San Diego

We have been really looking forward to our second annual summer vacation to San Diego to join 3 other families in a beach house in Mission Beach. Sophia is a seasoned traveler now, so she was excited to share all the ins and outs of airline travel with her baby sister. The girls did great, but we were thankful it was a short flight because Ally has trouble sitting still for long. Sophia became instant friends with Ella, who is about 10 months older.
August, who is about 4 months older than Ally, tried his best to get on Ally's good side, but she did a pretty good job playing hard to get. That's our girl!!
The highlight of our trip was our visit to the San Diego Zoo. It's known as one of the best zoos in the world, and I can easily see why. It was huge and at one point Sophia asked "Are we STILL at the zoo??" They also had many exhibits that were truly amazing with animals we'd never seen before. Sophia's favorite was the snake house, and I think we got there around feeding time because the snakes were literally crawling up the walls.

Will's favorite animal was the peacock who proudly displayed his feathers for us.

I enjoyed the nesting flamingos and thought the white down-covered babies were adorable.

Ally was most excited by the chimps. They were really rambunctious and came right up to the glass.

Sophia was upset she wasn't quite tall enough to get her eyes through the monkey mask.

We were all impressed by the size of the polar bear. And who knew that polar bears liked carrots?

The girls had fun getting out of the stroller and playing on the artic playground.

We spent part of every day on the beach, but unfortunately we were in San Diego during "June gloom" so we didn't get to see much of the sun.

Ally seemed to rather enjoy her first taste of sand.

And she really enjoyed her first taste of an Oreo cookie!

Another highlight of our trip was a visit to Sea World. Earlier in the week, Will and I were hit hard by the stomach flu, so our friends were kind enough to take Sophia to see all the whale and dolphin shows. Once we were feeling better, we decided to go back and spend more time looking at the exhibits and playing in the playground. It actually worked out well since Ally isn't a fan of sitting in one place for long. The baluga whales were beautiful.

We were amazed at how large the walruses were. Will and I were a little nervous when they came up close to the glass, but Sophia wasn't scared at all.

Unfortunately the battery in our camera died half way through our visit, but we got one picture of the girls with their faces in a cut out. Whew!

There were a total of 9 kids and they got along incredibly well. I'm sure it was because of our awesome parenting skills! In order: Jack age 6, Alaina age 5, Kate age 4, Ella age 4, Luke age 3, Sophia age 3, Collin age 2, August age 15 months, and Ally age 11 months.

(From left to right)Ella, Chris, Jack and Michelle:

Alaina, Monica, Luke, Mat and AugustMike, Kate, Jeanne and Collin (and #3 on the way!)

Will and I still look pretty beat from the stomach flu, and our kids look angry, but it's the only family picture we got from the trip!

Look at these handsome Southwest pilots!

Between the fog and the stomach flu, it definitely wasn't the vacation I had been envisioning, but all in all, we had a good time. Sophia has been asking every day why we don't live in a big house with stairs in San Diego, so I think she had an incredible time, as only a 3 year old can.

11 Months

There are few things in life I love more than a chubby baby in a bikini! We were on vacation on June 27th this year and had to improvise with the picture this month, but I love to see all her rolls! I'm saddened to say that I was unable to locate the pause button, and in less than a month, Ally has turned into a full fledged walker. She now walks about 70% of the time. I'm upset that my baby has turned into a toddler, but man does she look adorable toddling! When she walks, she swings her hands above her head like a monkey, and it's ridiculously cute!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGHCtTGYQG0

Ally's teeth are continuing to come in, bringing the grand total to six (2 bottom 4 top). At this point, Mama and Dada are the only words she uses consistently. She's developed some serious stranger anxiety, and we can't even leave her at the gym anymore without getting called because they can't get her to stop crying. We're hoping she outgrows this phase rapidly so we can get a little time to ourselves. She's also much more defiant than her big sister was at this age, and just before she does something naughty, she'll look us in the eye, shake her head "no," and quickly carry forth the forbidden behavior. So yeah....she's a little stinker!

She's a total water baby and loves to splash, splash, splash. For such a fair skinned kiddo, she seems to handle all the California sun pretty well.

And although she's trying her hardest to become a big kid, thankfully, she still has a lot of baby left too.

