Christmas 2011

A few days before Christmas we went to the lights at Thanksgiving Point and dinner with Dar's family. Instead of driving through in separate cars we got to take a horse-drawn carriage ride. It was freezing cold, but very fun, and a nice switch-up from going to Temple Square, which is always fun to do too.

Awesome ice sculptures

We got to see a couple of Santa's reindeer

All bundled up

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my family, and had a great time. We got to relax, eat yummy food, and just have a nice time being together. Although our Christmas was small (which is as it should be in my opinion) it was awesome to have our first Christmas with our first baby. She's so much fun and we're so glad we have her!!

No Christmas gathering would be complete without playing Just Dance :)

Koda really gets into it and makes everyone dance! And ya gotta love the hair :)

Liam fell asleep waiting for dinner, and barely woke up to open presents. Poor kid!

Had to throw this one in of Dakoda. Wearing Gramps' glasses, eating a pickle. What more could you ask for?

Ready to open presents!

See what her jammies say? So true.

Aurora's very 1st Christmas present:
alphabet bath toys from Aunt Shannon, Uncle Jonathan, Hannah & Liam.

Helping Uncle Skylar open his presents too.

Christmas confetti fight!!!
(Long story short: Darwin started it.)

Nanny & Gramps gave Rori a mini bumblebee pillow pet. She fell in love at first sight.

Christmas traditions in my family always include cake and ice cream because my baby brother's birthday is Christmas day!

Christmas morning we went to church and then ate a scrumptious brunch before we opened presents. So nice and relaxing!

Rori in her adorable gingerbread girl dress

Bri & Koda

Presents!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too! Until next year...

The Coat

Dar's brother, Travis, works for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He works on different projects like the Mormon Channel and Mormon Messages and other things to help spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world through the internet. Recently he worked on a really touching animation project that we wanted to share with you, and hope you will share it with others. Merry Christmas!



P.S. Travis posted a little back-story about the coming forth of this project on their family blog here, if you're interested in reading about it :)

Broken.

Our dishwasher.
And our Blu-ray player.
At Christmas time.
Momma not happy.
Enough said.

12.11.11 - 11 months!

Yes, sirree! This girl just keeps growing and growing! Almost a whole year old already! This time last year we were greatly anticipating the arrival of this beautiful little bundle of joy. And that's exactly what she is: our beautiful little bundle of joy. She makes us so happy and is always keeping us smiling and laughing. We're so blessed to have her!

At 11 months:
-Aurora isn't quite walking on her own yet, but I'm sure we're not too far off.
-She's finally starting to get back on a better sleeping schedule--our fingers are crossed that she keeps it up!
-We've started giving her soy milk.
-She laughs at whatever we're laughing at, and sometimes will even laugh at something she thinks is funny on her own. It's hilarious!
-She is a DANCER! Dar & I joke that she's bewitched because she can't help but dance when she hears music/singing/or anything that even remotely sounds like music. Our favorite moves are her "Ray Charles" head sway, and her wiggly hips. So stinkin' cute!
-She hums to herself when she's falling asleep if I'm not humming or singing to her. Love it!
-She folds her arms when it's time to pray.
-She loves other babies and gets so happy when she sees any baby around her age.
-She loves water--loves to wash her hands after she eats (i.e. play in the water), and getting more and more crazy with her splashing and playing in the bath tub.
-She had her first ear infection & we found out she's allergic to amoxicillin. BIG bummer.
-She's finally starting to get better at wearing shoes!
-She is still wearing some 6-9 month clothes. We get comments from people all the time on how little she is. (The doctor weighed her last week when we were in for her ear infection and she weighed in at 17.05 lbs with her clothes on!)
-She still doesn't have much hair at all. Poor thing.
-She loves bananas, peas, and Cheerios.
-She's the cutest, sweetest little thing and we're still so happy to be her parents!

Hanging out with the Christmas Mooses

Trying to grab the water :)

She got a rash all over from the amoxicillin. Poor kid.

