Mother's Day Weekend

I was honestly very pleasantly surprised at how well I handled Mother's Day this year, with everything that has transpired in the last few months and losing our little Nastassia.  It was still hard, don't get me wrong, but I only shed a few tears compared to the fountains I was expecting.

Mother's Day can be bitter-sweet for a lot of people, and I'm one of those.  This Mother's Day marked the due date (actually May 9th, which was Mother's Day in 2010) of the first baby we were expecting but miscarried at 11 weeks.  It marked my 2nd official Mother's Day with my sweet Aurora, and it marked 5 weeks since we delivered Nastassia.  It was a beautiful weekend, and several things happened to help me heal emotionally.

Before I dive into the weekend's activities, I just want to thank Darwin for his love for me as his wife and the mother of our children.  He is the best husband ever, and I'm so grateful for him and all he does for me.  I wouldn't have the opportunity to be a mom if it wasn't for him.  So thanks for helping me become a Mom and be honored this Mother's Day along with the billions of mothers throughout history!  I love you!!

Also, thanks to my Mom, Omie, Mother-in-law, and Grandmother Jennings for all your love and all you do for us.  Happy Mother's Day!

To start off Mother's Day weekend, we were honored to participate in a very peaceful Walk of Remembrance at Thanksgiving Point Gardens.  We were invited to participate in the Walk with hundreds of other families who also have angel babies waiting in Heaven.  As we took our peaceful stroll through the Gardens and walked past dozens of families, I couldn't help but wonder what their stories were.  But overall, I was grateful to be there with Darwin and Aurora to take the time to remember and honor our sweet little Nastassia.  It was a beautiful day, and the gardens were healing to our whole family.

Rori wasn't in the mood for pictures

 Love the sunglasses, and she loves to wear them!

 Dar got some really nice shots of the the beautiful flowers!

 There's a pond with HUGE fish to feed.

Rori would have stayed to watch the fish all day if we'd let her

Inside the Gardens is a Secret Garden with a water fountain that Rori loved dipping her hands into

 I found a dime and let her throw it in :)

 One of the many birds we saw

 Dar showing Aurora the pretty waterfalls

After we visited the Gardens, we spent the rest of the day with my family.  We had a nice BBQ and enjoyed spending the day outside in the beautiful sunshine with people we love.

This girl loves her cars!

 Dar spent some time pulling each of the kids around in the sled

 Aurora and Dakoda

 Aurora and Liam playing in the sandbox

 With Koda and Hannah

 After everyone left Rori, got the sandbox all to herself!  She LOVED it!

 She'd put some sand on the shovel and throw it up so it'd land right on her head.

She did it over and over again.  Silly girl!

 Love this shot! :)

For Mother's Day, Dar made me breakfast, which was intended to be given to me in bed but I woke up before he got it finished.  Dar also got me a necklace I've been wanting, but especially after we lost Nastassia.  It was the perfect gift for me this year and I'm so glad I have a wonderful husband who loves me and gets me what I want :)  He also got me my favorite flowers: Gerber Daisy's, and I love any flower that's yellow! 

 

 Happy Mother's Day!

Family Night

Monday night is Family Night at our house.  We hold our weekly Family Home Evenings as diligently as possible.  Last night for family night we did our usual reading of a talk from General Conference after singing some songs together.  For our activity we played Just Dance Wii.  With Aurora's love of dancing I'm surprised it has taken us this long to play it with her!  She was super cute as usual :)

 Her "focus" face

 "Hi, Mom!"

 Thinking the remote is pretty cool

 She did a great job for her first time

 She's got some pretty sweet dance moves

 Love her expression in this picture :)

 Really getting into it

 And just for kicks, this is our cutie today :)

 Love you, Rori!

You got stung where??