Baby's Best Friend

Whoever came up with the phrase "man's best friend" must not have had kids. Although I'm always complaining about Trent's breath, we really are lucky to have such a sweet mellow dog.

Trent has been totally in love with Ally since the day she came home from the hospital. It may be because Sophia taught him that there was going to be lots of spit up to consume, followed by goldfish crackers and various other forbidden people food tossed from a highchair for him to enjoy. However, he has no problem reciprocating by sharing his own food and toys with Ally. He's also constantly showering her with wet slobbery doggy kisses, whether she has food stuck to her or not.

It's really cute to see them enjoy each other's company so much, but I hold Trent responsible for teaching Ally how to master "the puppy dog eyes!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dnbPpcNatY

10 Months

Yikes! Where's the pause button?? I can't believe how much our little Ally Oop has changed this month. She finally got her first tooth, and two more were quick to follow. Her beautiful golden hair was long enough to put in legitimate pigtails, and I'm thankful I got a picture because she was also the recipient of her first unauthorized haircut from her father. Grrrr.....

The day after I wrote that she wasn't crawling much, she was all over the place. Will thinks she crawls about 5 miles a day, and that's probably an understatement! She can pull herself up to stand on just about anything, and already loves to climb. Unfortunately, her ambition sometimes gets ahead of her skill, which has resulted in a seemingly permanent bruise on her forehead. Her favorite travel destinations are the dishwasher and the trampoline.

Sophia and Ally are having a lot more fun together. They both love it when Sophia lies down in Ally's path making Ally crawl over her. They also love to play in the princess castle and do simple fun kid stuff.

I thought I'd be cheering when Ally decided to walk, but I didn't consider the possibility that she'd be an early walker. Unfortunately, she REALLY wants to follow in her big sister's footsteps. All she wants to do now is walk behind her push toys or walk holding our hands.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dynDWaLKJjk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgxEVbwDsYc

*sigh* It makes me sad to think that my baby will be a toddler soon.

Mother's Day Program

For Mothers Day, Sophia's preschool put on a special program called "Hats Off to Moms." Sophia had warned me far in advance that she would not sing because she is "just a young kid," and she held true to her word!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTV1iPyv968

She said she'll participate when she's 4, so I guess we'll see what happens next year. Geema and I still had fun watching Sophia with her classmates, and we all enjoyed ice cream afterwards.

Sophia also presented me with some very special gifts, including this sweet little project:
I plan on keeping this one because I'm sure it'll still make me smile years from now!

BUSTED!!

9 Months

At 9 months, Ally weighs in at 18lb 11oz, measures 27 1/4 inches and has a head circumference of 44 1/4 inches. That puts her at the 50% mark for all three measurements. What a well balanced kiddo!

It seems like Ally has grown leaps and bounds since last month. She is starting to say some words, but Will and I disagree whether her first word is "ball" or "Dada" (Will knows it's "ball" but he wants bragging rights!) She has also started waving and saying "bye" which we all think is really adorable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHjwB6SuEUw (I turned off the camera right as she said bye - doh!)

She has officially outgrown her baby bath tub, so I replaced it with a bath chair. She can now take a bath with Sophia without me constantly worrying about her getting knocked down, and we're all very happy with it.

She is trying really, really hard to pull up, but she hasn't been successful yet. She can get onto to her knees without much effort, which gives her ample opportunity to get into her sister's stuff!

If we help her to her feet, she can stand up holding on pretty well and is even attempting to do a little cruising. She's also been known to let go and stand on her own for a few seconds - the little daredevil!

Her biggest accomplishment has been crawling. It's been fun to watch the process, especially since Sophia skipped over this phase entirely. Ally started doing what Sophia nicknamed "swimming." It didn't get her moving at all, but it showed her determination (and was totally hilarious!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfuz4ALsivU

Next she started rocking, and was eventually able to crawl backwards. She kept getting stuck under her toys, so she gave this up pretty quickly.

It was about 2 more weeks before she finally started doing a true crawl, and she really doesn't do it as often as I had anticipated. She has to really want something to crawl, otherwise she's happy just scooting and rolling. We went ahead and put up the baby gates because I have a feeling once she really gets it down, she's going to be hard to stop.

I thought I would mourn the loss of my immobile baby, but it's not bittersweet at all. I beam with joy and cheer when I see her moving across the room. I know it'll be the same way when she walks, but I hope we have a few more months before she hits that milestone.