Trick-or-Treat

We ventured out tonight for about forty minutes before becoming too cold to go on.  It's nice Audrey is so young that we are able to dictate when we head back. :)  Audrey dressed in her red crayon costume, and she did pretty well at each house.  We would say, "Trick or..." and she would always finish it with, "Treat!"  She said, "Thank you" at most houses, too.  She was very excited for her candy, and I'm sure she will demand a piece each day now.  Again, it's nice she's so young she doesn't notice how the candy dwindles quickly when some goes in the garbage! 

Audrey also really enjoyed having all the kids come to our house, too.  While we were eating, she would peek at the door and say, "Someone here."  She was accurate only about 50% of the time, so I was hopping up and down during the meal quite often for no reason.

We had so much fun watching her experience Halloween tonight.  It's amazing how quickly she is growing up.

Eating a sucker is serious business.

Pumpkins

Our Halloween week started off with Jeremy and Audrey working on pumpkins Monday night.  Audrey helped scoop out the pumpkins for about twenty minutes before losing interest, and I was only able to capture one picture of her helping.  Yes, you will notice she is wearing a garbage bag AGAIN!  Jeremy carved one pumpkin into a Mickey Mouse shape and one into a Minnie Mouse shape.  Audrey was very excited about them both!

She had to inspect the condition of the pumpkins tonight, on Halloween.  Things looked good!

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

To celebrate Grandpa Ihde's 60th birthday, we all traveled to Galena for part of the weekend.  Though Audrey was looking the most forward to visiting all the little shops there, she also did enjoy her time spent with family.  Happy Birthday, Grandpa!  We love you!

The house we stayed at for the night had a little playhouse and a swing set.  The only problem was that the playhouse was a little dirty.  Audrey did not like the dirt inside.

Grandpa reading Audrey a book about his secret obsession....CATS! :)

Audrey absolutely loved when Uncle Justin would throw her up in the air!  She kept saying, " 'Gin, 'gin."

"Wanna Go, Mama!"

After supper tonight, I was getting ready to go back to school for a meeting.  When I told Audrey I had a meeting at school, she said, "Wanna go, Mama!"  I said, "Where do you want to go?"  She said, "Wanna help kids at school."  What a sweetheart!

Children's Museum

Last weekend, Audrey and I drove down to Coralville to visit the Iowa Children's Museum.  We met a college friend of mine, Erica, and her daughter, Maddie, at the museum.  We had such a wonderful time!  There are so many neat exhibits, and I think Audrey will enjoy it even more as she gets a little older.  She was able to grocery shop, make pizzas, visit a hospital, play with puppets, make an art project, and many more fun things.  As we were telling Jeremy about it at supper that night, Audrey kept saying, "Wanna go back."  We'll have to sometime soon!

Audrey was sporting a ponytail for the occasion! 

This is Audrey driving an ambulance in the hospital exhibit.

Audrey and Maddie were co-piloting this plane.  It looks like Audrey is about to bail out!

Dance Moves

One night this week as we worked in Audrey's new room, Audrey showed off her dance moves to...AC/DC!  She seems to have a thing for rock. :)  It was too cute not to share!

Toddler Carrier?

It was time for our two cats to have their yearly check-up, so yesterday they went to the vet with Jeremy.  When he got home, he left the carrier out until he went back down to the basement.  We heard Audrey talking from the laundry room, so Jeremy went to see what she wanted.  When he got in there, I heard him say, "Where are you?"  What we found made us both laugh!  This may become a new trend for parents raising a toddler! :)

Giddyup!

Since it's cooled down, we've been bringing out the fall/winter pajamas.  When Audrey saw these horse pajamas we bought from a friend, her first response was to say, "Giddyup!"  When she was standing on the floor, she would say that and jump as high as she could, which is not that high!  I guess she has a little cowgirl in her.  It's too bad Aunt Courtney doesn't still have her cowgirl boots to share with Audrey!

This is Audrey looking down at her feet when preparing to jump.

Pumpkins!

In between raindrops this weekend, we drove to Scotch Grove, so that Audrey could pick out some pumpkins from Grandpa Paulsen's pumpkin patch.  She had so much fun looking at all the pumpkins and carrying around the little jacks.  After we had picked out the best ones in this patch, we drove over to Uncle Jason's patch to pick out a few more!  Now our front steps are lined with a bunch of pumpkins, and Audrey carries around one little jack inside the house.  Next comes carving in a couple of weeks!  If only we could convince Jeremy not to make Audrey wear a garbage sack this year...

 

 

Remember this?  Audrey looks so happy. :)

Cheerleader

Audrey participated in today's dress-up day for Homecoming.  It was Iowa vs. UNI vs. Iowa State, and you were supposed to wear apparel that matched your favorite team.  She normally bleeds purple and gold for UNI, but we had to get some use out of a used cheerleading outfit we were given.  Audrey was dressed for the Hawks and could be prompted to say, "Go Hawks!"  Like any good cheerleader, though, it was hard to get a picture because she was too busy to stand still! :)