Halloween - Finally!

We were able to do lots of fun things for Halloween this year, and I've been putting this off until I thought I'd really have some time to get it done (as I sit here listening to Christmas music :) ) because it's going to be a long post.  I have to get it out of the way so I can catch up on some of our other fun stuff we've done since Halloween.  I already posted about Hee Haw Farms and our Cookie Decorating with our Aussies, but here goes everything else. . . 

October 20, 2012

Kid Halloween Party

Our upstairs neighbors moved.  So sad!  But luckily they still live pretty close and invited us to their Kid Halloween party a week and a half before Halloween.  It was totally fun.  Thanks again, Lonny for inviting us.  You did such an amazing job putting it all together.  We miss you guys!!

The kids got to pick out a prize every time they participated in a game

 Me & my skeleton girl

 Pin the bow-tie on the skeleton

(Aurora took the bow off her own head at one point and wanted to wear the skeleton's bow-tie on her head instead.  Silly girl.)

 Pumpkin bowling - It was hard for her to push it hard enough to knock the TP over

 I helped a little :)

 Pushing a balloon across the yard with a broom

 She did pretty good on her own

 Wrapping Aurora like a mummy

 She did so good and held still for me to do it :)

 Dar played the doughnut on the string game

 Aurora thought he was pretty hilarious trying to eat his doughnut like that :)

 Good job, skeleton Daddy!

 Our cute skeleton family :)

*Sidenote: Aurora was voted as having the best kid costume at the party.  Probably because she was just so stinkin' cute, because there really were some pretty cool kid costumes there!

October 23, 2012

Neighborhood Kid Party

Another friend and neighbor, Lalani, organized another Kid Halloween party at our church.  She did it last year too but Aurora was just little still so this year was much more fun for us!  Thanks, Lalani for all of your effort and planning fun things for the kids in the neighborhood!  To help with the party everyone brought either a treat to share or a game for the kids to play.

I brought "Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin"

Aurora didn't use a blind fold but still put the pumpkin's nose on his eye 

 Decorating a plate

 Rori's green and purple jack-o-lantern

 Racing superheros on a string (or something like that)

 My cute skeleton girl

 Aurora with a couple of her favorite people in the world:

P (superman) & R (a witch)

 Cuties!!

 Pumpkin bowling

 Crawling under a spider web - Rori LOVED this one and kept doing it over and over again

 At the end the kids did a costume parade so all the moms (and a couple dads in attendance) could see all the costumes

 Love these two babies, who really aren't babies anymore :(

October 27, 2012

Ward Party

We had a ward chili/pie cook-off the Saturday before Halloween.  I brought chili last year and didn't win, so I decided to contribute my favorite pie this year instead.  We were a little disappointed with the attendance, but we still had fun because the food was yummy and some of our BFFs in our ward were there too, so that's all that mattered :)  When we got there we were the only ones in costumes.  Seriously!?  A ward party the weekend before Halloween and nobody wears costumes?  Luckily Dorothy, Tin Man, and the Lion showed up, and eventually a few other people showed up in costumes too.

Our good friends Robert, Denise, and Carson
(hope you don't mind I stole this from your blog :) )

Aurora and Carson are good buds.  Luckily they're learning to be nicer to each other after fighting a lot like brother and sister.  They both need younger siblings :)

 

 

 Cuties :)

October 29, 2012

FHE with McSweeney's - Pumpkin Carving/Painting

Fun FHE activities with the McSweeney's two weeks in a row is totally a bonus!  We had fun decorating Halloween sugar cookies with them but ran out of time to do pumpkins so we decided to do that together the next week.  Thanks, Trace, for sharing your pictures!!

My cute girl excited and ready to paint her pumpkin

 Aurora was so focused and totally into it :)

I'm totally envious of how Tracee got her to smile - she NEVER smiles for me when I ask her to!

 

She went a little crazy with the paint, and this was after I had wiped her hands down

Mr. P was really into it also.  Such a cute boy!

