Sunday, March 28, 2010

A Walk with Aurora

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. :)

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Aurora photos: Trip to Texas!






















Our Trip to Texas!

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!)

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Every-day Playing

Sometimes I try to photograph or video Aurora without her being able to see me. She's such a camera ham that every time she sees the camera, she just can't resist it. Let me show you...



But when she's distracted enough, I can get a nice picture or video of her simply playing. This rarely happens when we're indoors, but when we're outdoors, she doesn't notice me at all--she just takes off and plays! :)

So, here's a nice video of her demonstrating her new (probably accidental) skill...



~Regina
(As always, for those reading on facebook, please visit wilnregina.com to view the videos.)

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Family Pizza Nights

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