Dancing on the Chairs

Alanna is Rhys's little imitator. She loves to follow what Rhys is doing, step by step. Apparently, he decided to start dancing on a chair, so Alanna had to follow suit. And make silly faces, too. I missed the actual occasion as I was sick in bed, but I imagine it was as hilarious as it looks.

Pretty in Pink

Playing in the Mud

This is the look Alanna gives when you ask her to smile. So, she's actually having a lot of fun playing in the mud and water, even though she looks like she's about to cry...

Noodle Hair

Alanna is modeling the latest fashion in noodles....

A Duck and a Puppy after Bath

Backpackin'

Alanna loooves to imitate Rhys. She wants to be a big girl! So, when Rhys puts on his backpack to go to school in the morning, Alanna has to put on her backpack too. She is so cute rambling around with her hat on her head and her backpack on her back.

 

Bathing Beauty

Alanna tossed this ribbon over her shoulder and posed on the couch for me. I thought she looked like an old-fashioned bathing beauty.

It's not all about Rhys

I was looking back at the recent posts and realized they're full of Rhys and his funnies. Alanna is full of her own adorable, laughable, huggable incidents, too, but hers are of a more physical nature. It's often easier to tell her tales through photos and I'm just not able to capture all of her memorable times. Rhys is so verbal that it's fairly easy to document what he's up to just through words. Alanna is just as busy and energetic and cute, but it's a little less easy to tell a story with her vocabulary, since it pretty much consists of "ha" (hat), "Mam" (Mom), "Dada" (Dada), and "eh?" (what's that? can I have it? I want it!).

Camping at Heron Lake State Park

We had a blast!

.....Our campsite.....

.....Rhys looooooved swimming in the lake even though the water was cold!.....

.....Alanna would have spent more time swimming, but as I said, it was cold!.....

.....The view from our campsite.....

.....Los Brazos from across the lake.....

.....Blue skies, great tent, perfect spot.....

.....ahhhhh.....

Cousins

We had family here over Memorial Day Weekend. The cousins are getting so big! Kylah is nearly 8 years old, Rhys turns four in July, and Alanna just turned 1. Wow.

And here, Alanna was lucky enough to take a cozy nap on Grandma one afternoon.

Birthday Girl

While on hiatus, our sweet girl had her 1st birthday! She is getting to be such a big girl. Alanna got to partake in a chocolate cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting and strawberries on top. We all enjoyed it, but I think Alanna enjoyed it the most!

She needed to take a birthday bath when she was finished....


We've noticed recently that she looks more like a toddler than a baby. Sniff. My babies aren't babies anymore!

Girly

I picked up a bonnet for Alanna at a garage sale, just for the heck of it. She's kind of a hat girl, and is often wearing a hat, even while playing inside around the house. In fact "haa" ("hat") is one of her words. She's frequently offering the hats she gets out of the hat box to all of us, so we're always prepared. Here, she's modeling the bonnet:

Santa Fe Southern Railroad

We were so fortunate to have Grandma, Grandpa, Kylah, and Aunt Ginnie here over Memorial Day Weekend. We finally rode the train, which was so exciting!

 

....This pretty much sums up Rhys's experience....

....and this pretty much sums up Alanna's. After she fell asleep and took a nap, she was in a better mood....

....If only we were all this flexible! Rhys is looking at the rails go by through the slats in the open flatcar. In front and in back of the flatcar was a coach car, each of which was manned by a host who told stories and facts, served alcohol, and sang songs....

....Daddy kept Alanna cozy while she napped....

....The smoke from the steam engine. The coach cars were actually from the 1890s, and so we couldn't go very fast because they might have fallen apart en route....

....We had an absolutely gorgeous day. This is pretty much what all of the area around Santa Fe looks like. This is looking northwest on our return trip at the Sangre de Cristos mountains....

 .....Just in case you were wondering....

....Whoo Hoooo!!....

General Silliness

Well, we're back at it again. Actually, we've never stopped, so we're completely exhausted....

 

...Rhys and Alanna look at the world a little differently...

...Alanna poses with her new sunglasses...

...and finally, Alanna was so excited about bath time (she always is!) that she managed to haul herself over the side of the tub and get in the water before I got her diaper and shoes off...

Baby Signs

We started basic baby sign language with Alanna a couple of months ago, and have just seen her first signs in the last couple of days. Right now she only has two clear ones: "all done" and "more" relating to mealtimes. She also seems to be on the verge of waving, as she does a sort of backhand salute to Daddy as he heads off to work. And she perhaps is also blowing kisses by putting her palm up to her mouth and looking darn cute (we're not sure if she's actually doing this one since she's not predictable yet). I'm pretty excited! We signed with Rhys, too, and it was a wonderful tool to have for communication. I don't remember how many signs Rhys used, but I learned over 50 in part because I'm interested in ASL anyway. If you wanted to have a conversation in signs about the farm or animals or our daily baby schedule, I could tell you all about it!  Right now, I keep an ASL video dictionary bookmarked so I can look up new signs as we need them.

Here is Alanna demonstrating that she is all done with her yogurt lunch!

(Almost) Walking Tall

 

Alanna is quite the cruiser. Here she's taking the push-toy for a walk, but she'll walk anything that will move across the floor– the baby keyboard, the laundry basket, the dining room chairs. Stuff is spread far and wide throughout the dining room and living room because once she runs into something, she simply plops down on the floor, crawls over to something else to push, and is on her way again. 

And yes, those are the snazziest pink fuzzy legwarmers you've ever seen..... 

Booger Glue

It's some of the stickiest in nature!

Autumn Images

--Happy Fall!--

--Pressing apples into apple cider at our friends' house--


--Napping on Daddy while he's on the phone--

-- Napping on Mommy while she does housework--

--"No, Mommy, I'm not really sure how this sand got stuck to my snot..."--

--"I'm funny!"--

On the last photo: Rhys's sense of humor is really developing. He's experimenting with what other people might find funny– and how he can get them to laugh. He'll do something, such as putting on Daddy's shoes and clomping around the house, and then inform us, "That's funny!"

Sitting Pretty

Alanna continues to amaze me. She can sit on her own (at 4 1/2 months!), though she needs some protection when she wobbles. She occasionally arches her back, which causes her to flop on her back (or the boppy, which is a softer alternative than the floor), and she'll lean too far to the side to get back upright on her own, particularly if she's reaching for something just beyond her grasp. I sat her up (with close supervision) in the bath tonight and she had a blast splashing her hands in the water. I think she likes the new perspective and ways to play with toys. She can still only roll over from her back to her front, and not back onto her back, so she gets very frustrated when she's stuck on her tummy. Sitting gives some nice variety to her play time, I think.