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.

Daddy and Alyssia enjoying a nice morning on the deck.


Here is little Miss Alyssia enjoying an outdoor concert a few weeks ago. We say the Army Field Band perform. They were great. Practicing her walking at muzzy's. Alyssia has really started taking off in the last few days. She takes between 10 and 15 steps sometimes without falling. She shrieks with joy once she gets going. It's outstanding.

I can't believe it's been so long since I've written! Alyssia continues to amaze us daily. About 3 weeks ago, she looked right at me and very distinctly said "no." Reallly, it kind of comes out like "uhnewoh." It was so funny (she said it with an attitude), that Ben and I couldn't help laughing. So, she spent the rest of the day saying "no no no no . . . . noooooo no no." She also added a vigorous head-shake to the words. Her colorful personality is definitely emerging.

She started saying "Elmo" yesterday. I was changing her diaper and she looked across the room and spotted an Elmo book when she called out his name. She loves Elmo. I'm on the search for a little Elmo doll. She is also saying other new words like "gamma" "car" "vroom-vroom" and "haychoo" (thank you). I love that one. Dad, I promise, we're working on "po-po."

Gramma Norma bought Alyssia some refrigerator letters and she loves those. If you tell her what a letter is, she often repeats or tries to repeat what you've said. She's also started counting. We were sitting in church last Sunday when she started counting my change, "one, two, one two." Two is as far as she goes, but I think that's pretty good for 13 months old!

Since the second week of August, Alyssia has been answering for herself, (thank you very much), when people ask how old she is. She puts her little index finger up in front of her face and has a very determined look on her face when she's answering that question. In the last week, she's added saying "one" when she puts her finger up. At first it came out like "une" but very quickly morphed into "won" as she worked on her pronunciation. LOL.

Alyssia has graduated from sloppy, mouth wide-open kisses to real noisy smackers. It's so cute.

I have pictures and videos to add to this, which I will do very soon, I promise. Technical difficulties are slowing me down.