Allison Turns Two!

Over the weekend, we celebrated Allison's second birthday. Ever since I found out that I was pregnant and would be due in early July, I had made the decision that her party this year would be super small. I mean, I love Allison, but let's be honest - she still has no idea what's going on, and I don't have a love for party planning that would outweigh my desire to take it easy with only a few weeks left until a baby will be joining our family.

We had to limit the invitation list strictly to immediate family (Allison's aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents). The moment we step out of that box, we instantly have over 20 people added to the list, so we stuck to it.

Our party plans basically included opening presents, grilling out burgers and hot dogs for lunch, followed by cake and a nap - because who doesn't love a nap??

Our party snack spread. Believe it or not, Frank did that watermelon himself before I even got out of bed that morning!

Aunt Amy made this adorable strawberry cake for Allison! She did a fantastic job! I'm so impressed with her skills. Thanks, Amy!

We tried to get Allison to pose, but she spotted the candy. Oh well!

Allison really enjoyed having a house full of people she loves!

Playing with Amy and her pretty necklace.

Can you tell how much she loves her Uncle Eric??

Allison felt very special that day because she received so many fun treats! Not only was she allowed to eat some peanut butter M&Ms, punch, and cake - she was also given some fantastic gifts! Everyone seemed to get her a gift that suited her perfectly and she has loved them all! Funny story: The next day as I was putting her down for her nap I was talking with her about everything that we did at her party. I went through everything I could think of to tell her about it - who was there, what we did, etc. (not even sure if she was getting the gist of the conversation) and when I was done she piped in and said "and CANDY!" I love how she can make me laugh!

This farm came in the mail from Papa Mickey and Nana Janet a few days before her birthday, and I let her have it early. She LOVES it!

Opening presents with Daddy.

Frank and I got her some new books and a soccer ball for her birthday.

This is her new "scooter" from Papa and Grandma. She loves to ride it around the kitchen every day, and outside when we go for walks.

Singing 'Happy Birthday'.

She felt very special with everyone singing to her!

She looks so grown up!

Allison enjoying her yummy cake!

She polished off every bite of it, but here she is licking some frosting off her fingers.

The day was not emotional for me like I would have expected (especially since I'm full of pregnancy hormones!). These big milestones with Allison always remind me of how much she has changed, and tend to make me a little sad that I wasn't able to bottle up a little bit of her and save it forever. No one ever told me that she'd change just as much in the second year as she did in the first! I watched a video of her last week that was taken right after her first birthday, and couldn't believe my eyes. She was a baby! She still walked like a baby, looked like a baby, and sounded like a baby. Now I have a little girl - it's undeniable!

The party was wonderful, and we were all ready for our scheduled naps when it was over. Thank you to all our family who showed up to help us celebrate Allison!

This blog wouldn't be complete without a few fun stories about her, though, so here are a few of my favorites.

I always try to do a few specific things with her when I put her down for a nap: read a book, sing a song, and say a prayer. I was tired of the usual songs (and just tired in general) so my creativity wasn't at it's peak. All I could think to do was hum Brahm's lullaby. She seemed to calm down significantly while she sucked her thumb and cuddled with her sheep, watching me with sleepy eyes. When I had hummed it a few times I started to get up to leave and she pulled her thumb out of her mouth and said "more hmm hmm' (since she had no word for humming). It was so precious! I sat there for another five minutes or so just humming the short tune over and over, and to my great surprise she fell fast asleep! I guess there's a reason its a classic lullaby!




One of my favorite things about Allison is being able to communicate with her. People don't believe me because she is so shy outside of the house, but she talks non-stop at home and in the car. I love hearing what's on her mind, and finally having a glimpse into how she sees her world. Allison is very expressive, and has a flair for the dramatic. For example, she likes to slide off our couch head first (in slow motion) while exclaiming 'oh no! I'm falling, falling!' and then hits the floor and says 'I'm ok!'. But if there is even a hint of pain she will point to the offended area and with wide eyes say "oh no! happened!" (because I usually ask 'what happened?' she now thinks happened is an entire sentence). Then she will tell me 'hurt!, kiss it?'. Aww! Who could resist?? She can also be a little whiny, so I've recently started telling her "no whining" in a stern voice when she starts it up, and so far it's worked pretty well to correct the behavior! Yay!

