Happy 1st Birthday, Jake!

Oh glorious day! I figured out what my picture posting problem was!!!! So now you get pictures! Which means I have a lot to catch up on :)

Happy Birthday little stinker! I can't believe my baby is one!!!! He is such a big boy now! He is walking, climbing, signing and developing quite the personality. I'm calling his official walk date 6/13, just a few days before his birthday. But he has made serious progress in the last 2 weeks. He walks laps around the kitchen, chasing his balls. Balls are probably his favorite toy. But he still loves things that light up and make sound too. He climbs on everything and is seriously Evil Kinevil (how do you spell that?). I have to watch him constantly because the second I turn my back he is climbing on something he should be. He signs "all done," and he uses the sign for "milk" when he wants something - but not necessarily milk. He has started clapping for "more." He claps, waves hi and bye, and does "hooray" in songs and he is starting to get really good at imitating things I do. And things his sister does. Which isn't always a good thing... He is super fun, but super opinionated and he is not fun to take shopping. It is so awesome watching him grow and this is such a fun age because I feel like he changes every day.

We celebrated his birthday in style :) Nautical theme/beach theme. I liked the anchors and the little crabs and then the navy/lime green together so I just kind of combined everything. I got some cute ideas off pinterest but I had a few original ones too. My favorite was the donuts - I wrapped fruit roll-up around them to look like life rafts. I tied lifesavers to lots of things, made deviled egg "sailboats" and a sand castle out of brown sugar. It was fun to plan.

Summer Already?

Wow, I can't believe it is summer already and my baby is almost a year old! Where does the time go? Well it is full blown HOT here. I keep thinking that it's "too early" in the year for it to be hot because I have been thinking that since February, but now it's almost June. Now it's supposed to be hot. But I will say the evenings have still been pretty nice.


I am still having major fights with my computer - it needs to be reinstalled but I just haven't taken the time to do it. I can't get any pics to post. Sorry - I know that's the whole reason anyone looks at this in the first place. But I am back on facebook so maybe I will put a few up there...


Lots to report since February. Wow. I'm really just going to hit on the major things:


Jake:
-Crawling 3/30 (9.5 months) Pulling himself up on things a week later. I seriously thought he was never going to move, but one day he just decided, "let's do this." He had spent the night at my parents and when my mom went to get him in the morning he was sitting up in the crib (first time ever) and that night he decided to crawl.
-Between 10-11 months it seemed like he really formed a personality. He is changing a lot every day and that seemed to really start when he began crawling.
-Taking steps. Started around 10mos. This week he walked across Aurora's room (I counted 16 steps). I still wouldn't say he's walking though. He won't just stand up in the middle of the floor yet - he still always pulls up on something. Seems like he should be walking soon though. He walks holding on to one hand and he pushes everything across the floor (chairs, toys, etc.)
-Such a climber! Crawls into the bathtub, on step-stools, into cabinets, stands up on chairs - if he can reach it he's on it. Very dangerous!
-Loves toys that make music and balls
-Favorite place to play is Aurora's play kitchen
-Still VERY attached to mommy
-Teeth! Bottom 2 middle 3/13 (9 months). 3 more on 5/14 (11 months) the top on either side of the middle and the bottom on the left side of the middle. Looks like the one on the right is not far behind.
-Loves food. Has gotten less picky which is good. He went through a phase for a little bit where he was very opinionated, but now as long as it's not spicy he will eat it. The slightest spice sets him off screaming.
-Aurora is still his favorite person. He loves any attention from her, even negative attention. The other day she was playing a game on the iPad while he was taking a bath and he just started doing short screams. Every time he did she would yell at him and he would laugh and keep doing it. Finally she left and he got the biggest smile and did a little bounce thing - you could tell he was very proud of himself.
-He grabs toys out of Aurora's hands and will not let go when she tries to take them. If she doesn't let go he reaches up and pulls her hair. He does not let her push him around.  
-Music makes him dance - he shakes his head back and forth and wiggles some :)


Aurora:


