Updates and Aurora's Milestones

I know, it's been months. I've needed to cut off all other distractions in order to get a craft project done--more on that later. The point is I'm finally to a point where I can focus on a few other things so I'm updating the blog. We had a great Christmas here at home and an uneventful New Years. We got a new bishopric at church but Greg is still serving as second counselor in the bishopric. I got two new callings: Relief Society instructor and Assistant Ward Girl's Camp Director. Girl's Camp isn't until August so that's not a big deal yet. I teach Relief Society the third Sunday of the month so Aurora gets to hang out with Greg during that time. Most of the time she hates that third hour of church (she won't nap at church anymore) so it gets exhausting.

Other things that have been happening are Greg's brother and sister-in-law, Jeff and Cori, moved to sunny Mesa, Arizona at the end of February. We're missing them but Cori and I already have plans to meet in Vegas for the 8th and final Harry Potter movie in July or August. My mom had surgery to remove part of her colon as a final measure in treating her colon cancer and is actually still in the hospital right now. The surgery went well though so hopefully with a 1-2 more chemo treatments she'll be cancer free.

Some milestones and other developments:

Aurora has learned to army crawl so fast that I don't think she sees the point in learning to really crawl, though she does get up on all fours and rock back and forth.

She got her first tooth this week and won't let me see it to take a picture.

She's refining the pincer grasp and loves to feed herself, especially cheese or deli meat.

She's starting to recognize words. She says mama and dada but doesn't necessarily know what they mean.If we say "Where's the kitty?" she looks down at the floor or looks around until she sees Rajah. Then she bolts for him. He's learned to tolerate her and will move 2 feet away at a time until she chases him out of the room and down the hallway.

She loves his food and water, any ideas on how to babyproof that?

She also loves to be upside down, dancing, and is super talkative all day long, even more so when she's tired.

She's also very ticklish when she's tired. If she's lying on her back and you hold your hand above her and move your fingers, she gets excited and smiles and coos because she knows you're going to tickle her.

She can go from sitting to crawling to sitting again.

She can pull herself up from the right position but we don't have many pieces of furniture that encourage that so she doesn't get to practice much.

She can stand on her own while holding onto the couch...until she gets ambitious and tries to turn around while only holding on with one hand.

Now her stats since birth that I've never posted:

Birth: Weight: 6 lbs, 11 oz; Height: 20 in.; Head Circumference: 34.5 cm

2 months: Weight: 8 lbs, 12 oz; Height: 22 3/4 in.; Head Circumference: 36.4 cm

4 months: Weight:10 lbs, 4 oz.; Height: 24 in.; Head Circumference: 37 3/4 cm.

6 months: Weight: 13 lbs, 6 oz.; Height: 26 1/4 in.; Head Circumference: 40 cm.

9 months: Weight: 15 lbs, 13.5 oz.; Height: 28 1/2 in.; Head Circumference: 41.4 cm.

Except at her 4 month visit when her weight dropped because I'd had my surgery and my milk supply struggled, she's very consistent in her growth. She's always in the 7th or 8th percentile for weight (currently 7th), between the 70th and 85th percentile for height (current 82nd) and the 1st percentile for head circumference. When I asked her doctor at one appointment how she was doing growth-wise, he replied "Well, someone has to be the smallest." LOL. I don't have any problem having a small baby. She's tall and I don't have any problem with her being a tall, slender kid (if only I could get pants to be long enough and skinny enough though!!). In the meantime, she's 1 1/2 in. from being half my height and getting kind of awkward to hold. :)

I have recent videos and pictures but I can't get them from my phone to my computer so hopefully I can get those on here soon.

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We finally put Christmas decorations up in our condo. But, having a cat and a daughter trying to learn to crawl, we were a bit paranoid about the possible (let's face it, the likely) destruction of our decorations. Greg had a solution in mind, and I finally agreed when I realized baby stuff had overtaken our living room and there really wasn't any room for the tree on the floor. Now that it's done, it just makes me smile. What do you think? (Hint: The title of my post is "O Christmas Tree" upside down) And yes, Aurora's stocking is different. I'm making her one to go with ours but haven't found good fabric yet.

