December Fun

Our posts have been lacking of late, but our time has been filled with many fun times...

First Snow

Santa visits our house!

Christmas Preparation

Happy Thanksgiving

Aubrey drew a chicken for Thanksgiving. Note the two eyes, smile, feathers, tail, and four legs...

Halloween

She wanted to be a princess, but refused the scratchy dress. Good thing the bee still fit!

To Grandma

West is One

Pancake party

Fun photo from GAL

Weekend of fun

Fall boating

Jumping

Have we mentioned that Aubrey likes to jump?

Apple Orchard

Fall is not complete without a visit to an apple orchard...

Picking Apples

Smiles with Papa Daryl and Grandma Kris

Vacation

Our week in the mountains was so much fun! Thanks to Tony, Danielle, Raelynn, and Ethan for hosting us. Aubrey wanted to stay. She burst into tears when we told her we were on our way to the airport to go home.

Friends in WY

Rocky Mountain National Park

Summer Memories

Here are a few memories from the summer...

Daycare picked up a trampoline (primarily to deal with Aubrey's non-stop jumping). Originally we thought trampoline equals safety hazard, but in less than a week we had one at our house too. Aubrey has spent many, many hours jumping during the summer.



Aubrey helping cousin West eat hot food during our July visit to Mpls. She couldn't be more excited.



As a previous post indicated, Aubrey will never tire of watching videos of these three girls.

Dos Equis

Aubrey says the alphabet:

Sailing

Aubrey's first sailing adventure on Lake Michigan.

Photos by Aubrey

This collage is photos taken by Aubrey. No after the fact photoshop by T. Not even cropping. Even better, Aubrey said while taking the photo of C and T smiling "How about you hold hands? Say cheese! That's a good one."

Sunday Mornings

Sunday morning was a great Mommy, Daddy, Aubrey day!

Pancakes!

(Note dark windows due to 5 am start time)

Favorite things while waiting for daylight:
1) Puzzles and 2) Shenna-Josie-Lily video (see upcoming post)

8 am hike at Lake Farm and stop at the fishing pier

Superior birder in training

A lesson in bird ID

We ended the morning at Taste of Madison. Sorry no photos.

Camping with Big Girls!

Last weekend we went camping with friends from Iowa at Governor Dodge State Park. Aubrey got lots of attention from her friends Shennah (7), Josie (5), and Lily (3). The best way to describe the weekend is to say that Aubrey had so much fun that naps each day began with many tears.

Always busy with so much to do.

All of the Girls.

Hiking to Stephen Falls

Our family at Stephen Falls

Week of Travel

T spent the entire first week in August up north, training field technicians on trapping techniques for small mammals and missing Aubrey. Night 1 away was not so bad. Night 2 away and Aubrey decides that if she has to be a big girl and go to sleep without T than she is going to be a big girl and sleep in a big girl bed. C accommodates by dragging the bed upstairs. Night 3 away and T is seriously considering driving the five hours home. Nights 4 and 5 away and C simply says... I survived. Night 6 away and Aubrey, C, Gramma Trouble and Papa J head to the cabin and T joins late that night. Wow what a week! But it ends with a weekend at the cabin, where there was lots of...

swimming,

boating,

and fun at the lake.

Camping with Leo!

Checking out the tent

Classic Leo (with truck) and Aubrey (shoes off)

Aubrey at 2 - pics

Thanks GAL for the awesome pics!

Friends at the Zoo

We recently visited Minneapolis and went to the Minnesota Zoo with some of T's friends from high school. Papa Max and Nana Sandy came too, with Aubrey's Cousin Weston in tow. What fun!The kids in action (L-R): Aubrey, Calin, Lily, and Kayden

Break time at the wolf exhibit - the frozen lemonade was a hit!

Saying goodbye...

...is always easier with chickens around. Bea (in blue dress) has moved to New York with her new brother Leon, dog Emma, and Papa Fred and Mama Nicole.

