7 Months

At 7 months/5.5 adjusted, Aubrey is still such a joy. Month 7 has been the month of vacation and Aubrey has been s-p-o-i-l-e-d. I guess that is what you get when you are the first grandchild and the first great-grandchild (Peterson side).

She is also pretty darn easy to spoil. 

•  She has now mastered sitting and is starting to get up on all fours. Crawling is still a ways off but she definitely WANTS to move.  
• Lots of teething. She has earned the nickname Steven gave her of "Slobbery Aubrey."

 

• She has very delicate hands and loves to examine and pass objects hand to hand. Necklaces are a favorite.
• The past couple of weeks she has started giving "kisses." I love it. 
• She is still quite loud. She has added banging toys to her repoitiore of yelling and squealing. 

• This has also been the month of food. Some days it is a pain to get her to eat, but overall, starting her on solids has gone a lot smoother than I was expecting. Foods she has tried: avacado, sweet potoatoes, peas, carrots, pears, prunes, peaches, squash, banana, oatmeal. Maybe a few others I am forgetting.
• Is still my little social butterfly that loves people. She is happiest when she is the center of attention. I wonder where she gets that from?

 We sure adore her.

Exhibit A

I was wanting to update the blog, but we haven't taken too many pictures lately. I'm still here in Calgary until Saturday. I'm having a great time, but we are definitely missing Steven.

I did however, load a bunch of photos from last week onto the computer and laughed really hard at these. In my last post, I mentioned that Aubrey is kind of on a rampage with her new teeth. Here is what happened when she met her little buddy Seth.....

I can't decide if my favorite part is the growling noises she makes, or how funny Steven and Shaun thought their children were.

6 + 6 + 11

A few days ago, I was able to get together with my best friends from high school. I had a great time and I am so sad that I don't get to live around any of them. Considering we all currently live in Calgary (2), Idaho, Arizona, Utah, and California, it was pretty lucky that we were all in the same city at the same time.

We have definitely been busy since high school. The 6 of us married 6 great guys. And.... between us we have 11 kids under 4. We managed to get a shot with all of the kiddos. It isn't pretty but they were all there!

Even though Aubrey looks like a little angel in the midst of all that chaos, after the picture, Lana's little girl who is sitting next to Aubrey on the couch said, "she bite me." She has 2 teeth now, and I am afraid that the biting stage has begun. She is as sweet as can be, but definitely tries to eat anything that comes near her mouth. 

Thanks Jocelyn for hosting and for the photos. I definitely miss you guys!

What a Treat

Somebody thought that it was quite the treat to go to kid's day at the Stampede this morning:

I also thought that today was a treat because Aubrey slept 12 straight hours for the FIRST TIME EVER.

She went to bed at 8, and I had to wake her up at 7:40 in order for us to make it through the gates before 9 so we could get in free. I'm hoping that this is not a one-time deal and the sleeping all the way through the night continues.

We got to see an awesome ice show, starring former Olympic Gold Medalists. I love ice skating and so that was really fun for me.

 

 

And... here is one more picture at the Stampede just for Steven. I chopped all my hair off yesterday and he wanted to see a picture since he is now back to work in California and I am still here in Canada.

We have been dragging Aubrey all over the place. She has been such a trooper and finds ways to entertain herself when she gets bored....

I think she is more flexible than those ice skaters we saw today.

Wicked Swim Zoo

So, I turned the big 2-5 yesterday...

Yikes, I feel like I am getting old. I had a great birthday full of food, family, shopping, and fun. I loved that my birthday was while we were on vacation because I got to spend it with my family and Steven was around for the whole day.

In other Canada fun, we went to see Wicked (which was Wicked awesome).

We have taken Aubrey swimming to my grandparents pool twice since we have been here. She is becoming quite the little water baby.

We went to the zoo. Aubrey loved all the animals, but mostly loved watching the animals otherwise known as people.

And... we have eaten. Alot. The main "bucket list" of things that we must always do when we come to visit is almost entirely about food. Spolumbos, German Deli, Tim Hortons, etc. I guess food and shopping. All my favorite clothing stores (Jacob!) are here.

I have also sadly learned that vacation + baby = sleep deprivation. We are staying up way late having lots of fun, but Aubrey did not get the memo that vacation is for sleeping through the night and/or not waking up early.

Tonight we are off to the Stampede. Yeehaw!

Oh Canada!

As mentioned before, Steven and I are pretty frugal. From this post, you can see that we often go to extreme measures to save money. Except on clothes for Aubrey. Those cute dresses are a weakness of mine.

Anyways, we are now in Canada, enjoying my family and a much needed vacation. Lots of vacation fun ahead. But, getting here was quite the trek. The cheapest flights left from San Francisco not San Jose, but parking at the San Francisco airport was $13.50 per day. So, it would have been over $150 just to park our car. Seriously, we were not going for that.

So our trip from our little apartment in Santa Clara, California, to Calgary, Alberta went something like this:

9:30- drive to Caltrain station. Drop off me, Aubrey, and stuff at train.
9:45-10:10: Steven drives car back to our apartment and then runs the 2 miles to the train. Arrives on time but fairly sweaty.
10:20- Take the Caltrain into San Francisco
11:15-12:15: Feed Aubrey on dirty train bench, take 2 different BART trains, arrive at airport.
12:15-2:30: check in, security wakes up sleeping baby making unhappy mom, pay $22 for 2 sandwiches (arg!), hang out in airport because flight was delayed.
3:06-5:45: flight with very squirmy but happy baby (seriously, she was so good.)
5:45-7:30: get bags, drive to HOME!

It was such a long day, but our total train fare came to about $25 instead of $150. I LOVE saving money.

But, we were quite the spectacle. 2 large bags, 1 smaller bag, 1 backpack, 1 diaper bag, 1 car seat, and 1 baby. A lady on the train was taking pictures of us and laughing. We looked that ridiculous.

Oh Canada! Now we are here, and I can't wait to enjoy all the things that I miss about my glorious home.