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.