And Mia (in pink, between Else and Noa), her brother Emilio, and Papa Tom and Mama Katia are off to Nevada. Aubrey and her daddy and mommy sure enjoyed spending time with them and hope to see them all soon.

Aubrey at 2

Aubrey thinks she is 4 at a minimum and 16 on most days. She insists on doing many things just as mommy and daddy do: this means sitting in a big chair for all meals, eating without a bib, and drinking from a glass held by one hand. Driving is not a privilege but a right, one that Aubrey possesses - or thinks she does - and tries to invoke nearly daily. Parents of 2 year old children, I think you know what we are talking about. Before I digress further into the intricacies of raising a 2 year old, let me share with you a slice of Aubrey's life at 2.

Favorite things to do:
-Jumping. So much so that there is a trampoline at daycare and at Aubrey's house to accommodate the jumping.
-Watching Handy Manny. Move over Little People, there's a bilingual Hispanic with talking tools in the house. And they fix things just like Papa Jeff and Daddy. How cool is that?!?

Favorite foods:
-Cheese, pizza, pasta, and dessert. In that order.
Red peppers and broccoli are rapidly falling out of favor despite our best efforts.

Favorite books:
-Oh, The Places You'll Go.
-Anything mommy reads 10 minutes or more past bedtime.

Favorite sayings:
-"One time, I ..." How Aubrey begins a story.
-"I want to watch Handy Mandy" We don't bother correcting her.
-"Daddy/Mommy, will you play with me?" Of course we will!

Aubrey, we love you with all our hearts and more!

-Daddy and Mommy

Some explaining to do...

Dear Faithful Aubrey Jae Fans,

Aubrey's daddy and mommy have been very bad at keeping you up-to-date on Aubrey's latest, greatest, and funnest moments. They have an excuse, albeit a poor one at that, for their poor performance: Aubrey's mommy has a new job and Aubrey's daddy has a new job as well.

For the past few weeks (err, months - about 3 of them), we've all been adjusting to a new schedule. That schedule goes like this for Aubrey, Mommy, and Daddy, respectively:

Monday (Daycare, Work, Work),
Tuesday (Daycare, Work, Work),
... ,
Friday (Daycare, Work, Work),
Saturday (AUBREY-MOMMY-DADDY DAY!!!),
Sunday (AUBREY-MOMMY-DADDY DAY!!!),
and Monday starts the cycle anew.

It was rough initially. Aubrey took about a two weeks to get used to the idea of daycare, enjoyed it on the 10th day, and then had a great weekend and decided she didn't want to go back to daycare. Ever. Chaos ensued, and to be honest, reigned for a bit. Daddy got busy at work (new job overlapping with responsibilities for the old job) and Mommy was busy at work from day one (previous person left the position 2 months prior, lots of work to do to catch up). This meant grocery shopping, laundry, and other life chores were done from 9 - 10 pm on weeknights, or however long we lasted after Aubrey finally fell asleep after too few hours spent with us. We did our best to pack our weekends with fun, and had great fun at that, but there never seemed to be enough time. Oh, and Aubrey cut her canines and molars during that time as well. The fun expressed itself in many ways!

We are finally settling in to a nice pattern, one in which Aubrey is happy at daycare, mommy and daddy are happy with work and our house life, and we all can enjoy a wee bit better standard of living thanks to the additional income generated by mommy.

As we get better at this 2-career household stuff, we anticipate a few more posts on a monthly basis to satisfy the fans. Daddy owes a big thanks to mommy, who has made many of the recent blog posts. Without mommy, all you fans would be greatly disappointed. Daddy is back now and looking forward to a few (more frequent) posts in the coming weeks.

Thanks for sticking with us and we look forward to sharing Aubrey's adventures with you.

-Aubrey's daddy and mommy

Great Grandma R

Big Smiles!

2 years old

Ask Aubrey how old she is and she will reply... "I'm two in June." Well June is here and we filled the weekend with many cupcakes...party, party, party.

Party One

Party Two

Party Three

Playing T-ball in her party dress.

Aubrey's second cousins, Alex and Grace.

Aubrey's new work bench and tools are a big hit!