We just put Ali to bed early, because she was one tired little girl! She spent the night with Gramamma last night, and then since she napped pretty late for her morning nap, we skipped her afternoon nap and went and visited AJ and Nathaniel (Nathaniel was hanging out with AJ while his older siblings went to see some Disney thing at the Civic Center). The three of them had a lot of fun playing. I don’t know if I can say playing “together”, because they are pretty much still in the loner phase. However, they did start to play together when united around the tea set. Nathaniel liked playing tea the best (sorry Greg – your son likes tea sets) – he sat and “ate” with a spoon the whole time.

Ali flirting with Daddy out on the porch:

Serious picture! Ali and her two buddies Thursday night at small group (Ali, Nathaniel, and AJ):

Ali posing with pretty flowers behind her ear and in her hand:

Ali and AJ playing today. . .twins!

AJ, Ali, and Nathaniel at their tea party!

This is from a few weeks ago, when Ali was unusually deeply asleep when it was time to wake her up, and Chris had turned on the lights, turned off her sound machine, taken pictures of her, and played her xylophone for about 5 minutes before she finally woke up:

This is a picture that I took of Ali today. She’s got enough hair now to do side pigtails instead of the devil horns on top of her head (I liked my little brother’s name for them better – he said she looked like a viking warrior). Her more “real” pigtails really make her look like a little girl instead of a baby!!

To attempt to understand what is going on in my one year old’s head, I sometimes have to try and think like a one year old and make hypotheses. This past Tuesday at about 4pm, Ali went and stood at the window at which she always watches for Daddy to come home and started saying “Daddy! Daddy!”. I thought about it, and I supposed that she thinks that since I always tell her “Daddy’s coming home! Let’s go watch for him!” and then he does, that I make something happen by speaking it forth and acting on it. It makes sense! So all afternoon she kept trying to speak Daddy home.

As I have mentioned before, Ali loves laying her head on pillows. So I decided that it was finally time to try out giving her a pillow in her crib. Amanda gave her a beautiful little pillow with her name embroidered on it, so I decided to use it. She loves it!! She fell asleep immediately for her morning nap, which she hasn’t done in a few weeks. Yay for pillows!

Ali and I spent a lot of time in the backyard today playing – playing with leaves, prickly things, and flowers. We put flowers behind our ears, and Ali loved it! She loves looking pretty. We also had a picnic outside for dinner, since it was still beautiful and well-lit, thanks to daylight savings. She did great! She sat and ate and never tried to crawl away! I was surprised.

She hadn’t quite finished all her food when Chris finished what he was doing and wanted to go on a walk, so I just threw it all in a zippy bag together (dried fruit, cheese, and ritz bits) and fed it to her on our walk. Her zippy bag of mixed up food reminded me so much of one of my favorite childhood treats – goody bags!! Every now and then, my Mom would fix us “Goody bags”. They were so awesome! We couldn’t watch her make them – she was really secretive about them – which added to the effect. She would throw in there whatever she had in the pantry – marshmallows, baking chocolate chips, dried fruit, nuts, coconut, whatever. We absolutely loved goody bags!! It’s amazing how much a creative idea can excite kids! I hope I remember that.

pictures from our times outside today:

disclaimer: this blog is all in fun, and with the permission of my Mother. Please don’t take it too seriously. While the facts are true, the complaining is not genuine.

OK – so ever since I’ve been blogging, as far as I can tell, my mom has checked and read my blog at least once a day, if not two or three times. But – she’s quit calling me!!!! I mean, she ALWAYS calls me on Sunday night when we get back from the beach to make sure we got back ok and to see how it was, but today was Tuesday, and I still hadn’t heard from her! So I finally called her today, and it was as bad as I could imagine. Sure enough, she thought about calling me Sunday night, but then she thought “I’ll just check her blog instead!” And she did.

And to compound the communication breakdown, she never comments on my blogs (she swears she did, but that she must have done it wrong). So it’s great for her – she still gets to keep up with us and see pictures of her beloved Grandbaby, but we don’t hear from her at all – blog, phone, or otherwise!

I never thought of my Mom as the type to go the way of computer-only communication. In fact, she’s never been nearly as into computers as the rest of us. But alas, it can happen to the best of us.

Nobody talks to me anymore now that I blog! Unless you people start talking back, I quit!!

