SNOW

A couple of weeks ago it snowed. Alyssia was so excited. She's been praying for snow all winter and almost everyday (sometimes twice a day) we read this book about snow--"Snow! Snow! Come out in the Snow! Do you like snow? I want to know?" Ben got to take a few hours off to play with us in the snow and we had such a great day.

Using an old boogie board, Ben pulled Alyssia up and down the driveway while she held on tight. She loved it.

After we went inside and warmed up for a while, we went to Kinder Farm Park and went for a walk. It was so still outside and beautiful. We saw a fox, twice! Alyssia does not like foxes. Every story we've ever read, if it has a fox in it, she declares, "I don't like that fox." So, luckily, the fox we saw in the woods was far enough away that she was ok, but she did tell us she didn't like him. We also saw some beautiful birds, red and blue. Before we left the park, we went on the swings, which is Alyssia's favorite thing to do.
When we got home, I saw a huge falcon in my backyard, way up high in a Poplar tree. Beautiful day.

More Catch Up

Christmas!!

Christmas of 2008 was so much fun. Alyssia is old enough now to really understand what's going on. We started opening presents early in the morning, and we kept at it for days following. Everything she opened, she wanted to play with. It really was great.

We had some friends over for dinner and I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

Antonio and Verushka Tabares and their two boys are so great. We're so happy to have them for friends.

Alyssia's impromptu tea party with Gramma was so cute, I just had to share.

In the days following, Ben was able to take some time off, and we went to D.C. to see the trains at Union Station and to ride the Carousel on the National Mall. Alyssia had a ball but we were all freezing.

We've recently found a new place to take Alyssia. The Rosedale Public Library in Baltimore has this awesome place in it called Storyville. It's such a great playing place and it's free!

Catch Up!

I cannot believe how long it has been since I've written any updates. My excuse is, I lost the little thingy that gets the photos from my digital camera to my computer. We had a fun and busy summer. Ben worked really hard the whole time. I went back to work for most of the summer for Judge Silkworth. Clerking again was great. Alyssia came with me to work a few times and she just loves Chambers.

Nana and Popo came to visit us at the end of July and I stopped working a week later. We had a great time with them while they were here. For Alyssia's birthday, we went to New York to see Mary Poppins and we loved it! Alyssia sat through the whole show and was enraptured. Later, we all went to Philidelphia to Sesame Place to see Elmo. Ben was able to take two days off, which was great! Alyssia loves Elmo and Sesame Place was a perfect little getaway for the whole family. Her favorite ride was the merry-g0-round and she rode it countless times in a row. At the end of Nana and Popo's visit, Alyssia and I rode with them back to Chicago for a two-week stay. Ben, of course, had to stay home and work. Somebody has to pay the bills. We stopped at a wonderful park for children in Pittsburgh, called Idlewilde. Alyssia drove cars and boats and flew airplanes to her heart's content.

I had all kinds of great pictures of these events, but for some reason, I can't find them on my computer!!! OH NO!!

While in Chicago, we got to spend a lot of time with Auntie Megan and Veronica. The girls had so much fun together. One day, we drove to New Buffalo, Michigan to spend the day at the lake, which was rough that day. The water felt cool and refreshing, the beach lay empty except for seagulls, and the wind blew gently through the reeds on the dunes. The girls enjoyed the day so much and the mommies did too. I especially enjoyed the delicious Chicago hot dog. These poor folks on the East Coast have no idea what a real hot dog tastes like. They also have no idea what good pizza tastes like, but that's another story.

In the fall, Alyssia and I went with Gramma Norma and Aunt Ann to West Virginia. It was lovely, as usual. In fact, I can't remember a prettier fall. The trees were just brilliant.

Later, Auntie Deirdre and Roma and Nana came
to visit so we could all drive to North Carolina for a family wedding. We had such a good time. Roma and Alyssia were the best dancers there.

Roma and Alyssia enjoyed playing princess and watching favorite movies together. They had a few struggles with sharing, but overall, they were great.

Please stay tuned for more catch-up posts!

Jolly Good Time

So we've been having a jolly good time around here lately. A few weeks ago, I took Alyssia to her first Circus. She loved it. Ben couldn't go with us because he had to work, but I was very glad to be able to take Alyssia anyway. It was an old-fashioned circus under a big tent and it was held at the county fairgrounds. I think Alyssia's favorite part of the show was the Elephants. They were quite impressive. Massive creatures. She also enjoyed the trapeze artists and the dogs and ponies. I bought her her very own box of popcorn, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

The next day, Ben and I took her to the library for a Disney Princess night of stories and crafts. All the little girls came dressed as princesses. Alyssia loves Cinderella, so this was right up her alley. A friend of ours came with us (Ashley) and the two girls had a fine time making crowns to add to their already extensive princess wardrobes.

