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.

A-I-H-P-O-S

Will was driving Sophia to school yesterday and from the backseat she said "Daddy, I can spell my name..." and without hesitation she said "...S O P H I A." Will was impressed, but she's been working on spelling her name at school and at home, so he wasn't too surprised. Before he could praise her, she continued "...and I can spell it backwards." Without missing a beat, she spelled her name backwards, and Will's jaw hit the floor.
When she got home from school, I instantly grabbed the camera to see if she could do it again, and sure enough....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4eqGr4Snew
We have a book with Allyson's name spelled on every page, so out of curiosity, I asked Sophia if she could spell Allyson's name. She did it without too much trouble...and then spelled it backwards!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIGR63PqUgM
We tried it again today just for kicks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6aOeM7J3SI
We are so proud and amazed! She's been very curious lately about spelling and phonics, but we haven't talked at all about the concept of spelling things backwards. She hasn't learned it at school either. She's always been an incredibly observant kid, and now I'm wondering if she has some form of photographic memory. I'm definitely thinking all those playground moms who told me she'd have trouble reading because she didn't crawl were dead wrong!

If you're happy and you know it...

At the end of Sophia's 11 month blog entry, we have a video of her clapping along to "If You're Happy and You Know It" I took this video of Ally last week and was shocked at the similarities.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmcYDNCAAy0

Easter

Now that we have 2 kids, I've noticed that our holidays tend to be spread out over several days or even weeks. This Easter turned out to be a classic example. It started with a cute "Daddy Day" project carving and decorating mega-sized Easter eggs with our neighbor Elizabeth.

The next big event was the Easter egg hunt at the community center. They had bounce houses, face painting, balloon animals, and two playgrounds. We couldn't pull Sophia out of the bounce house until we promised the egg hunt was about to begin.
There were 4,000 eggs and it was all we could do to hold back the kids. Even Ally was excited although she had no idea why!

Sophia quickly learned to shake the eggs before putting them in her basket so she could decipher if it contained candy or just a sticker.

Next up was Easter morning. Between the Easter bunny and family, the girls made out pretty well.

The girls both dove into their gifts and were really excited. Sophia kept exclaiming "This is just what I wanted!" even when she hadn't figured out what the gift was yet!

After cleaning out their baskets, the girls instantly started checking out what the other one got. Ally chewed on Sophia's new chapstick while Sophia drew on Ally's new Doodle Pad.

(Drum roll please).....The Easter dresses!

We had an Easter egg hunt for Sophia, but she ran out of steam about half through. It should work out perfectly next year with Ally to help in the hunt.

We celebrated the day by hosting a brunch with "Greypa's" side of the family. Our oven broke the day before, but we were able to rig it just enough to get through the day and enjoy amazing food with great family. Sophia loved showing off her room and Ally's bottom never touched the floor.

And last but not least, we built a "bunny house" that Aunt Caity gave to Sophia. It was perfect because Sophia had been begging to build a ginger bread house for weeks.