:)

I was going to make hamburgers tonight at the request of my husband, and I decided to experiment a little (lucky for me, Chris likes experimenting with food too, so he didn’t mind). I had an unopened bottle of Nabeel’s Greek Dressing (which is AMAZING – it is more of a red vinaigrette Greek as opposed to most of the Greek dressings that are at the store), so instead of mixing in A-1 or Dale’s like we usually do, I mixed in the dressing to the hamburger meat. Then Chris had the idea of adding Cavendar’s Greek Seasoning for the saltiness. They were delicious!!! They would have probably been even better (and more Greek) if I had thought of this when I was at the store, and had gotten some feta cheese to mix in also. Teamwork always lends itself to great food creations!

We headed down to Orange Beach on Friday for the first time since November (Chris’ Aunt and Uncle have a house on Wolf Bay that they go to every weekend, and we often join them). Ali has gotten a little more persnickety about where she sleeps, so I was worried about that – both for the car ride (since we have the forward facing car seat now), and naps and nighttime. She definitely did have sleep issues, but luckily she is in that really happy phase I was talking about, so it wasn’t so bad. She didn’t sleep AT ALL on the way down there – so she was up from 11:30 until 7:00, which she has NEVER done before, and of course then had trouble going to sleep because she was so overtired. But she was quite a doll all the way down there – she really didn’t fuss at all! She just played and talked the whoooole time! :)

On Saturday, we went to the outlet mall, and there is a new store which will now be my favorite – there is a BCBG/Max Azria outlet, and of course I don’t actually shop at the BCBG store at the Summit, because everything in there is like $200, but I went into the outlet to see what they had, since I do love their clothes. And – the deals were AMAZING!! It was so exciting. I bought several shirts for $19-$35 that were originally $150-$200!! Now, I KNOW that excites all of you as much as it did me!! :) I really wanted to go back today before we came home – they had jeans for $30 that I really wished I had tried on! But my desire to get home outweighed that. I also stocked up on Ali’s Carter’s fleece jammies – we use them all year round since she doesn’t leave her blanket on, and since it’s the end of winter, they were marked down from $20 to $3.99. I really love outlet malls!!

The funniest thing that happened at the outlet mall happened at Carter’s. I ran out of the store for a minute, and when I came back in, Chris was paying at the counter, and looked like a kid caught with his hand in a candy jar. He was buying Ali a pair of pink light-up shoes that he just thought were so cool, and when he had showed me earlier, I had said “yeah…they’re ok…” – well he bought them!! It was so cute that he actually cared enough about her stuff to do that. But he was so bashful about having bought them without consulting me – as if I’m the sole person that can pick out Ali’s clothes! :) Apparently, they didn’t have light-up shoes when Chris was a kid (he is old), and so since HE didn’t get to experience the fun, he wanted Ali to get it. Granted, she LOVES them. She kept staring at her feet for the rest of the weekend.

Kitty and Leo had a Krewe Meeting (their Mardi Gras club) Saturday night, so we went to dinner on our own. We went to the Oyster House, and Chris had a great idea for feeding Ali. I usually feed her raw (or steamed) veggies, fruits, cheese, and sliced meats at home, so he said that the salad bar would be just like an at-home meal for her. It was great! We also got her some chicken fingers, but she ate all kinds of finger foods from the salad bar. We’ll be remembering that trick. We ended up being sat at the same table that we told Kitty and Leo we were pregnant almost 2 years ago. Ali didn’t seem to grasp the sentimentality of it all for some reason.

As far as naps and sleeping went, Ali did ok – we put her in the laundry room, because there are no windows in there (her room at home is blacked out, so if she’s in a regularly lit room, she wakes up really early. I know – we’ve got to stop that at some point. One day.), and for some reason for naps, I ended up having to sit in there and tell her to lay down and go night-night when she would start to stand up, then she would fall asleep. Having to sleep in weird places does strange things to babies. But it worked. She did better than she’s ever done sleeping at night at Kitty and Leo’s. The laundry room was a great idea.

Sunday, we went to eat at the Shrimp Basket (we were headed to Sea N Suds, but for some reason, they are now closed on Sundays), and then we went to the Zoo!! For those of you who have never been to the Gulf Shores Zoo, you MUST go. It is so awesome – you can feed almost all of the animals! We have now all three had “biting” experiences, but that’s what makes it unique, right? Chris got bit by a turtle 3 years ago (and isn’t interested in feeding the animals anymore for some reason), I got bit by a camel a year and a half ago when I was 7 months pregnant (it hurt!!), and this year, Ali got bit by a duck. :) Now, thank goodness, the ducks bite me all the time, and it doesn’t really hurt, I think it just scared her. They actually bit her finger back in November too, and she didn’t even notice. But this time, she was standing at the fence, and she stuck her finger right to the duck’s mouth. How could it resist? It bit her whole finger, and of course she cried, but only for about 15 seconds. She got over it really quickly, and still fed the other animals, although she was a little skittish (but granted, she was a little skittish at the Birmingham Zoo petting part last time, so I’m hoping and justifying that it wasn’t my fault by letting my 14 month old get bit by a duck) :)