Several people have asked "How did he DO that?" There was already a hook in our ceiling (like the kind used to hang potted plants), and Greg IS an engineer, after all. The branches on the Christmas tree automatically collapse when tipped upside down, so he bought some wire and wired the middle of the tree to each branch to get the branches to stay up, then wired the tree to the hook. The decorations actually all stay on by themselves, including the star. But, Rajah realized he could get the star to fall if he pushed the tree (it swings). So, now the star is wired to the tree as well.

Growing, Growing, Growing

I gave up trying to post all our summer activities, but I wanted to include some pictures. In addition, Aurora is growing fast and developing. She's laughing (she's ticklish on her thigh and laughs when you change her diaper), rolling over from her stomach to her back, grabbing at things (not so sure how I feel about that one), and eating rice cereal as fast as I can feed it to her. After my emergency gall bladder removal, my breastmilk really struggled and Aurora wasn't gaining weight very well. So we started on rice cereal and the more she ate, the more impatient she became with nursing. I finally gave up at 4 months, and she's much happier and her weight gain is catching up. Here's a lot of pictures:

Big Springs in Island Park, ID where my Grandpa built a cabin.

Upper Mesa Falls in Ashton, ID.

Practicing holding her own bottle.

Playing in the bouncer. The onesie says "I'll always be Grandma's sweetie."

Proof she's grabbing things. I promise she put the lion on her own head.

A pretty butterfly for Halloween.

I just love these socks so I had to post this picture, too.

Rajah's Tricks Part 2

I have been telling people for a year (since we got Rajah) that he loves shiny objects. His favorites are my sewing pins. For all those who didn't believe me, I now have proof. He will even pull the pins out of the fabric and carry it around the condo until Greg or I take it away.

Rajah's Tricks

So I really will get around to updating. Emergency surgery and a 3-month growth spurt (by the way, where'd my newborn go??) take up quite a bit of time. But this post is about Rajah. He has dealt with the jealousy of adding a family member quite well, but he's still psycho-kitty. Here are some of his more impressive tricks to show how much fun he is.

Sorry this video is sideways. Just look at the loop on the peephole on the door. It's a hair elastic (his favorite toy).

Last but not least. He is a very intelligent cat in that he seems to really understand us. He plays this game repeatedly but will never actually attack, he just likes to look fearsome by going up on his two back legs. I wish I could train him to do this at the door for trick-or-treaters.

Alive Again

Yep, we're here. We're all doing just fine, and even getting 7-8 hours of sleep every couple days. Aurora put herself on a good schedule once I started working again (part-time, from home, with completely flexible hours-woohoo!). I need to update the blog on several topics, including a vacation, general well-being, and a couple of just plain really bad weeks. I'll be updating in the near future by subject rather than chronologically, so be warned. In the mean time, here are some pictures to keep everyone happy.

Our trip to Idaho, this was taken at Big Springs in Island Park, Idaho. More on that later.

Our friend made this adorable tutu and we happened to have a onesie that matched perfectly. I think she looks like a fairy in it, which means I will have to find another onesie to go with it and it will likely become her Halloween costume. Aurora is smiling all the time now and I LOVE it. The above is my favorite picture of her. The funniest thing is Rajah is OBSESSED with the headband. He sat beside her on the couch the whole time I was taking these photos trying to eat the headband. It wasn't long before I swatted him for trying to eat it while she was wearing it. The headband is now safely tucked away in her drawer.

So adorable! My sister-in-law already has dibs on this outfit for when she has a girl, and I'm pretty sure this outfit got a 6-month-old baby (Eddie) at church to have a crush on her. He now sits behind us or beside me in Relief Society and smiles and laughs and kicks doing everything he can to get to Aurora. Which might be a problem because the woman who made the tutu already arranged for her almost 1-year-old (Jaxson) to marry Aurora. Eddie and Jaxson will have to duke it out in 20-25 years. Knowing their parents, it should be an interesting fight!

Aurora's Blessing

For those who aren't familiar with the LDS church, it is typical to give infants a blessing and formally name them in the blessing. Usually this is done a few months after the baby is born. However, since some of my family was in town and that almost never happens around special events, we decided to bless Aurora on June 27, when she was only 11 days old. My mom had made a dress for another granddaughter that we are now passing around the family. Since Rory is the smallest grandchild yet (at birth) and we were blessing her when she was so young, the dress was adorable but positively drowned her. It was great to have family around and we hope everyone enjoyed themselves. It was pretty funny too since having Greg's and my family there practically doubled the size of the congregation that day.