-Still says "laster-day" (any day before today)
-Loves movies and pretending. She wants to be whoever it was that she just watched.
-Wants to be chased constantly. Jake has always enjoyed being held while we chase her but yesterday he was "running" while he held my hands and he started squealing every time we got near her and would change directions - like he wanted to be chased. Hilarious.
-Likes girls - doesn't want to play with boys right now. The one exception to that is a little boy named Dexter - one of my friend's sons. He is 5, wears glasses and is adorable. All the little boys we know are adorable but I think Aurora may have a little crush on him :)
-Started napping again - half the time. She gave up naps in November-ish but in the past month has been getting up so early (thank you, Jake) that she just can't go the whole day. So about every other day she has been napping.
-Still very into princesses, pretty shoes, dresses
-Likes pink and purple because they are "girl colors"
-Wants to help with EVERYTHING. She is baking, cleaning, crafting - you name it. She did all the gluing for Jake's birthday invites. She has a chore chart now and her room is always clean (I am constantly told "Don't let Jake mess it up!!!!!!")
-LOVES singing. Favorite song right now - Carly Rae Jepson "Good Time." I am told to turn it on and turn it up every time we get in the car
-Wants to play with whatever toy Jake is playing with
-Wants to be a "rock star" when she grows up. Oh, boy... She asked me if she could be. I gave her that "you can be whatever you want to be" line. Seemed to be good for now.
-Starting pre-school in August :(


We've been up to some fun stuff - we took a trip to CA in March for my nephew Isaac's 1st birthday and did Disney and the beach with the kids. Nick didn't come with us and that was a little hard, but the rest of my family was there to help. The kids LOVED the beach. Aurora was freezing but she just wanted to stay in the water. We are hoping to make a trip to the beach this summer and plan to go to the lake. They just LOVE water. But Jake was actually more into the sand - I set him down in it and he just dove in and kept digging and playing with it - and never tried to put it in his mouth which was surprising.


Easter was fun this year - lots of egg hunting and Aurora loved dying the eggs. We accidentally left them out after we dyed them so we smashed them - threw them around - since we couldn't eat them and I think that was even more fun than coloring them. We may have a new tradition.


We've been hanging out at home, swimming at my parents, doing the zoo, the gym, the library - the usual. Anything to keep busy. Days are long when we don't go somewhere and Jake is in that "get into everything" mode right now so he spends a lot of time screaming at me when I say "no." Like he will sit on the floor, put his head to the floor (like fold in half), take a deep breath, and scream like the world is going to end. VERY dramatic.


That's the update for now. At least now I have it documented for later. Even though I know I have missed so much :(

6, 7, 8...

Wow, such a blur! Time is flying and I am trying to keep up with it but it gets away from me. I say this every year and it is never more true - September hits and life gets crazy. Although it seemed that this year June hit, Jake was born, and life got crazy. This was all compounded by Aurora giving up naps for good in November/December, her birthday in January, and me over committing to things. I have a little bit of calm before the next storm so now I am trying to catch up. I am way behind on a lot of posts. Believe it or not I've actually started several and just never finished... So I'm hoping to get one out right after another this week, but I'm having some issues posting pictures, so we will see. And we will see how chronologically in order they are...


So starting with the kids and updates. Jake is now 8 months! He is such a big kid already! He started sitting up about 2 weeks before his 6 month birthday and loves playing like that as long as mommy is not around. He is such a momma's boy and constantly wants to be held. He definitely recognizes the word "mama" and he does say it when someone else is holding him and he's reaching for me. Not sure if I'm going to call it his first word yet, but it's pretty consistently the only time he makes those sounds, so it seems like he knows what it means. He is such a talker too! He is constantly talking to his toys and to Aurora. He still loves Aurora to pieces. She can be yelling at him and he giggles at her. He is such a little giggler. LOVE IT!

Jake has 2 teeth! And it looks like more are on the way. The left front bottom tooth (sorry - don't know technical terms) came in 12/27 and the right just a few days later on 1/3. I joked that he was so close to getting his 2 front teeth for Christmas.

Jake is rolling around like crazy. He is not crawling yet and I think it will probably be at least another month. He gets up on his hands and knees and scoots backwards, but that's it so far. He will take steps when we hold his hands, but it's only when he's trying to get to me :) It doesn't seem like he enjoys it.

