Santa!!!

I took Alicia to see Santa for the first time...let's just say that I took her back right before she almost passed out in Santa's arms. This was the only shot I was able to get of a very frightened little girl. I feel like this is the view of my daughter that I see the most these days...she is always taking off after something and I am left running behind and trying to catch her. When it is time to change her, she takes off in the other direction at the sight of the diaper...this one could be hard to potty train!!
Here Alicia is showing off her new birthday shirt from her Uncle Wes...that's right, she is 1!!

Alicia's 1st Birthday Party...part 1!!

Our little girl is growing up, I wrote the next blog first, so it says more of the intro stuff. We had a great day today, and we feel very blessed as a little family to have so many family and friends that love our little girl and want to celebrate with us. Thank you so much to everyone for showing Alicia how much you love her all the time, and celebrating with us (we are also looking forward to wearing the new clothes and playing with the new toys!!)

You can just call me Martha (Stewart, that is)...this is just one of the three cakes that I made for the party. They were all the same butterfly shape, but different colors.

This is Alicia playing with her new doll from her cousins. She already loves this doll!! Here she is rocking it, and probably trying to sing to it too. She is also sporting some very cute new pj's from her friend Bryce for her birthday.Alicia was so excited about all of her new toys that we had a hard time dragging her away from them at bath time.Here, Alicia and Bryce are posing with their daddies, but none of them were looking at the camera.

The rest of her birthday is in the next post...

Alicia's 1st Birthday Party...and more!!!

We celebrated Alicia's upcoming birthday with a party in the park today. We were very fortunate, because there has been some rain all weekend, but we got a sunny day. Just a little bit of wind, but that never hurt anyone. We had a good time getting Alicia's friends and family together to celebrate, and Alicia had a blast!!
Alicia's favorite little boy, Bryce, climbed the tree with a little help from his daddy, Graham. I caught Ken and Silvia getting close to stay warm!
Vanessa was busy texting a special fireman that we are all dying to meet.
Sienna came prepared for a Chicago style winter storm.
Susan and Dylann enjoyed the playground and food.
This is Alicia in the car when we picked up the balloons...she just sat holding one with the most content little face we had ever seen.

Here Alicia is showing off her little party hat...it didn't last long. She enjoyed swinging with her friends.

This is Alicia earlier this week, she was getting ready for the big day by hanging out in her birthday suit. This is her new thing. During changing time she tries to make a mad break for it and play naked as long as she can. We got to see Uncle Wes when he was in town recently. This was a lot of fun for Alicia as she got to explore his hotel room, but all business for Alex and Wes, as Alex tested Wes's ability to teach and use his accounting skills to work on Alex's accounting homework. Thanks Wes...is that why you haven't called to tell me that you are back in town?...you don't want to do any more homework?

Breathing again...

Alicia had us all holding our breath over the last week or so. We had a trip to the emergency room last Friday, followed by a trip to urgent care on Wednesday, and a trip to the pediatrician this morning. All of this, to learn that our little sweetie has breath-holding spells. This is when a child gets very upset and stops breathing until they pass out. It is not dangerous, but it was scary to watch her little eyes roll back in her head and her whole body go limp! We saw two spells this past week, and will probably continue to see them occasionally over the next few years. This is pretty uncommon, only a small percentage of children have it, but I think that it is the worst for the parents. It's not something that we are looking forward to getting used to, but it looks like we probably will anyway.

Thanksgiving and more!

Alicia is beginning to look more and more like her daddy!! Every day more people say that she looks like him and less like me.
We had a great Thanksgiving celebrating with Alex's family...I didn't take pictures, but if they send me some I'll post them. Alicia and I were very thankful to have Alex home with us. We really missed him while he was gone. Since he got back it seems that we've been spending a lot of time at the doctor...Alicia was sick last weekend with a bad cold that topped her temp at 102.9...this was enough to give us some sleepless nights and a trip to urgent care. Then she passed it on to her daddy who was dragging through the week and very thankful for the long weekend. I went with friends from church to feed homeless on thanksgiving day while Alicia stayed home to take care of her sick daddy, then we headed to Waldo and Teri's for dinner! It was delicious!! My favorite part was the mashed potatoes. It was a good time, but of course I was really missing my family and my three little nieces!
Here are a few photos that I've taken recently.
Alicia is getting more brave at the park.
Alicia and Sienna are starting to interact more and we are really having fun together. One of our favorite things to do is to empty the box of toys and make a huge mess for me to pick up. (Alicia is now reaching the point where she likes to put stuff in the box...so I'm excited to have a new little helper when it is clean up time.)
This is a picture from Alicia's first dinner that was entirely diced food she was able to feed herself. She is almost entirely on table foods now, and enjoying all the new textures and variety...she absolutely loved the Thanksgiving turkey!!
Alex was home recently on a day I had Sienna, so we were able to throw the girls in the tub together. Alicia thought it was great to have a little naked friend in the bath with her, Sienna was a little less thrilled.

