Baking Halloween Cookies

To get in the Halloween spirit, Aurora and I baked some Halloween cookies this past weekend.

The bakers!


Mixing our eggs and butter.


Pouring in the sugar and flour.


This is what happens when you leave freshly baked cookies alone in a room with a three year old. Notice that three of the cookies have little bites taken out of them. Each of the cookies was carefully replaced in the same spot...


Decorating the cookies.


Our finished creations.


Enjoying the product of all that hard work. Yummy!

Finnian's first trip to Minnesota

Since I'm still on maternity leave for a couple more weeks, Finnian and I decided to take a last-minute trip to Minnesota.

Here's Finnian telling Grandma Hodges all about his first plane trip and how excited he is to be visiting Minnesota for the first time.


Although the midwest has been having a lot of rain this fall the weather was very nice and sunny for most of our visit. Here we are checking out Grandma's garden.


Visiting with cousin Ciel at my sister's 100 year-old birthday (!) party for her house. I learned lots of interesting tidbits about life in 1907.


Chatting with Auntie Jessica. Finnian has lots of smiles and loves to chat!


The happy plane traveler.

Aunt Sarah comes for a visit

We've had a lot of fun over the past week. One highlight was that Aunt Sarah came to visit for a couple of days. Here are some photos from the last week.

Finnian finally smiling for the camera.


More smiles.


Hanging out with Daddy.


Aurora and Auntie Sarah.


Family photo.


Aurora water painting.


Whew! All that playing made us tired and ready for bed in new pajamas! :)

Welcoming Finnian Andrew Sarver

We were very happy to welcome Finnian Andrew Sarver to the world on August 14th. In honor of his 2 month birthday today I'm posting a set of pictures of him from the past two months.

Aaron, Aurora and Finnian on his birthday.


Aurora and Finnian on day 2.


The tee-shirt says it all!


Day 3.


Taking a nap with daddy.


Finnian with Grandma Hodges back at our apartment.


Getting his first 'sponge' bath at home and not very happy about it.


Finnian's first time in the sling.


Aurora and Finnian at 2 weeks.


Look at that tall skinny boy! He's put on a few pounds since then but is definitely taking after his father in terms of height I think. :)


A little less than a month old and just a little bit bigger than 'baby Sean', Aurora's teddy bear.


Aurora and Daddy giving Finnian a bottle, this boy loves to eat!


Finnian taking a nap with Grandma Sarver.


What a big yawn! (1 month old)


Finnian disguised as an alien perhaps?


5 weeks old and smiling (although a nice smile at the camera has remained elusive).


Almost 2 months old!

What we did last summer (part 3)

Here are some other highlights from July and early August...

Aurora loves playing games and reading books. One of her favorite games of the summer was Cooties (you take turns rolling a die and assembling a plastic bug).


Aurora is rarely just "Aurora", usually she is a also a teacher, a doctor, a firefighter or a lion...


No summer would be complete without playing with friends. Here is Aurora riding a giraffe with Vinny.


We recently had to complete an "About Me" poster for Aurora's new classroom at school. Her favorite places to go are "the playground" and "camping". A highlight of any playground is of course the sandbox.


Aurora also spent a lot of time on her bicycle! Every Monday at her preschool was 'bike day' and we had quite a few 'bike play dates'.


Of course, a big part of this summer was getting ready to welcome a new member of the family (more pictures on that soon). The soon-to-be big sister in August:

What we did last summer (part 2)

Early in July we also spent a fun-filled day at the San Jose Children's Museum. Here are a few of Aurora's favorite activities:

Driving a fire engine:


Blowing bubbles (recipe for extra large bubbles at the bottom):




Running the traffic light switchboard:


And the face painting!:




Big Bubble recipe:
* Add 1 cup of dish soap (Dawn, Joy, etc) to 10 cups water in a large pail or tub
* Add 3-4 Tbsp of glycerin
* Stir gently, remove any froth from the top with your hand before making bubbles
* Enjoy!

What we did last summer (part 1)

Now that we are officially into fall here is a look back at what we did this summer.

Our first big event was Aurora's third birthday party (see previous post), which was lots of fun and kicked off Sarver birthday week. We continued the birthday celebrations with lots of cake and a trip to the pool.





On the fourth of July we watched fireworks from the roof of our apartment building. We are in a great location and were able to see fireworks from several different cities up and down the peninsula.