Aubrey's Visit- Central Park

It was so awesome having my sister here for 2 weeks!  For Christmas, my mom got us a Canon Rebel camera!! (Thanks mom! You're the best!!) And so Aubrey had it strapped around her neck for 2 weeks taking pictures of everything! She took around 400 pictures while she was here! But she did get some great pics!

Our first city adventure was Central Park. I had been with Tyron before, but this time we ventured to things I hadn't seen yet. It was so awesome! Ice rink, kids zoo, HUGE kids playground, carousel, and my favorite- the mall. It's the famous walkway under the trees that you often see in movies. And the leaves were gorgeous- they had turned and leaves were everywhere. The only thing that would have made it better would be if we had ditched the huge bulky heavy stroller for a smaller, lighter one. Which we did the next day when we ventured to Babies R' Us. It was so awful getting the huge thing around on public transit.

Here's Aub's great pics of Central Park:

Castle in the park

My adorable sister :)

Cityscape behind the ice rink

Me & Auralia, and some trees :)

"The Mall"- so gorgeous

Some twisted trees in "The Mall"

Bethesda Fountain- popular location in movies

Popular bridge in movies

One year we're going to rent rowboats...

A gorgeous red tree!

The Manhattan Temple at night

It's Thanksgiving Time...

This year we spent Thanksgiving in the Bronx...

The day before Thanksgiving we headed to the grocery store to pick up some things we forgot to pick up because we had been in D.C. What a madhouse!! The grocery store here is always packed and things are always running out of stock, but this day it was seriously crazy. They were all out of cans of pumpkin and there were only a few cans of apple & cherry pie filling left. Luckily, everything else was in stock and we had gotten our turkey weeks before. While we were in line, a sassy black lady in front of us was checking out & decided she didn't want a turkey so she just set it on the ground. I was concerned that it would thaw out & go bad (don't we have enough starving people that it's ridiculous for a turkey to go bad b/c someone was careless & lazy?!?!?) so I told the lady (nicely) that leaving the turkey there would just cause it to go bad. She told me that "it wasn't her problem" and that if I was so concerned that I should go put it back!! Oh the nerve of this lady! So Aubrey picked it up and when it was our turn she handed it to the cashier and said very loudly, "This lady just left this turkey on the ground and it needs to be put back." The sassy lady was standing there bagging her groceries and started mouthing off about us to her teenage daughter who was with her. She made sure we could hear. The cashier swore under her breath, shut down the lane temporarily, and stomped off with the turkey and another one that someone else had left. She came back and apologized & explained that she heard what the sassy lady said to us but she had to bite her tongue or else she'd just explode. Then we both agreed that karma will come back around and Ms. Sassy Pants will get what she deserves. Oh the adventures in the Bronx...

Anyways, we decided to go all out and make my mom's traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We invited people from the ward over, including the missionaries. Wednesday evening we started making food- I made pies and we did some stuffing & salad prep (laid the bread for the stuffing out to dry, chopped veggies, mixed dry ingredients, etc.) and I also scheduled out food for the next day. We decided to split the dinner making between me, Tyron & Aubrey. Thursday morning I started with butterhorn rolls around 7am. Tyron prepped the turkey and I made stuffing & stuffed the turkey. Tyron was awesome & made the candied yams, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Aubrey made the strawberry jello salad & green bean casserole and opened a can of cranberry jelly. Everything turned out AMAZING! I must admit that it was doable only because 3 of us were making food. I have no idea how my mom did it by herself year after year... so much admiration & respect for my momma!

Here's some fun pics of the day (sorry, we didn't get any of the food- I didn't think about it until after all the food was gone!):

Aubrey, Me, Tyron & Auralia. Guests (left to right): Elder Wilkins, Elder Barfuss, Rachael Tsakpoe, Sister Coleman, Sister Asregado, and Barbara Jean Kaufman. We set our cameras on a timer- took us 4 or so tries to get one that turned out!

The gals on Turkey Day! Mom sent Auralia a cute turkey bib!!

And to finish, I'd like to share with you the "Thanksgiving" song that was stuck in my head that day. It's sung to the Air Supply song that goes "I'm all outta love, I'm so lost without you...":

Will Ferrell: It's Thanksgiving time! It's such a great day now! Turkey and bread and plenty of stuffing!
Chris Kattan: It's Thanksgiving time! It's time for Jell-O! Watch some T.V. maybe have some grape Kool-Aid!
Chris Kattan: Oooooh! I think I dig your stuff!
Will Ferrell: I think I dig your stuff!
Will Ferrell: Well it's Thanksgiving time! I love your new blazer! Your sleeves are pushed up it looks pretty awesome!
Chris Kattan: Well thank you my friend! Your so kind to say so! Your eyes are so blue, I think that I like them!
Will Ferrell: Well it's Thanksgiving time! Let's go get a burger! Maybe some fries! Let's go take a car ride!
Chris Kattan: Go to a motel! Drink a gallon of brandy! Hang out in robes and see what develops!

Auralia rolled over!

Yesterday we were sitting watching the John Adams mini-series and Auralia was on her back on her playmat. She was teetering on her side like she's been doing a lot lately, but then she gave it some more "umph" and rolled from back to front! Then after a minute, she realized that she doesn't like being on her stomach and she flipped back over!

We're going to have to buy some rugs because my baby can roll!!! :)

5 months!

5 month photo!

Another month gone by... hard to believe. So what is cutie pie up to these days? Well, she's...

• officially found her feet and loves pulling off her socks. We'll find her socks all over the house from where she's secretly pulled them of and dropped them. She hasn't become much of a toe sucker though... yet
• experimented with sucking her thumb and I think she's decided that she likes it

• now a city baby! My sister has been here for 2 weeks visiting and after struggling in the city with a huge stroller (had to folded up on buses, had to be carried up lots of stairs on the subway, got stuck in the subway entrance, weighs 60 or so pounds plus Auralia), we desperately went to Babies R' Us and bought a smaller lightweight stroller, a winter bodysuit, a rain/weather shield for the stroller, and a stroller blanker (bundleme) 

Ready to go into the city!

You can see the rain cover here although it's not folded down over the stroller

What??? You think I'm cute? I can't quite hear you say it :)

 

• started having rice cereal! It's often just a tablespoon diluted in a bottle before bed and a few times has been actually made up as a thicker mush and given to her by spoon. She seems to really like it! We plan on starting her on solids next week when my mom gets here!

• been going to bed around 8 or 8:30 and if we can feed her right before she goes to sleep, she only wakes up once during the night to eat. So we're making progress...
• quite a napper! Usually naps for an hour in the morning, then 2 hours in the early afternoon, and another hour in the late afternoon before sleeping for 10 hours at night! Takes after her dad :)

• gotten so close to rolling over. She'll teeter on her side, but can't quite make the roll
• big on standing- she'd rather stand than sit
• experienced NYC's crazy freak weather- earthquake, hurricane, earliest reported snow dump in October, and the rainiest year (70 inches so far!)
• been to so many places already- Canada, NYC many times, and Washington D.C. (more trip pics to come!)

 

Here you can see the plastic rain cover! Oh, and Abraham Lincoln :)

OTHER FUN PICS!

Helping dad make some rolls

Sometimes she gives us this look like we're crazy...

Big eyes and a sweet smile...melts my heart!

Okay this is honestly the funniest picture ever! Remember how I said we would get a picture posted of her bones outfit glowing in the dark? Well, we went to take a picture in the dark and the flash went off (so we weren't able to get a glow-in-the-dark one) but we did get this sweet picture of her totally freaked out by the flash!