 LOVE the lips :)

And Little Miss R did such a great job, as always.  She's so artistic!!

 A few group shots

Aurora was trying to paint Jared's pumpkin so he was giving her "the look."  Love it!

The kid's pumpkins

R's, P's, and Aurora's

Dar's pumpkin turned out really cool too!

Good job, guys!  We should turn this into an annual Halloween tradition!

October 31, 2012

Halloween Night!

Aurora's very first time trick-or-treating was to "Bampa and Gramga" Deming's house.  Grandma was still at work, so we got to treak-or-treat at their house twice!

 I think this picture is cute.  So Grandpa, and so Aurora :)

 Putting her candy in her monster

 Hanging out on the porch waiting for Dad

 We went trick-or-treating at my cousin's in the area but we didn't get any pictures because we were trying to hurry to meet up with the McSweeney's.  This picture is awful, but I wanted to remember the coolest costume we saw - the headless horseman, riding a real horse!  So cool!

 Tracee was a genius, yet again, and brought the wagon to pull the babies in.  Genius!

Trick-or-treating!

 Dar being silly :)

 Last house - Bob and Grandma Trease's house

The group at the end of the night

 
Aurora's loot.
Not much, but perfect!  I had to take out all the chocolate and especially the M&Ms after taking the picture

What a fun Halloween month!  We decided it's way more fun to celebrate holidays with kids of your own.  We're totally loving it!  Dar and I also realized this was the first time we've been trick-or-treating since we were in junior high school.  A long time for me, and an even longer time for Dar ;)  Here's to many more years to come with lots more trick-or-treating!!

Halloween Words Aurora can say:
Happy Halloween: Appy Ouween!
Trick-or-Treat: Teet!
Candy: Cany

*Sidenote: Aurora officially made me sick of one of my favorite movies this Halloween season, "The Nightmare Before Christmas."  Some days we watched it 2+ times!  I bet we watched it over 30 times in the month of October.  She even begged to watch it again this morning (11.16.12) before we head out to go to our Family Life Conference at UVU.  Argh!

Blasted Binky!

At this moment my 22 month old is choosing to sit in her crib just so she can have her blasted binky.  Our doctor wanted her off of it for sure by 18 months, yet here we are.  Still extremely attached to said binky (both of us).  I know it's my fault.  Grr!  I've been attached to it to because it makes getting her to bed SO MUCH EASIER.  I decided at 18 months that she would for sure be off of it by her 2nd birthday.  Now sometimes I tell myself I'll have her off of it by 2.5 years, but I also feel that the sooner we get her off of it the better.  She's going to have a lot of new changes coming up in her little life with a new little sister on the way.  Aurora had been doing AWESOME just having it at nap time and bed time, and then she got sick and I let her have it all day.  Mistake on my part.  She's been sick several more times and had it all day and she's totally regressed, throwing temper tantrums and things when she doesn't get her binky during the day when she wants it.

At the end of September I decided Thanksgiving break would be the time to get her off her binky (that's next week!!).  I really would love, Love, LOVE! to have her weaned from it well before Savannah joins the fam in March, so wish me luck!  I've gotten some good tips from people on how to get her off of it but I'm struggling with decided which would be the best and easiest way to do it.

Your suggestions are gladly welcome!  Let me know what worked for you and your little one.  I'm still going to try to do it next Monday, so any tips you can give me before then would be AWESOME!!  Thanks a billion!

Hair

It has only taken us almost two years to do this with her hair:

(Just ignore that they're lop-sided)

I took a billion pictures of it because she wouldn't hold still and because I think I'm in love with those tiny little piggy tails :)  Too bad it only lasted until 10:30am when we got home from zumba.  Oh well.  Maybe she'll keep it in with practice.

 

Sitting in the window watching the rain this morning

(which has since turned to snow!!)

Watching "Little Einsteins," one of her favorite shows.  She likes to pat, pat, pat...

...blast off!!

 

And for days when it's cold outside and she needs a little more hair on her head we use this:

(Thanks, Nanny!)

