She's Back!

I missed you all!!!

I realize it has been far too long since I have posted any new Aurelia updates. She has grown up before our very eyes. She is an expert fast crawler. She has 7 teeth (four on top, three on bottom). She has excellent balance and spends lots of time squatting and standing back up again holding onto her bar or furniture with only one hand. Sometimes she will walk with you, holding only one hand, but she prefers two hands, thank you very much. I am amazed at her daily progress with motion and sound. Her favorite game is the "Hi" game. She loves to talk to people and her favorite thing to do is to get their attention with her sweet little "Heh" (aka "Hi"). She will start with one "Heh" and will continue intermittently until she is acknowledged by the "Heh" recipient. Once acknowledged by the "Heh" recipient", she will break into an enormous smile and possibly throw in a few more "Heh"'s for good measure (likely with her finger adorably in her mouth). You can tell how proud she is that she got you to speak to her. She is lovely and amazing. I will try to catch this experience on video. It is priceless.

When Aurelia was tiny and could only dream of the day she could wear ruby slippers, her Auntie Ivy gave her the most beautiful pair imaginable. The other day, I brought them out and Aurelia was captivated. We had to put them on. She stood in front of her mirror and put on a wonderful tap routine. First her right foot: tap-tap-tap. Then her left foot: tap-tap-tap. . . . By the time i got back with the video camera, she had grown more comfortable in her baby Manolo's. Here she is checking out her lovely feet. . .

We had a fun day with hats a couple of weeks ago. I am a hat lover and I think Reli looks pretty spectacular in a variety of hats. Fun!

The Healds, Ingrams and Kaplans packed up and headed to Lake Travis for a little weekend getaway at the end of September. We rented a fun house, cooked for each other, looked at old family pictures and reminisced about when we Heald girls were Koruna and Aurelia's age. It was fabulous to experience all of these branches of the family tree together under the same roof. Here are some pictures from our adventure.

The Cast

Just A Boy and a Girl

With the Moon Shinin' All Around

Our Little Family

Still Life With Native Girl

Bath Time

Dada and his Girl

Hanging out with the Dads

Papasita and Reli

Grumps and Grandma are Awesome!

Honey came to visit again weekend before last and we had a wonderful time with her. She showers these girls with love and attention. (And by "these girls" I mean me, Berry, Whitney, Koruna, Aurelia, our friends, etc.). I love when she comes to stay here. It is never, ever for long enough, but it is so sweet that she makes the long journey here on a regular basis. Thank you, Honey!

She happened to come here on the weekend of Austin City Limits, a huge music festival. Jeri Lynn and Ian had tickets to some awesome bands so we got the absolute pleasure of Koruna's company for an extended period of time. I dressed Reli in her best Rocker outfit in celebration. She was a Koruna groupie, in her black onesie with Koruna's name on the back, complete with rock star hairdo.

Jail House Rock

One last "O", Making her move . . .

Rockin' It Family Style

Koruna with Bow

Hey Ladies!

And finally, this past weekend was Cousin's Weekend. My cousins Emily and Rachael came down from Dallas to spend time with all of us. Here they are with Reli.

Rachael & Reli

Emily and Reli

Last, but certainly not least, Yano was playing with Reli's favorite fish toy and captured her reaction to the fishie's breath. Sigh. I love these two . . .

Crawling

Aurelia has pretty much mastered the art of crawling. It amazes me how quickly that happened - from stationary and wanting, to mobile and obtaining. Good for her! Here she is about a week ago.

Ready for her closeup:

This summer has been a lot of fun. Lately we have been spending more time with the Ingrams and these girls are having a ball together. They love each other already. Koruna calls Aurelia "Weh-wee", and she points to things that belong to Aurelia and says "Weh-wee". She gives her hugs and kisses and shares her toys with her younger cousin. What a sweet, precious, wonderful child that Koruna is. May they have a long and wonderful relationship, those two. Here is a video of them playing.

Reli got to spend some good time with her Honey last weekend. She also got to wear her very first pigtails. How cute is that?

Having fun with Aunt Berry:

Her fine motor skills are quite good. She is able to feed herself finger foods quite quickly. There is a homeopathic product for teething that makes Reli really happy - teething tablets - tiny white tablets that dissolve into mush almost instantly upon contact with saliva. For several weeks now she has been able to pick them up and feed them to herself.

Reli and one of her favorite toys, the Little Teethers bottle:

In the last week, Aurelia discovered how to wave her hand. She does it ever so delicately, watching the motion of her wrist travel to her knuckles and then out to her tiny fingers - literally like a wave. Sometimes she is mesmerized by it and has to turn her head sideways to stare at the magic her hands are performing. At times, she waves both hands. Here she is waving with Aunt Berry.

We have had a lot of fun learning the new levels of volume Aurelia can reach. She is going through what we hope is a loud phase. She does most of her "talking" at top volume, lest you miss the fact that she is saying something. Although her decibels are not necessarily directed at you, she wants to make sure you can hear her, regardless of where you happen to be in relation to her (say, right next to her face, across the room, or in another room entirely with the door closed and earplugs in during "work" hours). She is getting her points across and it is lovely music to my ears. She has added "ga-ga-ga" and "ba-ba-ba" to her repertoire, but still no "da-da-da". She is close, I can almost feel it. Maybe by the next blog post . . .

Reli Goes Mobile

She can pull herself up. She can cruise. She can walk holding onto your hands. And, yes, she's starting to crawl. Woah . . . She'll be truly mobile before we know it. I am guessing by the time she's 8 months old she will be crawling all over the place. That is really soon. Wow!

