All I want for Christmas

Is Ally's 2 front teeth!

One of them has appeared just a teeny teeny bit...Ally doesn't excatly show it off, though! Maybe it'll be easier to see tomorrow.

Here are some holiday pics of Ally!

Our assorted Christmas Card photos:



And some snapshots from home:

Home Six Months!

The counter on the left says it...Ally has been with us today for 6 months. How exciting!

In celebration of her 6 months home, a new video for all. A bit of a montage, if you will. This highlights what things Ally loves these days. With the exception of eating fruit.

Hope you enjoy!

Not so much fun with Santa

Ally had her first visit with Santa Claus. I think in this case a picture is worth a thousand words. Or maybe I should say she does not need words to communicate how she feels about Santa Claus!

Oh Sippy Cup, Oh Sippy Cup, Why won't Ally drink from you?

Its Sunday night. That means I have to go back to work tomorrow. I like my job, really I do, but since becoming Ally's mom I prefer the weekends to the weekdays. Sigh...

This weekend we purchased our tree. I broke my long standing rule about artificial tress and so we braved the snow on Friday night and got a tree at T.arget. Then Saturday night we decorated the tree. It looks pretty good. Beth was here for a few hours on Saturday and she couldn't even tell it was fake until she got right up to it with Ally to touch it. A trip to the mall today where we purchased a Balsam and Cedar candle and so now the house even smells like Christmas.

We baked cookies, we did some Christmas shopping and had a surprise visit from Beth. It was a great weekend.

Except...Ally refuses to drink milk out of a sippy cup. She'll drink water from the sippy, and has for months now. We give her a sippy at meal time and she happily drinks a few sips. So we thought transitioning from the bottle to cup would be easy. Not so.

She howls, she screams, she throws things, she flails; she refuses to drink milk from the sippy cup. Pictured below is the display of sippy cups we now own. Yes there are 11 different styles pictured. We had a 12th kind but we got so ticked off when it would not stop leaking we threw it away. If there is anyone out there with advice or tips on how to get Ally to drink from a sippy cup we would really appreciate it. If there is a style not pictured that you think we should try please let us know. We'll try anything. And to be honest if we have this many - what are a few more?

Other than the sippy cup refusal, Ally is doing well. Her latest favorite is to walk with her walker.

See - I was not kidding 11 different styles of sippy cups!

This is her bottle - she loves these, has since she was in Guatemala. They sell them here in the USA - its the cheap ones available at every drugstore and supermarket so we just kept her on these.

Lunchtime Fun

Maybe you thought a post about lunchtime would be about food and eating. Sorry to disappoint you. I try and come home for lunch every day. I usually make it 4 out of 5 days a week. Ally is so happy to see me - it just makes my heart melt. Today when I came home I just couldn't resist throwing her up in the air. She loves this - as you can see from the glee in her eyes and the huge grin on her face. After the fun we had a smooch and then Ally rested in the big chair! Too soon I had to go back to work. Becky had Spanish class tonight, so I had Ally all to myself this evening. She was such a good girl. She ate tons of fruit at dinner, some water from her sippy cup (we're still not having much luck getting her to drink milk from a sippy cup) and then she went right to sleep at 715.

Remote Control

The Life of Ally

So Ally has been having it rough lately. Here's what's happening in her life.

1. Recovering from a cold. Right now she is asleep, but wakes herself up coughing often.
2. Teething, or so I'd assume by the 2 foot long strings of drool hanging out of her mouth today and from gnawing on her hand.
3. She's figuring out the walking thing
4. (By the time I got to 4 here she has woken up again) She got 4 vaccines at the doctor's office Friday
5. She quit napping all together this past weekend. She took a good nap finally this morning, and a short one this afternoon
6. How could I forget? She has switched from formula to whole milk and her mean mean moms have made her use a sippy cup for some of the time. Not that she does it. I mean, if she can't get it her way, why have it at all?

So yeah, life here is busy. I've dubbed myself the walking tissue. I don't really mind that much, but it is a little gross. I have to add "see if my shirt is presentable" to the before leaving the house list.

By the way, all was well at the 12 month checkup. She's now a whopping 18 pounds 11 ounces, firmly in the 10th percentile all around. And she didn't pee on me this time. And she only cried momentarily for our very nice doctor.

Just returned to the computer from a 20 minute Tylenol-rocking-singing-failed bottle. And as I finished that sentence, she started crying again. Poor kid.

Anyway, here is some cuteness from today and a few days ago.

What, you expect me to eat? I think I'll just mash the food into the tray and then one-by-one drop any remaining pieces of food off the side.

A girl and her cat.

Ally this week can now walk around the house with her walking toy. She needs a spotter, but it doing it all herself.

An actual smile. Today! Unbelievable.

After dinner, we had another meltdown. We popped in the Baby Einstein as a last resort to sanity. This is what happened. 15 minutes of zone out time for us all, and a cessation of loud fussing.