Yeah... It's been a while...

Ok, so I know I have been a horrible record keeper the last 3 months and I probably forgot half of the stuff that Aurora has done and all that, but she changes so much every day that it started to get very overwhelming keeping track of everything. And it’s hard enough to keep up with her and her energy levels let alone write about it later. But I will try my best to hit some highlights and bring people up to speed. Lots of fun stuff has happened since my March updates. Here’s a list and some pics: 1. (April) Easter We did an egg hunt and everything! Aurora had fun collecting the eggs, but more than anything she wanted to pick up rocks... We got to celebrate with Brittany and Jared since Phillip was in Florida for flight schoo1. Mom made way too much amazing food as usual and it was a good time with family/friends.

Cake Pops!

2. (April/May) Cheryl's Wedding Festivities: Breakfast at Tiffany's Bridal Shower

Bachelorette Party. Can you tell the theme was 80's?

Wedding

3. (April) Nick's Mom got married! She is now Mrs. Dennis Moak and has since moved to Colorado.

4. (May) Aurora and I took a trip to CA for Darryl’s graduation. We got to go to Knott's Berry Farm. She's been before her daddy! She LOVED Snoopy.

5. (June) Camping with Dominic, Krystal, and Logan. I had no idea Aurora could even get that dirty. She had fun playing in the dirt, but was not the biggest fan of hiking. She didn't sleep great so she spent some of the time tired, but she got to try some fun new things. Like S'mores!

S'More face:

6. (June) Mt. Lemmon trip Aurora had much more fun hiking this time. Maybe she'd gotten enough sleep or something. Whatever it was it was nice that I didn't have to carry her the whole time. Part of the time, but not the whole time. Walking with Grandma and Grandpa:

Help from Uncle Taylor:

Sean & Megan:

But again with the dirt. This time she was intentionally smearing it all over herself.

7. Aurora’s first trip to the lake. She had fun, but hated the life jacket. And wasn't ready for the raft yet. But I went water skiing! I haven't tried it since I was 17, but I was still able to do it - hooray!

We are still doing our Little Movers and Shakers class once a week and Aurora loves it. She loves climbing on things. She's not great with the organized song time - she just wants to play with the toys. But they are good about moving things along. We are also taking a sign language class. It's more for me to learn the signs to use them at home, but we do music and stuff that Aurora likes. And she has fun signing. She catches on really fast and only needs to see a sign once or twice before she does it. We've kind of stopped going to storytime (baby time) at the library because it’s now when her naps are. She was getting kind of old for it anyway - it's time for her to move on to toddler time.

Aurora has all 4 front teeth on the top and bottom and her 4 molars. Still several to go, but she’s got quite a moth full now. Aurora is a complete temper tantrum thrower. She does it on almost a daily basis. We are talking throws herself on the floor, stomps her feet, flings herself around, slams into walls, screams her head off fit. It’s usually because she wants her binky (which she only gets when she is sleeping) or wants to watch TV and I won’t let her. Her favorite thing is the TV and she is constantly asking to watch and I am constantly having to say no. It’s sad because she likes it so much, but someday she will understand. I hope. Her favorite shows are the Wiggles, Barney, and Dora the Explorer. She Wiggles her ears when she wants the Wiggles. It’s pretty funny. She went through a phase where she would wrap one arm around my leg and drag me to where she wanted to go in the house. That was hard because I couldn’t walk when she did that. Now she holds my hand and takes me places. She likes having me in the room. She will play somewhat independently for a few minutes, but I have to be in there with her. She is going through some separation anxiety. She especially doesn’t like to be left with strangers or people in the nursery at church. One Saturday night she didn’t make it all the way through the service and we had to go get her. I have since gotten to know a few of the women that volunteer in the nursery and it sounds like usually as long as they hold her she is OK. That’s nice. The other children run around and play with each other, mine needs to be held for an hour and half. Aurora hates shopping carts and strollers. I think the last time we tried using a stroller was in Hawaii in February. It was just too much work to push it around and carry her at the same time so I’ve pretty much given up. We may try again when we go to Disney World next month, but I don’t have high expectations. I’m a little nervous about that whole situation as it is – Aurora is in the very bad habit of taking off the second her feet hit the floor. She just picks a direction and runs. Not cool. Aurora is becoming extremely picky about food. She will always eat chicken nuggets, frozen blueberries (she prefers frozen fruit – weirdo), cheese (sharp cheddar only) grapes, and happy melts (freeze dried yogurt). But that’s about it that I’m guaranteed she will eat. Otherwise it’s hit or miss. Sometimes she likes PB&J, watermelon, mac ‘n cheese, and burritos. It’s so hard to know what she is going to eat. It doesn’t make me want to spend a lot of time preparing food, that’s for sure. I’ve been trying really hard to make sure that she is on a good schedule and not eating too many snacks, because if she snacks then there is no way she will eat her meals – even food she likes. I think a lot of it has to do with her milk – she LOVES milk. Some days she drinks 4 cups. She also LOVES juice, but she doesn’t get that every day – otherwise she gets addicted.

