1.11.12 - 1 Year!

Wow. That's really all I can say. Does every other mom get emotional when their first child turns a year old? I know that's probably a dumb question, but I honestly had a really rough time with my baby turning a year old yesterday. I'm not ready for this baby to be growing up! She really is becoming more and more fun every day though, and watching her grow and learn new things never gets old!

Rori's 12 month stats:
Weight: 17 lbs 7.5 oz (4%)
Length: 28.75 in (40%)
Head: 42.5 cm (1%)
So basically we have a skinny, average height girl with a little head :)

At 12 months:

-Aurora's walking!! She doesn't go everywhere yet, but she will walk back and forth between Dar & I. She walked 1/2 way across our living room a few nights ago. Yay!
-She is an AWESOME eater, despite her allergies. She eats pretty much anything we put in front of her--all table food. She's refused to eat baby food for a while now. She even ate this Chicken Cacciatore recipe with me for dinner last night!
-She still LOVES to dance , and always makes people laugh with her little wiggles and what she thinks is "music" to dance to, such as my KitchenAid mixer. Silly girl.
-She is very good at folding her arms for prayers.
-She loves watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
-She knows who Jesus is and loves to give his picture smooches. It's seriously the sweetest thing ever & totally makes me teary-eyed.
-She's getting better at sleeping (finally!) since we started letting her cry herself to sleep sometimes. It's SUPER hard, but I seriously appreciate the better sleeping routine.
-She knows where your nose is.
-She loves to be chased around the house.
-She loves piggy-back-rides and can hold on all by herself!
-She is SUPER friendly and will even reach to go to a stranger if they seem friendly enough to her.
-She loves to wave and blows awesome kisses!
-She is so happy and pleasant and we LOVE having her around to give us loves and smiles every single day!

Rori's Vocab:

Momma
Dadda
Baba
Ha (Hi, it kind of sounds like she says it with a southern accent. So cute!)
Ba (Bye)

Rori's Allergies:
Dairy
Amoxicillin
Possibly eggs
Peanut Butter (as of today. Guh!)

Other pictures from the last month:
She sits with her legs like this all the time and she usually has something in her mouth too. Silly girl.

Eating Dad's shoelace. Awesome.

She loves spinning around in our office chair.

Giving the milk snake kisses ;)

Workin' on those pull-ups!

Taking on the Ramen noodle challenge.

Our healthy little eater--carrot stick in one hand and broccoli in the other!

Thrilled to be holding "the baby"

Giving loves.

"Helping" Dad with the laundry :)

We love you so much, sweet Aurora.
Happy birthday, baby girl!!

Birthday Girl!!

Happy Birthday, sweet princess!!

Thanks for making this last year the most incredible yet.
We love you more than you know!!
xoxoxo
Mom & Dad
(1 year update to come later)

Walking!!

I honestly can't believe it's taken me this long to put up this post. Seriously?

Our little munchk started walking CHRISTMAS EVE!

She took her first steps when we were with my family, which was great timing because my parents got to witness it too. She's getting more and more brave, taking more steps every day. And she thinks she's pretty cool for doing it too. Silly thing. We have yet to capture her new skill on camera though.

Way to go, baby girl!

(Some of) What Dar's been up to.

My handsome hubby is getting ready to go on a Klondike campout with the scouts in our ward this weekend (another post on that to come later), so they've spent the last few weeks putting their Klondike sled together. I think it looks great! The only question is whether or not we'll actually have any snow for them to pull it on :} We've had an unusually barren winter with hardly any snow. [High of 55 degrees today. Seriously?!] Especially compared to last year (although last year was an unusual year with LOTS of snow).
Also, as part of Dar's Christmas stocking I gave him a gift certificate to go shooting with our friend, Jared, whenever he wanted. Tracee did the same thing for Jared. They took advantage of it right away and went shooting last Thursday while Tracee, the kiddos, and I hung out with Jared's mom and sisters. The boys had a blast, as always. (No pun intended :)
When they got back we went to a nearby park and shot off a rocket Jared got as a white elephant gift from his work Christmas party. It was pretty cool, but the videos we took of it are tons better than the pictures. Sorry :)
Glad you've been able to take the time out of your busy schedule to have some fun!! Hopefully you'll have more and more chances for more fun and less work. Thanks for all you do! We love you, Dar!!

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! :)