Half Way

Half way through this pregnancy already.  140 days to go till our due date.  Seriously?!  Yep.  I'm 20 weeks today, and if this baby comes early like Aurora did, I'm actually more than half way.  That's CRAZY!!  This pregnancy definitely feels like it's going faster than Aurora's for sure.  And partly faster than Nastassia's.  Nastassia's went fast up until we found out there were problems, and then time seemed to slow WAY down.  It still boggles my mind that it was only about 3 weeks from the time we found out Nastassia had problems until we lost her because it feels like it was an eternity.  This pregnancy probably feels like it's gone really quickly because we waited so long to tell people we were expecting.  We didn't even tell our families until 16 weeks.

This pregnancy has been kind of crazy for me.  Luckily things have calmed down emotionally since we've had two ultrasounds now that confirm that this baby looks normal and healthy.  What a relief and a huge blessing!  I really struggled internally for a while, especially towards the beginning, because I wanted so badly to be pregnant--and I was happy to be pregnant--but I was still grieving over losing Nastassia, and pretty terrified of losing another one.  Thus part of the confusion and conflict I mentioned in this post back in August.  No one knew we were pregnant yet, and I was struggling with trying to be happy about being pregnant but wanting so badly to have Nastassia here too.  I didn't want to feel like we were just replacing her because she is our daughter too.  She is part of our family, and she made such a huge impact on our hearts in the short time we had her.  It's amazing how time heals wounds and grief though.  Once we past Nastassia's due date, we got past the 6 month mark of losing Nastassia, we found out things looked good with baby #3, and we got past the 16.5 week mark with this pregnancy (which is when we lost Nastassia), I've been able to relax a lot more and I haven't shed nearly as many tears since then.  I'm not totally healed from my grief--I don't think I ever will be.  However, I am grateful for milestones and the ability to pick myself up and move on.  I still think of Nastassia a hundred times a day or more.  She will always be a part of me and a part of our family (here I go with the tears!! Ahh!) but I am now grateful to be able to look forward with much excitement and anticipation of meeting this new little sweetie and having her join our family too.

Physically I have felt really pretty good for the most part.  I was only queasy for the first 8 weeks or so but I've never thrown up.  I'm grateful my nose hasn't been sensitive this time like it was with Aurora, and I'm glad to say I'm still eating meat :)  I do feel slightly more tired 2nd trimester than I did 1st trimester, but the doctor said it's probably because I'm chasing an active toddler around all day.  She's probably right.

If you noticed the new widget we added to the left side bar, this little girl of ours already has a name.  We're going to name her Savannah Belle, which was actually our first pick for Aurora (since we got married, really), but it just didn't seem right to use it for her.  Aurora is Aurora and that's how it was supposed to be.  We were determined to use Savannah for Nastassia, but it wasn't the right name for her either, so third time's the charm, right?

I started feeling her little flutters around 14.5 weeks, which I was super surprised about and did not expect that early.  But I haven't been able to feel her move nearly as much or as strongly as I could with Aurora at this point because the placenta is attached to the front of my uterus and acts as a big cushion so I can't feel the movement as well.  I am grateful to know the location of the placenta though, otherwise I might be freaking out a bit.  I first felt Aurora move at 16 weeks and Darwin first felt her move around 19.5 weeks (the day we had our ultrasound and found out she was a girl) but I can't even feel Savannah moving enough to feel her movements on the outside with my hand yet.  All in good time.  I hope.  Feeling the baby move is my favorite part about being pregnant.

I had my 3rd ultrasound today.  Dar couldn't come because he had to work, but my BFF Tracee was a great fill-in.  Thanks again, Trace, for coming with me and managing Aurora so she could come too!  It was great to get the confirmation that the baby looks healthy and normal and that she's still definitely a girl.  Even though I really thought we were having a boy (I had had 3 dreams we were having a boy, and I hoped having a boy would help me deal with losing Nastassia better too) I'm totally okay now with knowing we're having another girl.  Aurora was excited to see her "sister" on the screen, but not as into it as with Nastassia.  Rori was more interested in playing games on my phone this time.  Silly girl.  Darwin is excited about having another girl too.  We like Aurora so much we're excited to have two little sweeties running around our house!