Jake is actually a super happy baby now. The first 5-6 months he was pretty temperamental, but now he is all smiles. He still throws fits and I think he might be even more strong willed than Aurora, but he's mostly happy. I think a lot of that may have to do with the fact that he is FINALLY sleeping decently. But that has only happened in the last 3-4 weeks. He was hard to figure out and I can't say what one thing we did to finally get him on a schedule, but it was a lot of hard work and trying to be consistent and I think now he is a reasonable sleeper. He seems to be converting to one nap pretty quickly - probably a  result of our crazy schedule. I'm not complaining though. One long nap is much easier to plan for.


He LOVES food and eats everything. Except peas. He seriously gags on peas. Everything else goes straight in the mouth and he gets very excited about food. He is eating all the baby solids. Pears seem to be his favorite along with the chicken/apples combo. But he is a pretty good eater no matter what. He eats at least 3 stage 2 foods a day, sometimes more. He loves snacking on crackers, toast, cheerios, puffs, and celery (weirdo). He just really loves food. LOVES food. He is so my kid.

Aurora on the other hand... while extremely passionate about food she has a definite preference and is extremely picky. Mealtimes are a battle and I am very done. 3 times a day fighting her to eat something healthy is exhausting. All she wants to eat is ice cream, brownies, cake pops, chips, and spongebob mac and cheese. And toast. I can at least get her to eat whole grain toast. But if its a fruit or a vegetable it's like pulling teeth. It's terrible. I really don't enjoy meal times with her. She will sit there for an hour and whine at me and not touch her food. I have to give her the fruit first and not let her have anything else until she eats it. And it takes forever. The pediatrician gave me a flier for a support group for parents of picky eaters.... Tempted to go and see if they have any ideas. I feel like I've tried everything! I hide the fruits and veggies and she still finds them in things. She won't eat it if she doesn't like the way it looks and she won't give anything a chance. She puts it in her mouth and then gags on it and throws up. I'm totally not exaggerating. It's terrible. Hopefully something she will out grow... At least she is growing and "healthy" according to the doctor. She had her 3 year check up a few weeks ago and she is now 30lbs and 37." Apparently very average so I guess that's good. She looks healthy to me and seems to have more than enough energy, so I'm not worried, its just frustrating to fight her on it every time she eats.

Aurora is so hard to get a picture of. She likes making silly faces :( And half the time the pictures are a total blur.

4 Months, 5 Months, Almost 6!

Time for some updates and pictures!!!! Yay! I feel bad that it has been so long. I apologize too to anyone that was looking for pics on facebook and such - I recently decided to deactivate my account. I just decided it wasn't right for me. Nothing happened or anything. I was just done with it. So now I am sticking with the blog. I figure that anyone that cares reads the blog anyway :)

Jake is almost 6 months old!!!! But I feel that I need to post some 4/5 month pics since I missed those:

4 months

 

5 months

He is growing so fast I can't believe it. At his 4 month appointment I was surprised to find out he is not the chunker I thought he was. He was 14lb, 10 oz: 43%. And 25.3": 60%.

We started him on solids at 4 months because he was not sleeping through the night and we were hoping to fix that. It didn't fix it right away, but more on sleep issues later :) He initially loved rice cereal and oatmeal, but not that he has experienced fruit he spits out the cereal. I didn't think it was possible - be he is pickier than Aurora - she ate everything at that age. He has preferences already. So far he likes every fruit he has tried. He likes squash OK, sweet potatoes, and carrots. HATES peas. I should video him with those - you'd think I was doing something terrible to him :)

Jake talks SO much. He is also a super giggly baby. He thinks Aurora is hilarious - even when she is yelling at him. He LOVES LOVES LOVES Aurora. He is happiest when she is paying attention to him and just watches her every move. She has started to like him more. She actually has wanted to hold him recently and make him laugh. Glad to see things are going the right direction. I was worried for a while.

