Ali - Christmas pics

This picture cracks me up b/c once we changed outfits, Ali did not really want to take pictures anymore. But, like the true model she is, she fought through it and tried to give us what we wanted so she could get it over with. Here she is posing (she crossed her hands like that herself! I swear the girl already wants to be a model!)and making the "is this what your looking for? can we get this over with?" face!

Well, we had a great Thanksgiving and after a 7 hour ride back from St. Simons (traffic was horrible, among other things!), we are now getting back to the real world and decorating for Christmas. It is interesting decorating the Christmas tree this year b/c I am trying to keep all ornaments out of Ali's (our little investigator) reach! Anything within arms reach of her is usually carried around! Yesterday, I was sitting here and she kept bringing me little ornament balls off of this cute miniature Christmas tree we have. I couldn't get mad b/c it was so cute - but obviously I better move that decoration. We are so excited about this Christmas b/c even though Ali won't understand what is going on - I can't wait to see the excitement in her eyes!!

I took Ali to get her 1 year picture taken on Monday (our 2 year anniversary!) and she was so perfect! I tried to make sure she napped and ate before - but I had to cut the nap short so she could eat and then I wasn't sure she was full when it was time to go - but she was a complete ham for the camera. The photographer was cracking up b/c Ali would literally pose for the camera and Ali was cracking up the whole time! She especially loved it b/c she kept saying "say cheese" and Ali finally belted out "cheez!" a couple times - it was so cute. Ali is really catching on fast, I think, these days. She repeats words after me a lot! She loves the word "shoes" when she sees her shoes but I only wish I could put a sound clip on here so everyone else can hear how funny it is to hear her say it. It sounds like she has some deep accent! Plus, if I spin her around or put her on my lap and sway/rock her - she likes to say "Weeeeee" - but the way she says it sounds like she is saying "yes" in french! ouuuiiii! Kind of a mix of weee/waaay. Okay - I am just going to show a few of these pictures for fear of ruining Christmas gifts. :) Here's just a taste of Ali's 1st birthday photo shoot - that turned out to be Ali's 2nd Christmas photo shoot. I will save the best shots to post after Christmas!

Just some pictures of Ali

Just wanted to share some pictures of Ali today. I put her in one of her new outfits that we got in the mail recently and I just thought she looked cute as she was getting ready for Mothers Day Out (and roaming the house!). I am kind of scared Ali may wither away with all of the exercising she does - the girl does not stop! (but, isn't she cute? :))
Uh oh - she found her bow! She loves to hand them to me (or Ryan - in this picture!), but then she tries to put them back on by laying them on her head and I think she does not understand why it won't just stay when she does it!

Miss Mischievious!

I had heard before that after a baby turns one, they turn into this "little person" - and, boy, has Ali ever! Not that she wasn't so full of life before her 1st birthday - but, now all she wants to do is roam the house and carry things around! She is a ball of energy and wants what SHE wants (not what I want) but, also, it is different b/c she does not want me to hold her all of the time. :) :( Not sure how I feel about that - b/c it means she is growing up!! Her three favorite words right now are Daddy, Bye bye and Ali! She kind of uses bye bye interchangeably with Baby (although it is more like bah bah) and Baxter. Last night, we went to Publix and she loves grocery shopping, so she was in the best mood. I would tell her to say one of these words and she would repeat it right after me (very loud!) and was so excited! Then, I told her to give me a kiss and she laid a BIG wet one right on my face! Her kisses are hilarious b/c she just opens her mouth wide and puts it on my face and gets slobber all of my face then pulls away and makes a "ma" sound. I love it! Also, she is catching on to so many things! The other day, I asked her where Winnie the Pooh was (we gave her a Pooh for her birthday that knows her name and always says "Let's play, Ali!" - she loves it when he says her name!) and next thing I knew, she brought Pooh too me! I was so impressed! For the first year, you spend so much time doing everything for them and thinking they can't understand a thing - and then, all of a sudden, they prove to you that they've been listening the whole time!