Talking wise she says quite a bit. I’m not counting her words or anything – there are certain things she says a lot like Mama, Dada, milk, juice, cracker, grapes, chicken, cheese, Dora, etc – mostly things associated with things she wants. She is doing a really good job at repeating things that I say and she certainly knows how to use her voice. Her stuffed animals are still her favorite toys. Mr. Pickles is still her night time buddy. But she has formed a recent attachment to a brown teddy bear that used to be mine. I named him Sepie, but she calls him “Ses.” She loves animals. Especially dogs. She is really funny because she doesn’t call animals by their names, she calls them by their sounds – ruff, baaa, quack, meow… I guess that’s easier for her (?) She is funny about giving hugs and kisses. She will give them to almost anyone that I tell her to, but when Nick or I ask for them she runs away and things it’s a game. She is getting better about it though. I’ve been getting “smooches” on a more regular basis so that’s nice. I guess that's it for updates for now. I know I've missed a lot, but it took me over 3 hours to write this post, so I'm going to sleep now. But a few more pictures:

March Updates

The cutest thing happened this morning. Aurora was in her high chair eating breakfast and Nick walked out to the garage and Aurora turned and waved and said "bye bye." SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO cute. He wasn't leaving yet, but she knows that's where he goes when he does. She's been waving bye bye for a while, but this was the first time she actually said it. I am going to count this as her 5th official word. She says Mama, Dada, dog, duck, and now bye bye. I love it!

Aurora now has 6th teeth - she got her top middle left one poked through (03-10-2012). And I think its funny that it has almost caught up to the other one in the middle. She is going to have a mouthful pretty soon.

We are officially done weaning and I have to say it wasn't nearly as painful as I was expecting it to be. Aurora has no problem drinking cow's milk now - I learned she wants it in a sippie cup and not at meals - any other time is fine. She also prefers chocolate milk :) but fortunately she will drink it plain too. And we managed to give up the 5am morning feeding with only 1 morning of fussing. Now she will sleep 7pm to 7am no problem. She still kind of wakes up in the early morning, but goes right back to sleep.



We have been keeping busy. Aurora loves storytime at the library and we just started a little movers and shakers class with Parks & Rec. She had a blast the first day - she loved racing, "flying" (running with her arms out), and shooting hoops. She still gets to see Grandma Lin every Tuesday when I go to my Mom's class/Bible Study and she now loves shopping because she can pull things off shelves. It is exhausting for me that she won't sit in the cart very long and just wants to walk around and do her own thing. But we manage :)





Also, we now have 3 Mr. Pickles and a baby Mr. Pickles. The orinigal Mr. Pickles is so ratty. He's been washed several times and I don't know that he has much life left in him - so we are ready with replacements :)

Growing Up So Fast

So I am about a week late on all the latest developements (must take note of that for when I finally do Aurora's baby book. Gotta get the dates right!) It seems like Aurora has become such a big girl recently! She is starting to understand so much! She can point to her head, nose, ears, hands and toes. She knows how to "clean" when I ask her to and to hold my hand when I ask. She still isn't saying much in the way of words - she makes LOTS of sounds, but still nothing that I am going to count as words. Other than "Mama." LOVE it when she says that. I get b sounds for ball and blue, and d sounds for dog, but those still aren't words... But she is such a good singer - she sings "lalalalalalala."

Her dancing has recently consisted of head banging. She is super in to imitating right now, but I'm pretty sure she didn't pick that one up from me. I'm a bad dancer, but not that bad :) She also loves sharing food. That's pretty much OK now since she eats a lot of food that we eat, but she likes to share stuff that's already been in her mouth. I've eaten a lot of soggy pretzels :(

Her 5th tooth has emerged! (02-21-2012) Her top, center right one is poking through. So much for the fangs - I will miss those!!!!

We have started the weaning process and I've gotta say it's not fun. Aurora really doesn't like whole milk. So far I can only get her to drink it at night before she goes to bed and only if it's 1/2 mixed with breast milk. But we are working on it. It's a slow going process, but it will happen someday. Just gotta be patient...

Well, that's it for my little updates :) Here's some more pictures:

Hawaii

We are back from Hawaii! We took over 1700 pictures so I am just posting a few. It's going to take a looooooooooooooooooong time to go through and decide which ones to print and if I wait until then to post these it could be years, so I just grabbed a few that caught my eye.

