March 28, 2010
Now that the weather has warmed up, Aurora and I love going outside. Sometimes we just play in the grassy "bowl" across the road from our house, other times we walk around the college campus. On this fine day, we decided to go pick up daddy from work....
But first Mommy tried to make Aurora pose for some pictures in the clover flowers... Aurora was not pleased with the delay.
But the flowers matched her sweater so perfectly... it was a shame to waste the opportunity.
So we headed on our way...until Aurora saw a leaf.
She, of course, had to investigate this fascinating item.
For you, Mommy.
And another...
And then we resumed walking--for a few steps...
Here's another one for you, Mommy!
Look! I found another!
And look! A crack...I must carefully crawl/step over it.
Oh look! More leaves, Mommy!
And what's this weird stuff?
And this little thing? An acorn cap? What a funny name...
There's lots more of them over here! Can I put them all on this sidewalk?
Oh, yeah! We were going somewhere, weren't we?!
Climb, climb, climb to get--ooh! what's this?!!
Oh yeah, keep climbing up this loooong stairway...
Whew! Finally at the top! Can we go get daddy already?! Oh wait--what's that over there?
We did finally get to daddy, after taking 30 minutes to make a walk that typically takes 5 minutes. :)
March 24, 2010
Aurora's first flight
made us tired that night.
But lots of fun we had
with Grandmom and Granddad.
And though Aurora hated the sand
she thought the day at church was just grand.
Goofing with daddy--so fun!--
and visiting places that normally have sun
made our hearts sad to go when we were done.
~Regina
(There's more pictures of our trip in an album on our website! Visit wilnregina.com to see them all!)
March 17, 2010
One of my favorite memories growing up is how my family used to have homemade pizza every Friday night. Pizza has always been one of my favorite foods and being able to smell the yeasty dough, watch the beautiful crimson sauce be spread over the soft dough, and help sprinkle the final toppings, usually pepperoni and cheese, over it all just enhanced the wonderful experience. At some point in my early teenage years, the pizza making duties were turned over to me. I became THE pizza maker--what a lofty title. I had a blast experimenting with the dough (garlic salt is an awesome addition to the crust!) and playing around with toppings (you said we needed to do something with all that turkey leftover from Thanksgiving!!). Actually, I really liked the turkey on the pizza, but my family wasn't so thrilled about it. Hehe.
Anyways, now that I'm married and have a child, I've fallen into the Friday night pizza tradition again. For a while there I was trying to "do something different," whatever that means, but having the old, trusty, favorite standby of pizza on Friday nights is really such a wonderful thing. So we have now introduced Aurora to the wonders of pizza. She loves to at least be allowed to watch what I'm doing up on the kitchen counters, so I try to include her in food preparation as much as is reasonable at her age (which isn't much!).
So on this night, family pizza night, I allowed Aurora to attempt to squish out her own pizza--and I made sure Wil took some pictures! ;)
First contact...
Ewww! Look at that hand!
So I helped her.
And together we got the pizza dough squished out.
At this rate, by the time she's 5 we can have her making the pizza for us!
And for those who are curious about our pizza bakeware, we have been baking our pizza in our cast iron skillets because the dough turns out significantly fluffier (I can't think of the technical term) than when baked on the plain old pizza pan. I think that a baking stone would have the same effect, but I can't stand how those feel, so we use cast iron.
~Regina
March 11, 2010
A few nights ago we were enjoying a nice family dinner of homemade sweet and sour chicken over rice. (My mom's recipe--yummy!--I can't believe I used to hate it! Sorry, Mom.) Aurora was enjoying herself 1) because she wasn't being forced to wear a bib, 2) she was stripped down to her diaper due to her bib-less-ness, and 3) she likes green peppers!
Aurora must have been having trouble grabbing something because suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see her nose-dive into her food! Of course, I grabbed the camera and took a picture!
Upon seeing the camera, she struck a pose--what a silly goose!
Then she decided she wanted some more food--the easy way.
Oh yes, she knows she's funny. :)
What a turkey we have! And we're loving (almost) every minute of it.
~Regina
March 9, 2010
Today Aurora assisted me in one of the more messy tasks in gardening: digging a new flower bed. She started out by helping me just by playing in the grass and trying to figure out whether she actually liked the feeling of grass on her bare feet. She apparently decided she didn't mind it because she finally ventured my direction to investigate this crumbly brown stuff I was playing in...
