My Little Girly-Girl

This is my favorite thing that is happened in a long time. I have never taught Aly the importance of make-up or the role it will play in her future life as a woman, nor have I ever taught her how to apply it. I was hoping to take the "you are beautiful just the way God made you" approach. However, my little girly-girl has watched me do this tedious chore to my own face several times. (As all mothers know, you can't leave a toddler alone to go do your make-up.) On this particular occasion, Aly climbed up in my lap, asked for the make-up and instinctively started applying it to her own precious little face. Now it might look like she is wearing lipstick in these pictures, but her lips have actually looked like that since birth, literally. She only thought she was making herself more beautiful when actually, in our opinion, it would be impossible for her to be any more beautiful than she already is.

Happy Easter, Aly!

This was Aly's second Easter. She is acting so grown-up and is so interested in anything new, so we assumed that she would be fascinated by the whole Easter egg experience. Well, we had our moments of fascination and our moments of being very tired and confused. She could not figure out why we kept insisting that she pick up all of the "balls" in the yard.

Dying eggs didn't go the way we had hoped, but Daddy was a trooper anyway.


























We went to our first official Easter egg hunt at Caroline's new house. Being the city girl that Aly is, she wasn't used to walking on the rough terrain that is their front yard, so she had a little trouble and became very frustrated. She finally decided she had enough and wanted to go inside and read books. However, we did have so much fun getting the girls together and creating new traditions.






























We tried the Easter egg hunt again at our house. We can't wait for next year's first Easter Bunny experience. She's growing up so fast!

Spring Break!

For Spring Break we took a mini-vacation to Kansas City. It ended up being a very kid-friendly trip and we had so much fun! Aly is just old enough to get to really enjoy all of the things we got to do. We went shopping, ate some wonderful food, and went to the zoo! She enjoyed every minute of it and we had a great time watching her reactions.

We stayed on the 7th floor of a beautiful hotel. Aly loved the view.


































We got lots of rain, but we didn't let it spoil our fun! Aly got some new rain boots and her new stroller has a rain guard. Yes, she's our little bubble girl...





































We went to the T-Rex Cafe, Rainforest Cafe, and Crayola Cafe! Aly loved them all, but the T-Rex aquarium was her favorite.













































Every 30 minutes, they would have a meteor shower. She wasn't so sure about this part...

















Being the animal lover that she is, she was fascinated by the zoo. Thankfully, we had beautiful weather.





































She didn't want to leave, but is very glad to be home. We can't wait to go back!

Aly's Little Hospital Gown

Donny finally remembered to email me pictures of Aly right before she got her tubes. I didn't realize the procedure wouldn't be done in her own clothes. It scared me a little when we walked into the room and saw the little yellow polyester gown laying there. After we got it on her it was so cute we had to take pictures. Pitiful Angel. She didn't know what was coming!

Mondays With Dad

Mondays are usually special days that Daddy and Aly get to spend together. It's Dad's day off , so he keeps her all day. He dresses her up and fixes her hair (notice the picture above) and they play until she is completely worn out. They always take a trip to buy a new toy because he insists on spoiling her. Today they went to the mall to buy Aly's first pair of Nikes and a Daisy Duck doll from the Disney store. Dad is way more fun than Mom because he doesn't even make her ride in a stroller (something I would never dare attempt). He carries her into a store and then lets her walk around and pick out whatever she wants. These are pictures he took with his phone of Aly picking out her special Monday treat from Dad. "Wrapped around that little finger" doesn't even come close to describing their relationship.


Aly is testing out all of the dolls to see which one is just right...

Poor Baby

Aly has had quite a few difficult weeks. This is a picture from the last time she was at church, which was four weeks ago! She has had ear infections nonstop since November and has been on six different antibiotics. A couple of weeks ago, she caught a virus that was so bad that we spent four hours in the emergency room thinking it was RSV or pneumonia, but thankfully it wasn't. Then we found out at a follow-up appointment that she caught the flu from the doctor's office! Donny is still recovering from hernia surgery and shouldn't be lifting her (which he still does) and I just got over the flu myself. This morning we had tubes put in her ears, so we are hoping that this is the end of all of the ear infections. The whole procedure only lasted about nine minutes and she did great. The doctor said one was just full of a watery fluid, but the other ear had fluid that was the consistency of an egg white and it would not have ever gotten better. The worst part was when she came back to us and was disoriented from the anesthesia. She just cried and cried, bless her little heart. She has done great since then and hopefully we will see a big difference in how she is feeling. We had so many people praying for her to get better and praying for her procedure to go well and we are so thankful. Even Cousin Holly prayed for "Baby Alyson" at every meal and at bedtime. There's nothing like the faith of a child!

Think, Think, Think

Aly's newest obsession is "My Friends Tigger and Pooh". On the show, the characters point to their heads and say, "Think, think, think". Uncle Anthony and Aunt Sarah bought her the Christmas movie for Christmas and she has about worn it out. It's her favorite. As soon as it's over we hear, "Think, think, think?" and we have to watch it again. She asks as soon as she wakes up in the morning and keeps asking all day long. For Valentine's Day, she got another Pooh video (thinking we might at least have some sort of variety) and a new Pooh doll from Daddy. How can we resist that little finger pointing to that sweet little head?