I just had to post this one...

Aurora's First 5K

This morning we woke up extra early for the LIVESTRONG Challenge. I'd say bright and early, but it certainly was not bright yet. It was pretty chilly so we got Rora all bundled up and headed downtown for a 3.1 mile walk with a few thousand of our closest friends.

We walked the whole time with Jennifer and Larkin. Jennifer's coming back from maternity leave in just one more week, and I think this was a great way to get her back into LAF mode! Oh, and Aurora could not have looked much cuter in her faux fur coat and boots.

My legs may be a little sore, but Chuck did all the "work," carrying Aurora in the Snugli for the 1 hour and 9 minutes that it took for us to cross the finish line. Here they are with Nicolette, just after walking through the survivor chute.

Aurora was totally conked out by the end. All that walking (and smiling) must've been exhausting.

SCHOOL PICTURES!?

Okay, so I saw the signs up all last week at daycare saying that Friday would be school pictures, but I thought - there's no way they'll take pictures of the little babies, right!? WRONG!

There are several funny things about Aurora's school pictures:

#1 - She's looks like a boy wearing her blue jammies! I swear, they have flowers on the feet, and if I really knew it was school picture day I would've dressed her in something a little cuter.

#2 - Her jammies are coming open in a way that makes it look like she's busting out of them. Her tummy's big, but not THAT big!

#3 - It's pretty obvious somebody's holding her arm to keep her from falling over. I love that.

#4 - How'd they get her to smile that big? C'mon people, who is this happy for school pictures!?

Okay, so obviously the point of these photos is to get me to buy them. Do you think I should? For $15 - $25 I could get a photo package including wallets to send out to the fam. I need all you blog readers to weigh in on this one (even the silent lurkers): First, do you think I should buy copies of these pictures? And second, which print do you like best, #226 or #227?

Weekend Update

Yesterday after the pumpkin patch we went shopping with Teresa. Aurora loves clothes shopping because there are mirrors EVERYWHERE!

Today we had lunch with Kim & Lakshmy, followed by a lazy afternoon at the dog park to celebrate Jessie's first birthday. It was Joey's first birthday this weekend too, and we wish he could've spent the day with us. Don't be jealous Joey, but Aurora really liked Jessie too...

I probably took more pictures than necessary, but the dogs were all so cute, and it was a beautiful day. Click here if you want to see them all!

6 Months

Happy half-year birthday Aurora! As much as I can hardly believe she's already 6-months old, Chuck pointed out that that's less than 1/60th of our ages, which kind of puts things in perspective.

Today we found a little church sponsored pumpkin patch in Lakeway. They took a family photo of us and will be "framing" it and mailing it this week - I can't wait! I took a few of my own, but I think I'll keep you in suspense and post them all at once. Until then, this picture of our little pumpkin should hold you over...

Home away from home

Aurora’s been at daycare full-time for 2-weeks now, and she’s doing great. I think the consistency is good for her, and we’re back on a schedule that’s got her sleeping through the night, which is fabulous.

Having each of us full-time has presented a few interesting challenges. Last week Carole told us that we were running out of diapers, but I didn’t realize exactly how low we were. I was used to buying enough diapers for 3-days/week, and having her go everyday makes a huge difference in diaper usage. Turns out we totally ran out and she had to use somebody else’s diapers for two days! Aurora also has a lot of blow-outs and almost always comes home in a different outfit than we dropped her off in. The day I finally had time to go shopping and buy more diapers, I forgot to bring an extra outfit and she came home in somebody else’s onesie. I am such a neglectful mom!

Today I did finally remember to bring my camera to daycare so I could capture a few pics of Aurora at her home away from home. Here is a very silly picture of Rora with her favorite "teacher," Carole:

This is a good shot of the room she spends so many hours in. The other side has cribs, exersaucers, floor mats, toys, and more babies – but here we have Aurora and Carole, Celia washing Adelina’s hands after a diaper change, and her afternoon teacher Caroline:

And here's a photo of the view from Chuck's new home away from home. His downtown office is just across from the Driskill, on 7th and Brazos:

Big Girl

On the 18th Aurora will be 6 months old, and right on schedule she’s been going through a pretty major growth spurt this week. According to my inaccurate IKEA scale, she’s right around 18 lbs now – almost as big as Tater. In fact, she’s gotten so big that we decided it’s time for her to graduate into all of her big girl seats.