He is starting to try to sit up by himself. He can do it briefly, but he's not there yet. He is rolling both directions (tummy to back 10/3, 3.5mos. and back to tummy 11/27, 5mos.) The tummy to back was causing some issues for a while. He has always been a tummy sleeper, but once he learned to roll over he would roll himself over in the middle of the night and get super mad about it. It resulted in at least 1 waking in the middle of the night, most times 3-4 and a lot of times he wouldn't go back to sleep. I was really frustrated because I felt like I had done everything to sleep train him properly, but he was still waking up a lot. It meant not a lot of sleep for me. And Nick has been travelling like crazy so I have been a zombie. Finally I talked to the same sleep doctor that I talked to when I had issues with Aurora. He said to let him cry. It was terrible. I was up for 3 and 4 hours in the middle of the night. (Don't worry - he didn't scream that long. He played and grumped and played and grumped...) Finally as an experiment I put him on his back to sleep. The first night it took him 1.5hrs. to fall asleep - he never screamed, just kind of grumped about it. He slept 8pm-6am!!!!!!! Then last night it only took 20 min. for him to fall asleep and he slept 7pm-5:30am!!!! So glorious! So I am happy to say that I'm feeling so much better about that and hope that this amazing trend continues.

Aurora is such a big girl now. It is so hard for me to remember that she's not even 3 yet. She has so much personality. She is very opinionated - a good and bad thing. She is so passionate about the things she loves (princesses, shoes, dresses, jewelry, and fluffy things), but when she doesn't like something she is one of those embarrassing screaming children. Oh. my. gosh. Like I heard her screaming at my Mom in the toy aisle at Target from across the store because, "I WANT IT! I WANT IT! I WANT IT! I WANT IT! I WANT IT!" Oh. my. gosh. I can't take her anywhere because she wants everything. She is such a girl. When we were out putting Christmas lights up Jake would watch the cars that drove by and I told Aurora that Jake liked cars. I asked if she liked cars. She said, "No. I like clothes." Seriously!?!?!?! We are going to have issues as she gets older :) I think she has more shoes right now than I have had in my entire life. Girly girl.

Aurora has started a dance class. She loves it. She doesn't listen well or try to do what the teacher does most of the time, but she loves watching herself in the mirror and running around in tutus. I'm not sure how long she is going to continue it. It is pretty expensive for what she actually does and the other thing is that I have now seen the older girls dance. All I am going to say is I will NEVER teach my daughter to move like that. Even if she wanted to keep going in dance she's going to be done by age 5. She says she has fun every time she goes to class, but we will probably stop before she gets too attached :)

She did have one performance and it was hilarious. She kept trying to run off the stage and then she laid down at one point, right in the middle of everything. You would think she could follow direction for 3 minutes, but apparently she is just always too in to her own thing.

More updates later!!!!

3 Months

Where does the time go!?!?! Jake is 3 months already. He is so stinkin cute. I forgot how fun this age is. Challenging, but fun. Jake is discovering his hands and he loves chewing on them. It is hilarious to watch because he gets cross-eyed trying to find them - he sticks his arm way out and then watches very carefully as he brings his hand to his mouth. He still misses a lot of the time. He is smiling like crazy. He does a nose scrunch thing a lot of the time too when he smiles. ADORABLE. I've gotten a few giggles the past week. And he talks so much!!! I think its because he hears Aurora chattering all day. He is very social. He just wants to talk and eye contact is a must. He's happy if you are looking at him :) He's becoming less and less of a screamer. But he still HATES his carseat. Funny - the first few weeks that was the only place he would sleep, now he acts like it is the worst thing ever.

He has crazy rolls. So tubby - I love it! I actually think he looks a lot like Aurora did at that age. Everyone says he looks like Nick. I can't tell. I just think he looks like a fat baby :) My ADORABLE fat baby.

 

This past week has been a good one as far as sleep goes. He has been sleeping 7-4:30ish and then goes right back to sleep after eating at 4:30 and then wakes up for the day at 6:30ish. The hardest thing is bedtime - he starts getting cranky around 5:30 and trying to keep him up until 7 is a challenge. He will fall asleep earlier, but then he cat-naps for a half hour and wants to stay up until 10 - not a fan of that. I remember this with Aurora though - the evenings are hard because they get tired. This week was especially hard since Nick was gone. I can tell Aurora was a little done with the whole situation - she likes her (undivided) attention too.