Dressed for church on Sunday. I loved this dress, so I snapped some pictures of her before we left.

I cut her hair again recently to give the sides a chance to catch up with the growth in the back. I think she looks darling. :)

Allison also loves to be tickled, which I will never understand because to me it would be a form of torture! :) But she likes it and will often run up to me and try to tickle me, then she'll grab my hand and put it on her tummy and say "tickle tummy, Mama!". Another thing she loves to do is crawl in my bed with me. Usually in the morning after her breakfast she will come to me and ask if we can go to "Mama's bed", so we do, and the first thing she does is cuddle up on Frank's pillow and pretend to sleep. When that's done, she rolls over and gives me a big smile and usually wants to count our fingers. When that gets old we have some tickle time, followed by reading a book together or looking at pictures of her on my phone. The best part of it all, though, is that at random times between all our play time she will give me a big hug and say "I wuv you!" and kiss me on the cheek. I think she sees that it melts me, so sometimes I get three hugs and kisses. :-)

Finally, I have to brag for a minute about how smart she is. She definitely got her Daddy's brains! She is consistently recognizing about half of the alphabet, she can count in spanish (which I can only assume she learned on TV!), and she can recognize her own written name. One of the times that she was given a peanut butter M&M, she examined and then looked at me in surprise and said "Hey, an M!", and then told me it was orange.




Can you tell I love this child? I seriously can't get enough of her. I love her big brown eyes, her sweet disposition, and I love watching her learn. She is a bigger blessing to this family than I ever could have imagined when I dreamed of having kids. It makes me excited to think that we are starting this journey again very soon with another little girl who will give us just as much joy.

Finally, an update on the baby. As I noted on Facebook, she has officially turned and is now in the correct head down position. Yay! I hit the 36 week mark yesterday, and when I saw my OB again this morning she said things are still progressing so she feels that I most likely will not make it into July. But then again, I was told I would never make it to my induction date with Allison and I did, so I have to take their opinion lightly or I'll drive myself crazy! The baby also 'dropped' yesterday which caused a lot of discomfort and pain. If I felt like I was waddling before, I was wrong! :) Anyway, it's just a waiting game now. Who knows when we'll meet this sweet little one, but till then I'm going to soak up as much Allison as I can - and maybe a few naps!

By the way, Frank has informed me that he will be 'live-blogging' this birth again so stay tuned in June! :-)

Happy Birthday, Mimi!

Friday we celebrated Mimi's birthday with lunch, cake, and ice cream at her house. She picked up Carter and Allison on Friday morning as usual, and brought them back to her house to 'help' decorate. Allison was in charge of choosing the streamer colors, and Carter was in charge of tearing them at the appropriate length. Mimi always knows the perfect jobs for little ones.

Frank, myself, Laura, and her daughter Shannon showed up around lunch time so we could eat and play. Mimi thought it would be more fun to give the kids presents on her birthday than to receive them herself, so she got Allison and Carter buckets filled with fun toys like bubbles, water guns, and bath toys. Allison has enjoyed her bucket every day since!

Thank you for the fun party, Mimi! Happy Birthday!

This Little Light of Mine

One of Allison's new favorite things to do is participate in songs. Last night she 'sang' along to This Little Light of Mine. Gotta love her enthusiasm! Don't be afraid to hit play. I had Frank sing instead of me, since I cant even carry a simple children's tune. :)

Thank you, Aunt Susan!

As I mentioned in my last post, Allison's second birthday is next week. My Aunt Susan knew EXACTLY what she needed - two Texas A&M t-shirts! I let her wear one of them yesterday, and she looked so cute that I had to grab the camera.

Aunt Susan, thank you so much for the perfect gift! We love it! But you don't have to take my word for it... Allison will tell you herself. Love you!

Please turn!

Two weeks ago at my OB check, I was informed that the baby is laying in the 'transverse' position which means she is laying across my belly. I had another OB check today, and was disappointed to find out that she has definitely not moved yet. The doctor was positive that she felt her head on my left side and a pair of feet on the right. I'll be 34 weeks in a couple of days, and I'm told that babies run out of room to change positions by 37 weeks.

