Snow Day and other Adventures

It snowed in Austin last night and we awoke this morning to a fresh blanket of white powder outside. This is Aurelia's first snow. Her first taste of the magical flakes that fall from the sky and transform the world of yesterday into a world shrouded in soft mystery. Snow makes things look so peaceful and quiet. We took her out to enjoy it.

One of the lovely women I work with made a gorgeous hat for Aurelia. She loves it! The night I brought it home she could not stay away from the mirror. I have a feeling she knows how cute she is.

A fun interaction with some of Reli and some of her words.

Two ponytails are Reli's signature hair style these days.

And some days are two bow days.

An 80 degree day last weekend prompted a Kaplan-Ingram walk in the greenbelt.

Birthday cake is a wonderful thing.

She was skeptical at first, but the icing won her over.

I am sorry, but skirt hair is some of the best fun a girl can have.

Thank you, Honey for the awesome skirt!

Said skirt, worn appropriately, with accompanying cuteness.

What cute birthday clothes. Thanks Honey!

Sneaking up on herself in the mirror.

Grandma Becky and Papasita brought the girls rocking chairs with their names on them.

Reli LOVES hers!

They also got her a zebra walker/scooter for her birthday, which she loves to push around.

Some of her words these days are: pease (please), tay-too (thank you), neh-neh (necklace), ying (earring), buda-buda-buda (blueberries), more, heppah (help), hope-ah (open), cheese.

Bye-bye!

One Year

It is incredible to look back on the past year and to gratefully acknowledge the wonder that Aurelia Ayn has brought into our lives. She came into this world after many months and weeks of anticipation. We could hardly imagine then who she might be. Now we know her lovely smile, her beautiful laugh and the generous way in which she shares them both with us and everyone around her.

She found her voice and learned her strength in new ways each and every one of the 365 days she has been alive in this world. Her first word was Momma (I think it was the first word she really meant). Now she says Dada, met (milk), nana (banana), down, bah (ball, or anything else that she wants and cannot pronounce), medi (medicine), hi-cha (high chair), mum-mum (a cracker, aptly named mum-mum), night-night, and her favorite word lately, bye-bye.

Aurelia says bye-bye to everything. When she drops something on the ground, she looks at you first and then says "bye-bye" as she drops it. She says bye-bye when dada leaves the room, even for a minute. She says bye-bye in her high chair to her food or drink when she is done with it as she holds it over the edge of her tray before sending it falling to the floor.

For a few weeks now she has said down as she raises and lowers herself while holding onto her singles bar or pull-up mirror. Sometimes she also says something like up. Funny enough, she lowers her voice to say down and raises it to say up - like her Momma, Dada, Aunt Whitney and beloved singles bar do. They learn so fast and pick up on such small details.

Aurelia loves to point, even before she is sure what she is pointing to. She just wants to make sure she has your attention. When she meets someone for the first time, or greets a stranger in the grocery store, she reaches up to the bow in her hair and pulls it out, despite the grimace on her face as she rips out several strands of her own hair. Apparently she is demonstrating her own form of courtesy, as it is almost always with strangers and consistently when she is saying hello for the first time - a tip of the hat, Reli style.

Our Aurelia has always been strong, ever since those first few days in the hospital. She could stand on her own two feet only 2 weeks after she was born, and long before we were ready. She has shown signs of being able to walk on her own for some time now, but really saved the moment of taking her first few consecutive steps. She would take a step now and then, but really wasn't ready to walk until a couple of days ago when Aunt Whitney provided her just the right amount of encouragement. That Aunt Whitney is soooo good! So here is Reli, proudly walking just days before her first birthday. . .

I look back at the picture at the top of this blog and wonder at the fact that it was taken only one week after Aurelia was born. That tiny head, that tiny body, so dependent on her father and mother. Jonathan and I, poised looking into the future, not knowing what was in store, but thinking ambitious thoughts for our amazing daughter. We could not have pictured her as she is now. She is so unique, so different from us, but so similar at the same time. It is amazing what can happen in one single year.

In addition to all of the changes Aurelia has gone through, there are the changes she has brought about in me and Jonathan. We have become decision makers, role models, care givers, dietitians, nurses, teachers, body guards, task masters, photographers. We became parents.

One year. It is amazing how much can change in one year, if you welcome the change and let it grow into your every day. I am so grateful for this year. Thank you Aurelia, for becoming who you are and for teaching me about who I am and who I need to be. Happiest of birthdays my darling daughter. I love you more than you may ever know.

An Epic Family Visit

We got a special treat in late December when the Long Beach Kaplans came to visit. The epic part of the visit was that their chosen mode of transport to get from Southern California to Austin was an RV. We really appreciated the opportunity to spend some good hang time together.

The whole crew: Josh, Stef, Kayla and Ben. They brought their friend Noah who is a good kid and a highly-entertaining beep-beep player.

Two beautiful and special peeps: Reli and her cousin Kayla.


Uncle Josh and Reli sharing a blanket on the swing on a cold cold morning.

So much to be thankful for . . .

Thanksgiving this year was particularly special because it also happened to fall on the same day my mom's parents celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. The whole family spent the holiday in Cooper, Texas and it was a wonderful family get-together.

Happy 65th Anniversary Granny & Granddad!

