Ohhhh Snap

Guess who greeted me at her bedroom door this morning even though I know for a fact that when I left her last night she was safe and sound in her crib?

Now what am I supposed to do??

Toys!

Not much to post today - Wouldn't you know that the very day she stopped breastfeeding, she started getting sick? She has some virus that's going around and is spending the majority of her time snuggling with me on the couch or sleeping. To top it off, she had to get her 15 month shots on Monday - so I'm sure that's adding to her misery. We may try going to the park for a little while later this morning to get some fresh air and sunshine, but other than that we're just moping around the house. Which means that I have had lots of time to surf the internet and I came across another great contest I have to enter!

Gymnastics World!

Oh we had the best time today! Jacob came over and I took him and Aurora for a playgroup at Gymnastics World. Apparently they have "open gym" one morning a week and all the little kids can come play to their hearts' content. I will admit that it was somewhat difficult to wrangle two toddlers at the same time, but we still had a blast and I would definitely do it again. Here's a couple pictures and maybe even a video or two :)

Strapped in and ready to go

The totally awesome foam pit - grownups weren't allowed in, darn it!

Headed for the trampoline

Oh yeah, we're definitely going again!!

And a bonus video from Monday:


And, on the eve of her 15 month birthday, I am proud to announce that my little girl is officially completely weaned! No more boob for her - she gets all her liquids from a cup now. She had a little bit of a tough time going to bed tonight (cried for 15 minutes) but I predict that she will get better at it as time goes on. So, she's sleeping through the night, taking predictable naps, and completely off the boob - now I have to worry about grades, dating, and driver's ed, right?

Springtime fun

Well, with Mike gone we've taken the opportunity to discover all kinds of fun activities in our town! We've joined a playgroup, joined the YMCA, gone to the fair, signed up for a mommy and me class, and this morning we went to an early childhood festival at the park. And its *almost* hot enough to go swimming! And yet, around 3 or 4 pm everyday (after napping and before dinner), Aurora wanders the house completely awash in boredom. You can see it on her face! She walks around, looking for something to hold her attention (besides the eleventymillion toys, 3 dogs, and Tivo'ed Sesame Street, of course) - and when she can find nothing, she flops to the floor and rolls around kicking her feet listlessly. It would be hilarious if it weren't so pathetic! Okay it's still pretty hilarious - I'll have to get it on video tomorrow. But for now, here is a little snippet I caught at today's festival - be careful, we were right by the speakers so it's pretty loud!

And now some pictures from the past week or so:

I love how studious they both look

Okay, the glasses crack me up!

Next she'll be having him feed her grapes and fan her with a palm leaf.

Of COURSE she has a Dyson - doesn't everyone??

She did it!!!!!

She finally did it!! For the first time ever, she slept the ENTIRE night through - 8:10pm till 7am - without waking up once! Of course, we only had to spend 7 hours at the fair with Jacob to get her tired enough to crash like that... But I'll take it! We had such a great time there... we got to go to a petting zoo, ride rides, watch a sea lion show, and eat all kinds of fair food, and the fairgrounds are right next to the Marine Corps Air Station so we could watch all the awesome jets and helicopters landing and taking off all day. We had a great view from the top of the ferris wheel, and Aurora loved it!

Checking out the festivities

Look! A baby yak!

Riding the Ferris Wheel

Riding the carousel

Two tuckered toddlers

Now what??

Well, the Dallas trip, Easter, and Aunt Monya have all come and gone, and Mike is in Kansas for six weeks. How on earth am I going to keep this kid entertained now?? As soon as we dropped Aunt Monya off at the airport, we hightailed it to the YMCA and signed up so she can at least play with the big kids for a little while each day, and we're going to the Fair on Friday.. other than that I guess we're going to take a lot of trips to Wal Mart, the grocery store and the park!

Aunt Monya was her favorite toy!
But swinging is awesome too...

Cruising the playground

Checking out the flowers in the backyard

Happy Easter!

Jacob invited us to his Grandma's house for a delicious brunch and an Easter egg hunt! Aurora had a great time playing with all the big kids and finding a whole basket full of eggs all by herself. Hope everyone else had a great Easter too!

That's Jacob's big sister Shannon overseeing the festivities!

Pictures!

Well, I am out of space in my Google image account, so I could only choose a few of the zillions of pictures we took on our trip. These are some of my favorites-

Her new friends Leo and Henry - courtesy of our old friends Todd and Holly!

Playing with Grandma's "diamonds"

When I first met Mike's nephew Stuart, he was a scrawny little kid...

At the Dallas World Aquarium - she was entranced!

Visiting Grandpa Ringler

At the flight museum - airplanes are her FAVORITE!

At the Botanical Garden petting zoo - the baby goats were so adorable!

Except the one that ate her flower.

It was a little chilly to be playing in the fountain, but I let her do it anyway.
Could explain her runny nose....

The coolest kid at the zoo

Hitchin a ride on Grandpa Miller

Looking at all these pictures, it is clear to me that I really need to figure out what to do with my child's hair!!

And I suppose I'll upgrade my Google storage later this week :)

We're back!

We made it home, safe and sound, but I haven't been able to get all the millions of pictures online yet! I will finish doing so tonight and get them up for you ASAP!

Leavin' on a jet plane 2.0

Well, we're all packed up and ready to head to Dallas - of course, we have to get up at 3am tomorrow to head to Phoenix for our flight, but it's cool! We'll be kicking it DFW-style for 2 weeks, so blogging will probably take a back seat till we get home. That said, I would never leave you without at least a couple pictures to tide you over!

Stop and smell the hibiscus...

Check out these weeds wildflowers growing off our back porch!

This picture cracks me up, because it appears that Jacob vanquished his rival and was victorious in the battle for the pink chair...when in reality, Aurora was just laying on the floor kicking the chair and he came along and sat down in it - guess he wanted a back massage!

Anyway, hope everyone has a good couple of weeks - we'll be back with a bunch more pictures and stories to tell soon!