Here are some pictures of Ali (and Baxter) today - she just travels all over the house. Her favorite destination is the kitchen to our little island where all of her snacks sit. She usually picks them up then comes to find me and hands them to me - in hopes that I will give her one! ha! If there are not any snacks there (and I need to go to the grocery store!), I have caught her just sitting in the little cubby hole where the snacks go, instead! Her other favorite thing to do right now is to CLOSE doors. Last night, Ryan and I played with her for at least five minutes while she went in her room and closed the door and said "bye bye" to us and would leave her little tiny hand on the door for us to see. It looked so cute! She then opens the door a little and peaks her head around and we shout "hey!" (another word she likes to say! or maybe it's "hi" - I'm not sure which one she actually says) and then she would shut the door all over again! Here's a picture of her saying bye bye as she closes the door - not a great picture but you get the idea! (she kind of looks like she is singing in this picture!)
Or, her favorite door to shut - the playroom door (that leads to the computer - where her mama is typing!). There is one pane that does not have glass and is the perfect spot for her little head to fit so I can hear her cracking up as she thinks she is playing some big practical joke on us by shotting me and Baxter in here! ha! Ali and I went to her one year check up at the doctor's office the other day (11/12/07) and everything looked great! I found the same little report card from a year ago (well, 11/13/06) and compared her stats and it's amazing how much she has grown!

11/13/06 11/12/07

Height 22" 97% Height 29.5 " 75%

Weight 7lbs 8 oz. 50% Weight 21 lbs 2 oz 50%
Head Circumference 14.5" 90% Head Circumference 19" >100%

Ali is in 12 month clothing right now but her head is so big that sometimes I can not fit 18 month clothing (without buttons) over her head! The girl has a big head which is great b/c that means that it is full of big brains! (as if we didn't already know that!) :)

Fun times on November 8th!

Well, Ali's first birthday has already come and gone. Luckily, we still have her playgroup birthday party to look forward to this Thursday to celebrate one last time! Ali's actual birthday was so much fun! We spent the day together - the two of us - and had lunch and dinner with her daddy to top it off! We started off the day by going to Imagine-It Children's Museum in Atlanta. Ali was still a little young for it, but it was so neat and I am glad we went!! They had a little section dedicated to two and under and since most of the kids there when we were there were on field trips - we had the whole 2 & under area to ourselves! Ali loved it and it was a neat experience for the two of us to share together. She was obsessed with this one wall below where she could play with the fish and make them move along the wall.Her favorite part of it all was the mini-me piano that was just her size!! Luckily, I figured out how to make a short video on our camera to tape her banging away on the keys! (although, unfortunately, I can not figure out how to put it on here!!)

Our own little future Mozart... We had lunch with Daddy at Gabriel's and then, of course, had dinner at Ali's favorite restaurant, La Parilla for her birthday dinner - just the three of us. It was the perfect way to end a perfect day and Ali was in heaven doing her typical people watching! Her new favorite song is "Happy Birthday to you" and we sang it all day long! After dinner, we came home and had some cake that I made for her earlier that day!

Unfortunately, here's the only picture we have of her at her first birthday lunch with us! Miss Ali knew that there was something special about this day and everyone at Gabriel's should be looking at her - the Princess of the room. She was in high spirits all day - she had to of known it was HER special day! :)
Yum....cake!! (although Ali was slightly more interested in the Pooh candle and tried to eat it too)
All done!

We are grateful to all of our family and friends for sharing this special time with us! We can not believe that our little girl is already a year old and what a year it has been! Thank you for all of your phone calls, thoughts, etc on her birthday, birthday party and this whole past week! I really can't believe she is ONE but am looking forward to many many more birthdays for our little girl!

Birthday presents and games!

Here are just a few pictures of Ali eating breakfast - it was hard to get good pictures b/c she was giddy and hungry so her eyes are slightly closed! :) Playing peek a boo with mama through the playroom door (as I was typing the blog below!)
First things first, opening her birthday presents to start off the day! (and still her in pjs!)

Happy Birthday Ali!!

Last November 8th at 12:44 a.m. our lives changed forever - Alison Brooks Patrick was born!

Here is a picture of the birthday girl this morning eating breakfast - a year later! I thank God every day for this precious blessing! Happy birthday Ali Brooks! :) We love our baby girl!

A year later...