On the way home, she slept for an hour. So in grand total both ways, she slept for ONE hour of 9 hours in the car. Whew!! She was a little more whiny on the way back, but who could blame her? It really is exhausting traveling with a baby – even if they do behave, because you’re constantly entertaining them and pacifying them. This was a good reminder for me of why Chris and I are taking a trip by ourselves for our anniversary in three weeks…I’ve been thinking “But Ali is at such a fun stage! She would be fun to have along!”, but I am glad that we are taking my parent’s wonderful advice and making time for trips for just the two of us. It is so healthy! And relaxing! So as much fun as it is to take Ali on a trip, it will also be fun, in a different way, but just as fun, to take a trip on our own in a few weeks.

Here are some pictures from this weekend:

Here is Ali in Leo’s hat (she always wears this when we go down there):

Ali with G’Ma Kitty and G’Pa Leo!

OK – this was a lucky picture – OF COURSE Ali would NEVER fall asleep on the floor. . .everything has to be perfect to get her to fall asleep. But she will lay on pillows. . .so I had laid her down for a picture, and she just happened to blink when I snapped the picture. :)

Here’s her actually just laying on the pillow. :)
Ali stuffing her face with cheese at the Shrimp Basket:

Here’s Ali watching the ducks with great intrigue – right before she stuck her finger in there and the duck bit it.

Ali feeding the bunny rabbit. . .

Ali feeding the sweet bunny rabbit again. Notice the pink light-up shoes. . .
Ali feeding the Sheep

Ali pointing at the itty bitty deer. . .she really loved watching him!

Feeding the goat. . .

Chris’ apparently new favorite shot – “Three Butts again”

Ali learned how to color yesterday!! It was so exciting because I have been trying to teach her for quite a while, but she has always been more interested in studying and eating the crayons then coloring with them.

Barkley had sent her some really cool toddler crayons for Christmas that are encased in a big plastic ball that is supposed to be easier for babies to hold onto. Ali has loved them – she loves rolling the balls, and pulling the crayon part out of the balls (I don’t think they are supposed to come out, but Ali figured out how). Anyway, we’ve been playing with those for a while, and I keep trying to show her the cool trick that happens when you rub the crayons on paper, but she just hasn’t given it a try. Finally yesterday, something clicked, and she got it. She started coloring, then she was obsessed with coloring! She stood at the coffee table and colored last night for probably 15 minutes without losing interest! Thanks, Aunt Barkley!!

Then, it was like the missing puzzle piece was put into place and everything made sense to her. She has been clicking my retractable pens for forever, and she has seen me write with them. So immediately, she picked up a pen, tried to write with it, clicked it, then started writing with it. It all makes so much sense now!!

Today, I have been thinking a lot about what a content and happy phase that Ali is going through. It is wonderful! I literally can’t think of a time in the last few days that she has cried or fussed – AT ALL. She doesn’t cry when we put her to bed or naptimes – she just talks to herself until she falls asleep. She doesn’t cry when she wakes up from her nap – she just talks to herself until I come and get her. (in fact, if I don’t come and get her in the morning, she puts herself back down for her nap!)

It really struck me how pleasant she is right now when we went to Kids Market today – I was there for almost 2 hours (which is VERY uncharacteristic of me – I’m usually a very fast and impatient shopper – but there was a LOT of good stuff there today!), and she never even hinted at fussing the whole entire time! She just hung out in her stroller, ate her snacks, drank her juice, looked at clothes (it was so cute – she would pull a piece of clothing out and stare at it, like she was trying to decide if she liked it), and said “hey!” to everyone who passed by.

I am so thankful that Ali is such a happy and content baby right now. There have definitely been some harder stages of her babyhood (especially 1-5 months), but now is just such a wonderful time that I really want to appreciate and enjoy as much as possible. She is talking a lot, and interacting so much, and laughing more (she’s never been much of a laugher), and we really are real buddies now. AND she still sleeps AMAZINGLY. She sleeps 13-14+ hours a night (usually 7:00-8:30), and still naps two naps a day for a total of 3-5 hours (and no, I don’t spend all of that time blogging :) I actually spend almost all of that time working).

This is one of those times in life that begs to be relished and enjoyed.

p.s. – If this blog makes you feel sad because you don’t have a happy baby right now, TAKE HEART!! My baby was nicknamed “Ali Qaida” by our small group last Spring because of her EXTREME unhappiness and difficulty. Thankfully, now she is the aforementioned “happy baby”!! It’s all a phase! :)