She's got personality!

Things Aurora likes:

Spa treatments

Dancing to the classics

Singing to Pooh and his friends

Talking to the family

Play Time

Things Aurora hates:

Sitting Still

Bottles

Tummy Time

At least the list of likes is longer than the list of dislikes - all in all, Aurora is a very happy baby! She sleeps well and wakes up in such a good mood every morning... She may just turn her mother into a morning person after all! And really sometimes she likes Tummy Time, and she's really good at holding her head up for long periods of time, but she gets frustrated and annoyed with it pretty easily. But we're working on it. She's got such good neck strength I'm thinking of getting her a Bumbo so she can sit up and interact more with us. And even though she would much prefer to get her milk straight from the source, she will reluctantly take a bottle. I'm working on that, as well - it would be nice for Dad to be able to feed her once in a while!

Not much else going on around here..Mike's on recruitment duty again this weekend. This time its Midnight At the Oasis - a classic car show and festival. Rick Springfield is the headliner this year, so I *might* try taking Aurora out in public again Saturday night if the wind dies down and it warms up a little here. But then again, maybe I won't. We're trying so hard to keep a routine I hate to potentially disrupt it like that. But of course, we can't stay trapped in the house forever! So we'll see. These are the riveting decisions of my life these days!

Thank you!

It's been a couple of days since I posted, but really not much has happened around here! We've got our routine of waking up, playing, eating, napping, playing, eating, napping, bathtime and bedtime pretty much in place and that's all we've been up to. Of course throw in about a thousand diaper changes a day, too! I just wanted to write a quick note to thank everyone for all the sweet comments here on the blog. Even if I don't respond directly to you (which I should, and I will - one day!), I read each note and it really makes my day to know that you are all out there keeping up with our little girl's progress. She's really lucky to have such a loving bunch of family and friends!

The photos are online!

You can see low resolution versions of all our photos at my flickr site - if you would like to order any extras let me know and I'll give you the login information. I should have the actual prints next week and I'll be sending out copies to friends and family shortly thereafter!

Dad Feels Bad

One of the less desirable perks of Mike's job is his unceasing exposure to all kinds of diseases and germs. Well, he's managed to bring home the cold virus du jour, so we're just laying low and trying to keep me and Aurora from getting it. He's not allowed to hold her, touch her, or even be too near her - but he was allowed to take pictures during bath time yesterday.

One month today

Hard to believe, but Aurora Jane is one month old today! We celebrated by driving to El Centro and returning some things to Kmart since there isn't one in Yuma. Then we came home and napped most of the day away! Here's her one month old picture:

The photo shoot yesterday went really well - we got some insanely cute pictures, if I do say so myself! They should be online within 14 business days and I'll be sure to link to them here.

She's full of......surprises!

So I gave her a nice long bath, wrapped her in a towel and thought she looked so cute I should take some more pictures. So I fluffed up the towel and put her in her bouncy seat and grabbed the camera. In the middle of our photo shoot, my darling little delicate angel decided to poop - loudly and dramatically - all inside the towel. It pretty much went all over her back, legs, feet, everywhere. You would think that her mother would be smart enough to put a diaper on her before grabbing the camera, but no, I am not. Luckily, I hadn't emptied the bathtub yet so I just swooped her up and dunked her back in. But you can tell she thought it was pretty funny - here she is after her masterpiece:

Yay! Poop!

There are more post-bath pics on my flickr site, and we're going to the studio on Friday for real live professional family pictures too!

Everybody makes mistakes

Mike's doing recruitment duty at the Rodeo this weekend and I, in my infinite wisdom, thought it would be a good idea to take Aurora out there for a little while. What can I say - I wanted to show off! After all, we have the cutest little girl in the whole world, AND I was wearing my pre-pregnancy jeans again! All the more reason to get out in public and show our faces, right? Well, it was fun to see Mike in his dress uniform being nice to all the snowbirds, but I think that it just might have been too much stimulation for little Aurora. Even though she slept in her wrap through all the new sights, sounds, and smells, she woke up and screamed the whole way home and all the way into the wee hours of the morning. (12:30am, to be exact) That was officially our first night of 'fussiness', and I'll be glad if we don't get any more of them! I think we may need to keep sticking to our night time routines for a little while longer before we try any more big adventures in the outside world. Luckily, I don't think she's holding it against me - today she is just as smiley and happy as ever! Sorry the pictures are a little blurry and go straight up her nose - I was holding her in my arms and just grabbed the camera when she started smiling!

Daddy's Little Girl

Our little movie star

3 more minutes of Aurora - this time she's awake and wiggly, waiting for me to put the stupid camera down and feed her!

Tree-Hugging Granola Mom

We started on the cloth diapers today - so far, so good! They don't seem to be much more tedious than the Tushies diapers we were using, and I'm already doing twice as much laundry with all the baby clothes, blankets, sheets, towels and cloth wipes she's generating, so hopefully adding cloth diapers to the mix won't be too bad. The Tushies were great for the first couple of weeks, but they're just too expensive to justify buying more (especially since we have all the cloth diaper supplies here). Its just one more step to us being breastfeeding, cloth diapering, co-sleeping, baby-wearing hippie parents!

Doctor Doctor, gimme the news...

We had our 2 week checkup today, and I am proud to say that even after losing 15 oz. in her first 5 days of life, our little girl has now surpassed her birth weight and weighs a whopping 10 lbs 3 0z! Now she weighs as much as Pepper!

10 lbs, 3 oz

10 lbs, 3 oz

The doctor says she is doing just fine, and she was so quiet and alert for the whole appointment - I was very proud of her :) So far she's doing really well at home, too - she sleeps for good long segments of the night, and really only cries when she's hungry (knock on wood!) She smiles a LOT, and even though the books all say its just gas, I think she's smiling at us some too. She especially gets smiley after a full belly as she's drifting off to sleep - sometimes she laughs in her sleep too, which is the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life! Of course I never have the camera when I really need it. I have added a bunch of pictures to my flickr site, but here's a couple of the good ones.

Sleeping Beauty!

Awake in her bassinette

Hanging out with dad on the back porch

Looks like she might have her daddy's neck!