And then the next day, Alyssia went on her first field trip. I volunteered to take some highschool kids to the courthouse to witness what goes on in court. Alyssia was with us and she was great in court! She was quiet for about 15 minutes (oh, allright, because I plied her with sweetarts), and then I had to take her out to run in the hallway. The judge's secretary and law clerk watched her for me for the rest of the morning so I could take the kids around to different court rooms. You would have thought she owned the place the way she was prancing around in chambers when I returned. She said goodbye to the judge when it was time to leave. "Bye, Judge," she said, and everyone was duly impressed. She'll have a chance to spend more time with Judge Silkworth and his staff because I'm joining him again for a brief stint this summer. His clerk is going out on maternity leave and he needs a fill-in until his next clerk starts in the fall. I'm excited about it. It's going to be a bit odd to go back to the very first job I had out of law school (11 years ago!), but I think it's a fine opportunity to help a man who certainly helped me a lot when I first joined the profession. I very well may be the first lawyer to ever go from being an Administrative Law Judge to being a law clerk in the same Circuit Court for the same judge she clerked for the first time around! I wonder if I'll be better at this job the second time?



After the field trip, we went to the mall for lunch. The kids took Alyssia over to the rides for a bit. I think she was so tired, she looks like she almost fell off her horse.



Alyssia just walked in here with one of her baby dolls, wrapped in a wipey, and she bowed her head and said, "Jesus, amen." What a perfect prayer.

She's been talking a lot lately in full sentences. I was putting her in her carseat the other day and she said, "mommy, I wanT some goldfiss." She pronounces her "t's" very clearly. "Mommy, I don'T wanT iT." You'd think she was British or something. She also likes to say "Mommy, I hold uh!" "Daddy, I hold uh!" and "Pickee beeooo" (peek-a-boo). The other day she woke up in the morning and started repeating a word I didn't understand at first, "pussme! pussme! Mommy!" Then she said, "Marcus, pussme Mommy!" And then I knew what she was talking about. A little friend at church, named Marcus, had almost pushed her down a couple of steps the night before, but I intervened before anything bad happened. She'd obviously remembered it the next day and felt the need to tattle first thing when she woke up. Oh Lordy!

We've been hanging out with our little friend Nathanael lately. He's so much fun to play with! Alyssia is beside herself with joy when she finds out he's coming over. "Mafammee?" Or for "fammee" for short.

At the Chesapeake Children's Museum, making important phone calls.

At the bridge, watching the awesome Blue Angels!! Alyssia did very well with the extrememly loud noise. She remembered enough about the event to tell her daddy later that day that she saw blue planes.

Growing up.

Actual date of publication for this post is April 30, 2008

So much has happened since the last time I updated this blog. Alyssia is just growing by leaps and bounds. She's 21 months old now and seeming more like a little girl and less like a baby every day. 4 or 5 months ago, she got a book off of her bookshelf, sat down on her bedroom floor and announced, "I sit. I read. Bow." She was reading Beauty and the Beast and was pointing out the bow in Beauty's hair. She now repeats everything that everyone says. And she remembers words and uses them in context later. It's amazing to watch the development of language happening every day. Some of her favorite sentences include: "I watch movie." "I sit down." "Bo-bo hush!" "I go outside." "Mommy, I singing! (swinging)" "Mommy, I simming! (swimming). "Mommy, I wunning!" She also enjoys singing to God. She sings in a really high, sweet voice and she just says, "God. God. God." So cute.



We enjoyed a long trip to Hawaii in January and February to visit my mom and dad and my grandmother. We had a great time. Alyssia misses Nana, Popo, and Grammy very much. She asks for them a lot. Her mornings in Hawaii usually consisted of waking up and saying, "Nana? Popo? Saudoos!" (Her word for sausages). She LOVES sausage of any kind. Nana made us delicious blueberry pancakes and sausage many days for breakfast. Alyssia also learned about the beach. She just loves the beach and the Hawaiian climate in general. Our first day there, we put her in the stroller and Popo and I took her for a walk down to the beach near Grammy's house. As soon as we started on our walk, the breeze was blowing her hair and she said, "niiiiiice." We went for many walks during our trip, most of which were prompted by Alyssia running around the house and yelling, "awalk! awalk! awalk!!"