, so I had no idea what she wanted. She kept looking at my plate and the only think on my plate that she didn't have was ketchup. I asked her if she wanted ketchup and she immediately started nodding her head. She LOVED dipping her potato chips in her ketchup....just like her mama! I asked Aubrey if she wanted any ketchup for her chips and she politely replied, "No, thanks!"

Happy New Year - 2010

We had a great New Year spent with my parents! My mom and dad arrived in Jacksonville on New Year's eve along with all of their Christmas presents for our family and all the food we needed for our New Year's traditional lunch! Since we are on a every other year rotation with spending Christmas with my parents and Danny's mom, we had not had Christmas with my parents. They are always so good to our girls...and to Danny and me.

Of course, the girls were excited that MeMe and Poppy were visiting, but having another Christmas was just great to them!

My dad is showing Anna how one of her new toys works.

I hope Aubrey will always love getting clothes!!!

Alexandra likes her new toy! Poor thing only got one new toy from Santa this year. Thank goodness for MeMe and Poppy!

Anna and MeMe. Anna is sporting the new coat MeMe and Poppy got for her and Aubrey! They are super cute!

Poppy and Alexandra

Alexandra is out! This is how she fell asleep as they were watching their new Dr. Seuss DVD!

How did that band aid get on your lip?

So when Aubrey cam walking out of her bedroom this morning, she was sporting a big ole band-aid on her lip that definitely was not there when I put her to be last night. I couldn't help myself laughing at the sight of her and upon further questioning this is what happened: at some point during the night, Aubrey came in and woke Danny up because she needed to pee pee. After using the bathroom, she started crying that she had a scratch on her lip. Of course, Danny told her it was fine and to go to sleep, but Aubrey does not calm down that well. In his exhausted state and quick thinking of "what can i do to stop her from crying and get her back to sleep and quickly as possible" he thought a band-aid might help the situation...and he was right! Once the band-aid was secured to her lip, she promptly went back to sleep!

I still laugh every time I look at this picture! Oh, and the scratch, well, it was so small you could barely see it! Typical Aubrey!!!

Merry Christmas 2009

We had a fabulous Christmas this year! It's getting so much fun because Aubrey really understood things better this year...and not just Santa Claus. It was great talking to her about Jesus being born and what a nativity is. She had her own Little People nativity in her room this year and she just loved it. Don't get me wrong, she loved Santa Claus too, but what kid wouldn't love a mysterious man that's bringing her gifts in the middle of the night!

Aubrey actually sat on Santa's lap this year for the first time (well, the first time without crying). Anna was not so willing, so our Santa picture has me in it again this year holding Anna. She wasn't about to sit on Santa's lap! Alexandra did ok. I thought she might decide to flex her lungs, but she was more curious than anything.

We enjoyed Christmas Eve services at church and all three girls got to go into big church. They did good, but I was thankful YaYa and Tom were there to help out!

Our family before Christmas Eve services.

Once we got home from church, we enjoyed a nice lasagna dinner thanks to YaYa and cooked our cookies for Santa.

The girls had a blast on Christmas morning. We only opened one present at a time and played with each toy before opening the next. I love this age when any present at all excites Aubrey! I hope she will always have this appreciation for gifts given to her no matter how big or small.

Santa came to see the Britt girls!

The first thing the girls did was play with the piano that Santa brought. Santa actually got this piano free from a friend of Aunt Serena's!

Aubrey loves her Little Mermaid! She literally plays with Ariel everyday. In the bathtub and out of the bathtub. I think this Ariel has the cleanest hair ever because Aubrey is constantly wanting to wash her hair!

Santa also brought the girls a bean bag to sit on while they watch movies in their playroom. I'm not really sure what kind of look Anna's has going on in this picture!


Rock star Aubrey!

And she's a singer too!


Anna loved the stroller Santa brought her. She literally pushed it around for 30 minutes or so before opening another present!

This reaction was over a princess night gown. After she opened it she screamed, "It's one just like Lydia's!"