We spent some wonderful time with Honey, and Gramma V and Ivy were brave enough to join in the fun. It was amazing to have so many awesome people gathered to honor my grandparents and to celebrate how much we have to be thankful for this year. I will let the pictures and videos below speak for themselves (mostly).

Hilarity:

Hiding at Honey's House:

Reli helped Honey and I rake Granny and Granddad's leaves.

Morning fun:

Aurelia loves dogs. She got friendly with Apollo, the dog across the street from my grandparents' house.

Before the holiday, Reli and I spent a very blustery day over at the Ingrams' and Reli had a blast sliding on Koruna's slide.

Aurelia and Koruna are such great playmates. Koruna endures Reli's constant desire for whatever Koruna happens to be enjoying at any given moment with as much grace as someone so young can possibly muster. We have a stash of bottled water on a low shelf at the house that Aurelia loves to play with. The other day Koruna noticed Reli's fascination and proceeded to empty the shelf of bottles, one by one, and pile them up at Reli's feet. If a bottle happened to roll away, Koruna would gently return it to the pile. Aurelia was in heaven. She is so lucky to have Koruna in her life. Aren't we all?

My wonderful husband, for whom I am especially grateful, reading to our daughter.

These days are priceless.

I am so grateful.

SIGH.

Koruna and Cabela's

While it is nice to tell Aurelia's stories in chronological order, sometimes an event warrants a disruption in the normal discourse. We have had an amazing couple of weeks in which we have spent much more time than usual with Koruna. Yesterday's happenings were the icing on the proverbial Koruna cake.

It is a little chilly here in Austin right now, so yesterday Jeri Lynn and I wanted to take the girls somewhere indoors. Jonathan had spent some time online researching interesting things to do around Austin and he stumbled upon a website describing a magical place called Cabela's, just south of here. Cabela's is a Texas outdoor enthusiast's dream. It is an ENORMOUS superstore of hunting, fishing and camping gear, sold amidst museum quality stuffed animals and a walk-through aquarium. When I say stuffed animals, I mean taxidermy-style, not Gund. There are literally hundreds of animals, presented in naturalistic habitats, from armadillo to zebra, moose to wild boar, plus more species of deer than you could imagine.

After Jonathan found it online, I talked to Jeri Lynn and she and Koruna were up for the adventure. We loaded the girls into Pearl (our car) and the adventure began. This was the first time the girls got to ride in a car together and it was priceless. Halfway to the store, Aurelia reached out for Koruna's hand. After convincing Koruna that Reli was trying to be sweet and hold her hand, that's just what they did - held hands. Tiny, adorable cousin hands, joined between their car seats. My heart melted.

Then we arrived at Cabela's. The place is so large that the highway exit is actually called "Cabela's Drive". Outside there was a kettle corn stand, like we were at the rodeo, or a fair. We entered, and it was fantastic. A table full of camo-clad vets raising money to our right and a man with a cart selling delicious smelling roasted nuts to our left. Country music was blaring from the speakers and overhead were formerly living geese hung from the ceiling in a classic V formation. Here we are upon arrival. It is amazing what this picture does not show.

While you can spot a few fellow patrons in the above photo, it is deceptive, as a good 70% of the patrons and store clerks were dressed in camouflage. They were hard to spot and we had to train our eyes to pick out the children in strollers covered with camo blankets, elderly men in full head to toe gear, and everything in between. The walls were lined with buck heads with enormous antlers and directly in front of the entrance, toward the back of the store was a mountain, complete with waterfall and stream, that displayed at least 50 animals - buffalo, grizzly bears, mountain goats, moose and polar bear among them. Beyond that display, there was an African exhibit. Here is a picture and video from that area.

Reli and Aunt Berry on safari:

There was also the walk-through aquarium with native Texas fish. Here are the ladies in front of one of the aquarium walls (hard to tell).

Finally, we found another large exhibit room, which had an animatronic fisherman telling stories about the Texas wildlife that inhabited the large room. The girls decided to sit in the shopping cart together and have a drink of water.

As I mentioned, we have had several opportunities over the last couple of weeks to spend time more with Koruna, Aunt Berry and Uncle Ian. What a lucky little girl Aurelia is to grow up around the Ingram family. Sigh. Jeri Lynn and I took the girls to the Austin Children's Museum. They played with the train set together.

Here are the girls playing with the toy Grandma and Poppa got for Reli when they were here.

Now for some Reli updates. She has grown up so much these past few weeks. Last week she started to point. She loves to just stick out her little pointer finger and sort of wave it around until she lands on something she would like to point out. She also started to let go of your hands, or the couch for just a few moments before sitting down. The beginnings of her learning to stand on her own two feet.

When you say "Hello" or pretend that a phone is ringing, Reli puts her hand to her ear like it is a telephone and says "Heh".

The last couple of days she has started to repeat the words you say, at least in her own way. I asked her if she wanted to get in her high chair and she said "Heh Chuh". I would have thought it was a fluke, but she has done it several times since then and Berry was there to hear it. Then we Skyped with Poppa and Grandma and Reli kept saying "POPP-uh". I love those tiny beginnings of her words. Especially when she says "MOH-MUH". These are some pretty special times.

Reli, being Reli.

And, finally, some videos of our girl. Aurelia was making faces with me the other day. This one is particularly precious.

We were putting Reli to bed the other night and she got the giggles when it came time for her night time lotion.

Bye-bye!

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!