Two days ago she got her knees under her and here are her first attempts at crawling - forward that is. She's been pretty good at pushing herself several feet backwards for a few weeks now. Finally, victory is within reach. She can move toward things!

We have had a great summer so far, hanging out with friends and my family. Here are some pictures of Aurelia and Koruna playing over at Runa's house.

Music time!

Here are the girls at the Christensen's for a pool party to celebrate Sunny's 3rd birthday.

Did you see me in the water, Momma? I wanna get back in!

Aurelia tried her first watermelon a couple of weeks ago. I froze it so that she could chew on it to relieve her gums. Her reaction makes me laugh every time.

Reading time with Momma and Dada:

Swinging with Dada and Uncle Ian - problem free!

Reli didn't really start babbling until about a week ago. Now her favorite thing to say is "Moh-Muh-Moh-Muh". Sometimes she seems to associate it with me, but mostly it is indiscriminate jabbering. The way it started was with her making huge slobber bubbles as she sounded out the Mmmmoooommmmuuhhh. She's pretty good with the bubbles I have to say. She hasn't started babbling with any other consonants (like "D" for instance, come on Reli!), but hopefully that is just around the corner. Here she is in the mirror, playing and talking away.

Her hair is getting pretty long and her bangs sometimes get in her eyes, so I put this headband on her. Of course (as seen above) that is when she decided to crawl. I am sure she will be humiliated by the headband when she looks back on this. Sorry future, teenage Reli!

Too cute:

Where did my awesome headband go?

Bye-Bye!

An "O"d to Uncle Ian

Aurelia's birth transformed many of us into first-time someones. I became a mother. Jonathan became a father. Jeri Lynn became an aunt. And Ian became an uncle. I believe we have all relished our new roles in life and are grateful that it was Aurelia who gave us new titles and new reasons to be better people.

Like so many wonderful things about Ian, being an uncle just came naturally. Since Aurelia was born he has eyed her with a particular attention, that it seems he has set aside just for her. My favorite thing he does with her, and has always done with her, is that he can immediately make all of her problems disappear. Like magic, Ian comes into a room and if Aurelia is crying or otherwise disturbed, he approaches her and reminds her that "Uncle Ian is here, so no more problems." More often than not, her tears dry up. His smile melts aways her tiny infant angst and she stares at him. It is, hands down, my favorite thing about their uncle-niece relationship. I love his confidence in the mantra. Literally, since the week she was born he decided that he was the answer to her troubles and reassured her that it was so. She has problems, he makes them disappear. I hope it continues for the rest of their lives. One of Ian's many, many talents is making up incredible songs on the spot. Here he is with Aurelia, singing a song about how she is problem free. I love you, Ian. You are an amazing uncle.

Honey came to visit last weekend and we had a ball. Although Aurelia did not make her a grandmother, Honey also has her own magic with her.

We took the girls to a local city water park and Honey took lots of pictures of us playing in the water. What an awesome weekend!

You may be wondering what the "O"d part of the post title refers to. Well, if you have been around an infant learning to feed herself, you likely know that O's (as in Cheerio's, or Organic Whole Grain Cheerio's lookalikes) are an important part of most meals. Here is a video of Reli eating her first O's. She has improved quite a bit since we shot this clip, but it was fun seeing her first foray into the world of tiny food stuffs. (Clearly Whitney and I got a kick out of it).

And last but not least, Aurelia had fun playing with her cousin Koruna and Runa's Mr. Potato Head glasses - a Heald girl favorite.

Someone Turned Over Her Giggle Box

Aurelia is so much fun these days. She laughs and laughs, and we do everything we can to keep those laughs coming. It brings a huge smile to my face to watch her enjoying herself. The other day she really got going and Jonathan got this video of me making her giggle.

Reli has also taken charge of her own bottle. When Whitney feeds her milk, Aurelia sometimes grabs the bottle and feeds herself. I think it is adorable and oh so grown up. Nice work, Reli.

The Ingrams have finally returned from their New Mexico hiatus and we are SO HAPPY to have them back. Here are some pictures of the girls playing together:

The Christensens came over for a play date the other day and

the kids had fun swinging on the back porch.

Aurelia cut her third tooth a couple of weeks ago and she sometimes gets a bit cranky when she is teething. Daddy realized that sometimes she needs to swing with a buddy to make herself feel better. Here she is with the Number 4 Penguin. Poor Reli!

She's Beautiful and Fun

Aurelia really wants to stand and walk. All day long we take turns letting her pull up to standing using our hands and arms. She wants to use both of your hands, one in each of hers. She knows that you have two hands and if you try to hide one from her she grunts and tells you that she knows you are hiding it and she wants it, now please! We have let her pull up using our hands, or one of our arms, or her favorite new toy, the green spatula. No matter how we present her with the opportunity to stand, she takes it. And she has just this week started to take steps in the direction of things she wants once standing. She also lets go of one hand to reach for objects on the floor. I think she is really close to cruising from hand to hand or arm, and soon to furniture and walls, and, well the rest is history. She will likely walk before she crawls. There, I said it. This girl wants to explore the world on her own two feet. Help us all!

So, the last post had no videos, and we all love to see Reli interacting with her world. Here are a couple of videos from this week:

Reli conducting her own orchestra with her scepter and commentary:

And here she is in her kitchen, cooking up some love:

Bon appetite!