Anna likes her new vacuum! I'm thinking Santa should have brought her a real vacuum so she could really help mommy out!


Aubrey decided to try out all of her new toys at once. She's definitely going to be a musician. she can play the piano, guitar, sing and talk on the phone all at one time!

For the past couple of Christmas', we've (Danny) has had a project for the girls playroom. Last year he built their playhouse bookshelf and this year he built a tree for the playroom. All imitations of Pottery Barn, but larger and cheaper!!!

The girls had a good time helping Daddy get ready for the tree project!

The girls always LOVE playing in the garage when Daddy is out there working!

Tada! Here's the new tree Daddy built for the playroom! Notice Aubrey's new princess nightgown that she wears EVERY night!

The playroom bookshelf and tree. We are so blessed to have a Daddy that is handy with a saw and hammer and can make us so many wonderful things! Now only if he had more time....

Pennington Christmas

Christmas in Atlanta

We visited the Wailes this year for Christmas. It was a quick trip, but we were thankful to get to spend a little bit of time with them over the holidays. My girls love seeing their cousins!

We also spent the day with the the Britts/Vickerys while in Atlanta. We had not seen Danny's extended family for Christmas in a couple of years since I was pregnant last Christmas and I wasn't able to travel as much. It's always so nice to get to visit with everyone!

Here's a group picture of the Britts and Vickerys

The Nutcracker

YaYa took Aubrey and me to see the Nutcracker. This was Aubrey's first time going to a "ballet" and she did awesome. I was shocked that she sat through the whole 2 hours ballet. She was mesmerized by the dancing ballerinas and especially when the snow started falling. I think we have definitely started a new tradition on seeing the Nutcracker at Christmas.Aubrey was so excited about going to see the "Crackernut", as she called it! She thought she was such a big girl...and she was!

Mr. Elf

Mr. Elf is back with us again this year. After only a few days, he arrived with a letter for Aubrey. He was not at all pleased with the way she was treating her sister and not cleaning her room. I think his letter had somewhat of an effect on her...at least for a day or so!

Mr. Elf also landed in some interesting places this year including the cookie jar in the pantry and he had a run-in with the toilet tissue in the bathroom!

Child Labor

So while we were at my mom and dad's for Thankgiving, Aubrey discovered their small kitchen vacuum, so naturally when we get home, she wants to vacumm here as well. Well, have at it kids!

Let's hope they continue loving the chore of cleaning! They sure our having fun with it now!

Happy Thanksgiving

The girls and I got to spend a whole week in Dooly County for Thanksgiving. We left on Monday before Thanksgiving (timing our trip around nap times so I could manage all three of them in the car by myself) and returned to Jacksonville on Sunday. It was great to spend so much time at my parents house, being with them and realxing. I love that I don't have to pop out of bed right when the first one wakes in the mornings. My mom is so great to take care of them and to let me sleep in!

We made our first "Thankful Tree" and presented it to my mom. Hopefully this will become a new tradition for our family at Thanksgiving. I had to direct some of Aubrey's thankful thinking. At this age, she is most thankful for her bed, her toys, her playroom, etc!

We got to celebrate Hope's birthday with her! With us living in Jacksonville, we don't get to share a lot of my high school girlfriend's children's birthdays, so I was especially glad that we were in Dooly County during Hope's birthday. The girls had a great time playing with the wonderful animals at the Hayes house and I loved visiting with Heidi and Casey.

The birthday girl, Hope Hayes!

I was very surprised that Aubrey was not scared of the horse. Normally she is very wary of large animals, but she even rode the horse at Hope's birthday party!

My mom and Alexandra

Anna and Hampton having fun on the trampoline. This was the first time Anna had ever been on a trampoline. At first she just stood there, but it didn't take her long to figure it out.

The girls always have so much fun playing outside at MeMe and Poppy's.

Aubrey has become very brave while on the swing at the pond. Danny was pushing her as high as he could and she was loving it. I was about to have heart failure!