more Christmas Crafting

I have some more of Rory's gifts to share:

First, her doll house didn't come with a baby, so I needle-felted a wee one, along with a small baby bed for it.
These are a couple of wet felted balls that I then embellished with needle felting.

felt play food (just acrylic felt this time :( Wool felt is expensive!):
A pizza with all our favorite toppings (we make pizza at home every week)
An almond butter and jam sandwich
and a Gingerbread cookie set.
Aurora's favorite book right now is Angelina Ballerina and she's always dancing, so I hope she'll like this tutu I made her (so easy!!!).

Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments

I thought it would be fun to have Maddie over to make Christmas ornaments with Aurora. The recipe is super simple: mix equal parts cinnamon and applesauce (store bought) into a dough and roll out (we found wax paper and an extra sprinkling of cinnamon helped with this. Cut out shapes and either let dry a couple of days or bake in a very low oven until dry. Then we let the girls paint them- mostly to convince Aurora that they were not cookies, she kept trying to eat them! They turned out beautifully and smell so yummy!

an emergency trip to the Pediatric Dentist :(

Last night, Aurora was dancing around in the kitchen when she tripped and fell smack onto her face. She was really upset, so I checked to make sure her teeth were there and not wobbly, and then did my best to console her and stop the bleeding from her gums. It was almost bedtime.
This morning, after her fat lip and bit of gum swelling had gone down, we noticed that one of her front teeth was pushed back ever so slightly. And she still seemed like it was bothering her (although she would still eat a cookie :)). So we put a call into the Yale Pediatric Dental center and they had us come in for an emergency appt. Poor girl! She, of course, didn't cooperate at all, and I had to use my legs and arms to keep her still for an x-ray. Luckily the root bone isn't fractured, but there is some discoloration that was visible on the x-ray and her tooth may become discolored as well. We don't know if it was subluxed enough to cause damage to the nerve, but if it did, and infection sets in the tooth would need to be pulled!!! Any prayers you can offer up that her tooth won't need to be pulled (or horribly discolored), would be much appreciated!!
We go back in 3 weeks for a follow up, unless there are signs of infection which would bring us in sooner, of course.

Eeek, this is so not how I wanted her first experience at the dentist to go.

Christmas Crafting

I've decided to make several of Aurora's Christmas gifts this year. Not all, but several at least. At first, I thought this would save us some money. Not so. Homemade gifts save you some money, certainly, if you've already got a fully stocked craft room. I've put out a pretty penny for supplies- maybe next year it will save us some money. But, they are hand made with lots of love.. and totally worth it I think. Plus, they're not plastic :)

We've asked Santa to bring Aurora a small wooden doll house, and since I know we can count on Santa :) I needle felted a garden play mat to go with her doll house. I'm really happy with how it turned out, since I'm so new at needfelting.
Shape matching bean bags with a drawstring bag to keep them in and use as gift wrap. (there's a matching bean bag for each of the ones pictured)

Ribon streamers for dancing (still got to make one more of these)

And cloth diapers for Baby. (and her dinosaurs- since she's always putting the plastic-y one we have on them)

There's still lots more to come! I'm starting to feel the crunch!

file folder painting

Aurora had a blast making these very simple paintings. You simply take an empty file folder, cut a design out of the front to make a stencil, slip a piece of construction paper in the folder and start painting. Easy peasy, even for a two year old.

And, just to prove that she can do anything while sucking her thumb:

a very peaceful morning

Yesterday, Rory and I had a very peaceful morning together. While I needle felted this lil' guy... Rory watched her current favorite- Riverdance. "sit and watch Rahdance, baby" she told her doll.

But it wasn't long before her seat was abandoned for her own tap/ballet show:

It was a lovely morning.

Snow!!!!

Yesterday morning we woke up to this!!! Now, people who know me well, know that I'm a fourth generation Californian and complain often of the cold in new england. But I will say this- when it snows, especially those first few snows of the season, it is absolutely Beautiful. And, being a parent now, I'm finding much more to enjoy about the cold weather this season-- snow is fun! I just wish winter didn't last so long....

At the Foote School ( a private school next door to us) there is this really awesome climbing structure. It really is the coolest thing ever- full of slopes, twists and turns, and crevices where only a child can fit. There's a similar, bigger version at the Boston Children's Museum. Aurora spent the Autumn building up her gross motor skills in order to traverse this thing- it took a lot of work on her part, she's still so small yet- but she had finally gotten pretty good at climbing in it. This was the first time she's tried in her full on winter gear though. A whole new challenge, for sure!

Oh, Christmas Tree...

