Watermelon!!

Watermelon is, hands down, one of my very favorite summertime treats! Apparently Aura inherited my love for this amazing snack. We had some cut up watermelon in the fridge and  every time she saw the container she got SO excited. One particularly hot day, I just let her go to town on it.

Yum!

What's your favorite summertime snack?

Wordless Wednesday XXXV - (Setting up the big girl bed for Aura's 18 month mini birthday!)

Got this for $70 on Craigslist! Hated the color though...

So I took that sucker apart and painted it!

This stuff rules for laminate surfaces.

Ta-Da! 

Aurora LOVES it! More pictures to come once we put her adorable owl bedding on!

Check out our new favorite thing!

So after searching online and doing a TON of research on bicycle seats for Aurora, I finally decided on one!

I knew right away that I didn't want a trailer and I wasn't a huge fan of the ones that hook onto the back of the bike. Particularly because my bicycle has a heavy duty cargo rack attached to it that I'd have to remove.

That left me with pretty limited options. There was one that mounts on a rail between the seat and the handlebars, but my bicycle didn't have a long enough frame. Then I found one called the iBert that I really liked. It mounted on the handlebar stem which made it perfect for my bike and it was getting amazing reviews. However, it only came in a strange green and orange color and it was pretty expensive so I had a hard time committing to it. Well, lo and behold a month later when I decided to break down and buy it... There it was on Amazon; $15 cheaper and in PINK! Decision made! Two days later the seat and a tiny helmet arrived in the mail! Unfortunately, it was raining so our first ride had to wait until the next day. 

What the heck is this... a new hat?

This is Aurora "hugging" the box. She's a little strange haha.

It was super easy to install! Looks good, right? 

Aurora was so excited to get in it! She kept pointing at my bike yelling "vroom vroom!"!

Vroom!

We had a blast riding about the neighborhood. She learned to say "Whee!" and waved at everyone. She even clapped her hands a  bunch of times. Everyone one we passed on the street got a kick out of her!

And of course we had to stop for a snack!

Mmm... fruit cup!

It looks like this bike seat with be getting a TON of use! Aurora loves it, I love it and we get tons of compliments when we're out. I cant wait to start taking some longer rides! <3

Our Week

Whew the last few weeks have been a little crazy. Lots of changes around here. Aurora is growing by leaps and bounds and finds a way to surprise me almost every day with something new that she's learned. I've been on a few very promising dates (all with the same guy! Haha) AND I've enrolled in school full time. My first class in on April 2nd! Here's a few quick pictures to help you guys catch up!

I made this awesome KungPao veggie LoMein.

While Aurora made sandwiches.

Lots of them... Aura LOVES wooden sandwiches.

She made some naked phone calls.

Read books at her 15 month checkup.

She got her picture taken with Estrella again.

...and surprised me by eating raw spinach!

Also, at Aurora's checkup we found out what I suspected all along... 

she's HUGE! 25 and a half pounds!

Where is the time going?! Anyway I hope everyone is doing well!

Our "First" Christmas!!

Now that the excitement has died down, it's time to tell you guys about our "First" Christmas! 

Ok, so technically this wasn't really Aurora's first Christmas, but considering she slept through it last year (at 25 days old) I think it should definitely count as our first Christmas experience together! We stopped by a friend's house for a small gathering on Christmas Eve and I wish I had taken pictures but I forgot my camera! Here's a picture of her cute Xmas Eve outfit from before we left though:

On Christmas morning Aurora slept until noon!!
Merry Christmas to mama!
Trust me, I know it'll probably never happen again so I definitely appreciated it! 

We opened presents before getting ready to head over to Nana Poo's house...  

1st present from Auntie Poo...

Hmm... what could it be?

Mega Blocks!!!

This one is from Mama... the matching bus!

She got good at opening presents fast!

'Say Please' Tea Set!

1st laptop! Maybe she'll leave mama's alone now!

Playing in the chaos...

 After a little bit of cleanup and breakfast it was time to get in a fancy dress (you may recognize it from our Christmas cards) and hat so we could go to Nana Poo's for Christmas part two!

Aurora LOVES climbing. Funny and a little scary.

 Unfortunately, pictures don't come out too great at Nana Poo's. We had the same problem on Thanksgiving. I'm pretty sure it's the lights from all of their fishtanks but you can still get a pretty good idea of what's going on in them...

She loves Nana Poo's TV...

And Poppa Poo's Xbox controllers.

The dress got old quick so we changed into comfy Xmas PJs

Have I mentioned that Aura's been walking up a storm lately?? 

In the dog toy bucket again!

That big doggie is the owner of all the dog toys.

Aura got her very own phone to play with!

That's Nana Poo!!

Those are the highlights, there was also a delicious dinner, a visit to some of Auntie Poo's other family and a bunch of other gifts. I'll post soon about some of the homemade gifts I gave this year. I'm not going to lie... our "first" Christmas was exhausting. But it was so worth it! Hope everyone else had an amazing holiday!

Aurora loves Mega Blocks.

Our Weekend: Painting, Cake Making and Bday Partying... Photobomb!

This weekend was a pretty busy one for us. On Saturday we revisited the zoo with my roommate/bestie in the afternoon. Aurora was a little cranky but overall we definitely still had a good time! Then I spent the rest of the evening finishing up a nursery painting and making a cake! 

Our friends' little girl was having her first birthday party on Sunday! I had been working on a painting for her room all week. They LOVE owls and have owl things all over for her, so I figured what could be more perfect then a picture of a little owl family that looked just like theirs?! Here's what I came up with:

I was pretty proud of the wrapping too!

Then it was on to the cake. I love the idea of fancy little smash cakes for first birthdays! The party theme was owls, of course, and the colors were hot pink and lime green. Step one was creating a tiny layer cake with green and pink sponge. (It's sitting on a breadcrumb can to give you some size perspective...)

Then some frosting...

Our apartment was very warm so piping the frosting wasn't really working. I ended up doing the detail with a toothpick! Then I cut some ears and wings out of fruit leather, mini Oreo eyes with licorice pupils and carved orange slice candies for a beak and feet!

Not bad huh??

This was my first attempt at a fully decorated and themed smash cake and I have to say I was pretty proud of myself! Somehow we managed a 30 minute drive with me holding the cake on my lap. There was one or two close calls because the weather was pretty bad so my roommate seemed to have a little bit of a tough time driving in the downpours but we made it. And then? Well.... I dropped the whole thing on the ground in their driveway.

I was SO bummed. They are going to try to salvage it since only the top really got messed up and some of the frosting can be scraped off, but they never got to see how cute it was in person! 

As for the party, it was a pretty good time. It took me a little while to accept that the cake got ruined so I could settle down and enjoy it but I saw some great friends there and there were tons of kids running around so I snapped out of it eventually. Aurora seemed to have a blast and proved once again that she's anything but shy and timid! She was crawling all over trying to get her hands on everything and eating up the attention.

Aurora didn't really seem too interested in playing with the other kids but they were all older than her. She was more concerned with putting all the toys (and crayons) in her mouth!

Aurora loves eating EVERYTHING.

So... despite a little rough patch, we had a pretty great weekend!

How about you?!