 

 

Aurora has basically given up naps. In other words I have given up. She will take a nap, and a lot of times a very long one, but then she doesn't want to go to bed at 8. She will try to stay up until 10 and is sometimes successful! It has been a hard adjustment and her bedtime is moving up a little bit, but I think it is for the best. We are having "quiet time" during the day instead of naps. She fell asleep during quiet time today, but the first 2 days she just played in her room. Hopefully it continues to go OK. She can get pretty cranky when she is overtired...

 

Aurora's favorite word right now is "why?" I've gotta say that I'm a little done with it. It's great that she's curious, but sometimes I don't think she thinks before she asks it - just says why to everything and half the time I don't think she listens to the answer. I am proud to say I have only said, "because I said so" twice, but I guarantee there are more coming! I'm just not that creative all the time. It's hard work coming up with answers for EVERYTHING.

 

That's my little update :) Life is good. Chaotic with 2, but I think we are adjusting :)

 

 

 

 



2 Months. For Reals

I think everyone needs to be so impressed that I am getting pictures of Jake up at 2 months within a week of his 2 month birthday. OK? Be impressed :)

Just to report the stats: at 2 months Jake weighs 11 lbs. That puts him in the 41% which really surprises me because I feel like he is super chunky. But that is probably because he is only 22.1" (25%) He's a short one :) So far. He looks like a little football player :)

He's doing great. He seems to be getting happier and happier all the time. He loves his room - there is some wall art in there (yes I will post pictures some day) with patterns that he loves to stare at. Here is a picture of him in his crib so you can at least see the colors :)

 

He is most happy when he gets up in the morning and I have been getting some super awesome smiles. I haven't caught any on camera of course :( This is the best I've captured:

 

 

We seem to be figuring out his schedule better so at least he has started going to bed at a reasonable time. That means working our butts off to keep him awake for an hour around 7. It is doable when Nick is home, but with him being gone every other week that is harder. If we can play man to man we seem to have this 2 kid thing down :) I'm getting better at the zone defense though :) Jake still isn't sleeping through the night. I feel like it should be getting better soon, but he's been pretty stuck at 1AM and 3AM feedings and then he is usually up for the day around 6:30. The 6:30 is nice. I wish we could ditch the 1AM feeding. Hopefully soon...

 

That's all for now :)

2 months. And other updates

Jake is 2 months old next week. I seriously cannot believe it. Where did the time go? I haven’t even finished blogging about him at 1 month and now he’s almost 2 months. I have some serious catching up to do.  

I am going to try to start catching up from the beginning – all the stuff I didn’t cover since May :( This will be another one of those terribly long posts that only 3 of you will read and I totally know which 3 and the rest of you will just look at the pictures. I don’t blame you.

At the beginning of May Cheryl threw me a beautiful amazing baby shower to welcome Jake. It was shower themed with rain clouds and umbrellas and super adorable and creative. I was so blessed by my friends and family that were able to make it.

 

 

A few weeks later, at the end of May, when I was 36 weeks pregnant, I had the privilege of throwing my friend Nadia a baby shower for her sweet little Charlotte. I went with a natural bird theme and lavender and brown. I had lots of fun with it. Parties are so fun!

Nadia was due 1 month after me and she welcomed her little girl about 2 weeks ago. So precious. My friend Jessica also had her little girl. What’s funny about Jessica is that she was due 2 weeks after me, but with me being early and her being late, Jake and Samara are 5 weeks apart. And her son, Nikolai, and Aurora are 5 weeks apart. Crazy!

So I think that is my “events” updates. I mostly wanted to post the pictures since they were cute :) On to my babies updates.

So one question that everyone asks is “how is Aurora handling being a big sister?” Well, some times she handles it, sometimes she doesn’t. I will say for the most part she has been VERY good. There were some issues with his screaming, but she seems to be dealing with that better. He’s stopped screaming every time we take a car ride so that has helped. She has thrown a few super obvious I-want-attention tantrums, but that was more in the first few weeks. Now those are very rare. From the beginning she was super funny about some things. Like she would tell me which blankets he liked and didn’t like. She is always trying to share toys with him. Usually itty bitty legos, candy, or something else small and hazardous. He of course doesn’t usually care, but he does really like her Hewy, Dewy, and Louie beanie babies – he actually puts his arm around them and snuggles. And chews on their hats.

