Monday, August 30, 2010

Balls on the Table!

One of Aurora new favorite games, now that she's figured out how to reach the table...



And a variation on the same game:



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

Friday, August 27, 2010

Rainbow Cupcakes!

Since these cupcakes have created some interest on facebook, I thought I would share my own pictures of their creation. I had seen this idea in other places as full rainbow cakes, but I got the idea for rainbow cupcakes from here.

My batter, after mixing it per the instructions on the box (a white cake mix) and adding food coloring to create the colors I wanted. I used a kitchen scale to try to get the batter amounts to be equal, but I didn't do a good enough job. Otherwise, the purple color was the most difficult to create, too much blue and you'd get a super ugly deep blue.


Just a little dollop of each color in each cup. I think it was 1-2 tablespoons, not even a full spoonful when using a regular table spoon. Too much and you'll run out of cup.

See? The purple doesn't even cover the whole bottom of the cup...


Just drop the blue in on top of the purple, don't try to smooth it out or the colors will mix.


Keep going with the green...


Yellow...


Orange...


And "red"--also known as pink...


The cake box said I would get 24-30 cupcakes if I filled the cups half full. I ended up having the cups 3/4 + full and they turned out perfectly. Bake as directed on the box....


Mmmm!


So pretty! And yummy too! :)


So there you go, that's how I did it!
~Regina

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Momma and the Doll

Fun times with momma. :)



~Regina
(For those reading on facebook, please visit wilnregina.com to view the video.)

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Sliding

When my parents were visiting, we went to a playground to wear Aurora out. My mother and I managed to take videos, from two directions, of the same trip down the slide. :)





~Regina
(For those reading on facebook, please visit wilnregina.com.)

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Sleep...

We've been getting more of it, yay!

Mid-July, not too long after we got back from our whirlwind trip to Chicago, Aurora figured out how to climb out of her crib. At first, she didn't try it again, but within a few days she was climbing out every single time she was put in the crib. Good-bye, sleep. Once she figured out that we couldn't keep her in the crib, she also started refusing to go to sleep. So we decided that the crib was no longer an effective use of space and took it down.

Now, we knew this would make bedtimes difficult for a while, but surely no more difficult than they already were, right? Ha! Aurora's a smart little cookie who has a lot of patience when she wants to. Most nights we would do her bedtime routine, then try to rock her or lay with her to help her fall asleep. If we left her, she would get up and play for hours. It was not uncommon for it to take 2 hrs for her to finally fall asleep. Often getting her to sleep involved lots of screaming and fighting mommy or daddy. But she would eventually relax and fall asleep. Many nights, she would sleep for two hours, wake up, and we would have to do it all over again. No fun at all, not to mention exhausting.

We knew we were doing something wrong and that somehow there had to be a way that was easier that didn't involve hours of screaming and crying. We tried leaving her and letting her play, but she would play till who-knows-when and I (Regina) couldn't sleep while she was awake making noise in her room. Me not getting any sleep is a very bad thing, so that just wasn't going to work for us. We tried letting her sleep with us, but she wouldn't sleep there, either. Most "helpful" people told us we weren't letting her cry enough--but if they could be in our home at bedtime, they would know that that was definitely not true. I even made Aurora a weighted blanket, hoping that would help her little fidgety body relax--she likes it and it helps her sleep once she's already asleep, but she hates it being put over her before she's asleep.

Then one night, Wil decided to turn off the rain CD that we had playing on repeat in her room to help drown out noises at night. Aurora screamed and cried like normal (for over and hour) and then proceeded to sleep for 9 hours. She had never slept that long in her life, ever--never saw that one coming! So, the kiddo can sleep...so we started looking for other things that might be bothering her. I described our situation to a couple of online friends and they offered several very different suggestions that we, stuck in our rut, hadn't thought of.

We started simple: empty her room of toys (hello, messy living room!) and just stop fighting her. We do our bedtime routine and I lay down next to her in her bed and sing her bedtime songs, then I kiss her good night and leave. We actually haven't done more than that because she's been putting herself to sleep after less than 10 minutes of fussing in her dark room. Yesterday she fell asleep on the rocking chair for naptime, but she slept! Last night was the best night we have ever had in her entire life: she slept for 6 hrs, woke to nurse, and slept for another 6 hrs. Apparently her room was too distracting to her, too much to do, so much to explore. Her busy little mind and body wanted to keep playing and learning, even though she was tired. Now, once she sees that her room is boring, she goes and sleeps, cuddled up against pillows on her bed.

I never thought that we would find the "silver bullet" for Aurora's sleep, but this is definitely awesome! It's only been a few nights that we've been doing this, so we'll see if it continues, but I have hope that it will. I'm thrilled that we found a simple, gentle way to help her sleep--she does it all herself! Who would have thought that would work? :)

So, that is why I haven't had the energy to update the blog for like a month. Once we get a bit more caught up on sleep, I'll try to catch you all up on what you've been missing.

~Regina

Monday, August 2, 2010

Not keeping up...

It's been a busy month! We went to Chicago the second weekend of July, Aurora got sick shortly after getting home, then she decided to climb out of her crib and now refuses to stay in it no matter what. So we're working on transitioning her to a "big girl" bed and it's not going very well. There you go, those are my excuses for not updating the blog. I have lots of pictures and videos, but I don't have the energy to edit them when I finally have the time. Once we can all get more sleep, then we'll resume or typical blog mumbo-jumbo. ;)

~Regina