If she still hasn't moved by my 37 week appointment, they will schedule an ultrasound to determine her exact positioning. Then I have to decide if I want them to try to turn her by using a technique called an 'external version' or just schedule a c-section. Honestly, I don't want either. I haven't heard good things about the external version, and I REALLY don't want a c-section! Since I don't consider either of them good options, I'm just hoping she'll go ahead and make the move very soon. I'm trying not to stress about it, because in the end we have a healthy little girl, but I can't seem to stop worrying.

That's all. Just thought I'd share.

Where are you, water?

I usually start a blog post with a least a vague mental outline of the things I want to share, but in this case I'm blogging simply because it's been a long time since my last post, and also because I know I won't have much quiet time to myself in the very near future. For a very long time now, I've had nothing but myself to blame for a lack of posting. Yes, life is busy and there are always other things I could be doing that are productive, but in the end the truth is that I hate writing and always have. The subject is irrelevant. I would much rather express myself through conversation because I feel like I can make my point more effectively and certainly in less time. But here I am anyway, because I desperately want to remember these days exactly for what they are. Since I also have a serious aversion to scrap-booking this is the only other way I can think of to "easily" document my life as a parent, and to one day give my kids a glimpse into their childhood. (Side note: I know MANY women who love to scrap-book, and I applaud you. You do amazing work and I am always jealous of your neat, organized, and artsy books of your kids. I just have NO patience for that much detail. But if anyone wants to make one FOR me... :))

There is no other way to describe Allison right now, than to say that she is just too stinkin' cute. She is talking almost non-stop, and she is finding new ways to use her words daily! I'm totally amazed by her. I just watched a video I took of her a year ago when she had just started walking, and she was just a babbling little baby. Now, Allison will be turning two in less than two weeks!! I can't believe how much she's changed!

I've been trying to teach her to answer the question 'how old are you?' for about a week, but I think the concept of age is totally lost on her. I hold up my two fingers to represent the number, and she thinks that is fantastic. She isn't able to do it with her hand for some reason, so she just bends fingers at random (looking more like a claw) and yells 'TWO!'. See what I mean by cute??

I think talking with Allison is my new favorite thing. She speaks mainly in phrases now, and I'm still not used to it. I actually have to pay attention when she talks now to figure out what she's trying to communicate instead of assuming that it's just baby babble like it was just 6 months ago. Some of her most used phrases are:

I see a ___. (could be anything from an airplane to a ladybug)
what are you doing?
where are you going or where did #name go?
more ___ .
no, mine! (we are working to extinguish that one!)
good morning, Mama. (one of my favorites)
here you go!
Thank you, welcome!
I don't see 'em.
There he/she is!
I don't know.
Ready, set, go!
What's this?
See you later!

She also addresses me specifically when she talks, and I'm not sure where she learned that. For example, she will say 'thank you, mama', 'ready, mama', or 'more crackers, mama'. It's the sweetest thing, and I love it!

Frank and I made a trip to Borders a couple weeks ago so that everyone in the family could get a new book. Allison made it out with 'Goodnight Moon'. Great book! I'm sure most of you know it, but the whole book is about a bunny going to bed and he is saying goodnight to everything in his room. Last week I told Allison it was nap-time so she ran to her room and sat on her bed facing all of her stuffed animals. The next thing I hear is 'night pillow, night baby, night bear, night sheep, night Tasha (Backyardigans stuffed toy), night mama, night Maggie, night book...'. I called Frank and asked if he taught her that, but no, she had decided to apply the book to her nap all on her own. I love her imagination!

Here are some pictures of our trip to the zoo that was almost two months ago. Frank and I were convinced that she would love seeing the animals, but in reality, she just wanted to run free around the zoo. She seemed mostly irritated when we'd stop her to show her an exhibit, so in the end we just let her run. She had a blast!













The rest of these pictures are pretty random, but you'll notice that most of them are outside and involve water in some way. Frank taught her how to water the tree in our backyard, so that has become almost a daily task for them that I'm pretty sure she looks forward to all day. We also go and swim at her Aunt Amy's house every couple of weeks.



























I'll leave you with few more pictures and a cute video of Allison. She loves to brush her teeth and wash her hands which we did after our trip to the park last week. I was trying to get her to talk so everyone could hear her sweet voice, but of course kids never perform. Notice, though, that when I ask her to say 'I love you, mama' she instead says 'love, Papa'. Lately, my dad has been the only one she will say that she loves, and it's true that he's her favorite person in the world. We can't figure out what he did to win her affections, but she is totally sold!