The first week Jake was born we would play in Aurora’s room and I would lay him down on her bed and let him play and out of nowhere Aurora would tell me to go away. So I would leave the room and watch to see what she did. Every time she would get up and go talk to Jake. Usually just say hi. She talked in such a sweet voice. One time she was mad at me so she told him she was sad. It was so precious. I felt like they were bonding already.

Now Aurora seems very used to Jake. She calls him “bud” all the time. I think because I call him that. It’s hilarious. And she tells him it’s OK when he fusses and always talks to him in such a sweet voice. The only thing she is a butthead about is when he is moving and accidentally touches her. She always yells “ouch.” But she does that with all her friends too, so it’s not a Jake thing. It’s just and Aurora thing. She doesn’t like to be touched. Unless she initiates it.

Jake seems to adore Aurora. He will listen to everything she says and a lot of times he will stop fussing to listen to her. He watches her and he’s even smiled at her a few times. (First official smile this past week – 8/3!) He seems to mostly be getting less fussy? I don’t know – it depends on the day. I would say we are starting to have more good days than bad. He has started sticking his tongue out when I stick mine out at him and he seems to be trying to imitate facial expressions. He is a little wiggler and is finally having fun playing some. He rolled over a few times the first couple of weeks, but hasn’t since.

Jake seems to be gaining weight very quickly. I am very convinced that he is going to pass up his cousin Isaac (3 months older) pretty soon here. I may pop ‘em out small, but they really pack on the pounds fast. Aurora was a chunky monkey too. She is now in the lower percentages for weights (still super tall) but for a while she was in the 90-th percentiles for weight. I am guessing Jake will be the same. He is definitely not little anymore. His dr. appointment next week will give us the numbers.

Jake was mostly a really good sleeper. The first few weeks were hard of course because he was getting up so often to eat. He was usually pretty good about going back to sleep until 3:00am hit and then he wanted to stay up and play. We were up for about 2 hours around that time most nights. By the time I got him back to sleep it was time for him to eat again. He seemed to pretty naturally shift to a better sleep schedule – sleeping longer at the beginning of the night. He has been a lot easier that Aurora in that regard so far. He USUALLY goes to sleep between 6:30-8pm and then sleeps 5-7 hours and then every 2/3 after that, but the last few nights he has decided to be challenging. He went to bed at 11:30pm last night and 10pm the night before. Tonight it was 6:45pm, so I am praying he doesn’t wake up and want to play anytime soon. I actually have a new theory on why he’s doing that though… Nick has been out of town and Jake really loves to scream for Nick. I think he wears himself out and then goes to bed but the last 2 nights he hasn’t done that. Tonight he did some pretty decent screaming so I think that’s why he went to bed on time… We will see how the next few nights are. It’s just a theory though :)

I think that pretty much covers my Jake updates. The only other thing is that he had to have an ultrasound a few weeks ago. When I was pregnant I had an ultrasound where Jake’s kidneys were slightly enlarged. Within normal ranges, but still enlarged. I had a million ultrasounds while I was pregnant, and all the following ones looked normal, but we still did a follow-up once he was out to make sure. Those results came back “inconclusive” just meaning that they are still slightly enlarged, they don’t know why, we are going to do another follow-up, it’s nothing to worry about (yet), and they are hoping it will just resolve itself on its own. It is not supposed to be causing him any discomfort and his terribly cheery disposition isn’t due to that. So we are just going to wait and see.

On the ultrasound topic, I had my follow-up ultrasound for the cyst/growth/tumor/whatever the heck they want to call it that was on my ovary. Turns out it’s not on my ovary. It’s just on the wall of my uterus and since having Jake it has gotten smaller. So good news all around. Since it’s not on my ovary they aren’t in a hurry to take it out since my ovary is not at risk and they are saying that it was being fueled by my pregnancy hormones, but now that he’s out it will most likely continue to shrink. Yay for no surgery!