Enough with the words though, enjoy the pictures!  (I'm posting pictures from my 16 week ultrasound and my 20 week ultrasound today.  Just FYI.)

Skeleton face shot - she just wanted to be a part of our costume theme for Halloween, I guess :)

 

 Profile

 Still definitely a girl :)

 I love that you can see her face in this one, and her left arm

(oh yeah, and the placenta cushion that makes it harder for me to feel her)

Stretched out spine, and another good shot of the placenta

Yay for babies!! Can't wait to meet you, little one!  But not too early.  We want you healthy and happy.  March 23rd would be good.  Let's aim for then.

Break Through

Aurora went potty on the toilet for the first time today!!

 That is definitely something worth documenting.

We got her this potty seat a few months back, and she has sat on it numerous times but never actually "went" until today.  Woot! Woot!  She's sat on the toilet several times, for a good five minutes or more, and then peed on the floor as soon as she got off.  Slightly frustrating.  But today she actually did it on the toilet! Yay!  This is one happy momma!  One step closer to officially potty training.  Progress is good.

"Follow"

I've decided we need to start gearing our weekly Family Home Evenings towards more Aurora-friendly lessons.  Last night was the first one we've done specifically for her.  We started out by singing "Popcorn Popping," then after prayer we read a short story about Jonah and the whale. 

Dar then suggested we sing "Follow the Prophet" but the verse about Jonah.  We both started out, "Jonah was a prophet..." and then busted up laughing because neither one of us knew the words for that verse, but we totally started it out like we knew it like the back of our hand.  It was really one of those had-to-be-there-moments, but let's just say that with my weak after-having-delivered-a-baby muscles I was glad I was already sitting down with my legs crossed.  I'm sure some of you moms know what I'm talking about.

I am very grateful to have a living prophet on the earth today.  I know President Monson is called of God to lead His Church in these latter-days.  I also know my life has been so very blessed because I choose to "Follow the Prophet" because I know he will never lead us astray.

We did end up making it through the entire song--all 9 verses (after looking up the song on our Gospel Library app, of course), and I only giggled a few more times when I thought about our funny moment.

I am also glad that despite our irreverence, Aurora still got something out of the lesson and kept saying "follow" when we were done singing.  She really seems to connect to music, even since she was just tiny, and I'm so grateful for the Primary Children's Song Book.  Part of our nap time and bed time routine includes me singing a variety of Primary songs to her while I rock her for a while, and I'm so grateful for the simple truths they convey.  I hope it's helping to plant a little seed of faith in the Gospel, and most especially in Jesus Christ, in her heart as I sing those songs to her every day.

Also, yesterday afternoon I sang "I like to look for rainbows" to her because we were talking about rainbows and colors, and that's the only song she'd let me sing to her at nap time.  I had to sing it to her over and over and over again.  But I didn't mind because it's a good one.  I like it too :)

Keepsakes

There are some things I just don't want to forget.  Sometimes they make it into a journal or other keepsake book, sometimes they make it to the blog, and sometimes both.  This is one for the blog and the book.

Wednesday night after her first trick-or-treating experience with Mom, Dad, and the McSweeney's, Aurora was talking in her sleep.  What about?  CANDY!  I woke up to her mumbling something and then she clearly said "Candy."  It happened twice, and then she said my name a couple of times too.  Silly girl.  I guess she had such a great time she was dreaming about it to extend the experience :)

Last night as I was rocking Aurora and singing to her before bed was the first time she actually was trying to sing the words with me to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."  It was so stinking cute!  In the past she just hums along with me, sometimes.  Dar was cleaning up the kitchen and heard her singing with me from the hallway and came in her room to listen.  It was such a sweet experience.

Today at nap time she was trying to sing along with me to "I am a Child of God."

Man!  I love this little lady of ours!!!!