As you may know, Darwin has some beehives.  He started out with 1 beehive last year but in the last two weeks has increased that number to 3 hives.  He split his original hive, making his number go to 2, and then bought another batch of bees last weekend, making 3.  The new batch of bees seems to be more aggressive than the original bees.  He'd never been stung while actually working with the bees until last week when he was putting the new bees into their new hive--he got stung on the forearm through the fleece jacket he was wearing.  Last night he was tending to the bees (changing out their sugar water to help them get started with what they do best) and they decided they didn't like him messing with them.  He got stung on the eyelid!!!

He wasn't wearing his hat and veil because he thought it would be a quick switch-a-roo with the sugar water.  I'm hoping he'll be a bit more careful now . . . at least with the new hive!

This was taken last night just before we went to bed

 This morning before he left for work

He's going to have a fun time explaining to his students all day what happened :)

*A little side-note story to go along with this:
Darwin had already had a really bad day at work yesterday, then he had to go to the dentist for cleaning (also not the most fun thing to do).  I had asked him if there was anything I could do for him to make him feel better and he said I could punch him in the face to get his mind off everything else that was going on.  Of course I wouldn't do that.  Then, the cherry on top of the whole thing, he gets stung on the eyelid of all places!  After that happened, I was reminded that God really does have a sense of humor because Dar had a hard time thinking about anything else with his stinging, itching, burning, swelling eye ;)  Not that I think God made the bee sting his eye, but it is kind of ironic if you think about it...

Time Out

Aurora got her first official time out yesterday because she bit my shoulder.  It was pretty hilarious to see her sitting on her little time out stool, and I was pretty surprised that she actually stayed on it the whole time until I took her off (it was only like 2 minutes).  I had to leave the room though, because I was laughing so hard and I didn't want her to see me laughing.  Darwin took some pictures to get documentation of her first time out.  She gave me a smooch and told me she was sorry when she'd been there long enough.  Sweet little thing.  Hopefully we won't have to use the time out stool very often, but maybe that's wishful thinking?  I guess we'll find out.  We've never been parents to a toddler before :)

Thinking about what she did

 Don't mind the red-eye

 Thinking time out is pretty funny
She'd even smile, wave, and say "HI!" while she was sitting there :)

4.11.12 - 15 months!

I know I say it every time I do an update post about Aurora, but I honestly cannot believe how fast time flies and that our baby girl is 15 (almost 16) months old!  Where does the time go???

Our sweet Aurora Nicole is such a joy to be around.  She is truly the light of our lives, and I love that she can make anyone smile--even strangers, at the drop of a hat.  She's always making us laugh with the cute things she does.  I can't get enough of her beautiful smile, darling little voice, adorable laugh, and irresistible kisses!!

Rori's 15 month stats:

Weight: 18 lbs 9 oz (13%)

Length: 31 in (61%) [growth spurt!!]

Head: 44cm (10%)

Pictures from the last month

Silly girl fell asleep sitting up in her crib at nap time 

She's figured out how to open our TV stand and play with the DVDs

She loves sitting in her laundry basket to watch TV

She's been falling asleep in funny positions lately

 

She fell asleep in her exersaucer one morning while I was getting ready

 

Enjoying some black bean soup a Sister in our ward brought over after we lost Nastassia

 

At 15 months:
-She's a good little pretender--I love watching her play with her dish set or baby dolls and watching her mimic the things we do, but in her own little way.
-She likes to play dress-up already.  She uses anything she can as a phone, and will make anything she can into a purse she carries on her arms around the house.  She loves lotion and chap-stick.  She's DEFINITELY a girly-girl!
-She loves when we give kisses on her back when she's getting dressed in the morning or PJs on at night.
-She's starting to throw temper tantrums.  Who says it's terrible two's?  I think it starts at one!
-She loves to flush the toilet, and she tells me after she's pooped.  Good start, right?
-She loves to help with the laundry and the dishes (when I let her).
-She not only walks, but is starting to run!  She loves following the "big" kids around and trying to do what they do.
-She likes to be chased.
-She is a FISH and LOVES water!
-She's pretty gutsy--she'll do big kid slides at the park all by herself!
-She's really getting into starting to tell stories.  We have no idea what she's saying for 98% of it, except when she throws in a word we can recognize, and she laughs, and will slap her leg at the funny parts and everything.  It is hil-air-e-ous!
-She likes to copy me and the ladies I exercise with when we're doing some of our moves, and she LOVES when we do Zumba--she dances with us for part of the time most weeks.
-She is SUPER friendly, and will say hi to random people where ever we are.  She's always making people smile and laugh.
-She loves for us to read and sing to her.
-She has a pair of sunglasses that she likes to wear and keeps on really well!
-She's picking up on new words and signs all the time.  We LOVE that she communicates really well with us.
-She loves her blankie-blankie and her binky still.
-She doesn't give open-mouthed kisses any more.  Now she puckers right up for a smooch. I LOVE her pucker-lip smooches!!

