Ali now loves to sit in her own green chair, now that she is standing up all the time and more mobile. It sits surrounded by all of her toys and she just moves all over it like a big girl! I actually was a genius and got this chair for her last Christmas b/c I thought it would be cute (and she is just now starting to use it - but oh well!) - I have pictures of her at 2 months sitting in it and it's crazy how much she's grown!

These pictures make me laugh b/c Ali's new favorite thing to do is swing on her baby swing in the backyard and she kind of looks terrified in the pictures! She is usually all giggles when I start swinging her - so it's hard to resist when she points and wants to go outside. The giggles melt my heart. I mean, we will be playing in the playroom and she speed crawls to the backdoor and stands up and tries to pry the door open by sticking her fingers in the door crack. Then she tries to reach for the door handle - I am going to be in trouble when she is a little taller! But, she knows her swing is outside and if she sees the backdoor open - she immediately starts pointing and gesturing to go outside! There's nothing like swinging in a swing on a beautiful fall morning and hearing Ali's sweet giggle!

You may start to notice a pattern here - we have quite a mischievous princess on our hands. I put Ali in the the clean laundry basket b/c she was trying to "help me" fold clothes and was pulling everything out - she especially loved playing with the clothes that I had just folded. :) I finally decided to postpone the laundry until a time when she was amused by something else - and I thought she would look cute in the laundry basket. But, of course, she did not want to stay put for long!!

Off goes the stairs bandit!! And, she was having trouble waddling around with her pants so she somehow managed to sag them down low enough to kick them off! It's alot easier to move in just a diaper, I guess. :)

Here is our sad attempt at trying to get Ali's picture on the beach. Every time I put her down, she would immediately start speed crawling to me and could not keep her eyes open b/c of the sand!! Oh well! Hopefully we can get some at GA/FL!

On the car ride down to St. Simons, Ali stayed amused by taking my picture with her camera! She thought it was the funniest thing!

First words, first steps

What a week! I feel like, at this point, Ali changes daily and is doing something new every day!! It's hard to keep up so I need to write here more often - but then again, it's hard for me to use the computer without Ali wanting to come play at my feet and be next to me at all times (which is not good b/c she especially loves to pull the keyboard cord down and one day I just know it is going to hit her on her head) Ali and I took a girls trip with my mom this past week to St. Simons from Monday to Wednesday. It was a nice little getaway and I had all intentions of getting a cute Ali beach shot but the wind was blowing so hard it looked like ghosts were on the sand and the sand would head straight for Ali's eyes when she was sitting on the sand. So, no good beach shots - dangit. For about the past week, Ryan and I have been convinced that Ali has been saying her first word - I hope this is not a sign of what's to come b/c at this point I really do believe that Ali thinks this is Ali's world and we are all just living in it. (and what's wrong with that? or have I created a little monster - but a cute one?) So, true to her personality, Ali's first word (at least what we believe to be her first word) was "Ali!!". She says it all the time. She loves to imitate me talking on the phone and puts it up to her face and just goes "Ali!". I'm guessing this is b/c I always hand it to her and say "It's for Ali!". It cracks me up! So, this morning - she did the cutest thing. We have been going to a Music Class at the church since Ali was about 2 1/2 months old and she LOVES it. In that class, her favorite song is the song we sing every morning when we start the class - "Sing hello to Ali, Ali, Ali, Sing hello to Ali, God loves you!" (and then on to the other babies in the class). This morning, I started singing it and she started clapping and when it came time for her name - Ali sang with me!! It was so cute - I wish I had a video to prove it and show it! Although her version sounds a little bit more like Ady than Ali - but we know what she means!

Ali is also on the verge of walking, more and more every day. When she is holding my hands, she speed walks around the room. When we were at the beach, she would take a chair from our dining room table and more the chair around the room - I guess so she could balance on it. I thought that was really smart of her! She also discovered the stairs in our beach condo and every time we took our eyes off of her for a minute - she was up the stairs! It was scary, but she was so proud of herself so I let her do it a few times and just walked right behind her to make sure she didn't fall.

I want to post some pictures and describe what she's doing and I'm not sure how to do it so I'm just going to post more later!

Our little cupcake

Fall is almost here and I am so happy! It is my favorite season and, this year, it reminds me of being big and preggo last year and the excitement I felt about this time last year while waiting for Ali to come into this world! Unfortunately, that also means that Ali has not worn about half of her outfits from summer that I bought for her so I am going to have to start putting her in these cute little outfits before it's too cold to wear them! She is becoming more of a little person everyday. This past weekend we went to lunch at Chili's and we ordered from the kids menu - a grilled cheese - and she LOVED it! This may seem like a small deal to some people but it was HUGE for me and made my day (maybe made my year!) b/c she is actually feeding herself and it is so fun to see what all "real people" food she will eat. Today for lunch she even had a veggie burger. Never in my life did I think that I would get so excited about a veggie burger.

10 Months - September 8, 2007

Ali turned 10 months on Saturday! Boohoo. :) I tried to get some pictures of her before Ryan and I left for the UGA game (wish I had stayed home for that one!) but she would look away from the camera right when I would take the picture - I guess I am just a bad/slow photographer! She loves her UGA cheerleading outfit.

She is at SUCH a fun age right now. The girl is so active that I think she has actually lost weight b/c she is constantly on the move and does not want to miss a thing. We look at pictures from when she was even younger and what a chunk she was and it cracks us up! (although she still has some perfect little rolls!) She imitates most things we do. I, unfortunately, taught her how to make this noise that sounds like she is saying "dewy" and she just goes around the house going "dewy, dewy dewy". She loves to clap her hands, give us high fives, put her hands in the air when we say "hands up" (my favorite b/c her arms are so short that they barely go the top of her head and she looks so cute) and she loves playing peek a boo. Here are some pictures of us playing peekaboo! (well, they're at the top of the page b/c I'm still new at this blog thing - not sure what I'm doing) It's hilarious b/c she hides her face in a bowl/book/anything and dies laughing when she takes the object away. Such a precious age - she can't help but make me smile!

My fist blog

I have never really understood what a "blog" was and, have to admit, have thought it was weird when other people have blogs - but, for some reason today, I felt compelled to start my own blog. I have been down today b/c I realize that my little baby girl is about to be a year old (well two months from today) and it scares me how fast time goes by. I want to be better at recording every second of her and remembering these times right now - b/c she is such a little person that I adore so much! I always get frustrated b/c I don't think I write enough down/take enough pictures/etc of this time in my life that I treasure so much, so I guess keeping a blog with Ali's pictures/moments will be easy on me since I'm such an internerd. Plus, now I won't have to stalk my friends with pictures of Ali and if you want to look at them or know about her/us/Baxter - I will try to update this as often as possible!