Alicia turns 2 today!

Just a quick note that today's Alicia's 2nd birthday. We are having a few of her friends over to the Childrens museum in Naperville today, followed by some pizza at our place.

I (Drew using heather's login) thought to post a few pictures from May 31st in the past few years.

Hope you enjoy the new header in celebration of Alicia's birthday.

2006

2007

2008

busy

boy oh boy, we've been busy... sorry for the late update, but over the holiday weekend we were relaxing, having some fun, but staying busy. then earlier in the week, mommy's allergies took the best of her, and she's been a bit under the weather the last few days as well. so hopefully everyone is up to par for the big weekend when I turn 2!!

flowers

On the back deck, I've recently planted some flowers in pots. Everyday Alicia goes out there and begins to poke around in them, and I've said "no...no..." as I was afraid of what she'd do with them. I thought they were too fragile for her pulling and roughness, but today she paid more attention to them then in the past, so I thought what I great way to introduce her to helping me take care of them. I think she loved tending to the flowers and helping mommy out. She had a fit when the water in her cup was gone and an even worse tantrum when I told her we were done watering them and had to go back inside. I think she's going to be a good "gardener" some day...



All gone... :(




I saw this quote on a random blog the other day, and thought it was a good one, so I think it fits well with today's post... Beautiful flowers often take a long time to bloom, and often lots of hard work, but they are worth waiting for.

fun at the Fords

This is a little late, but last weekend we went to a going away party for the Ford's house. They just sold their townhome recently and are anxiously awaiting to move into their brand new single family home. Kaylee had a number of little friends over, and Carl, Alicia, Lucas, and Zac seemed to have a lot of fun hanging out that evening. We can't wait for the next party at the new house :)

iCool

I recently got a new ipod, as my old one desperatly needed a rest. It was I think was the first ipod to come out to not have a mechanical wheel on it for any of those geeks out there that knows what I mean - it was way cool at the time about 5-6 years ago. Anyways, my new ipod is nice and Alicia really loves it too. She can watch her tv shows, videos, and even try to listen to her favorite songs. Here's Alicia helping me with my new ipod. :)

Alicia has decided to give me her tutorial - she is such a techie already ;)

"You see you touch it like this and move the pictures like that...

So easy I can do it!"

Here we are sharing the ipod, while two seconds later, Alicia wants to hog it and enjoy it all by herself. I guess it must have been a good song. ;)

how do we start...

wow, so this type of update post about Alicia has been in the works, but I just haven't been able to put the words together for it yet. Drew and I are just so proud of her and well, at times, I think she is pretty proud and amazed by herself, by the looks she sometimes gives us, its amazing. Some days we have our ups and others are downs, but days like today make us pretty happy to see this kind of progress :)

Alicia has been babbling forever, but nothing real definite. We've had a speech therapist for a couple of sessions now and I think she's been helping us get better techniques and getting the peanut to crack and open up some more to us. (and in words we are starting to understand, than the normal babbling.) Take a look yourself.
This is the recent..



Alicia's doesn't start with just 1 words... she said 2 words together.. if you can't tell, she is telling Tanner "don't touch" - hahaha... wonder where she picked this phrase up from ? :)

Actually in the past, we've thought she's said "here you go" several times too, but never real consistent. other words of her liking: cheese, fish, yup, no-no-no-no, ya, ma for either milk or more, up, elp- meaning help, Ta- for Tanner, at - for cat, hot, and just recently all da - for all done and now don't touch. Every once in a awhile, I think she might say, ball or book, but nothing too crazy yet. She does love to make animal noises though, the monkey, a cow, a cat, a dog, a gorilla, a horse, chicken, and of course, the wheels on the bus noises, like sh/sh/sh and beep/beep/beep and ish/ish/ish and wah/wah/wah.

So long story short, we are getting there...

mommy's day at daycare

Thursday afternoon Alicia's daycare had a very nice "mommy social" - it was very cute. Here's a few pictures from our nice afternoon. The kids had a very busy week of activities and preparing all of the special gifts for us. They made a special welcome sign for the door, handprint posters, pretty colored and decorated "vases" (actually milk chugs) with adorable "hand"-made flowers in them, and to top it off, the kids even made some special snacks for us that day! They helped make mini pudding cheesecakes, chocolate dipped strawberries and lemonade. They sure were busy and I think all of the mommies really appeciated the kids' (and the teachers') work on it all.

Happy Mother's Day

Thanks for being the Best Mommies and Grandmommies in the world.

Love Alicia & Drew

outside fun at daycare

The other night when I went to pick up Alicia at daycare she was having a lot of fun with her friends outside. Alicia is not in the same primary room as Carl and Lucas, but she does get to socialize with them during certain activities. I think she really enjoys them a lot. I love the third picture her with Lucas, as you can tell she is really checking out and talking to Lucas.

quick trip

This weekend we made a quick trip back home to Iowa for a bridal shower for Aunt Ann. I had fun playing with my cousin Amara at the shower, while Aunt Ann got some cool stuff. Later that day, Aunt Ann and I had a lot of fun outside drawing on Grandma and Grandpa's driveway with chalk :)