Cutie pie!

Giving her Momma some good smooches. Who needs mistletoe?

Happy 11 months, baby girl!

Rough Weekend

To start off the rough-ness, we went up north to say "good-bye" to my dad. He left Friday night to Texas for an 11 week training for a new job and he won't be coming home for Christmas. BIG BUMMER. We miss you already, Pops, and can't wait till you come home!

Rori's cousin, Koda, helping her eat peas

Bad picture of all of us, but it's all good :)

Then, Saturday night, Aurora had a pretty rough night. Being the sweetheart he is, Dar was up with her most of the time. Sunday morning she had a little fever, but we thought it was just from teething so we took her to church. While at church she got worse and worse, so we came home early and it still got worse from there. The last few days have been TOUGH!! Having a sick baby is no fun at all, even a sweet angel of a baby like we have. Long story short, our last few days have consisted of:

-Rori wanting me to hold her pretty much 24/7
-Fevers ranging from 99.1 t0 102.8
-Rori hardly eating anything
-Lots of crying from Rori
-Sleepless nights
-Etc.

After waiting 3 days to see if her fever would go away (which it did yesterday morning and she was acting better for a while, but then got worse again) I finally took her into the doctor this morning. Turns out our sweet little babe has her first ear infection. Our doctor said that on a scale from 1-10, Rori's is a 7-8. OUCH! Poor thing. I feel like such a bad mom to let her suffer for as long as she has. But, when we got home from the doctor's (thanks again, Mom & Dad D for all your help!) I loaded her up on antibiotic, ibuprofen, and ear drops and she's been snoozing the day away ever since. I'm glad she's finally getting some relief. And I'm so glad we haven't had to deal with this until now, and I'm also glad Rori's been really healthy and such a great baby from the get-go. We love you, baby girl! (A little side note: even in her misery, she's been so sweet. When Dar gets home from work, she puts on a sad little smile and waves at him to let him know she's glad he's home. It totally melts my heart!)

Our sick, sleeping baby

On a happier note...we did have some great things this weekend! We got to see this handsome guy get baptized! Congrats, Robby! We love you!
Rori helped me put up our Christmas decorations (and we watched/helped our best friends put theirs up too.)
And Aurora had her first sledding experience! :)

Thanksgiving 2011

What a great holiday. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving too! Rori and I LOVED having Dar home with us for 5 WHOLE DAYS without anything on the schedule. It was WONDERFUL! Dar loved it too and was bummed he had to leave us today to go to work. We're just all looking forward to Christmas break already :) The things we loved most about Thanksgiving this year: our first Thanksgiving being together as a family of three--being grateful for all we have--swimming--being with extended family--spending time with friends--relaxing--great food--and just to reiterate: being together. That's what the holidays are all about. Being with the people you love most, and boy, did we need it!!

Getting a nap in before turkey time

Mmm! SO delish! Great job on the turkey, Travis!

Us :)

You can see Rori's top teeth in this picture. So cute!

Part of the crew

She loved the turkey and the rolls. Happy girl :)

And some other pics from our break
Rori had her first experience being swung in a blanket by Dad

Dar set up our Christmas tree and Rori just wanted to play with the box.

Rori in her darling new owl beanie my friend Nicole made. Thanks again, Nicole!! We love it!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Gratitude.

For Family Home Evening last night we had a "gratitude activity" in honor of Thanksgiving this week. I created pieces of paper with the numbers 1-100 on it for Dar & I to think of 100 things we're grateful for. At first Dar wasn't too thrilled and thought he could only maybe come up with 50 at the most (he was pretty tuckered out from work). It did seem like a challenge at first, but we were both pleasantly surprised with how quickly we came up with our 100 blessings. It wasn't our "Top 100" list but "The-first-100-things-that-came-to-mind" list, and we honestly could have kept going long past 100. There were many things I thought of that I didn't actually write down but Dar had on his list and vice verse. Some things were pretty general and others were really specific. It was definitely a fun activity that I'd like to make a tradition for FHE the Monday before Thanksgiving each year. I think it will be fun to see how our lists change from year to year.

