Aly's Friends

This is the most recent picture of Aly and her BFF, Caroline.
Thank you for giving us mommies a night out, Mimi!!


My, how they've grown...

Aly also loves her cousin, Holly.


More friends...


I am so thankful for all of the "friends" Aly has. They learn so much from each other and are so happy when they are together. I hope Aly is already learning the importance and the joy of spending time with friends who love her.

Easter 2009

What a wonderful Easter! Aly was so much fun this year and she loved everything about it. Aly's friend, Averie, had an Easter egg hunt for her second birthday. I was so happy we had the chance to spend a whole day outside hunting eggs with her friends since it rained all day on Easter. Aly got to decorate her own "basket" which turned out to be a job that she took very seriously. She was the last kid at the table, still sticking stickers on her can, when everyone else was ready to go outside.

Patiently waiting to start the hunt...


When it was time to run out the door, I told her to go find some eggs. She ran straight to the first one she saw and said, "I found one!" I couldn't stand to tell her it was a decorative item. I just told her she did a good job and took her picture.




Everyone else ate cake at the table. She was also the only kid who wore those bunny ears the entire day. She marches to the beat of her very own drummer.


What a fun day!



Baking Easter Cupcakes with Mommy


SO messy, but SO fun!



Time to color Easter eggs!




Easter Morning

When I was a kid, the Easter Bunny would make a trail that led from our beds to our baskets. I thought I would keep the tradition alive this year. Aly was so excited to wake up and find a trail of eggs that led to a table full of goodies just for her. She was actually more excited about the Nemo fruit snacks than anything else, but at least she was happy. She is so easily pleased.

All dressed up and ready for church

I don't know if I let her eat too many chocolate covered marshmallow bunnies or what, but she was acting so silly, I couldn't really get a great picture of her with her Easter dress on. (She calls it her "ballet" dress.)
With every new holiday and every new experience we get to share with Aly, our lives just become so much more fun, exciting, and enjoyable. It's like we are getting to experience life all over again by getting the opportunity to watch it through her eyes. We love you, Baby Girl!!

This is a short clip of our sweet Aly cooking with Mommy.

New York!!!

I have waited so long to get my picture taken in Times Square and here it is!

In January, I bit the bullet and met Donny in New York! He was there on business and I'd never been, so I actually left Aly at home (as hard as it was) and made the trip. It was everything I had hoped it would be and so much more! Donny really made an effort to make it special for me. We packed so much into four days, (which turned out to be five because of the ice storm) but it was still pretty relaxing because we just did what we felt like doing each day rather than sticking to an itinerary.

We stayed at the Helmsley Parklane on Central Park South, which is the tall buildingjust two down from the actual Plaza Hotel!

We spent an entire morning just wandering around Central Park in the snow. It was my absolute favorite part of the trip.

We got up extra early on our last day and went to see the Today Show. We made a sign for my class and were on TV for a long time! Unfortunately, a catastrophic ice storm was hitting Arkansas as we stood there, so no one back home had power. No one got to see it, much less record it for us. A couple of my students got to see it, but actually lost power during the show. We had a great time though. Meredith spent some time talking to us and even wrote a note to my class on my sign. We didn't get to talk to Matt, but Donny scored a photo op' with Al!!

This was a great find and probably one of my favorite restaurants we went to. If you know me at all you know this is a Robyn kind of place.

If you know Donny and me at all you know we are truly obsessive coffee drinkers, so this was another great find. It was as "New York" as you can get.

We had an incredible time reconnecting as a couple, but were so ready to come home and see our baby girl!

Another simple, yet unforgettable day

Today was an unusually stressful and tiresome workday for me. As Aly and I pulled into the garage late this afternoon, I have to admit the words that were beginning to creep out of my exhausted mouth were, " Aly, do you want to pick a movie?" But before I could say anything she said in an excited little voice, "Cook in Mommy's kitchen?" It was almost as if she had made her own plans for how we would spend our evening and was just now sharing them with me. "Wear my apron?" she asked. "Do you want to cook in Aly's kitchen?" I said, hoping she would take the bait and pretend-cook in her pretend-kitchen. "No, cook in Mommy's kitchen," she repeated. When we walked through the door, she ran over and grabbed our mother-daughter matching aprons that my mom got us for my birthday. "Mommy, here's your apron. I'll get the cinnamon!"Aly knows her mommy well. I put cinnamon in everything. How could I even think of saying no?

I frantically searched through the pantry trying to find something easy to bake or we were going to have to commit to something from scratch like we usually do. (I've tried slice-n-bake cookie dough. She requires the dumping of multiple ingredients into a bowl and continuous mixing.) I found a package of banana nut muffin mix that only needed milk and as I glanced at the brown bananas in our fruit bowl, I knew we were in business. Aly and I try to cook together at least once a week. I do most of the work and again, leave the ingredient dumping and mixing to her. Today I decided to let her have free reign. I got her started and then let her tell me what she wanted to add. Then I let her do it. It was amazing to watch.

She mashed her bananas (she's a pretty experienced banana masher), flung the mix all over the cabinet as she dumped it into the bowl, decided it needed cinnamon and sprinkled to her heart's content, grabbed the sugar canister and asked me to open it, added a reasonable amount of sugar, and then asked me as she mixed it all together, "Mommy, where's the 'nilla?" (Yes, "vanilla"! She's a true little Racheal Ray in the making.)

