On a walk

We usually go for a walk every day to the park and back. Its pretty neat becasue it gives Ally a chance to look around and explore the street and sidewalk and to interact with our neighbors and other people walking. Sometimes we take the wagon, but if its just a trip to the park we usually walk. On this day Ally wanted to stop and look at everything along the way. Every time she see stairs she says "up" and points. I smile everytime.

I guess this weed was pretty fascinating.

I just had to post this cute shot of her back - she is so petite!

At this tall wooden fence she would stop and knock on the fence every few feet, and try and peer thru the slats.

Thank-You Uncle Denny

For her first birthday Ally received a beautiful hand-made wooden top from her Great-Uncle Denny. Ally thought it was a great teething toy, so it has been on display in our living room on some shelves up high where she can't reach it. Well recently when Aunt Beth was visiting Ally kept pointing at the top and demanded to play with it. Aunt Beth, being such a wonderful Aunt obliged. Here is the tale of the top... Hmmm why did I want to play with this thing?
Oh it moves all on its own and spins around?

What happens if I touch it?

I have the top nah nah nahnah nah Aunt Beth!

Maybe I can make this thing work all on my own?

I'll just grab it up before Aunt Beth can!

I think I am done with the top, please take it away.

Sandbox Fun

One of the parks near our house has a sandbox - lots of fun right? And it is stocked with cast-off toys, so there are always shovels and buckets, a kitchen set, some assorted trucks etc to play with. And there is a water fountain. Yes a water feature for kids in a sandbox! I have no idea what genius thought that up, but Ally sure does love it. On a hot day like this past weekend the water runs a lot and creates a giant mud puddle in the middle of the sandbox. The breakthru for us was that Ally actually went barefoot in the water and sandbox!" See I can play with my shovel in the mud - I am even squatting in the mud, and I don't care that my diaper is getting all mushy from the dirty water and mud."
" I am so engrossed that I don;t even notice that the fountain is dripping water on to my hat! Aren't I the BEST little girl for wearing my hat the whole time I was at the park?"

As a side note the funniest thing to me is that in order to turn the water on you have to tap the round cap on the column in the picture above and water comes out of the spout for about 15 seconds. Then you hit the spot again. The catch is that Ally is too short to reach the top of the column so she says more more more until Becky (or some other kid in the sandbox) takes pity on her and touches it so she'll stop saying more more more more more. Even funnier is if you ask her to say please she signs please by rubbing her dirty muddy hand on her chest!

My mom should appreciate this one - here is Ally stomping in the mud puddle in the sandbox - without any shoes on! (Some of you might remember when we went to Florida in March Ally screamed and cried if we put her on the beach without shoes - so this is huge progress, and hopefully bodes well for our beach vacation in a few weeks on Cape Cod.)

More Cold!

Okay, Grandma Debbie and Ally are too funny in this short clip. Ally can say the word "hot" and uses it often, but she hasn't said "cold" yet, and for lack of a better alternative said "hot" for both (just like with "up"). Now she's got the sign down...

Fun with Grandma Debbie!

Grandma Debbie has been here this weekend for some fun! Here's what happened...

We went to the Children's Museum and looked at some fish!

It was raining, so we went to the indoor gym and climbed and ran around under the parachute.

I stayed up late in my funky sock monkey pajamas...

Went out to eat and drank COLD water!
(the clenched shaking fists mean BRRR)

And I patiently sat on Grandma's lap.....

"She does that all the time"

A while ago Becky went to N.antucket for 1 night and 2 days to visit her sister Beth, and have some private mama time. I took 2 days off work and stayed home to take care of Ally. It was pretty neat - I hosted play group and really enjoyed spending time with Ally.

One of the things she did was open the pantry and proceed to empty the lower shelf of its contents.
Here is she is with her loot - all but the few things she could not quite reach.

oops - she bumped her head trying to crawl back for the last few things.

The title of the post comes because I tought this was a pretty neat thing Ally did, so much so I took these pictures to blog about it. I showed Becky the pictures and she says "Ally does that all the time" well - it was a new thing to me so here I am blogging it.

Family Day

One year ago today, Ally flew from Guatemala City to the USA with her Mommy and Grandma Barbie! I picked them up at the airport, and the rest is history!

