Happy 2nd Birthday Aubrey

I'd like to take this occasion to journal a few things about Aubrey:
You are so busy that we are shocked when you sit and play with one toy for longer than 2 minutes! You take everything in, every moving object, every sound. You laugh at things that are actually funny. You are saying a lot of words like shoes, baby, walk, book, juice, milk, please, fish, duck, and I'm sure a lot more. You aren't quite speaking in sentances but you will say "walk - shoes - go" when you want to go for a walk. You're getting better at saying please and "more please". You use "more" for "other" like instead of say "where did the other shoe go?" you say "shoe, more?" You love eating and eat a lot of foods. You love raw veggies but not a lot of meat - mainly chicken strips. Recently you've started eating nuts and trail mix (which is good since you don't eat a lot of meat!). You are getting so good at swimming. Daddy dunked you under water last week. You like to put your hands on the bottom of the kiddie pool and let the rest of your body float with your chin barely above the water. You love splashing and being splashed.
You love watching other little kids and are easily motivated to copy what they are doing.
You love TV a little TOO much! But it's funny to watch you laugh at it and copy the character's actions as you see them. (She does the yogo moves on Waybaloo).
Your last tooth (molar) broke through this last week and now you're a full chomping machine.
Shopping and going to restaurants are not so fun anymore as you are completely independent and want to do everything yourself. As soon as we reach any stairs you turn to us and say "no" as if to say stop, don't help me, I can do it by myself. We are hoping you learn your independence quickly and get over the novelty!

Visa Arrived!

We just got back from Goldstream (still no fish!) and the Visa had arrived. Jared still has a meeting here scheduled and a phone call with the lawyers scheduled for Monday so we will still leave Tuesday morning, but at least we have a date!

I know it's not Halloween yet . . .

I didn't know where we would be living for Halloween so I wanted to make Aubrey's costume and take some photos while we were at Goldstream as I thought it was a beautiful forest setting.
As now we will be living in a hotel in Seattle without friends and family for Halloween, I'm glad I got some photos!

She always wins

Aubrey has been having a tough time lately with getting her last tooth (molar) in and it's affecting her sleeping. She wakes up in the middle of the night crying, sometimes she falls back asleep and other times not at all. Last Saturday night she went to bed around 9 pm and woke up at 1pm (and I was still awake). I pulled her into our bed and she kind of slept for a while, rolling back and forth from Jared's pillow to mine, to perpendicular to us and doing all sorts of crazy positions. Then I tried putting her back in her crib and let her cry for a bit. She was silent for a while and then the crying started again...back in our bed. After jumping and throwing tired fits she fits she laid in my arms like a baby, looked up at me and pointed to her eye and said "eye" then to her chest and said "love" and pointed at me and said "you". Jared and I just looked at each other as if to say how could you be mad at that! I taught her to say "I love you" with the actions but it's only recently that she's actually said the words and this was about the 2nd time she's ever said it on her own without us trying to get her to say it. What can you do? I think we cat napped the rest of the night and finally it was morning. She was awake from 1am and we went to church (sacrament only ) and came straight home to bed for a very long nap!

Visa is a go!

Jared just came up to our room to say that his Visa has been approved! They will overnight it to the Lawyers for tomorrow morning and then they will have to send it to us maybe by Friday which means we might leave Saturday or Monday at the latest! It's taken a long time but we hear about Missionaries waiting up to 7 months to get Visa's so I guess we can't complain!

Look Whoooo's Two!

We had a great birthday party for Aubrey last Friday (in anticipation that we'd soon be moving). We had lots of family and a couple close friends. The hotel was nice enough to let us use a meeting room which was so pretty. The party was owl themed (as you can see!) and Aubrey had a great time chasing balloons and the other kids. Thanks to everyone who came and made it special! Thanks for the great gifts they have been so helpful as she was bored of her few toys and books and this is a great change of pace for her.

Goldstream

What a morning!

Aubrey woke up at 5:30 this morning, as I grabbed her out of bed to feel if she had soaked through her diaper, I felt no diaper beneath her sleeper. I looked down and the bottom half of the buttons on her sleeper were open and there was her diaper strapped around one leg at the knee!
After changing her diaper I tried to put on new pajamas with no luck, she wanted to be free. I tried to get her to fall back asleep with us in our bed and that didn't work either as she was thirsty and hungry. After food, drink and some TV she still wasn't tired but very cranky and it was time to get up anyways! About 5 mins. ago as I was working on the computer I started hearing snoring. As I looked over at the couch there she was fast asleep. Now what? It's almost 9am and the cleaning lady will be coming soon to clean our room! So much for an afternoon nap!