The Very Fuzzy Caterpillar

So this is what we discovered yesterday - I grabbed the camera and tried to control my cringing while Aurora and Daddy played with the fuzziest caterpillar in the world.

Finally Fall

**** Edited to add: PLEASE - go vote tomorrow! If you are still undecided or don't know what's on the ballot in your state, you still have time to do a little research! Please - stand in line tomorrow for your voter sticker and make sure your voice is heard. If you don't vote, you can't complain!!****

Well, Halloween has come and gone, so I guess that means it's officially Fall. Not that you could tell around here - we're still in the high 90s every day! But you can feel it cooling off incrementally, and nights are absolutely wonderful in the 60s and 70s so I shouldn't complain. We had a fun but quiet little Halloween here - Like Henry, Aurora had a choice between two costumes and violently refused both of them! Cathy loaned us an adorable handmade monkey costume and a Clifford costume but Aurora screamed bloody murder when we tried to put them on. I think it was because she didn't like the "footies" on the monkey costume, and was convinced the Clifford one would have them too. (It didn't, but try convincing a toddler.) So, I just put her monster t-shirt on and some black pants and called it a day. We went to Hastings' music store where her friend Brianna's dad works for their Halloween costume contest and party. It was lots of fun, complete with a cake walk, bingo, snacks and goodie bags for all the kids. I even won a contest in which the goal was to see how many jumbo marshmallows you could cram into your mouth (for the record, it was 9 - but only because I ran out of marshmallows!) The prize for that was my choice of books, and I chose a nice little lift-the-flap book about Outer Space for Aurora. After that we went to Bri's house for some trick or treating and pizza - but unfortunately only one house in the neighborhood was into the Halloween spirit! So we only got one piece of candy, but that's okay because we still have a huge bowl full at home. Mike was in charge of candy distribution at our house, but we had even fewer trick or treaters than last year! Only about 5 or 6 - sad. But, more candy for us, right? Anyway, on the way home from Brianna's house, Aurora spied a huge hot air balloon at a church on the side of the road - so of course we had to stop and check it out. Turns out, the First Christian Church was having a huge festival complete with balloon rides, bounce houses, sack races, bbq, cotton candy and all kinds of fun! But since we didn't know about it beforehand and it was already pretty late, we just walked around for a minute, snagged a pink 'bloon' and went home. But we definitely know what to do for next year! So I forgot my camera on Halloween night, but I did get some shots at the pumpkin patch last week:



And here is a quick movie from Wednesday night - the college was having a free jazz concert at their amphitheater so we packed some sandwiches and a blanket and went to check it out. It was surprisingly good! The band mostly consisted of select high school students from the area, as well as some older musicians and college students. They were all in costume, too - it was pretty funny to see Darth Vader on drums! Anyway, Aurora absolutely loved it - she danced and ran around and had a wonderful time. At the end of each song, she would clap her hands and yell "YAY MUSIC!!!" It was so cute :)

And in other baby related news, we had our first OB appointment today and Aurora's little brother or sister is truckin' right along at 9.5 weeks!

Nothing to see here...move along...

Okay so its been a month since I posted - but we've been busy! My Chem class is kicking my butt in the studying department (but I'm pulling an A so far!), and we've had a stretch of some fantastic weather so we've been outside enjoying it and spending time with friends at the park. In fact we spent Wednesday in Phoenix at the AZ State Fair - trust me, it is NO comparison to Big Tex's domain - but it was a fun day nonetheless. They had a petting zoo complete with zebras, camels, itty bitty tiny baby goats and a kangaroo! (Seriously - those goats were so darn small I wanted to pick one up and hide it in the stroller basket and run away.) They also had a ton of terribly unhealthy food, elephant rides and lots of shiny stuff to look at. Here are some pics (click for bigger ones if you want):

This sweet camel just LOVED Mike!

And a video of the Ferris Wheel ride - by this point she was pretty tired:

Oh, and did I mention she's going to be a big sister sometime around June? :)

Brag book

So it's been a while since I last posted - mostly because I didn't want to sound like I was bragging about my budding young genius. But then I thought, it's my blog - I'm SUPPOSED to brag here!! This is for me to look back on in 40 years and remember the milestones of my kid's life, so here goes. At nearly 20 months old, Aurora can identify and say every capital letter of the alphabet, almost all the numbers, every color & shape, and she correctly identifies her left and right extremities 50% of the time :) She LOVES reading books - that's still her favorite thing to do, by far. She reads by herself, and she also brings books to you and climbs up in your lap saying "Read book! Read book!" And you can't just hold it and look at the pictures, either - "READ!" She tells you all the letters on everything she sees - tv commercials, other peoples' t-shirts, menus, billboards, everything. She talks a blue streak all day long - about anything and everything. She likes to point out ownership of different objects - "mommy's shoe", "daddy's glasses", "baby's yogurt".. she calls herself baby but she knows who Aurora is too. She loves Sesame Street and Curious George and she's getting pretty proficient at eating with utensils (when she chooses to eat AT ALL, which is another blog post entirely) She loves all kinds of music and dances all the time... this morning I was getting her yogurt out of the fridge and sang a little 'yo-gurt yo-gurt' ditty about it, and she said "DANCE!" and started wiggling her little butt so I had to keep making up the yogurt song as I went along. Oh and speaking of her little butt, it's actually a "hiney!" I have no idea where she got that - I'm assuming from her father, but he denies all knowledge of it. We're inching ever closer to potty training, too - yesterday she said "poopoo", "potty", and "RUN RUN!" but when we got there it was a false alarm. Once we get that figured out, my work is done, right?

