Our Trip to Arlington

God Bless my Mama, that's all I have to say! I have wanted to go and visit my cousin Jenn in Arlington since she delivered her beautiful baby boy Grant before Thanksgiving. Well after much back and forth and comparing weekend plans I finally decided to go last weekend. My mom never passes up an opportunity to love on a baby, and thank goodness for that! Mom, Alice and I left on Thursday afternoon to break up the drive into 2 days. We had a great time visiting with Jenn, Grant and Greg. They are such a gorgeous new family! It made me truly nostalgic for those new baby days! Which is crazy because during those new baby days I remember thinking that women were nuts to wish for sleep deprivation, sore breasts and a hormonal rollercoaster ride! Nonetheless...I was longing for those days when all Alice wanted was to be asleep in my arms. Alice could not be tempted to nap in the car or elsewhere, I guess she feared missing something important. She was largely unimpressed with Grant and only worried about him when he was taking up important space in her Mommy or Grandma's arms. Grant is a looker and a Talker. He could definately hold his own in a conversation. He did some great cooing and snuggling. We ventured out on Saturday to the National Building Museum, they had a pretty cool set up for kids 2-6, a free building space with all kinds of blocks and a kids room with building themed toys. Alice enjoyed having Mommy chase her all throughout the gallery and knocking down every tower in sight. Jenn managed to get pooped on by the lone winged resident of the museum...Ha! It caught her right on the tail, what are the chances! It was so great to spend a little time with Jenn, we were both equally distracted by our children...such is life! I hope that we will be able to visit again soon! Pictures to come as soon as I can get them from Grandma's camera!

Our Trip to visit the Wrights/Leeths

Been a year since we saw the Wrights...the kids grow sooo fast! I had blast hanging out with my "second" family. We laughed, chatted, played games, had PIZZA-thanks Jim!
Beleive it or not Simon is only 5 months older than Alice. They were so sweet together watching the big kids through the window and sitting on the bottom step together and playing with trains.

Julia and Lil fed the horses that the Leeths board on their property...Girlfriend and Suddenly.

Alice was not daunted by the size of Kara's great dane Tucker and decided to climb all over him. Tucker was, of course, unfazed.

Liliana enjoyed every last bit of the popcorn while waiting for her turn on the rope swing

The Last Christmas Post...I promise I will move on!

I just want to say that I have always loved Christmas, I love everything about it! The shopping, the decorating, the food, the family, especially family and of course celebrating the birth of our Savior. I often wish we could bottle the wonderful feelings that we have during the season and pull them out on our bad days! Those of you with children of your own know that kids make every holiday bigger...especially Christmas. I know I just want to soak in every minute and record every cute/sweet/hysterical/new thing that is happening.

Alice's gift to me this year was independent walking! Being a physical therapist and having some background in pediatrics my concern was growing about her gait development (coupled with her small size). In my heart I knew Alice was developing normally at her own rate, but the inner PT voice was distressing. I even choose her big Christmas gift around the goal of gait. So imagine my joy when she LET GO and walked across the room like it was NOTHING!

Alice's first encounter with a piano...she's a budding composer!

Alice was Nelson's new best friend after he discovered that she drops food.

Okay, more Christmas stuff....

On Christmas morning all of the Grandparents and Robert's brothers Michael and Thomas as well as cousins Alan and Nik all piled into our cozy living room for breakfast and gift opening. Alice tickled us all by digging into her gift wrap, boxes and presents with the appropriate ooohhhs and aahhhs!

Alice zonked out on the way to Great Granny's in Lumberton, NC...zzzzz

Alice didn't hesitate helping Great Granny open her gifts.

Alice struck a pose at the front door in her adorable Christmas outfit...Robert calls those pants her clown pants!

Christmastime in Charleston

The Santa at the SC Aquarium really freaked Alice out!

We had a grand time at the Toogoodoo Tree Farm choosing our tree and taking a train ride around the farm. Alice had a blast on the toys that the family keeps around for the visiting kids!

Alice is Walking!

Alice started walking last week! She just decided it was time...she still has that wobbly unsteady gait with the hands high up in the air, it is just soo cute.

We took these photos about a month ago when Alice first discovered that she

could climb up into her rocking chair on her own.

Look at how Proud she is of herself!

I just Love that she has that little book

upside-down in her hands!

She sat and rocked, and rocked, and rocked !

I know, I know...I haven't been keeping up regularly with the blog. I hate that I haven't because so many really neat things have been going on here. Alice is such a smart little girl...it just amazes me to see her develop into a little peson with her own ideas and opinions. One evening after bath time I was getting her ready for bed and she was holding onto the bottle of lotion that I had just finished applying and said her version of balloon (which sound more like baaoon) So I of course said "no sweetie, that's not a balloon, that is lotion." At which point she said balloon again, a little more forcefully...I looked at the lotion and sure enough there were 3 balloons on the front of the bottle! She can say up, down, mom, dad, dog, ball, balloon, rock/rock, book, hot, fish, some kind of version of please which I can only identify because she signs please at the same time, of course "no", ho ho ho in honor of Christmas and some others that we have only heard once or twice like truck and tickle. She has remained very cautious about walking and has weaned down from requiring both hands held to just needing a pinky finger in her right hand...she likes to keep the left one free to pick stuff up with. She has walked stretches as long as 10 feet without any help, but she still likes us close. She is changing so much...less my little Baby, more my little Toddler.