Time for the Christmas Tree! We went to cut down our Chrismas Tree at this great little tree farm called Bees, Fleas and Trees in Litchfield, CT. it was such a wonderful day!!! Litchfield is a very cute, traditional, quaint New England town. All the houses were just beautiful and everybody we met was very nice (even at the Dunkin' Donuts- which isn't exactly known for its service :)). Exactly how one would envision Connecticut to be. There were some neighborhood boys helping at the tree farm that day and I kept hearing them say things like "Is there anything else I can do for you Mr. Gilbert (owner of the farm)" or "I stacked all the wood for you, Mr. Gilbert" or "gee, that's swell Mr. Gilbert"-- okay, maybe not that, but it really did seem like you were stepping back in time to 50 yrs ago. The owners of the farm, the Gilberts, are also the parents of Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love, a copy of which I picked up at the farm and am really enjoying and highly recommend. Litchfield is also home to White Flower Farm, which we've ordered from before and I can't wait to see their show gardens in the spring.

On our drive up, we saw a sign for an open farm day at an Alpaca farm and decided to take a detour. The alpacas were really very sweet- the babies would come up and nuzzle Aurora, she loved it- and they were so, so, so soft!!!! I picked up 4 6oz balls of alpaca roving (for a very reasonable price) for wet and needle felting. I'll post pics when I finish some thing, but I've started needle felting a sheep for Rory for Christmas. I've got a lot of projects going though, so hopefully I'll get it done!

I'll post a pic of the finished tree as soon as I get a new battery for my camera!

Some very special friends

NeeNee, Kitty and Doggie are three very special friends in Aurora's life right now. NeeNee was given to Aurora by Gran when she flew out the day after she was born and has been a constant companion since (and I really do mean constant). Aurora's Grandmommy made Doggie and Kitty for her 2nd birthday. They've become close friends, too. All three often join her for walks, naps, in her play kitchen, for stories and rides on her ladybug scooter- got to get a picture of that someday, it's quite the balancing act. It's so fun to watch as imaginary play begins to blossom for Rory- and these three friends have been the most frequent catalyst for that very important developmental play.

Nuthin' better than a box!

For quite some time this was one of Aurora's favorite playthings. She'd push it all around the house, invite animals in with her, and often sit and read in it. It was just so sweet. And cheap.

a Firetruck!!

Several weeks ago (as evidenced by the fact that there are leaves still on the trees), the local fire engine company came to do an assembly for the elementary across the street. Aurora and I, along with Jessica and Madison and Mary and Griffin were in the courtyard playing. The kids, of course, all ran over to the fence to watch. The fireman were super nice and brought the engine across the street so our little ones could see! They even flushed the hydrant right outside of our apts which was such a cool show for the kids. They let Rory sit up in the engine!

Halloween

Ok, yes, Halloween was well over a month ago... but I just started this blog, so I've got some catch-up to do, right? We visited this wonderful place called Lyman's Orchards. It's 7th oldest family business in America, or something like that... very cool. They had pick your own pumpkin and apple fields (among other things) which we visited. Word to the wise- do not read exciteable two year old several books about pumpkins and farms, get in the car to drive to a pumpkin farm describing in detail all the while how we're going to get our very own special pumpkin and thus raising the expectations of said toddler, only to get out of the car and to the field to realize we have only plastic in our wallets and no cash... it doesn't go over too well. After hopping back in the car and hitting up an ATM, we did manage to have some fun nonetheless, and find a great pumpkin too.

Now onto the actual day. Aurora was a Bumble Bee. Except that she wasn't. My beautiful daughter got a double dose of stubborness from her father and I, and outrightly refused to wear a costume of any sort. Even when she saw all the other kids with them on. Oh well, it will serve her well, I suppose, to be able to choose not to do something even though all the other kids are :)

So here's Aurora dressed all in black ( the bee part of the costume was supposed to go over this)at the Halloween Parade and Party our apartment complex put on. She did have A LOT of fun- especially later when we went trick-or-treating. She does, however, now know what candy is and my days of making it through the grocery check out with her in ignorant bliss as to what all those colorful little packages on the shelves actually are are gone...

a BLOG!?

All right, fine. So, everybody else has one. And there are several that I, myself follow... but still, I never really saw myself as the blogger 'type'. After all, much of the time I never even get around to uploading pictures from the camera, let alone actually writing about the them. But my own personal miracle is growing up so fast... so fast that the scrapbook simply can't keep up. And there's just so very much that I want to document, so much that I want to remember. There are so many 'itty bitty miracles', if you will, that I see in and with Aurora everyday that deserved to be recognised, honored and cherished.

And so, in that spirit, let us begin!