Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!

Ally has been sporting her sweater a lot this week - G'ma Debbie - she got to wear it 3 times this week! It was awesome. Below is a picture of the rear - I told you it was super cute! Thanks again.

Now comes the costume saga. Yes saga, drama, fiasco, whatever you want to call it. We though Ally could wear her costume from last year. She was a fish last year and the costume still fits, so hey, why not? right?

Wrong...Ally had other ideas

When we showed her how she looked in the mirror she freaked out. Screaming, crying it was a bad seen. She ripped the head down it was awful.

Being the prepared moms that we are we had a back-up costume ready to go. Ally would be a panda bear.

Isn't she the cutest panda bear ever?

Oh wait not so much the cutest, maybe the saddest?

Make that most pitiful panda bear.

Or maybe the most tortured panda bear

angry panda bear?

ticked off and refusing to wear this costume ever again toddler girl is what she was.

The costume trying on was Monday night. It was a disaster. After we put Ally to bed we scoured the Internet for an alternative costume. I even persuaded Becky to get our her sewing machine and make a pumpkin costume out of some old orange pajama pants. It was not a good scene in our house.

On Tuesday Becky went to the second hand children's store and spent the best $5.99 we've spent in a long time. On a costume that did not feel like a costume to Ally.

So for Halloween 2008 Ally was a ladybug.

She was such a good girl trick or treating - she even carried her own pumpkin. We went out with Charlie and Gwei Gwei and had lots of fun visiting a few neighbors and clients. The cutest thing was that every time we went up to the door of a house Ally would walk right on inside! Then we'd tell her to come out and put some candy in her pumpkin. She didn't really get the idea of trick or treating until we got home.

We were home early in time to hand out candy at our house. Ally was so excited; every time trick or treaters came up the front walk and steps she would yell "kids, kids" and point at the door. Then she would run to the door to see them. Here she is below watching her dvd of herself smiling b/c some kids were coming!

And just for my mom - our jack-o-lantern!

New Toys

Saturday morning Ally woke up early - very early for her 5:11 AM. Since Becky officially came down with Ally's cold I let her sleep and I got up with Ally around 6AM. Its dark here at 6AM, and so I thought hmmm what do you do when its too dark to go outside and you have a recovering toddler? Answer- you pull out "new toys". We have been saving this huge bin of toddler sized legos from the Grecos until we thought Ally was old enough to enjoy them. Can you tell they were a big hit?

Thank-you Julia and Karina for passing on your toys to Ally.

It is Wednesday now, and everyday Ally plays with the legos. One of her current favorite things is to build towers. So we build lots of lego towers everyday.

Reading to Nali

This week we caught Ally reading to Nali. Yes, the huge cat who weighs almost more than she does. BTW at the doctor they weighed Ally last week and she is up to 21 pounds 10 oz. The cat weighed about 19 pounds at his last vet visit!

I just couldn't believe she was reading to the cat, well it was hard to believe he came and sat right next to her and so then she moved over and opened the pages and read the book to him. Lately she has started kissing the cats and when she touches them she says "pet" and even "gentle". I think our 3 cats are just wonderful with Ally and she loves them so much.

We were praising her for being so good to Nali and sharing with him.

Fancy Sweater

This is Ally fresh up from her nap (please excuse the bad hair - I didn't get it combed yet) sporting her fancy sweater from Grandma Debbie. Ally received tons of compliments on the sweater at the previously mentioned pre-school open house we attended today. We'll try and get a picture of the back of the sweater when she wears it again this week - it is really cute too.
And please don't yell at us for letting her stand on the changing table. I was right next to Ally (that is my hand in the photos) while Becky took these pictures.

Thank-you

First I'd like to say thank-you to everyone who thinks of Ally everyday. This week she was seriously sick for the first time ever. Yes, hard to believe she will be 2 in 3 weeks and she has never been very sick, but this week was it. I think it was worse for Becky and I once we realized how sick Ally was.

It started on Monday - Ally had a fever so she was unable to stay at her neighborhood playgroup.

Tuesday she seemed somewhat better, but Becky did not take Ally to her toddler Spanish class b/c Ally had a fever the day before.

Wednesday Ally had a runny nose and did not seem herself so Becky and Ally skipped community playgroup. Wednesday night we took Ally's temperature, she was burning up and breathing very rapidly. One thermometer said 102.5 and the other said 100.9. Someone has to know of a good thermometer - how can 2 give such different readings? So we gave Ally Tylenol and she slept fine all night long.

Thursday morning she still had a fever, so Becky called the doctor. The had her come right in. Turns out Ally has an ear infection in each ear. (ohhh my poor little girl) But the really scary thing is that she has a respiratory virus called bronchiolitis, which can cause coughing and rapid breathing. I was not at the doctor's office with Becky and Ally, but Becky said the doctor was quite alarmed, she had them get a chest x-ray right then. Fortunately our pediatrician's office is in a hospital so Becky literally carried Ally down the hall to radiology for her chest x-ray. They had no wait and got the results immediately. The chest x-ray was completely clear, which meant no pneumonia, just the bronchiolitis. Ally was a super trooper, did not cry once during the whole thing, until it came time to give her a nebulizer treatment, then she cried when the nurses left the room!

