Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Aurora's Birthday Celebration... pt. 1

She's 3!!!! And she'll let you know it, too. We had a great weekend long celebration for Aurora and she was in absolute heaven. We heard so many squeels of pure joy and excitement from her this weekend~ melting everyone's hearts, of course.

Her actual birthday was Saturday, so we'll start there. On Friday Evening, after she was in bed, I took down our Summer Nature Table and set up a Birthday Table for her. Together, we will take this down and begin setting up our Autumn Nature Table this week. On the table we put out her favorite flowers~ roses, sunflowers and queen anne's lace, opened up Around the Year to September and One is One to the number 3, the letter 'A' placket from her flower wall cards, her birthday crown (I'll do a separate post later with how I made it and my inspirations and resources), and a few little goodies for her to unwrap right away.

Aurora sleeps in the next room and we have a baby monitor up so we can hear her in the night. On Saturday morning, I heard her stirring and her general waking up noises and then she gasped and whispered 'Is Morning! Is my birthday!' and then she called loudly to us. It was so, so sweet.
After we explored her birthday table and she opened her small presents I made her birthday pancakes in the shape of a number 3- complete with sprinkles. Sorry about the blurry pic!
We had a quiet rest of the morning as Pete and I tried to do some last minute cleaning and party prep for the next day. In the afternoon, Aurora and I had both a graduate housing bbq and Aurora's friend Blythe's 4th birthday party to attend. It was a busy afternoon! When we came back, Aurora enjoyed a special birthday Piggy Bath (foot bath), to help her calm down. She really enjoys these Piggy Baths, so one of the little gifts on her birthday table was a muslin bag I had decorated and written 'Flower Fairy Bath for Princesses' on and then filled with dried rosebuds and chammomile flowers. A little rose essential oil and sprinkling of the flowers made for a very special Piggy Bath. A also really likes to have her nails painted (which is kinda funny since mine never are), so we had gotten her a tiny bottle of glitter polish as well, and of course we did her fingers and toes.
And then it was time for her big gift from Mama and Daddy~~ a big doll house and lots of furnishings to go inside!
It was such a wonderful day! I'll have highlights from her actual party soon ;)

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Sunflowers and Apples

Last weekend we headed back to Lyman's Orchards (a favorite destination) to say goodbye to the Sunflowers of Summer and hello to the Apples of Autumn. It was a beautiful, crisp, fall like day~ And we all enjoyed ourselves immensely.




me @ 22 wks

how am I supposed to get those apples, way up there?!

that'll work!
We celebrated our apple bounty with the first apple crisp of the season that evening and we are so happy that this is just the start of the fall fruits/veg... so many yummies to come: apple pie, apple/pear sauce, dried apples, apple butter, pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie (!!) ....

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

First Days of Preschool

Playing catch up here... Aurora is loving her days at preschool! We are expecting a really wonderful year. Her teachers, Sarah and Erica, are great~ very warm and gentle~ and Aurora's really enjoying the mix of kids in her class, too. She's the oldest, turning 3 this weekend, but we figured probably better to be the oldest in the toddler class rather than youngest in the preschool class. So far, she's had absolutely no problems when it comes time for me to go each day... I, on the other hand, am missing my baby!!

The all important cubby

All ready for the first day!

Checking out the house play (where she's been spending most of her time)

Flowers found on the playground

Down the slide!

Monday, September 14, 2009

Yes, we are still alive.

I'm sorry we've been absent from this space for so long. We've had a roller coaster ride of a summer and, as a family, just needed the space to live it out privately. I could have come on her and just posted the bits and pieces of our lives that seemed carefree, but that would have ignored all the rest... the rest that we just weren't quite ready to share yet. So, the blog went silent. This was something that I struggled a lot with~~ there were lots of wonderful and exciting things that Aurora, and Pete and I, had the opportunity to experience this summer. Things that I typically would have blogged about... but I felt myself being compelled away from the computer. So, after struggling a bit about that, all the posts I 'should' do instead of the 'wants', I finally respected that I was going to need some space away from the blog.

So, what did happen this summer? Lots. Lots of family time, beautiful weather, the beach and lots of happiness. And then, there's the 'news'. We have some big, big news. Namely, this little guy:

Yep, little guy. He's due to join us in late January. I am currently 21 weeks along. So, why didn't I share this in this space sooner? Because, so far, this pregnancy had been a very stressful and unsure time. First, there was the anxiety that comes with PAL (pregnancy after loss), I had four miscarriages before this baby. That alone made the pregnancy horribly anxious. But then we had a nuchal translucency scan done at 12 weeks, and that didn't go well. The baby had what was called a separated cystic hygroma on the back of its neck. They gave us only a 50% chance of a healthy, live baby at birth. They were primarily concerned with chromosomal abnormalities, and in particular Turner's Syndrome which results in miscarriage/stillbirth 95% of the time. We got all this news the day before we were to leave for vacation. Of course. We decided we needed the rest and as much relaxation as we were able to muster, and headed to the shore. When we returned a CVS (chorionic villi sampling), where they stick a giant needle through my abdomen and extract a tiny bit of the placenta, was preformed. After a week of waiting, we got the results that our little one was chromosomally normal and a boy!!!!!!!!!!!! The next hurdle was to come a month later with a detailed anatomy scan--- and he passed that with flying colors, too!!!! We have a fetal echo cardiogram scheduled for later this month to take a closer look at his heart- but we were told by several doctors that they would have been able to pick up anything major at the anatomy scan.

So, we are just beginning to breathe a little easier. This little guy is a strong kicker and I am ever so thankful for that. I don't think Pete nor I will relax or fully exhale until he is here kicking and screaming, but we are beginning to dream about the future a little bit.

Aurora is thrilled. She caught on very quickly to what was 'up', despite our best efforts in our nervousness to try to keep things quiet.

I will be back soon (promise!) with all the other news and pictures of the summer (especially Aurora's first day of preschool!!).