We had a blast. Aurora was not the best traveller, but it could have been worse... She loved the beach and chasing birds. We also found a Teddy Bear Museum there and she was in heaven! We got to see A LOT on our trip and we were so lucky to get the chance to go.

Here are a few of the highlights...

Kailua Beach Park:



Hiking Diamondhead Crater:


View of Waikiki from Diamondhead Crater:


Beach:


Swimming with the sharks (in cages). Nick got in the water - Aurora and I watched from the boat:



Hanauma Bay:

1 Year

Wow, a year flew by! Aurora's birthday was very special - we had a lot of fun celebrating at her party and then on the actual day, but it was very emotional for me too. I am excited for my little angel to grow up, but it was a little sad to realize that time has passed and she will never be that age again or be in those stages again. Part of me is very happy about that - this year has been exhausting, but there are definitely things that I miss already - like her falling asleep in my arms and on some days I miss her not being mobile :) In a few weeks I am going to start weaning and as much as I am looking forward to having my body back (and eating what I want!) I know that there is a part of me that is going to miss it...

But on to happier things. Stupid first paragraph is making me cry already. I am such an emotional wreck when it comes to Aurora. EVERYTHING makes me cry. I need to stop already. Anyway - we had her party the Saturday before her birthday and we were so lucky to have so many wonderful friends and family there to celebrate with us. Aurora was such a good girl and she dove right in to the cupcakes that I made. I don't think she ate much of them but she had a good time making a mess. And I think she prefers vanilla to chocolate. Weirdo, but I guess she takes after her daddy.





On her actual birthday on Monday my Mom and I took her to the Tucson Botanical Gardens to see the butterflies. Sooooooo pretty! And there were so many! Aurora seemed pretty interested. She was also very in to the little train model they had there and in to trying to eat the cemented in rocks on the pathway. She managed to throw her stuffed panda into the water in the butterfly exhibit but then still insisted on carrying him around with her afterwards. Gross. She feel asleep in the car right away afterwards and then we woke her up so we could go to the puppy place since she likes dogs so much. But it was closed! Even though it was supposed to be open! I was frustrated that we woke her up for nothing. We had Greek food for lunch (yum!) and then went to the mall afterwards so she could play in the kiddie area. She slept in the car on the way home, but that was the extent of her napping for the day. Nick got home a little early to play with her and she was super grumpy for the rest of the day - overtired :( But she had cake pops so that made her happy for a little bit.





At her 1 year doctor appointment she weighed 21 lbs. which puts her in the 55 percentile and she was 29 1/2 inches and in the 65 percentile. Developmentally the doctor said everything looks good and she is healthy - hooray!!!!! She had to get more shots and it was so sad. She screamed so much and her arm even got bruised this time :( I bought her her first Starbucks afterwards. Kid's chocolate milk (with half the chocolate and with whipped cream. So yummy) She didn't drink much of it, but she liked playing with the straw.



Aurora is walking very well now. I let her walk as much as I can - even in stores which means shopping takes me that much longer because she wants to touch everything. And pull everything off the shelves. And bring everything with her. She spends the days at home just walking across the house with stuff in her hands which means our house is a mess and I can never find anything. She is my little tornado.

I feel like in the past week she has really started to catch on to things quickly. She points to her head when we sing "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and knows that if she points to her head I will turn the song on for her. She also knows where the CD player is and will walk over to it and point when she wants the music on. She opens and shuts her hands and claps when I sing that song and she claps and does the hooray part for "If You're Happy and You Know it." She does the wheels on the bus motions and when I ask her to sing she says "lalalalala" Hilarious. She doesn't really say any words yet other than Mama and every once in a while she will say dada. She seems to be trying to say dog sometimes but really only gets the da part and will sometimes say ba for ball or something blue. So not much to report in the talking area. But she knows who all of her stuffed animals are and will bring them to me when I ask her to (I have to use their names though - green monkey means nothing - I have to call him Mr. Pickles). And she has started to point to things that she likes in books. And she turns the page when I ask her to.

She is becoming a somewhat difficult eater. All she really wants to eat are goldfish. She would eat those all day if I let her. She knows what the package looks like too and she started freaking out the other day because the lady next to us in the store had them in her cart. She doesn't love prunes and fights me every time I try to feed them to her. Unfortunately she really needs to eat them - they are the only thing that keep her regular :) She really likes yogurt though and most fruits and veggies are OK, but she will only eat so much of them... She also does not like carrots. Or bananas. Baby food bananas are OK, but not big girl bananas. And avocado is still one of her favorites.



Well, I am off to go pack now. Aurora is taking her first plane trip on Monday - should be interesting. Nick and I aren't really looking forward to the flight, but we should have fun in HAWAII! I'll post pics when we get back :)

Another Milestone...

Aurora is walking! Just wanted to share the news :)