Yep, she's pretty much grown.

The story of an obsession

It all started with a simple trip to San Diego's Wild Animal Park.
The baby elephant and all the giraffes roaming the grounds were so cool, a couple days later at the gift shop for the New Children's Museum we added one of each to our family.These figurines are so cute! And so lifelike! And not terribly expensive or anything!
"I'll have to keep my eye out for more!" I said. Luckily, I didn't have to wait long. Ducking into a little toy shop in Sea Port Village the next day, we found a whole display of all different species!
A neigh-neigh and a turtle joined the menagerie. Mike chuckled and noticed the vast differences in scale between the animals - the turtle is as big as a baby horse! The baby horse is bigger than a baby elephant! No matter - he liked them too. So after we got home and he happened to be at Toys R Us with Aurora one day, he decided to get a bunch more to add to the fray.He went in more of a domesticated direction, but that's ok.. at the rate this obsession is going, we'll have the entire animal kingdom in no time. Notice we even have a possum - how many kids do you know with a possum?? Not many. I really do like these animals - they are designed in Germany by Schleich and you can get them at toy stores and gift shops everywhere. They have adult males, adult females and babies of many different species. The best part is they range from $2-$7 each depending on scale, so it doesn't break the bank to pick up one or two every so often. Aurora likes them too - the pig was going around kissing everyone this morning. And just look how detailed they are:Right down to the eyelashes.

If you can't tell, we really haven't been doing anything blogworthy lately - Mike has had some time off so you know what he's been doing: Which leaves the rest of us to our own devices:But, the weather is starting to cool off incrementally, so hopefully soon we'll be able to go outside and do fun stuff more often!

Welcome to blogland!

I just wanted to post real quick and tell everyone that Jacob's mom Cathy has succumbed to the lure of the blog. You can read about their adventures at Under The Big Top - and if you act fast you could even win a coffeemaker!

More!

Guess what! Here are EVEN MORE pictures, courtesy of "Reeny and Dari" (translation: Aunt Doreen and Daria)

2008-08-23

These two are my favorites:

Home again!

We are finally home! We had a great time and really loved San Diego, but there is something to be said for your own shower, toilet paper, and mattress! Our days and nights in SD were jam-packed with food, fun and festivities - so much so that I can't even remember all the great places we went! We managed to go to the Wild Animal Park, Coronado Island, the beach, and a million places downtown... we walked so much that by the end of the first week I had to buy pants TWO sizes smaller!!! Not to worry - the second week I made sure to eat as much as possible. Wouldn't want to waste away, right? :) Aurora had such a great time - she really loved seeing all the new sights and meeting all the new people. She made friends everywhere we went! Here is a quick slideshow of some of our fun:

And a short video of bird chasing at the marina park -



If that's not enough for you, find even more photos here!

San Diego 2

Now I'm off to find a recipe to duplicate the fabulous Nutella cream gelato I had on our last day there!

On the road again

So, we leave for San Diego at 8 am tomorrow. The house is a wreck, the couch is full of laundry to be folded, and I haven't packed a thing yet. So what did we decide to do last night?
Have a Wii party, of course! We do have our priorities. Swimming, burgers, and Wii bowling sounded way more fun than cleaning and packing! But now I need to get off here and get my butt in gear. We'll see you in two weeks, with a bunch more pictures!

Bored bored bored..

Well, here we are in the dead of summer - with the unrelenting sun, desiccating wind and scorching desert heat of Yuma - so there is little to do during the day. Playdates are few and far between, and the summer movie camp ends this week. We can swim in our pool, but only during the early morning or late evening hours so as to avoid bursting into flame. So, with endless hours of free time and no outdoor options, what's a girl to do with her day?

Answer: Sock Monkey Rodeos.

In all seriousness, we are leaving in one week for two weeks in beautiful San Diego, and I am currently trying to plan our itinerary. We want to hit the beaches and do a lot of shopping and eating, obviously, but I can't decide between Sea World, the Zoo, or the Wild Animal Park. We definitely want to do at least two of these three options, and possibly all three - Mike and I have been to the Zoo before and really enjoyed it, but we haven't been to the other two places yet. I'm trying to decide which would be most adaptable to visiting with a toddler - any suggestions? We'll be staying here which is near Sea Port Village, so we can walk around and shop - Any other ideas for killing time in SD during the day?