Birthdays

Since we last met, Aurora passed the 18 month milestone - and I think the terrible two's are coming early to our family. She's discovered and perfected the fine and useful skill of whining - she hasn't quite gotten the hang of the tantrum yet, but I know she will. Today the entire gym was treated to her screaming MAMA MAMA MAMA MAMA at the top of her lungs in the playroom and pushing the teacher, so we're going to have to work on that. Is Prozac approved for use in toddlers yet? (JUST KIDDING)

Oh - and I had a milestone of my own -
Here are some of the presents I received for my birthday this year (24, thanks for asking!)


The theme this year was "Monya's a Dork", apparently - but who cares! I got exactly what I wanted and I love it all! (Especially that cute li'l iPod Nano up there) . You should all be thanking me for not including a recording of my family singing Happy Birthday to my answering machine...

Raindrops

She's almost 18 months old, and she's finally experiencing her first rain "storm". We got about 30 minutes of some gentle rain last Thursday, and of course we had to run outside and play in it!

And we had some friends over on Saturday night to go swimming, and afterwards we decided to whip up a batch of baby soup :)

Random pictures

Happy Summer!
Nothing going on, just playdates and movie dates and swimming and coloring - here's some random pictures for your enjoyment!


Playing in Noah's playhouse

Mom's sunglasses!

Aurora tries to assert her dominance:

So Chance employs his minion to defend his position

She saw this light on the ceiling and was convinced it was a butterfly!

Her adorable new dress & headband from Aunt Lora - Aurora really loves butterflies!

Summer fun

We had a little get together at our house last night for Aurora's friends, and I think everyone had a really great time! Of course I completely spaced out on taking pictures until this opportunity presented itself:

Here's Aurora, N, and B, feeding the fish with their daddies.
Too cute!

And this morning we were outside cleaning up, and Chance
found the missing green crayon in the grass! He's so helpful...

She's stolen more than our hearts...

Well, I debated telling this story here, for fear of tarnishing Aurora's spotless reputation, but in the end I decided that I needed to have it on record as a starting point for her eventual life of crime. My little girl is a thief! We went to the park this morning to play with some friends, and on the way home we stopped at Toys R Us to buy a picnic table for a little get together on Saturday. While we were at the most amazing store she has ever seen, Aurora notices a beautiful baby on the shelf - clearly in need of her affection. So I give her the baby to carry around the store until we check out. In the checkout line, I put the baby on the counter so we can leave with our picnic table in tow. Not until we get to the truck do I realize that we have a stowaway! Yep, she snatched her and carried her right out the door without me even noticing. So I had to do the walk of shame back into the store and admit that I am raising a little criminal. I whip out my credit card for the second time, because surely this little doll won't be too expensive, right? NO. Of course MY daughter has only the finest taste! This doll was TWENTY DOLLARS. Apparently it's all natural and handmade by Tibetan monks out of endangered butterfly wings or something. I hope she likes it - and so far it seems she does. She hasn't let go of it since we got home - she took it to bed for her nap and laid awake for 2 hours just singing to it. Which was cute and all, but I still would have preferred a nap.

Here she is discovering that sadly, the baby has no bellybutton.

And don't worry, I didn't take her out in public dressed like that - she was wearing cute little jean capris from her aunt Lora, but I put her PJ pants back on her for her nap.

Bonus squalor photo! I was in the process of rearranging our office/her playroom, and she just plopped herself right in the middle of all of it and started her Pooh tape. The girl has priorities!

Hmm..

I think I need to come up with some new material for this blog... Aurora turned 17 months old yesterday and my day is literally filled with chasing her, being chased by her, and looking all over the house for her latest hiding places. We like to spice things up by going to playdates and movies and swimming in the pool, but those aren't really good venues for photographs. (Or, I just forget the camera too often) I will make a conscientious effort to be more diligent in posting in the future , but for now here's all I have for ya - please excuse the bedhead, I promise her hair looked really cute before her nap!

Hiding

Hiding

Found Ya!!

Oh we did have a bit of a traumatic experience yesterday - I was busy ironing uniforms or folding diapers or scrubbing the bathtub or something important like that, and she was chasing Pepper all over the house and having a grand old time. Suddenly, I notice that the house is dangerously quiet so I know something is afoot. I go hunting and find her just as all heck breaks loose - she had crawled into the kennel with Pepper and was trying to kiss her while Pepper was cornered and trying to get away. Pepper finally snapped and bit her on the lip. She did draw a little bit of blood and scared Aurora and me to death, but luckily no lasting harm was done. I definitely learned my lesson though- it could have been a LOT worse!

Wow.

So I've been lurking on this blog for a while now, and this chick kicks all kinds of butt! She lost 192 lbs all by herself without crazy crash diets or surgery and her blog is pretty entertaining AND inspirational. She wrote a book, and now she's having a contest to help get the word out about it. I can tell you she inspired me to make some changes around here - and so far I'm down 8 pounds! So anyway, check out this video and then go buy the book! :) More pictures of our little monkey to come soon - we've been spending all of our time in the pool or riding bikes so we haven't really had many photo ops lately!

We're back!

Sorry about the lack of pictures lately, but we've been hiding out here! We took a few days and ran away to Phoenix for some fun and relaxation. But now we're back to the old grind - playdates and vet appointments and laundry galore! On to the pictures:

The pools - this pool was just 3.5' deep and had wonderful beach entries that Aurora loved!

Our bathing beauty
(please disregard the martinis...they were uh...somebody else's! Yeah!)

Our tender hearted little girl couldn't bear the thought of
blowing up all the innocent townfolk in Rawhide Village.

Her first summer romance - she loved 'em and left 'em.

Getting ready to leave (Not pictured: Mom's woe.)

Picture day!!

Man, I am really slacking off in the blogging department! I guess its because there really isn't much to say around here... we're still hanging out with our playgroup buddies and doing fun things, and since Mike's been home we've been spending time with him.... And while I am glad we're doing all that, it doesn't make for very interesting blog fodder! So, I decided to just clean out the camera and see what I could find for your viewing enjoyment tonight. Luckily, Mike's on vacation next week so hopefully we'll do something worth blogging about :)

Here she is insuring that daddy doesn't leave without her again-

She is so glad he's home - she got his dirty shirt out of the
laundry and wore it around the house for an hour

Here she is at Little Steps last week - it took her a while to
approach the tunnel, but once she was in she loved it!

Coming to get you!

Hi!

And here she is at the park this morning with her playgroup friends -
She reminds me of a little Valley Girl here for some reason..

Happy Mother's Day!

Okay it's been a while since my last post - sorry about that, we've been busy with all of our fun activities and getting ready for Mike to get home. But, upon a request from my sister, here are a few pictures. Oh and we solved the climbing out of the crib problem for now - after much trial and error, including an ill-advised experiment with the 'toddler bed' feature, we discovered that just turning the crib around so that the short side was against the wall prevents her from being able to climb out. So we're safe until she figures out another workaround!

Hanging out after swimming

She's fascinated with babies!

Daddy's home!!! Happy Mother's Day to me :)