Christmas Joy

At church the Sunday before Christmas. Pretty snazzy purse and fur coat!

Beautiful Hope and Kate Wright
Christmas Morning!
Reading with Daddy
Cuttin up in church at Aunt Lola's wedding a couple weeks before Christmas.

Our pretty Christmas Tree and decorations.
The big present--the Kitchen from Nana and Popo. She LOVES it.
More Christmas tree.

Ring Around the Mommy and Other Things

Pictures of the girls at open gym in Chicago and a nice picture of Alyssia and Ben at Thanksgiving.

This is one of Alyssia's favorite games. This video was taken a while ago. She made this game up one day when playing with her friend, Kelsey. When we were in Chicago for Thanksgiving, she learned to play Ring Around the Rosie with her cousins. She loves to play that game. She runs around saying "ashes ashes" when she wants to play.

The next video is Alyssia practicing walking around with a monkey on her back. It's a little gizmo that I put on her when we're at the airport--although, she hasn't quite figured out how to walk in it and not pull too much, resulting in a fall and a lot of screaming! Usually, if I'm by myself in the airport with her, she's strapped into the stroller. The last two videos are Alyssia enjoying her new squeaky shoes from Roma. They're too big for her, but she LOVES to walk around in them and hear the squeak. So cute.

Alyssia has really been enjoying the Christmas Season. She has a bright green Christmas tree in her room, covered in mostly pink ornaments and we have a big tree in the living room, this year decorated with mostly red and green. I decided to go all non-breakable ornaments this year in view of the fact that those little greedy hands can be awfully quick to grab and pull. So far, she has managed to pull off a few ornaments ("ball, Mommy!") but the tree is stable and has not budged! Good Job, Daddy! Last night, Ben took us around to see some Christmas lights. She loved that. "Pretty! Pretty!" That's also what she says most mornings when she sees the tree all lit up. We also spend a fair amount of time dancing to Christmas tunes. Her favorite is Jingle Bells by Manhattan Transfer. I think it's a good version too. Daddy has to put together the big present before Tuesday (the Kitchen from Nana and Popo) and the other big present (the Table and Chairs from Mommy and Daddy) and Mommy has a few more Christmas cards to mail out (ran out of photo cards so sorry to those of you getting the old-fashioned kind!) but other than that, we're almost ready. Oh! What am I thinking. I still have to make the entire Christmas feast and I'm attempting to make a Chocolate Coconut Cake from scratch this year, so that should be interesting. (Especially interesting because I think I am one of the world's WORST bakers). I hope none of my dinner guests read this before they try the cake. HAHA. We're having 7 guests for dinner Tuesday. It's sure to be a busy, joyful day. I hope everyone reading this has a great Christmas with family and friends around you and the everlasting love of the Savior in your heart. God Bless Us Every One!

Holidays

I don't know what happened to November. I'm sorry I haven't posted anything for a while. I have lots of new pictures to share that I hope you'll enjoy. Alyssia is growing and learning and changing before our very eyes. She is such a gift. We enjoy her so much. Here are some pictures of her first experience with paints and an artpad. The art lesson ended when she put the blue tadoodle in her mouth. YUCK. She thought it was great.







Here she is hamming it up at home. She loves to wear hats while she plays. She also loves to smile at herself in the mirror and give herself kisses.

Here is my little ballerina at the Little Gym on Halloween. She was supposed to be a monkey, but she refused to put on the costume. What a cutie.








Hmmmmmm . . . . do I want to go try walking on the balance beam or should I do another forward roll?
















Here is Alyssia hanging out on the couch watching Elmo when she was sick. Aw. She's a good baby even when she's sick.
















Here is Alyssia at her FAVORITE place in the mall--Pottery Barn for Kids. She loves the play kitchen they have. It's ridiculously expensive, or I would try to buy her one. As it is, we just go there every couple of weeks so she can play with it. She also loves to sit at their table and color. They have story time and also bring in singers to entertain the kids. It's a fun place to meet other moms and babies.