Aurora is officially 2 and a half now. My little baby is not so little :( I can’t believe how quickly she grows up. She talks a million miles an hour. Seriously - she never shuts up. And she has taken the volume to a whole new level. Nick and I really can’t have a conversation when she’s around – especially because she tells us not to talk to each other. We are working on manners :) She is a full-blown princess. Her current favorite is Ariel, which I am none too pleased by. Ariel was my favorite when I was younger too, but my favorite now is Belle (weren’t you dying to know that?) But I’m a huge fan of Rapunzel and Tiana too. I just don’t like Ariel because she is a selfish, hardheaded, disobedient brat that thinks she knows everything at 16. Seriously Dinsey – this is a princess? She has no redeeming qualities (from the original movie) and even though they have since tried to improve her character the movie that Aurora wants to watch is the original. And Ariel is a brat. So that is my rant on Ariel.

Aurora has an Ariel, Aurora, Snow White, Rapunzel and Cinderella dress and 6 out of 7 days a week she wears one of them. I think she wore the Ariel dress 5 days in a row this week. She has started yelling at me when I tell people her name is Aurora and she says, “No! It’s Ariel.” Seriously?!?!? I already gave you a princess name!!!!! But it’s pretty entertaining. She is convinced she is only a princess when she is wearing a dress. She insists that her hair must be “straight and beautiful.” There have been a few rare occasions that I have been able to put it up. She wears her “blue bow shoes” every day (glitter jellies that are actually teal. More green really.) Her favorite color is blue. And everything has to match. If she's wearing a blue dress she has to wear blue underwear. She’s just a little bit opinionated.

She has decided that she never wants to sleep. Naps and bedtime are a fight. She has come up with every stalling technique in the book and most times it ends with her screaming at me as I leave. It’s sad because I used to love putting her to bed and snuggling and singing to her. But I guess the not wanting to sleep is no surprise. I thought maybe she would be getting close to giving up naps, but for all the protesting she does she still usually takes a 2 hour nap. Some days she tries to go longer, but I have started waking her up by 3:30pm now. Otherwise she won’t go to sleep at bedtime. Her stalling techniques include, “One more book,” “One more song,” “I have to pee,” “I have to poop,” “I want to talk about Disney World,” and “I want to say goo goo ga ga.” The first few are pretty self explanatory. And they are responded to with NO. We always talk about Disney World some but she doesn’t actually want to talk – she wants me to tell her about it. So I always tell her one thing. And then the goo goo ga ga? Yeah, she just says goo goo ga ga over and over. I don’t really get it, but I think it may have to do with one of her Clown-Around books. She sleeps with 4 pillows, Mr. Pickles, and a puppy dog and always falls asleep buried under them. Fully buried. Like I can’t even see her. But last night was the first night in a while she put her head on the pillow instead of under, so maybe we are making progress…

Aurora’s favorite pastimes are running around the island in our kitchen, screaming (I should call it squealing – it’s a happy, ear piercing sound), singing, dancing, and anything that involves physical exertion from mommy and daddy. Like bouncing on the exercise ball. Or spinning. Or hanging upside-down. We have been swimming a lot this summer and she loves that too. She loves asking questions and I’m fairly certain she never listens to the answer because she asks the same question 4-5 times.

Aurora is still a terrible, picky eater. She likes chicken nuggets, chicken noodle soup, mac n cheese, peanut butter toast, waffles, pancakes, and chili. She likes frozen blueberries always and then other fruits sometimes. Sometimes watermelon, strawberries, mango, grapes, apples and pears. She loves coffee. My bad. And always drinks her milk. She likes juice too, but I don’t let her drink much of it.  

Nick and I celebrated our 8 year anniversary this week. Well, we actually haven’t celebrated it seeing that he is out of town, but it came and went and now we’ve been married 8 years. We will celebrate this weekend – looking forward to a date night! It will be our first since Jake was born. I can’t believe how fast 8 years has flown by. Still in love. Still think he’s my prince charming. So lucky to have married my best friend :)