BEE-U-TIFUL

Aurelia was a Bumble Bee for Halloween and we had several days of fun with her costume. Koruna and Berry came over a few days before the big day and we tried the costume on Reli. Here is a video of our dry run. What fun!

I carved the first Jack-o-lantern I can remember carving since high school. It was harder than I remember, but fun nonetheless. Jonathan toasted the seeds. Here are the results.

We went to a party the day before Halloween and Koruna and Reli were adorable - the Bumble Bee and the BAT-erina. Reli was a bee at first, but underneath she was a Koruna groupie. Her outfit was rockin', complete with pink converse allstars. She had a blast at the party.

Reli in the witch hat from cousin Emily

Jonathan's parents came to visit on Halloween and stayed for a few days with us here in Austin. Aurelia really enjoyed hanging out with her Poppa and Grandma. I have it on good authority that her grandparents enjoyed it too. While they were here, Aurelia learned how to clap. It is pretty cute to watch her do it. She claps one hand down to the other. Love it!

Aurelia and Poppa

Family photos.

Here is Reli chatting with her Grandma.

Footie pajamas. Enough said.

Dadda making his little girl laugh

Yesterday there was a Gypsy Picnic at the lake where we run. We took Reli for a run and then for a bite to eat at some of Austin's finest food trailers. There was live music which was a little loud so Dadda covered Reli's ears. Afterwards I took her to the Children's Museum. What a fun Saturday!

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!