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!
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.
The coolest kid at the zoo
Hitchin a ride on Grandpa MillerWe 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!
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!
Check out these 
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!
Mom, the sun is behind you....
Hey! Hold my hat!
Standing up in the tub AND sucking bathwater out of a washcloth...
It's the finest bathwater from the north of Spain!
I took the washcloth away from her and she slurped it directly from the tub.
Figuring she must be absolutely parched, I offer the sippy cup full of clean, cold, filtered water. She chose Pooh instead - she wasn't thirsty anymore!I know!! I am the worst blogmom in the whole entire world. A MONTH has gone by since my last post! Did I die? Was I kidnapped? Did my computer go up in flames? Were my fingers horribly mutilated in a tragic cupcake baking accident? No, none of those things. I was just living my life without a working camera and didn't feel that I could come here and describe all the great things Aurora is doing without pictures. But trust me, she is just as great as ever - if not greater! She's such a little nutjob these days, running around, playing hide and seek, laughing and stopping to smell every single flower in the yard. I can't wait for our next adventure - in two weeks we're all going back to Dallas for 13 days! Mike managed to finagle some training for work in DFW, and I managed to sucker him into taking us with him. Of course, due to government ineptitude we won't be on the same flight or even flying into the same airport, but at least we're leaving the same airport at roughly the same time and staying in the same hotel. It promises to be an experience, I am sure... And never fear, my new camera will be here THIS WEDNESDAY so I will be sure to take thousands of nauseatingly adorable pictures for you immediately. Oh and I came here to post this quick teaser of a note, and realized that today she is 1 year, 1 month, 1 week and 1 day old! Neat, huh?
Don't worry - I'll be back Thursday with pictures :)
My camera is broken! I don't know how I am going to live until I get a new one... and of course it had to break on the very day we had Aurora's little birthday party :( Jacob's family came over and we had tacos and birthday cake and opened all of her great presents and everyone stayed up way past their bedtimes but it was worth it, I think. Anyway, not much else to report here - I'm taking donations for the Camera Fund, if anyone wants to contribute! ;-)
Wow - has it really been over 2 weeks since my last post?? Lest you think I'm just a lazy slacker, let me assure you that I have had quite a few good reasons not to be online. Let's see... there's the master bed/bath painting debacle, which turned into the master shower and toilet replacement adventure; then there was the wrecking of my car (not by me) and subsequent 2 week absence of it; then there was the guest toilet tank repair; then there was the truck heater core repair.... Let's just say we're getting all the trials of 2008 over with as quickly as possible and the rest of the year is going to be a piece of cake.
Before:
After:
Yes, she climbed up there herself:
I'm not saying who did it, but it wasn't me!
Speaking of (birthday) cake - one year ago today, a 9 pound, 9 ounce, wiggly pink bundle was brought forth into the glaring lights of a hospital room to meet her anxious and fully unprepared parents. She opened her blue eyes and looked around almost immediately, as if sizing up the situation and determining her plan of action for the year to come. I don't know what plans she had in mind, but the past year has brought so much adventure and excitement to our little home. She's gone from just watching and learning about the world from the comfort of our arms to being a full fledged little toddler - independently careening about the house, laughing and talking to everything she sees. She loves to read books to herself, in fact its the only way I can keep her still long enough to change her diaper - just hand her a book to read while I do it. She still likes to play with socks - anyone's will do, including the ones on her feet. And her new favorite thing is to chase Pepper around the house, squealing and giggling all the way. When she catches her, they take turns licking each other (I know, gross) until Pepper gets tired of it and runs off to be chased some more. She's quite the little mimic - monkeys go AH MM AH AH, cows go MMMMM, dogs go AGH AGH (with tongue sticking out), and tigers go AAARRRRR! And she can 'cough', 'sneeze', 'laugh' and 'fart' (pbbttt) just as well as any grownup around. She's finally sleeping like a little person - 11-13 hours in her crib at night, with just one wakeup to eat, and at least one decent nap during the day. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we can maintain that progress during the weaning process that is now imminent. Just one year has brought about changes in her parents, too - we started out as just sleep deprived zombies trying to figure it all out and do it all right, and now we're slightly less sleep deprived but we're still trying to do it all right. Hopefully the year to come will be as great as the first one was. Happy Birthday, my little monkey!
Well, she almost managed to escape her first year without getting sick - the poor baby is currently feeling miserable with a runny nose, red, watery eyes and annoying sneeze attacks. I'm hoping it's just allergies from the big dust storm we had a couple nights ago, but it may be a full fledged cold. She's not running a fever yet, she's still eating and she seems to be in pretty good spirits, considering, so we'll wait and see. Now as promised, here is video of the big girl walking! Please ignore my disastrous house - we're also in the middle of "renovating the master suite" (painting the bedroom) so all of our furniture is crammed into the living room along with all of the fallout from Christmas. So just look at Aurora, not her surroundings :)
We now officially have a walker in our family! She's been tentatively walking for a couple of weeks, but as of yesterday she now walks more than she crawls - but it's still pretty freaky to see her come walking around the corner. She even tries to run on the carpet when she gets excited about one of her new Christmas toys! I think the motivation behind her walking was the fact that when she walks she can carry things in both her hands - so now I have books and shoes and balls all over the house! I have a bunch of pictures and video that I will try to get online tonight.
