Okay, CATHY - here are some pictures!!

Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Amber and her Majesty:

Thinking of what she wants to chew on next:

Grandpa Miller:

Enough said!

Nothing to see here..

More pictures and updates coming soon, I promise - I just had to get in on this contest sponsored by Best Buy!

Yikes!

What a strange week it has been! We woke up Saturday morning to see this in our office:

You can't tell, but our A/C (which is on the roof) had overflowed and leaked through the ceiling. So we had to rip it all out and move all the furniture out of there, and now it looks like this:

And after all that, I checked my email to find a message from my parents saying they were on their way!! So we've been having a good time this week visiting and hanging out. Here's Aurora showing everyone how she can stand up:

Here she is telling me to stop reading Harry Potter already!!

And I'm glad they are visiting, because it gave me an excuse to make my favorite dessert - Strawberry Chocolate Mousse Cake!

We can worry about the ceiling next week!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Well, today is my birthday - Hard to believe I'm already 24! Okay, okay.... 27. ;) For my birthday, my friend Dolores came over and watched the kid crawl all over the house, while Mike took me out to dinner at Hunter's. It was great! We had a nice, leisurely, grownup dinner (complete with drinks and dessert!) and didn't have to worry about a squirmy little monkey in the booth with us. He also surprised me by coming home early from work with these:

And Aurora decided her birthday present to me would be to show me how she can pull up on the couch and get the remote! She doesn't seem to realize that she really doesn't have to be running by 7 months...

SIX MONTHS!

Incredibly, our itty bitty baby girl is six months old! How can this be? How could she possibly be crawling already!? Alas, she is:



Not only that, how on earth did she manage to pull herself up to a stand and get a hairbrush off the coffee table today? And when are the babyproofing fairies going to come to my house?? We've already had to lower her crib mattress, because every time I go get her after her nap, she's sitting up, blanket in hand, gazing at the door waiting for me. I know its just a matter of time before she's actively trying to escape!

Baby's first food!

So she's not technically six months old till tomorrow, but I just couldn't hold off feeding her real food any longer! (Rice cereal doesn't count) So here she is, playing Linda Blair...

Strained Peas! Yum! (not)

Froglegs

And I forgot to mention it, but if you look very closely, you might be able to see what's been happening over the past week or so....

TEETH!

Grandma Ringler and Aunt Lora

Grandma Ringler and Aunt Lora came to visit this week, and Aurora has been having such a great time! Every day she gets new toys and cute new outfits from Aunt Lora, and she is enjoying it so much that she doesn't want to miss any of the fun by napping! But that's okay - she can nap next week :) I'm just worried that after they leave, I won't be nearly exciting enough for her! She's come to expect a certain level of adoration at all times, and I just can't live up to it by myself. I predict that she's going to have a hard time coming back down to reality after they're gone!

Happy 4th!

Hope everyone had a safe and fun Independence Day - We sure did!

This cake was incredibly delicious - its from the Barefoot Contessa and it has 1.5 pounds of butter, 1.5 pounds of cream cheese, 6 eggs and a pound of confectioner's sugar - but the berries are fruit so its healthy, too! Plus with my great attention to detail, I made sure it was historically accurate - the flag does have 11 stripes and 74 stars, right?

Independence Day was also the first time Aurora got to celebrate her own independence - Mike and I left the house without her for the first time ever! Grandma and Aunt Lora generously offered to babysit her while we went out, and I think she did just fine. It was a bit stressful (for me, mostly) but she was sleeping like a baby when we got home!