Words Aurora can say

Mom

Dad

Bottle: Baba

Hi

Bye

No

Cousins

Minnie: In-Nay or Nay-Nay

Amen

Banana: Nanas

Fishes: Dee-dee's

More: Mo - by far the word she says most, besides Mom, probably.

Drink: Gock

Poop: Poo

Cheese: Eese

Cracker & Cookie: Ca-ca
Tickle: Tikay-tikay-tikay
Eyes

Names Aurora can say

Aurora

Jesus

Tyson

Acee (Tracee)

Nenn (Jenn) 

Lila (Delilah)

 Signs Aurora knows

More

Please

Eat

All Done

Baby

Flower

Pretty

Thank You

Cheese
Cookie

Milk

Shoes
Music

Animal sounds Aurora can make

Dog: Oof-oof!

Cat: Mow

Cow: Moo!

Horse: Eeeeee

Duck: Cack-Cack!

Bee: Bzzz

Bridal Veil Falls

Last Saturday was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!   We took advantage of the nice weather (after Dar got home from a camp-out with the scouts) and ventured up to Bridal Veil Falls with our Aussies.  It's seriously been like 4 years since I've been there, and we live close.  Weird. It was worth the short drive through, and I'm glad we did it.  I'm so glad that the weather has been (mostly) nice--it's done wonders on helping my heart to heal.

Dar said the water was cold enough that it made his feet hurt, but that didn't stop Aurora from having fun!  I'm posting lots of pictures so you can see the progression of her water fun :)

Testing out the water with her feet

Rolling up the shorts to prevent them from getting wet

Shorts are rolled, but still getting wet

Shorts are off, shirt is coming off too

Now she's having fun :)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure she wanted to drink that dirty water.  Yuck!

In the water up to her armpits.  She was seriously the only baby wanting to be in the water this far.  Crazy girl :)

Dar had had enough of being in the water, so he let her play in some slime.  Her soggy diaper was pretty awesome too, I must say!

My babes chillin' on the rocks

Beautiful Bridal Veil Falls

 

Tracee and Mr. P

 

I wasn't ready for the shot, but Aurora and Darwin look good in this one :)

My beautiful family

Back in warm, dry, clothes on the way back down the trail--I love this little lady's spunky personality.  She constantly makes me smile :)

We weren't done being outside yet, so we went and got slurpees from 7eleven and then went to a park down the street from the first apartment Dar and I lived in when we were newlyweds.

Aurora's first slurpee experience :)

Having fun playing with the aerobie (flashback to the 80s anyone?)

Our BFFs - Love you guys!

Aurora seriously amazes me--she was totally doing a BIG KID slide all on her own.  Way to go, baby girl!

I loved that I'd put her at the top of the slide and she could scoot her bum enough to get her going, and then she'd stiffen up to keep her balance.  She was totally having a blast :)

We couldn't resist spending as much time outside as we could to enjoy the beautiful weather, so we went back to McSweeney's and had grilled hotdogs for dinner out on the deck to top off the evening. 

Thanks for another fun adventure outside, McSweeney's!  Let's do it again sometime, eh?