Well, it was about this time last year (7:30 a.m.) that I got a phone call from the hospital asking if I was ready to come in and have a baby! Little did I know how much our lives were about to change and what a year we had ahead of us! Before you have a baby, I feel like people try to express to you how much your life is about to change - but you can never truly understand it until you meet your little one and fall in love! Every time I look at Ali it makes me smile and Ryan and I still talk about how weird it is when we actually sit down and think that she is "ours" - this precious little girl! We feel so blessed! Most people know that Ali was a "surprise" in our lives and some may think that she came "too early" after we got married - but I know that Ali was brought into my life for many, many reasons. This past Sunday kind of brought it all together for me a little bit - what a year this has been! It was All Saints Day at church and the service was very moving for me. We celebrated the year from last November 5th through this November 4th and during that short year, I lost two of my "Saints" and got my very own "Saint" to help me through it. I miss both of my grandmothers every day and am so grateful that they got to meet Ali and have her in their lives, even for a little bit to bring them joy like she brings me joy!! One of my favorite memories of this past year is going to visit Tootoo a week before she was suddenly gone. My mom, Ali and I went up to Wellington Place (where she was living) and we had four generations in her one room for about an hour, just spending time together. I think that is pretty rare that you have 4 generations in one room just like that - especially b/c I was lucky enough to give Tootoo her FIRST great grandchild - and I am so glad she got to meet her! Tootoo held her that day and Ali just squealed (she was 3 months old) and Tootoo smiled so big and that memory makes me so happy! Here is a picture below of my beloved Tootoo holding Ali at the hospital! You can't tell in the picture, but Tootoo is blind, and the second she held Ali she could not stop crying! It is such a precious picture to me b/c it was such a touching moment for me! Another sudden loss happened a short 5 months later! It's weird to me b/c Ali and I had also gone to visit Gindy about 2 weeks before and spent some time with Gindy and my aunt, Harriet Anne while my parents were out of town. It is there, at their house, that Ali really learned (I believe) to pull up and after that that is all she wanted to do. I feel blessed that we got to share these precious moments with both of these two "saints" this past year. We miss them dearly! This picture below is of Gindy holding her great-granddaughter after her christening. Tootoo was in the hospital that day and had already had her stroke and we knew it was a matter of time and I remember Gindy later saying how neat it was that Ali had all of her Great-Grandmothers alive at the time of her christening. That is very special to me.
Okay, this blog is making me really sad so, on a lighter note, today is actually the day a year ago that we THOUGHT Ali was coming into this world. (well, until we got to the hospital - b/c they predicted I would be in labor until the next morning! ahh!) I was induced at the hospital around 9 a.m. and was in labor all day until Ali made her grand entrance at 12:44 a.m. - just past midnight and just in time to miss election day (but, dad won! He was unopposed!). What a day!! It's weird not to celebrate today but tomorrow is the anniversary of our first real day with Ali - a real blessing to celebrate! I know that I am going to sit back and reminisce on where we were a year ago - and thank the Lord that I am not there today! (well, in labor!) Although, the prize at the end was WELL worth it! :)

The Night/Day after....

Here are some pictures of the birthday party girl the day after the party! She had so much fun playing with all of her toys and walking all over the house.

She loved playing with the balloons - after they started falling to the ground: I was worried after the party that I didn't take pictures of some of the decorations to show her when she gets older - so here are just a couple of those:

Playing with some of her fun toys the day after! What a fun and exhausting day (full of naps and lots of rest for Ali!) - she LOVES all of her new toys - they made the day fly by!

We're Going to Party Like it's My Birthday!

Ali had her first birthday party this past weekend with friends and family!! It was a crazy and fun day! Despite the fact that we were running around all day and caused Ali to miss BOTH of her naps AND, on top of that, it was daylight savings time and Ali's bedtime was actually moved BACK an hour she still was a trooper and sucked it up and was a ham for all of her guests! Poor thing - I know she was exhausted! Especially b/c now that she is officially walking - she would prefer to take laps walking around the house all day than to sit still - so she needs her naps! What a sport! We had such a fun time at the party and I was so sad after it had come and gone! Only two more days and my little girl will officially be one!!!! What a year to celebrate!!



Here is a picture of Princess Ali eating a quick dinner before her guests arrived!
The back of her birthday outfit with her cupcake "Ali" bloomers!

She was not a big fan of her birthday princess hat!

Again...the hat....the sight of it brought her to tears! :(Anxiously waiting for her mama to bring on the cake! (past her bedtime at this time - and still without a nap for the day!!) Not a happy camper right now!Happy birthday to Ali!!! Here's a picture of Ali's little "smash" cake!

Here we go with the hat again!

And there she goes taking it off (and getting cake all over it to make sure we won't try again!) Nothing helps take your mind off of how tired you are like cake!! Yum!!

Party pics...





Ali checking out her friend Libby! She is so happy to have a friend there her size! :)

The birthday loot.... Our friends and family all did too much!!
The girls....

Yes, I know that in this outfit I am the princess and I pretty much rule this house!


Lost a shoe but still going!



We love our princess!! I hope your first birthday party was perfect!!!