(Notice the overflowing cup in the middle. She was very concerned about it and kept saying, "that one is too big!" When they came out of the oven it was obviously the biggest one. When Daddy got home and asked for one, that was the one she chose for him!)


When she was done, she put all of the muffin cups in the tin and then scooped every bit of the batter into the cups herself. This is a step I would normally never let her do, but it made her day. When she finished she said, "Put it in the oven!"

While we were waiting for the muffins to bake, Aly decided she wanted me to braid her hair. Now I was REALLY in heaven!! I usually have to beg her to let me put braids in her hair. It was like she was returning the favor of letting her cook by asking me to do something she knows I love to do!

She is always proud of the goodies we make together, but she had a little extra twinkle in her eyes tonight when she really felt like she was the cook and I was the helper. She ate four of them and asked for more. I let her spoil her dinner. It was all so worth it. I'm so glad I didn't convince her to "pick a movie" instead of spending this time with her. I am hoping this sweet memory will serve as a constant reminder to pay attention to all of her little suggestions, drop what I am doing to be a good mom, and that she is capable of so much more than I give her credit for. Her confidence and self-worth grew a little bit today as she shook that cinnamon. I fell in love with her a little bit more as I watched her do it.

(I promise we did not teach her this.)

Before I post the pictures I should have posted months ago and catch up on the last three months of Aly's life, I just want to reintroduce you to this silly little girl who has grown and learned so much. Here's the latest:

• Aly is a future American Idol contestant. It's true. She spends all day every day singing her favorite songs, which at this moment are "Sesame Street", "Sing a Song", "Jesus Loves Me", "ABC's", "Five Little Monkeys", and "Twinkle, Twinkle". She also loves dancing to American Idol and often tells us to "dance on the floor!"
  
• She has become very interested in learning more about Jesus. Every night before we go to sleep we have to "read 'bout Jesus", which means reading stories from her Little Girl's Bible Storybook for Mothers and Daughters, which I highly recommend. She can tell you the complete story of Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark and she names all of her babies Isaac after Abraham and Sarah's baby. I think she is finally starting to understand that Jesus wasn't always a baby.
  
• After we read our Bible, Aly folds her little hands, squeezes her eyes shut and thanks Jesus for everything she can think of. (From Mommy and Daddy to pufferfish and apple juice.) One night when she had a bad cold, she said, "Thank you, Jesus, for feel better."
• We are finally to the point where she can communicate just about anything to us, which is really nice. I think back to all of those times when I thought how much I wished she could just tell me what she wanted and now she can. We were in the car yesterday and she wanted to listen to her Curious George song again, for the 1,000th time. Donny and I were talking and weren't paying much attention to what she was saying until she pleaded, "Daddy, I say (said) please!"
• We walked into Mason's the other day, which is an obvious girly store if you've never been there. As soon as we walked in the door she said, "Mommy, there's no boys in here!" Excellent observation.
• She can not only recognize all of her letters of the alphabet and their sounds, but she can also spell and recognize her name! She can also recognize a circle, triangle, square, and rectangle and knows all of her colors! She loves to learn and has a great memory.
  
• About a week ago, she learned how to draw a smiley face! She draws a "circle, two eyes, nose, and smile"! Donny took a picture of her best one with his phone yesterday. She did this all by herself!! (Just the face, not the stick person.)

She continues to bring us more and more happiness every day as we watch her grow, learn, and turn into the little person she is going to be. There's truly nothing better than being her mommy.

Finally Time to Catch Up

I know I haven't updated Aly's blog since November, but the holidays are always so busy. Then we lost a very special person in our lives. I couldn't keep posting every day pictures without mentioning him, but I haven't been able to bring myself to put anything into words until now.

Thomas was more than just Caroline's daddy, Bonnie's husband or even our best-friend-in-law (if there's such a thing). He was our friend. Every memory I have from high school and so many since then includes him in some way. He was the most intelligent person I have ever known. I always joked that if you had a question about anything, no matter what it was, all you had to do was ask Thomas and he would either know the answer or make up one that was so good you believed him.

He was funny. Every day situations were just more fun with him around. We used to always make fun of him because he had such a baby-face that he really didn't have to shave and he would always reply with, "I can't help it! I'm Scandinavian!" which was such a typical Thomas come back.

He loved my best friend with all of his heart. On one of the trips to Florida that I took with Bonnie's family, she and Thomas spent a lot of their time combing the beach for seashells because Bonnie loved them. (Sorry, Bon, I know you don't like this story, but it's my favorite!!) He had such a great attitude about it and seemed to love it as much as she did. Then one night, I happened to pass through a room where Thomas had fallen asleep and heard him talking in his sleep about "collecting all those freakin' shells"! I laughed for days about it, but I also knew at that moment how much he loved her.

Aly spent the first year I went back to work with Bonnie's mom and Caroline at their house. I used to have to leave her with Thomas some mornings and he would keep her and Caroline until she got there. I remember day after day of leaving Aly in his arms, screaming her head off and him telling me to just go and she'd be fine as he frantically searched for Mickey Mouse on the DVR.

I have been overwhelmed (and I know she has too) by the number of people who don't even know Bonnie, but have told me they are praying for her and Caroline and her soon-to-be baby brother. Prayer and her limitless faith have gotten her through this time, so please remember to continue to pray for her as time goes by. I know she is faced with new challenges every day, but her strength comes from God and He is able.

You can follow her blog at www.sweetcarolinebaby.blogspot.com
You will be inspired.