Hello Stalwart Checkers of this Nearly Uninhabited Blog!
Well, I of course composed dozens of blog posts this year that were never put up. Where to even begin now?
How about a few recent photos:
The wee Dickerson Ladies. They're starting to look alike...
And Rowen can already wear Aurora's diapers (which fortunately Aurora only uses at night!)
Getting the girls ready for our family ski day at Baker with the Skinners. Hours of preparation, bags and bags of gear, but it was still worth it (especially since the madres got most of the ski time:P )
Aurora on a Daddy-Daughter kayaking camp out on Baker Lake (you can see Mt. Baker in the background). I was deeply jealous, of course, but Rowen had a nasty chest cold and I actually had some really great quiet time at home--imagine that! Anyway, after being gone most of the summer Abram certainly deserved to fulfill the desire he'd had for months to take Aurora out on a little adventure one-on-one.
Aurora discovers the "hiking stick" and begins wanting to hike more on her own. Then we found a bunch of wild blueberries and it took a really long time to convince her to ride in the backpack on Grandpa Dickerson's back and our hiking objective really went out the window.... 
These last few are from our most recent little family hike on Chuckanut Mountain, our local haunt, on Martin Luther King Day. It was so good to get out even though we got a little rain.
Aurora is 2 1/2 now, still loves "beebee" dolls, but is also quite passionate about trains, glueing, cutting, painting, swimming at the Y, and of course going hiking with her hiking stick and any other outdoor venture. She is hillariously vocal about 'hings. ' I love seeing the world from her perspective. Unfortunately there are so many funny and insightful and sweet moments that if I don't re-tell her words to someone or write them down, I forget.
Here's one story from the family hike to Fragrance Lake (pictures above). On the way back from the lake, Abram was running with Rowen in the jogger and I had put Aurora on my back in our Ergo carrier, the first time in a year I think for me (we do have a bigger kelty kid backpack, but the Ergo puts them so close) and I was really enjoying being able to hear everything she had to say in her wispy sleepy voice. I showed her some incredibly thick moss growing on one of the trees and she said, "It warm. It tozy." I thought, hmm, actually its kind of damp and chilly kiddo. Then she looked up toward the weak January sunlight and said "When the sun goes up, dems tozy." (dems = trees, tozy = cozy). Pretty sweet.
One more: Aurora picked out a shirt that is really too short for her and I was really how much taller she is these days and how very quickly she is growing. I pulled her in my lap and squeezed her and said that she was growing so fast and that someday she would be a grown up and I couldn't hold her in my lap anymore. She said, "Yeah, you can hug me, but not hold me in your lap when I get big." Sigh.....
Rowen is still a peaceful soul, some of the time, but she has really discovered her voice of late and chatters, grunts, squeals, snuffles through a scrunched nose, and giggles the days away. She's 8 months now and must be well over 20 pounds because 2 months ago she was just under and already the weight of the average one year old.
She can definitely manuoever her way around a room with her army/seal crawl and loves to sink her four little teeth into anything she can stuff into her mouth. She has recently learned how to wave, flapping her little left hand back and forth at the end of her bracelets of chub. It really does seem at times to be used in socially appropriate moment. Abe also declares that Rowen intentionally leaned forward and smooched his puckered lips this week. So there you have her major accomplishments to date:) We are so, so happy to have her in our family.
Well, there's a bit of catch up for now. If you're valiant enough to have read this far, here's a snippet of us "live."
The video above is from a wonderful Christmas we spent in Indiana with some of Abram's family. We had so much fun with everyone!
