Our girls in January

One of the girls' favorite things to do is play on our bed.  They rough up the pillows and hide in their "cave" or "tent" made out of our blankets.  Sometimes I think it's pointless to make our bed...or their hair.  But I guess that's one of the joys of being a kid, right? :)

I love to take sleeping pictures.  They're always so peaceful when they're sleeping!


I love that they like to help me clean.


Or clean themselves. Haha!


And I love that they just love to be silly!

Savy got this bunny balloon when we ate at Brick Oven one night. She loved her bunny balloon!
(Aurora got a unicorn but we didn't get a picture of it before it popped and deflated)

 We sure love our two sweeties!

Gymnastics

Aurora is getting old enough that she can start participating in extra-curricular activities.  It's kind of fun and exciting!

In January we signed her up for a 6 week gymnastics class.  It was only once a week but she always looked forward to going and loved it while she was there!

Every week she told her coach that she wanted to learn how to do flips :)

She kind of got bossed around by a couple of the older girls in her class, got out of the line a lot and missed her turn a couple of times.  She met some new friends (mostly became friends with the only boy in the class, Ashton) and learned why personal space is important.

Overall, gymnastics was a great experience for her and it was fun for me to watch her learn new things!  Darwin wasn't able to be there so I took lots of pictures and short video clips so he could see what she was learning.

1st Class

Warming up by doing "butterfly wings" with her legs

 Happy and excited to be at gymnastics!

Learning how to walk with pointed toes on the balance beam

"Ta-da!" arms! :)

Learning the proper way to hang from the bar

This picture is pretty dark (the lighting was really bad in the room) but here she was learning the right way to do a somersault

Savannah got a little bored sometimes, but she was really well behaved and patient.  She was too young to participate this year.


One of Aurora's favorite things was playing with the parachute at the end of each class.  All the kids loved it, actually :)


On our way home after her first week we saw this funny Stop sign at the end of my in-laws street and I couldn't resist taking a picture.  Who has time for that? Haha!


Other Weeks
Showing off her strong arm muscles :)

Running around the room doing "high knees"

Talking to her friend, Ashton
(he's 6 months younger than her, but look how big he is!)

Good form, girlie!

Balance beam

Backwards somersault

Savannah was very patient in watching the other kids and such a good sport!

We thought about signing her up for gymnastics full time, but ended up deciding against it.  I think she'd really be good at it and would love it too, but we're trying to sign her up for different activities right now to find out for sure what she wants to do.
She was so sad when the class was over, but I'm glad she got to try out gymnastics!

Aurora's 4th Birthday!

Four years old! Seriously?!  Where does the time go?

I can't believe our little Aurora Nicole is growing up so fast!  She's a joy to be around and we love the charming girl she's growing up to be.  She certainly has her moments, don't get me wrong, but she's the light of our lives and keeps on amazing us with her spirit and her loving personality.

Aurora likes to go on "family dates" to eat dinner at a restaurant.  She doesn't care which one, she just likes "family dates". I love that she likes to be together as a family and that one of her favorite things is to go on dates with Mommy and Daddy. She's a cutie!

So, the night before her birthday we took her on a "family date".  We took her to the mall where they have these fun little animal things that you ride with only two rules--stay on the bottom floor and don't take them into any stores. She's been wanting to do it for a while and we thought this would be a great opportunity.  She loved it!  The 30 minute ride was a little long and both girls were ready to be done by our time was up, but they definitely enjoyed it!

Rori chose an elephant to ride on
(it drove fine but needed to be charged because it was definitely slower than Savannah's and my hippo)

Savy wanted to ride on a hippo

It was fun to race them all around the mall!  Once Aurora got the hang of it she got to drive one all by herself! :)

After our riding session we ate a yummy dinner at Wingers.  It was a fun family date, and perfect for our four year old's birthday!

Birthday morning, Aurora woke up to balloons all over her room, ribbons hung all over the house, and a pile of presents waiting for her from Mommy, Daddy, and Savannah.  We were aiming to have her open her presents that night when we had family and friends come celebrate with cake and ice cream, but she couldn't wait...go figure :)  We at least got her to help Daddy make her cake before she opened presents.




This one is a little fuzzy but I love her reaction.  She'd been asking for a cake like that for a while but she got a bonus pizza too! :)

Grandma and Grandpa had to leave out of town so they brought their gifts over the night before.  She got to open those in the morning too.

She got a food set for their new kitchen they got from Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas

A new scooter--she was thrilled!

Playing with her new toys

Enjoying some iPod time after a bath and before getting ready for church. One of her favorite things to do :)

Daddy always gives the girls flowers on their birthday, and he gets flowers for me too :)  He's the best!!!

Our beautiful girl all ready for church.  Happy to be four!...

...but sad she's not five yet. Silly girl!

After church she helped Daddy decorate her cake and cupcakes and get ready for some company to come celebrate with us.  She was excited for people come be with her on her special day!  She wanted a princess cake this year.

And she got Hello Kitty cupcakes because she loves Hello Kitty so much too :)




After cake and ice cream she got to open some more gifts. Spoiled little thing! ;)

One of her favorites was a pillow-book from Uncle Ryan and Tammy

She got nail polish from her friend Alex and my friend's little girl, Charly, had fun painting Rori's nails with her new nail polish.

Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate with us and for those of you who wanted to be there with us but couldn't make it.  Our little sweetheart had such a special day!

Aurora's 4 year stats:
Weight: 32 pounds 6 ounces (27%)
Length: 39.6 inches (46%)

At FOUR years:

-Aurora has quite the little personality on herself and she definitely keeps us on our toes.

-She's a smart little thing and surprises us with the things she remembers and comes up with sometimes.

-She can write her first and last name all by herself.
-She can also write words like Mommy and Daddy and can write about 3/4 of the letters in the alphabet and is learning to write many more things.
-She loves to draw pictures and is getting better and better at drawing people and things like flowers, hearts, the sun, etc.
-She can write all of the numbers 1-10
-She is always asking questions and loves learning new things
-She has a tender heart and can be quite emotional at times (I definitely thing it's a girl thing!)
-She REALLY wants a baby brother and prays for one almost every night.  She also prays for "this many babies" and will unfold her arms to hold up all ten fingers. I tell her she can have that many babies when she's a mommy :)
-She will randomly tell people we're having a baby brother, even though I'm not pregnant.  I keep telling her that I want one too and hopefully we'll get a baby brother someday.  She already calls him by the name we want to use if/when we get a baby boy.
-She's excited to start preschool in the fall and already says she has to do "homework" which usually consists of her drawing pictures and cutting them up.
-She loves primary and learning about Jesus.
-About a week before her fourth birthday she finally "got it" with potty training and has come leaps and bounds in just a short while--finally! :)
-She loves to tell stories and frequently tells us stories about her great-great-great grandfather and other "great" relatives.  It's pretty comical most of the time!
-She loves her baby sister and is always so proud of her.  She tells random strangers about all the new things her "baby" is learning.
-Whenever I ask what she wants for dinner she requests spaghetti and meatballs but usually doesn't eat the meatballs.
-Her favorite color is pink
-Her favorite movie is Big Hero 6
-Her favorite book is a book called "My Little Ducky"
-Her favorite song is "I love the mountains" but changed to the words I made up (I love Aurora, I love Nastassia Grace, I love Savannah, I love your Daddy too! I love to be with you when all the lights are low. Boom-de-yada, boom-de-yada, boom-de-yada, boom-de-yada, boom!)
-Her favorite thing to do is doing chores, so she says. Haha!  Really it's to play with Savannah :)

Happy birthday, Aurora Nicole!

We love you!