Monday, January 31, 2011

Birthday stuff!

Opening presents...
She had to stop and try out every new toy, of course!


Opening a particularly tricksie present. :)


She paged through each book before moving on...
 
She loved making a mess.

Of course, I have to include a video showing off the present that I made for her!


And, finally, a shot of all the loot!

Now on to birthday cake! Please pardon our attempt to sing. I tried to start us out on the same note, but apparently Wil wasn't paying attention.


Contemplating her cake after pulling her fork out from beside her in her booster seat! Silly kid.
Her response when I asked her to smile for the camera. :)

That's all for now!

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

Friday, January 28, 2011

Snippets of Cuteness

Talking to Momma on the phone. Aurora talks about Momma every day and always says "Momma? Momma? 'ait, 'ait." Translation: "Can I talk to momma today? I'll wait for the chance." :)
Just playing. See the snow out the window?
Found her pockets! This picture was taken while we were checking out the new apartment that we should be moving into within the next week.
This is what happens when I ask Aurora to smile. She scrunches up her eyes, wrinkles her nose and bares her teeth. :)
And one last thing...a video of Aurora singing! :)


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

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Happy Birthday, Aurora!

From our tiny sweet girl who entered the world with a wail...
Who could only cuddle if she was swaddled...
Who wanted to take it all in...
And didn't want to miss a thing!
Who knew what she wanted and went for it...
And had fun while doing it!
To a big toddler who hates clothes...
Is very serious about her cookies and coloring...
And wants to be all grown up...
You've made it two years! Welcome to your third year of adventures! May it be even better than the preceding two! :)
~Regina

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Baking with Daddy!

This afternoon Wil and Aurora made some apple pie together. :)
Aurora loves helping in the kitchen so much that Momma thought that an apron was a good Christmas gift--it certainly was!
Aurora had to concentrate to make the apple corer/cutter go around and around.
Apples waiting to get chopped just a little bit more!
Tasting a bit of her hard work...
Mixing apples...
Trying a different method of mixing...
And a video of all this fun...:)


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

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Why I Disappeared...

So it's been over a week since the blog was updated--oops!  Aurora's been having trouble sleeping and so, consequently, I also am sleep deprived.  Getting only 6 hours of broken sleep (if even that) just doesn't encourage creativity in my experience.

Last night was the icing on the sleep-deprivation cake: Aurora became terrified of closing her eyes.  Not sure where this fear came from, but she was able to tell us fairly clearly that that's what she was afraid of.  She would become extremely upset any time that her eyes started closing (from her being so tired) or when we demonstrated with our eyes that her eyelids would open again.  She was so preciously pitiful sitting on my lap crying and waving night-night to her eyes. Poor thing.  Wil ended up staying with her in her room until she was almost falling over from exhaustion, then he rocked her while she wailed, but she couldn't help but fall asleep.  She hasn't had any more trouble with her eyes shutting today, though she's not wanting to go to sleep right now.  At least she's only playing quietly in her room, which is a great improvement over last night.  This kiddo certainly keeps us guessing.

So, with that in mind, I'm going to only post a couple videos. Enjoy!

Our newest attempt at sledding: Aurora insisted on pulling the sled and refused to ride in it. I guess whatever works, right? :)


Aurora working on threading ribbon through some of her sort-and-stack blocks from Melissa & Doug. This is a brand-new skill that she worked on all afternoon today.


That's all for now!
~Regina
(For those reading on facebook, please visit wilnregina.com to view the videos.)

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Two Funny Stories

Story 1: Before Christmas we visited my family and saw my sister, who is about 7 months pregnant.  Since then Aurora has been obsessed with babies being in bellies and has been trying hard to understand that she (Aurora) doesn't have a baby in her belly.  We were talking about it again earlier this week (Aurora pointed at her belly and said "beebee!") when her tummy made some gurgling noises.  So I exclaimed, "Aurora, your belly doesn't have a baby in it but it does have bubbles!"  Ever since then, Aurora has been walking around pointing at her belly exclaiming "bub-es! bub-es!"  Of course, now she notices any time my tummy makes gurgling noises and and will point it out to me (and anyone else who is in earshot).

Story 2:  For Christmas, Aurora received a Little People nativity set.  She fell in love with the set, especially baby Jesus.  She would take baby Jesus to bed with her, carry him around, become distressed when she couldn't find him, and talk about him constantly.  We put away all of our Christmas decorations this past weekend and decided to put the nativity set away also, to keep it special for Christmas time.  We made sure that Aurora said good bye to every piece and that she kissed baby Jesus as we put him in the box with his mommy.  Now the box of packed Christmas stuff is sitting in our bedroom waiting to be put away in the storage shed.  Every time Aurora sees it, she points at it and exclaims, "beebee esus bye-bye!" and signs "sleep."  Every time we pray with her and start the prayer "Dear Jesus..." she starts exclaiming "beebee esus!" and gets a little sad look on her face.  I'm beginning to wonder if we need to bring baby Jesus back out of his box.

~Regina

Monday, January 3, 2011

Because I'm Lazy...

I'm posting a couple videos.  Between being sick for the holidays, the holidays themselves, teething, and bad sleep, I don't have much energy to write a real post....so you just get a couple of really cute videos of Aurora.  I don't think I'll hear anyone complaining about that. ;)


This first video was taken while we were driving down to my parents' for a pre-Christmas visit.  Pardon my stuffy-sounding voice, I had a killer sinus infection at this point...


And a video of Aurora jumping/dancing just yesterday.  What a silly girl!


That's all for now!
~Regina
(For those reading on facebook, please visit wilnregina.com to view the videos.)