We flew to Chicago to have Thanksgiving with my sisters and their families. The three little cousins had so much fun with each other. They learned how to play "ring around the rosey" on Thanksgiving day and now Alyssia regularly asks me to play by saying "ashes! ashes!" Our neices, Roma and Veronica, are such little cuties. Alyssia really enjoyed being with them and playing with all of their toys. My sister Deirdre made a beautiful dinner and had made the house look so nice. We missed our mom and dad who were in Hawaii with Grammy. Hopefully, all three grandbabies will make it out to Hawaii to visit them in the new year. Roma loves to dance and she really enjoyed dancing with both her mom and dad together. So sweet. Aren't they a beautiful family?







Here is Dr. Veronica examining Uncle Sebastian. And Dr. Roma examining Alyssia. Looks like they are taking an interest in medicine. The next photo is Veronica and Auntie Meg.




Here are the three little cousins and the son of a very dear friend of mine that I haven't seen since the night I graduated from high school. It was very nice of her and her family to come all the way to Chicago (from Michigan) just to see us.




Alyssia thought it was great to play with her cousin's toys. Here she is in Roma's cheerful playroom. And having a tea party with Roma. Roma loves to play "hot tea," as she calls it.






















Alyssia loves her aunties and uncles. Here she is with Uncle Jason who made her laugh so hard on our last night in Chicago.













Christmas is bearing down on us with frightening speed. We don't even have a Christmas tree up yet and it's December 5th! I should be fired. You would think I would have this stay-at-home mom thing down by now (it's been almost a year), but I don't. Slow learner or something.

walking and talking

We recently attended my 10 year law school reunion. I didn't see anyone from my class- it was a multi-year reunion-- but it was fun anyway. Alyssia and I really enjoyed the rose garden in the law school quad. They've done a lot to the school in the last ten years. It's really beautiful.



Ben and Alyssia on the metro on the way home.

The Severna Park Plaza hosted a free family movie night a few weeks back. They played Swiss Family Robinson on a big screen. The Little Gym had games for the kids before the movie. Alyssia was enraptured by the bigger kids. She is SO social. I don't think we'll have to worry about her making friends. She loves everyone. She even tries to kiss strangers in the grocery store. We have to work on that, especially now that flu season is approaching.

Alyssia's good friend Esther had a very fun pool party in September. Alyssia enjoyed herself immensely, although she refused to go in the pool.

I love this video. It took about 40 minutes to download to this blog, so I hope it works. Alyssia is so into her books. I hope it stays that way! Of course, right now, being into them means chewing on them and throwing them as hard as she can, but it's a start.

Yesterday we went to the pumpkin patch. It was weird because it was so warm outside. Alyssia loved the pumpkins. Unfortunately, I didn't have the camera. We'll have to go back and take photos.

We've been very busy with our outreach sunday school. Our first week we had 13 kids. The second week, 26, and last week I think 35. It's been absolutely amazing. The kids are great. They come on the bus and they're very well-behaved. We have great people working on our team and I'm sure that makes a huge difference. Alyssia loves these kids.

I'm all excited because a new friend of mine shared a book with me about organizing your home. I love this book. She doesn't call cleaning your house cleaning your house--she calls it BLESSING your house!! (Check out http://www.flylady.com/) What a concept! I love it. I actually cleaned out my linen closet!! Mom, you can actually see what's in there now! And I've been giving away piles and piles of stuff. Stuff just accumulates so fast around here! It's like it has a life of its own. I'm learning to constantly put stuff in bags for the garbage and bags for giving away. And once the bags are full, they immediately get taken out of the house--to the curb or to the car. If I don't love the item and use it often, it's outta here. What a relief. My little house really is too little for any extraneous stuff. I'm so inspired by this book that I've actually embarked on a redesign of my bedroom! I'm painting! And we moved the furniture around!! I can only do a little bit during naptimes, but I've surprised myself at how quickly it's coming together. My new motto, (borrowed from the flylady) is "progress, not perfection." How liberating!

Alyssia and I have become regulars at any free storytime we can find. We're storytime junkies. The libraries are great for that, as are some of the bookstores. We've met lots of other moms and babies that way.

Ben is working hard, as always. His business has picked up a bit since the summertime slowdown. He's started playing his bass again and it's fun to hear him practicing. Alyssia loves it. She bangs her head while he plays and slaps the strings.

I tried to add pictures to all these paragraphs, but blogspot started having some kind of problem half way through my blogging tonight. I'll have to add more photos later.