First up, the stroller. Yesterday I took her on a walk around the neighborhood in the stroller we received from co-workers at my baby shower. She’s been in it before and has been fine, but we’ve been using the infant car seat base as our primary stroller. From now on, this is it! It’s lightweight, stylish, and comfy enough to fall asleep in.

Next, the car seat. Yup, this morning we took the infant base out of the Element and installed the big girl car seat. She’s definitely outgrowing the infant seat – her feet stick out of it and she tries so hard to sit more upright then it will allow. This one is soft, roomy, and so cute. Another gift from my generous co-workers. Perfect!

And finally, today was Aurora’s first time in a restaurant highchair. She’s getting so good at sitting up on her own, and with no more infant seat to bring in with us, it was time to give it a try. Rora did great! The only thing that I wasn’t prepared for is that sitting in a big girl seat made her want to order and eat with us as well. Once our soup came she started crying until I gave her a spoon to suck on – and even that wasn’t good enough when the main course came out. I had to put a little sweet and sour sauce on the spoon for her to “eat” so that she could fully enjoy the restaurant experience. I guess I will have to start packing baby food in the diaper bag! Here's basically how it went:

"Daddy, I'd like to look at a menu please."

"Okay, Aurora, but don't put it in your mouth."

"Let's see... can I have an order of egg drop soup?"

"Yes, this will do just fine..."

Getting to “Normal”

I’d say things are starting to get BACK to normal, but I can’t remember what normal means at the Wadey household. From pregnancy to maternity leave, my flexible return schedule and tons of crazy home repairs, to weekend trips… suddenly this week Chuck & I both started working full-time outside the home. I think we’ve both been feeling a little overwhelmed through all of this, and we weren’t quite sure how this week of “normalcy” would go.

Well, it’s only Wednesday but I think it’s been a good week! We’re overlapping our schedules – I’m working from 8am to 4pm, then picking Aurora up and spending the evening with her. Chuck’s working from about 9:30-6:30, spending the morning with Rora and dropping her off at daycare. We’ll see how this continues to work for us, and will continue to reevaluate as we go along – but so far so good!

Aurora’s growing and changing everyday. She is getting so much more curious, and just wants to look at and grab everything. She’s getting so much more active, and keeps bonking her head on things. She is getting so much bigger, actually outgrowing her 3-6 month clothes just shy of her 6-month birthday. She is getting so much stronger, sitting up and flipping over constantly. I can tell she really wants to crawl and pull herself up (which makes diaper changes interesting), but I figure we still have some time before it actually happens. And she’s been sleeping great. Three of the last five days she actually slept through the night until 7am! And on top of all that, she is just the sweetest and cutest baby…

Chuck’s Adventure

Chuck came back from Arizona today. He had a good time at Corey & Nicole’s wedding and was able to hang out with Curt & Brooke, Mike & Anna, and of course Andrew & Julia, Zeland, Cameron, Nancy & Steve. Andrew was Charlie’s “date” for the wedding. Both boys had to buy new outfits for the event… and it wasn’t THAT fancy! Okay, it was a little fancy. Look how cute they are - those Wadey boys clean up good.

Chuck said he wished I had gone and thought I would’ve enjoyed myself, since these are all my friends and family too. It's true, but not only were the plane tickets expensive (and I really wanted to go visit my parents), I was afraid Aurora and I would hold him back from really taking advantage of the whole experience. I hear the boys stayed out until 2am partying like rock stars, so I may have been correct on that one…

I have already booked tickets for all of us to go to Arizona for Thanksgiving. I have no idea what we’ll do for Christmas or New Years. I suppose we’ll stay in Austin… anybody want to come visit us!? Maybe Zeland will want to come here. He seems to like his Uncle Chuck :)

Just the two of us…

Yesterday we dropped Chuck at the airport for a trip to Phoenix to attend an old friend’s wedding. He’s spending the weekend catching up with high school friends and enjoying time with family – including baby Zeland.

Rora and I spent the day just hanging out. This morning we expected a couple of contractors to come re-carpet the downstairs closet that was damaged by water, but they never showed. We didn’t want to leave, just in case they were late, so we just played, napped, ate, watched TV, then played and ate some more. I even ordered pizza, just for me!