Alex is gone...we're trying to stay busy

I havent' been able to blog, because Alex was extremely busy lately, and now he has the computer in China. So, today we are using Waldo's computer so that I'm not too backlogged later!! We are missing Alex a ton, and wishing that he was here with us. Alicia and I are trying to stay busy without him. I hope you enjoy the pictures, sorry so many are sideways, I'm trying to be quick and I didn't straighten them first.
Here is my little bunny at a halloween party. She was a good girl and wore her costume for about two hours wihout complaining. It was really funny, my little bunny kept kissing a little bee!...Hopefully I'll get more pics of this night soon...my camera ran out of batteries right away. Alicia got a new sippy cup...let me just say that I learned not to fill it to the top in the evening, it's a lot bigger than her last cup, but her bladder is still the same size!
Grandpa Charlie came to keep us company while Alex is gone. We had some good time hanging out, and Alicia loved the extra attention. Here she is knocking down the tower that he made.
I'm watching Sienna three days this week, so I've been busy...here are the girls in a typical moment.
Grandpa Charlie took ALicia to the park with me....for a minute he forgot that she isn't even 11 months and pushed a little too hard, but she had a great time!
Just hanging out with Grandpa

Alicia got her birthday present from Grandpa a little early and she was really excited!
She's showing signs of being a really great rider.
We went out to lunch with Waldo and Teri at Ruby's at the end of the HB pier.


That's all I have, we miss you Grandpa Charlie! THanks for coming to keep us company! We love you, ALex...can't wait to see you Sunday night!

A Little Miracle in Michigan!

I have a new niece!! Kate Lindberg was born this morning. From my brief conversations with her mother it seems that both are doing well!! I haven't talked to her daddy or her big sisters, but I'm sure that everyone is excited! I can't wait to see pictures, but have already heard that she is beautiful! I'm already getting impatient for the rest of the year to go by quickly so that I can see her. Linz and Charlie, Congratulations!! I love you all, give my three nieces big hugs and kisses...Uncle Alex says congrats and sends his love too!

Happy 30th, Tia Vane!!

Today is Tia Vane's 30th Birthday!! We hope she has a great day!!

Alicia and I have been a little lonely lately. Alex has been really busy with work and school, and we have been missing him. He made time to spend some quality time with us over the weekend. We took him to the park by our house where I have started taking Alicia. She was so excited to have her daddy take her down the twisty slide!! Then she went in the swing...she really likes to swing!
This is a picture from Grandma Linda's visit. We went for a walk out on the Huntington Beach pier.

Grandma Linda read Alicia a new book that she bought for her. Alicia loves the book and I have to keep it hidden so that she doesn't destroy it.
Every day that I have Alicia and Sienna we go on long walks. Here the girls are all ready to go. Alicia is full of energy and jumps around through most of the walk, and Sienna just lays back and chills while she checks out the scenery from her reclined seat.
I walked into the kitchen the other day to get a drink and left the girls in the living room with Sienna in a seat. When I came back about 30 seconds later, Alicia had decided that Sienna looked lonely and climbed right into the chair with her. They were both enjoying the vibrations!
Alicia was going to be a monkey, but she got this super cute bunny costume from Grandma Peggy...we had to try it on to make sure that it would fit and Alicia was tired and a little uncooperative, but still really cute!

Grandma Linda's Visit

We were very happy to have Grandma Linda come out to visit us last weekend. Her last two trips were basically spent in a single room, because she came the week I had Alicia and the week I got my wisdom teeth out. We were able to do a little more this visit and had a good time.
We took Alicia to a puppy store, and I'm pretty sure that she wants to get one...but she has to wait until we have a house and yard. (Sorry that all of these pics are so small, I entered them as large, but the site must be messing up right now, I even tried multiple times.) We took Bob and Linda down to Laguna Beach and walked around. It was the perfect day for it. Alicia enjoyed getting to spend some time with her grandma in her house. She was also very excited to swim in the pool at the hotel that Grandma and Grandpa stayed in.

Thanks for coming, Grandma! We had fun, and Alicia thinks about you every time she plays with her swimming giraffe and surfing monkey in the bathtub.

This is a random pic of our Santa Barbara trip that I don't think I included before.