Let's Eat Some Tortellini!

Tortellini is another fun thing to eat when you are a baby. It makes a great mess and even greater pictures. Notice the sauce in the ear/hair area of picture number 1. :)

Let's Eat

One of the joys of having children is making them eat their vegetables, just like your parents made you. So, with Aubrey, we have followed all the recommendations of the parenting books and magazines, making Aubrey try things 10-12 times before giving up on foods. Not 10-12 times in one sitting mind you, but maybe a couple. Here is Aubrey giving some peas a try. Sometimes we feed her, but this time she was really adamant about feeding herself. As a parent you have to know when to let go....

If you want to be a Badger

you have to start early.

Let's Party for my birthday

On Saturday, Aubrey got to have her first birthday party. We went with a Farmer in the Dell theme. (Or if you ask Kelly, it was Farmer in the Dale..??) So quack quack here and woof woof there we had a ton of food and balloons and cake. Everyone had a great time and we even got to splash around in the pool for a while. It was hot, but there were pleny of ways to cool off. Happy FIRST Birthday Aubrey.

Aubrey Turns 1

So a year has flown by already. Aubrey had her first birthday on July 25th, which was a Wednesday this year. We had a small celebration with a princess cake for our little princess. Justyna, Kelly and I had hoped for some great excitement on a Wed. night. But, she didn't get into the cake as much as we hoped. We built it up to this big "cake SMASH" extravaganza, but it never transpired. She liked the frosting, but was very deliberate and lady-like in her licking of fingers. Here are some cute pictures.

DJ Aubrey, The Small DJ

First walking steps

Here are some of the first steps that Aubrey took across our living room. She was very excited, but it did take some coaxing with the "Packer Ball" to get her back to mom.

Giggle Giggle Ha Ha

Here is the funny giggly video of Aubrey being amused by Justyna with the ball. I think that the ear tubes have helped with her happiness and demeanor even more. It was the best decision we made. No ear infections and an even happier kid!

Our Sweet Pea's First Halloween

Right after Aubrey's three month birthday, we took some Halloween pictures. We were so excited for our first holiday, we couldn't decide which costume to use. Of course they both turned out super cute. I did a little photo shop magic so that we could send out the pictures above. We had a great time doing the photos, and I think Aubrey did too. Happy first Halloween. See you next year!

One more video

Because she is just so cute!!

Aubrey will be a star

A little bit of an interlude from the first year recap. Due to a work project, someone needed some video of Aubrey. So we decided to upload some Aubrey video to the huge site youtube.com. Below are the links for the first two videos. You can say that you knew her when. Click once to activate the video, then press the play button :)

Aubrey's Second Month, but first babysitters!

August came and had more firsts. Kelly and I got our first break when my aunt and uncle came to town and babysat Aubrey so we could go see the Twins play. I know, I know, not the most romantic first date night after the baby, but we had tickets and it got us out of the house. We were most proud of ourselves for not calling during the game to check on Uncle Jim and Aunt San. For Labor Day, we went to Milwaukee to meet more Hurdas and Barnetts. The car trip started out very slowly. Every 30 minutes we had to stop for food, bathroom, shopping and other breaks. After that it was smooth sailing, so a 6 hour trip became an 8 hour ordeal. It was the first time Great Grandma Florence (GG Ma) got to meet Aubrey. Same thing for my younger brother, Uncle Ryan. We had a nice open house and lots of more distant relatives came, including a cousin, Corwin Hurda. We had a great time and Aubrey was very tired by the end of the day.

Aubrey's First Month

Aubrey's first month was filled with meeting new faces. At the hospital, Kelly's family was right there for the birth. Her father, mother and sister were with us followed shortly thereafter by her brother and sister in law. A few weeks later, Grandma and Grandpa Hurda came for their first of many visits. Since all she could really do was eat, sleep and poop, there was not a whole lot to report. But, she did make some really cute faces and noises. The hardest part was that she was not much of a sleeper, more of a party animal that liked to stay up while other people were up. Also, her first bath was part of the fun firsts. We ended up going with the sink bath tub upon recommendation of some friends, and that worked fine, except that she kept trying to drink the water out of the tub.

July 25th 2006 - Aubrey is Born - Finally!!

After a long wait and a long labor, Aubrey Jean Driscoll Hurda was born at Tuesday July 25th at 2:26 in the morning. The original due date was July 16th, so Aubrey was a little late. We were convinced that the full moon on July 9th would do the trick, but no such luck. It took a lot of walking for this baby to finally come out. Walking was the one of the only things that gave Kelly any comfort, and I swear that we logged at least a thousand miles in the weeks leading up to the big day and another 100 at the hospital during the labor. We actually made a couple visits to the hospital, Abbott Northwestern in Minneapolis, before finally delivering our bundle of joy via c-section. Aubrey was 8 lbs and 19 and one half inches. Labor was also long but due to good doctors and drugs, Kelly was not in a lot of pain. We started labor at about 11 pm on the 23rd and by early on the 24th, we were pretty sure Aubrey was coming. But things progressed really slowly the rest of the day and finally we made the decision for a c-section. Here is Aubrey in some of her first pictures.

This is going to be hard....

So in an effort to record the fun things that are happening in the life of our first child, Aubrey Jean Driscoll Hurda, we are going to start a blog. Really this is an effort in keeping up with the Jones'. Only their name happens to be Schmierer-Knust. You can keep up with their efforts at
http://www.schmierer-knust.blogspot.com/

Aubrey is almost a year already, so we'll have to do the first year in review over the next couple posts. Then we'll move forward wit h the "live" action. Hope to see you all at Aubrey's first birthday which is July 25th. Feel free to let us know how you all are at rhurda@mn.rr.com
Lots of love,
Rob, Kelly and of course Aubrey.