Our first picture as an official family!

Look at all the stuff...
Look how happy!

Tonight we celebrated with a dinner out. We look forward to when Ally is older and we can start some new traditions about our family day!

Edited by Julie to add:

The top picture below is Ally and I on her Embassy Day June 11, 2006 and the bottom picture is Ally and I on June 14, 2008 at our house in Boston. Ally is sporting the same dress in both pictures!

Just having fun in my room

Ally has really been enjoying playing in her room lately. As you can tell from the pictures below, one of her favorite things is to take all of the clothes out of her bottom dresser drawer. She is pretty good about cleaning up, so we don't mind. The other point of this post is to show how Ally has grown (sort of). This is picture above is Ally on August 13, 2007. She is wearing the exact same clothes you'll see her in the pictures below. This is one of my favorite pictures of Ally she has her cheeks puffed out, and Becky has that huge goofy grin behind her. Ally received this outfit as a welcome home gift from our friends Paul and Charlo - thanks so much (its a favorite of Becky's) and now Ally gets to wear it for 2 summers! Yes that is right - her top is size 6 months and the shorts are size 9 months.

And here she is twirling a ribbon she found in the drawer! The one above and the rest of the pictures below are from June 6, 2008.

Maybe we need to tie that ribbon around her waist as a belt, since she is loosing her pants.

But the saggy pants don't bother her at all!

Such a happy little girl!

Big smile

And yet sometimes so serious.

Bike Fun

On Sundays for the next several months the city closes a major riverside road to all car trafiic so that people can enjoy walking, biking whatever on the road. Its really nice. This is from last weekend - we didn't go this Sunday due to the high heat.

Getting ready to go! But where is Ally's head?

Oh there she is - just turned all sideways.

Knawing on a strap - this was a serious teething day! Gotta hate those molars.

Can you tell Ally was not a fan of the helmet? At least, not after mama tightened it so Ally could no longer knaw on the chim strap!

Becky pulling Ally.

Ally seemed to enjoy the ride - as long as we were moving.

Heat Wave = fun in the driveway

It has been in the 90s here for a couple of days now and it supposed to stay this way for another couple of ones. We went out on Saturday and purchased the requisite Kiddie Pool for Ally. Gotta love that you can get one for $8.49! It was too late on Saturday to set it up, but Sunday Becky laid out a carpet, so Ally wouldn't have to walk on the pavement in her bare feet! And then she filled up the pool and let it heat up in the sun during Ally's nap. After nap I gooped her up with sunscreen and dresse her up for an afternoon of driveway pool fun. For those of you who don;t know our house, we live in the city where yard space is rare, we have a front yard, but the drieveway is much more private and its larger than the yard!

Her she is Miss Bathing Beaty 2008!

The scene is set!


Oops it turns out that Ally would rather sit in her chair and sip water and watch the pool than get in the pool. Mama tried really hard to make it fun and enticing for Ally, but no luck this time, Ally wouldn't touch the pool.

But she was very happy to sit on her scooter and dump water out of the bucket of water mama brought her.
Please fill it up again?

Thanks. Now I can hoist it up...

And dump it out all over

Oh look there is a bird - I am doing the sign for bird!

Ohh this water is nice and cool, it feels good.

Yummy water - it tastes good too.

Sometimes Ally looks so serious, I wonder what she is thinking.

BTW - thanks to Rebecca for the very cute purple crocs Ally is sporting, we have been waiting a year for her feet to be big enough to wear them. They are still a little too big, but I thought they made the outfit (its kind of a purple hat club-esque, outfit don't you think?)

On a side note, today marks the 1 year anniversary of being Ally's mom. June 9, 2006 my mom and I flew to Guatemala to bring Ally home. We consider June 13 our Forever Family Day, since that is when we arrived back in the USA, and Becky, Ally and I were together. Its pretty remarkable to remember the emotions and feelings of last year on this day. It was so strange not to have Becky there too, but by finishing out her academic year she was able to obtain tenure and spend this year and next with Ally as a stay at home mom. I am very fortunate and grateful that my mom came with me on the pick-up trip. Thanks mom. And thank-you to our friends who kept Becky company while I was gone; Rebecca, Paul, Charlo, Allison, Phil and Wyatt.