I think the scariest for me was hearing about it afterwards and the doctor's office told us it might get worse and if Ally seemed to have any more trouble breathing we were to bring her to the hospital immediately. So Thursday night I actually packed a bag to bring to the hospital and laid out clothes for us to wear, just in case we had to go in the middle of the night. But Ally slept very well and woke up more like her normal self.

Now we have crying several times a day as we attempt to give her all the medicine. She has an inhaler we force her to breathe in every 4-6 hours, and antibiotic twice a day and Tylenol every 4-6 hours.

Antibiotics are amazing though because on Friday she seemed much better. We brought her (yes I went too) back to the doctor on Friday, b/c the Dr wanted to check Ally's oxygen level and make sure she was doing ok. She is and so we just have to keep up the inhaler thru the weekend and the antibiotics for a week.

The highlight of the week was getting a Halloween package from Becky's Aunt Pam & Uncle Tommy. You can see how sick she was in the top picture. She loved the book, and the kitty (that looks like Carl) and would only drink from her "pupkind" cup all day Thursday.

She is imitating something in the book here.

The package came on Thursday and it was a great distraction for all of us in the midst of the sickness and concern. But we forgot about the AWESOME card until Friday evening.

This was the look of delight when Becky opened the card and it played Bippity Boppity Boo.

Then Ally proceeded to run around the house opening and closing the card and singing along to the music.

Ally also received card from Great Aunt Martha this week - it was great with a big pumpkin on it, Ally carried it around and kept saying pumpkin (or her version of the word) , it is now on display and she will point to it at random times.

Grandma Debbie sent a very cute sweater Ally is going to wear tomorrow when we go to a swanky pre-school open house, and a cute book.

Thank-you all for the cards and presents, they always mean something, but this week with our stress and concern it helped a lot to get a tangible reminder of how much Ally is loved by so many people.

Still a pretzel girl

I took the first photo in June 2006 and it was featured on Ally's adoption announcement. The rest were taken this week.


And she is still a pretzel girl

Watching home movies of myself

I know I already blogged about Ally using the computer and reading her blog, and that this is kind of a repeat, but I just had to document it. Ally really likes to watch videos of herself. She watches them over and over and over again. Becky finally made a DVD so we can watch them on the TV instead of always at the computer. Its hard to mind having your happy daughter sitting on your lap watching her adorable self star in a movie made by her mama.
Its the blog video from last week of Ally saying all the Brown Bear animals. She now talks along with the video and laughs at herself.
Cheese for the camera!

New Skills and New Weather

Fall is definitely here and this weekend it felt like winter was just around the corner. We got out Ally's winter coat and ventured out to the park. Becky had to literally hold Ally down and force the coat on Ally. And then once at the park Ally threw a huge fit every time she realized she was wearing a coat. So I kept her busy playing in the "big kid" area. Its so amazing to realize she is old enough to play there and does not need to stay in the toddler section all of the time.

Here she is modeling her new coat, and showing off her stepping skills!

The concentration on her face.

And the sense of accomplishment.
then she would run down the ramp and step thru the rungs again and again

Just a close up of Ally sporting her hood.

We're Thinking Halloween!

Get your pumpkins ready!

Ally's Book Discussion

I got Ally to talk quite a bit on camera on Tuesday. Usually when the camera comes out, she ends up running over to see pictures before I get the chance to take a shot! I had the camera out for long enough that she started to ignore the fact that it was there.

Ally loves to read

Ally loves her crib. We've posted lots of pictures about her jumping in it, sleeping, playing etc. But her latest favorite thing is to read in her crib. Every morning and every afternoon after nap she demands books. We're working on saying please, which she can do, but only with prompting from us. Not that I mind giving my daughter books to read in bed. It is so incredible to me - she will typically read 15-20 books before she lets us pick her up. She actually looks at each one and points out things in the pictures. I usually give her a couple books at a time and when she is done with them she asks for more, so we take out the old and give her new ones. Lat night before she went to sleep we could hear her over the monitor calling for books.
Here she is showing off her reading skills after her nap.

I am an avid reader so its delightful to me that Ally has discovered reading. I hope we can foster in her the same love of books that we have. Ally was very lucky at her welcome home party last year because she received many many books and a great wall mounted bookcase, so there are always plenty to look at. Besides Goodnight Gorilla and Head to Toe (which we keep in the living room, since she likes those read to her) Ally's current favorites are The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear (for some reason she is fascinated by the picture of the mouse and strawberry wearing mustaches), Good Night Moon (in either Spanish or English) and I love you like Crazycakes (which is a great book about a baby girl adopted from China) Ally chants baby to read this book by calling "baby, baby", and then she points out the airplane on their trip home, and the baby and the mother - we then talk about how Ally was born in Guatemala and her mommies went to Guatemala to get her, like the baby in book is from China.

Mix and Match

In case you did not already know I love to shop for Ally. Frankly I love to shop. Period. I'll shop for anything for anyone anytime and anywhere. Consequently Ally has a lot of clothes. But today's post is about mixing and matching old clothes and one very cute second-hand-store find.

Check out the fashion plate in her purple onsie (from G'ma Debbie), rainbow BabyLegs (see her sport them last winter here) and denim jumper with rainbow embroidery. I know I use cute a lot, but she was just too cute, people stopped us on the street and at the mall to comment. We just glowed with pride.

Becky has been teaching Ally to sing the Happy Birthday song and blow out candles so Ally will be ready for her upcoming birthday.