Here are a couple highlights from play time. This is something new Rora's been doing a lot lately – putting toys above her little head. Who would’ve thought that stubby little arms raised above a disproportionately large head would be so cute!?

The next picture was taken just a few minutes after I set her down on her back, lying right on her mat. No, she’s not crawling quite yet - she actually rolled over like 3 times to get this far. Her days of helplessness are coming to an end. You can also see our new floor in this pic.

All in all, Aurora and I had more fun hanging out with my parents and Joey than being home alone. But any day I get to spend with my girl is a good day.

Florida

Aurora and I had a great time in Florida. I wanted to post a few of my favorite pictures and memories, but I'm also including a link to my Picasa album at the bottom of this post so that you can check out the whole trip.

First, I'd better cover how Aurora did on the flights. I'd purchased a single seat and was planning on carrying her on my lap, but the flights weren't full and we were given two seats both ways. It was great - I was able to carry her car seat onto the plane and spread out a bit. When we took off, she definitely got a worried look on her face, but quickly fell asleep and slept for about half the flight. When she was awake, she just smiled at the other passengers and flight attendants and made silly faces and noises. Other passengers kept commenting on what a good baby she was.

My parents live in Hollywood, FL, and have a big golden retriever named Joey. He was way too excited to contain himself when we first arrived Saturday night, and after a few minutes of his shenanigans, Aurora actually shouted out a cry as if to say "back off doggy, I need some space!" On Sunday, once Joey had calmed down and Aurora was used to her surroundings, they started interacting. By Monday they were best buds. Aurora has NEVER laughed as hard as when I tried to sit her on his back! Tuesday afternoon, she was busting out laughing every time she saw him, and when he'd put his face close to hers she'd reach out and grab his snout. Once she actually pulled his nose into her mouth! He just wagged and loved it. For an over excitable dog, he sure is a sweetie.

While playing with Joey was fun, and hanging out with my parents was great, the highlight for me was bringing Aurora to visit my Grandpa & Grandma in Miami. Aurora and her great-grandpa just loved each other, and it was so sweet seeing them interact. It was a short visit, but just perfect.
Of course, my parents really enjoyed having little Aurora around, and we had so much fun taking walks and going to the beach.

Rora was her usual cute sweet perfect little self, and there wasn't much on the itinerary so we just hung out. Mom made us food and washed dishes (such a luxury for me!), and Aurora ate and took naps without any scheduling. What a relaxing get-away.

I have to give a quick shout out to JetBlue. Not only were their prices great, but everybody was friendly, the seats were comfy, and they gave us lots of snacks. When I missed my return flight (seriously) they didn't even charge me to fly out the next day. That's right folks, we spent an extra day in FL because we looked at the return flight wrong and thought the plane was leaving at 6:05pm, when that was really the arrival time in TX!!! I know Chuck was ready for us to come home, but I appreciated having one more day without having to pay for anything, talk to any contractors, or do any chores. Thanks Mom & Dad!

Click here for more photos

Sleep

Lately we’ve been getting much more sleep around here than before. I don’t know that I can credit it to starting Aurora on solid food, but it certainly did seem to begin around the time we introduced rice cereal. That’s also about the time Rora developed enough hand-eye coordination to grab her own pacifier and bring it to her mouth without help! So, these days she’s going to sleep around 7:30pm, and doesn't wake up until 5:30-ish. I'm sure she wakes up lightly here and there in between, but I've stopped using the baby monitor in our bedroom so I only wake up if she cries (I used to wake up everytime she sneezed or breathed heavily!).

At 5:30am I feed her then either stay awake and play for a little while, go back to sleep and snuggle until 7am, or leave her to sleep with her daddy so that I can shower and get ready for the day. Today was our last official half-day, so Chuck figured they should sleep in. This is what they looked like when I headed off to work this morning. It was a little too cute.

I don’t know how much traveling to Florida might disrupt this new trend, but of course I plan to keep her on schedule as much as possible and expect she’ll be her usual happy self the whole time. Aurora and I are leaving on Saturday and will be staying with my parents until Tuesday afternoon. Chuck will spend the weekend at ACL fest and I’m sure he’ll have a great time watching some of his favorite bands sans wife and baby.