She was very careful and particular about touching it at first--she would gently poke it and then shake her hand off like a cat sometimes does when his paw gets wet.
Then she moved in for a closer examination...
And, as with everything at this age, careful investigation of course involves tasting!
Yummy!! It looks like chocolate around her mouth, but I promise it's not!
Finally, Aurora took the plunge and dug her tiny, adorable toes into the warm earth. Ahhh, what wonderful pleasure....
Oh yes, it was a match made in heaven.
But then tragedy struck.... [cue scary music]...mommy finished planting the dahlias and hollyhocks! With the sun sinking lower in the sky, the great, decision-making mommy declared that it was clean-up time--no dirty toesies allowed in her house!
So the hose was retrieved and gently sprayed on dirty hands, feet, knees and toes. You would have thought it was an instrument of ultimate torture by the way Aurora screamed...
Oh the pain!
The agony!
The heart-wrenching tragedy!
Yes, Aurora was separated from her beloved dirt and was clean again. How very sad. Or maybe the water was too cold, one can never tell in these type of sad, sad stories.
Tune in next time for more of Aurora's adventures!
~Regina
March 4, 2010
Let me just say, having Aurora able to communicate beyond just screaming is a wonderful thing. But....things still get confusing sometimes.
For instance, she's constantly changing the way she communicates want or desire. When she first started signing, she would sign "more" randomly and we would have to guess at what she wanted more of. Then she discovered that "please" got her a lot of stuff, so she started walking up to us and signing "please"--usually she wanted whatever we had in our hand, but not always. Then more recently, she discovered pointing--praise the Lord for pointing!!--and the object(s) of her desire became a little bit less ambiguous and I thought "Finally! She can specify what she wants!" But no.... this past week she discovered how to nod "yes," another wonderful talent that we're thrilled she's learned. We made great use of it: she would point and sign "please" and we would ask "You want this? You want this?" until she nodded "yes." But now she's started just walking up to us or other objects and nodding "yes," as if that will get her whatever it is she wants. We just can't win!! Bring on the talking, please!
She's also learned how to communicate that she's tired--or at least that she wants to go spend time in her crib... She'll start getting fussy so I'll ask her if it's "sleepytime" (which I sign simply by folding my hands and laying my head on them). Aurora will usually respond with a nod and copy me. So I'll stand up and say, "OK, let's go to your room for sleepytime," and she will follow me down the hallway (sometimes) with her head still flopped over to the side! I'm amazed that she can walk like that! :)
Sleep is another issue altogether. We're thrilled that she's begun sleeping for 3-4 hour segments of the night, sometimes even 5. Wow! I live in hope that someday I'll only have to wake up once a night. But even better is that she's begun to be able to put herself to sleep, after bouncing and jabbering in her crib by herself for a while. I'm hoping this pattern continues because bedtime is so much easier when we can rock her, feed her, cuddle, pray and then say "goodnight" and let her fall asleep in whatever way she chooses to eventually get there. Obviously, we aren't going to let her scream until she falls asleep (because she's not good at calming herself down), but as long as she's happy she will usually put herself to sleep within an hour of being put into her crib. It's a lovely thing.
Aurora's also become much more interested in eating what we are eating--not just squishing it and throwing it over the side of her tray. Yesterday and today she insisted on eating breakfast with me, so she had a small bowl of cream of wheat, just like Mommy. She does a good job of eating most of what is offered. See?
No, she didn't get any of the coffee...
Finally, we went shopping the other day because we both needed new earrings. All my favorites were worn out and Aurora's only earrings were beginning to look very well used. So Aurora got her first trip to Claire's and a new pair of earrings. Here she is showing them (well, the one that you can see) off:
I think this photo is my new favorite of her. She looks sooooo precious!! (Click on the photo for a larger photo--my mom wanted to see an up-close of her earrings.)
Well, I think that's all for now. I'm enjoying some peace and quiet since our little miss put herself to sleep for her nap. I'm definitely liking this new trend. Yep. :)
~Regina
P.S. Don't forget to check out the microblog tab on our
website. I've been having fun keeping the world up-to-date on the little cute things Aurora does every day.
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