And just a little sample, here's the first 10 things and our last item we each put on our lists:

Darwin:

1. Kiara
2. Aurora
3. Knowledge of the Gospel
4. Atonement of Jesus Christ
5. Blessings
6. Abundances
7. Few major trials
8. Home
9. Job
10. 2nd mortgage nearly paid off
100. That Heavenly Father gave all of this to me

Kiara:
1. Heavenly Father
2. Jesus Christ
3. Darwin
4. Aurora
5. Laughter
6. Happiness
7. Smiles
8. Temples
9. Scriptures
10. Prayer
100. Life

Happy Thanksgiving this week, and I hope you each take the opportunity to count your blessings and thank our Heavenly Father for all He has given you!

Chocolate.

She's been introduced. There's no going back now!

Dear Santa,

I just wanted to let you know that you will be receiving a wish list from me soon. I'm going through the adds right now.

Love,
Aurora

11.11.11 - 10 months!

First off, HAPPY VETERANS DAY! Thank you to the many, many people who serve our country and have served our country, especially my family members who have served and sacrificed. We couldn't be more grateful for your service!!! And Happy Birthday to my friend, Janice, and Tracee's twin brothers, and anyone else who happens to have a birthday on this fun date!

Our little one kind of has a birthday today. She turns 10 months today! Ho-ly smokes! No more single-digit birthdays for this little one, when you're counting by months, of course. Aurora is such a joy, and her little personality is popping out more and more. It seems like she has learned so much in the past month, check out our monthly list and pictures below. I honestly can't believe we'll be celebrating our 1st baby's 1st birthday in just 2 months. Monumental. Can it be real?

At 10 months:
-Aurora is so curious, loves to explore, and gets into EVERYTHING. Nothing at our house is safe from baby fingers anymore.
-She discovered she can put her finger in her nose. Hilarious, but not something we're trying to encourage.
-We discovered a few weeks ago that she can climb a whole flight of stairs all by herself, even though we don't have any stairs at our house for her to practice on.
-She loves to be everywhere I am and follows me all around the house.
-She loves to "help" me with whatever I'm working on, be it laundry, dishes, cooking, what-ev...she wants to be right there with me.
-She likes to play "hide-and-seek" and will come search around the house for me when I'm in another room and keep calling her name. She thinks it's so funny!
-She's working on trying to walk, and I'm sure she'll be walking on her own before we know it.
-We've been trying to get her to go to sleep on her own (she stopped doing it when she figured out she could stand up in her crib) and we haven't been very successful yet because she makes herself throw up. SO not fun!
-She loves when Daddy comes home from work and gets so excited to hear his voice.
-She's eating more and more table food and loves to feed herself with her fingers. She's also getting much better with her sippy cup, but she LOVES her bottles! Weaning is going to be loads of fun.
-She loves to bite EVERYTHING with her 6 little sharp teeth! She even has a chipped tooth already. Seriously. (Ever seen Lemony Snicket's: A Serious of Unfortunate Events? She's totally like the little girl who's talent is biting things.)
-She's getting more and more vocal, although I haven't picked up on any new words this last month. She likes to sing when we sing, especially at church. It's pretty dang cute.

Happy 10 months, baby girl! Thanks for making us so happy and keeping us laughing. We love you!

"Helping" Mom unload the dishwasher

Eating spaghetti and peas. Mmm!

Playing with her books and burp cloths; almost an everyday occurrence

Finger in the nose

Oops! Got caught!

Another shot of finger-in-the-nose. Just for kicks.

Discovering the toilet paper roll

1st time walking with the push-car!!
(This was just last night)

A common sight I'm sure we'll get used to as she's running away from us in a couple months.

And a video of Rori walking with the push-car, for anyone interested: