Ally learned lots of new things this weekend. Friday, she learned how to blow raspberries on other people's bellies (and arms and legs). Anytime I lay on the floor now with any stomach at all exposed, she detours over and blows. The strange thing is that she doesn't laugh about it. She must think it's fun because she keeps doing it, but she doesn't act like it.
What she does think is funny is knocking blocks over. She has finally learned to destroy block towers. And she doesn't just giggle about it either. She has deep belly laughs. She usually gives herself hiccups. She gets so excited about it she knocks them over even if they aren't stacked up.
Sunday night she even took a step. just one, but she didn't fall. She also started standing up with heavy toys in hand. Last night she picked up her panda bear and stood up. I think it helps counter balance her weight. god help us...she'll be walking soon

We all had a great time Sunday. Thank you to all who came. We were all exhausted last night. Of course, the new pictures I just posted weren't available til today. Bad timing! Oh well. We've got them now, I guess.

Ally has a Leapfrog learning drum at daycare that she likes to play with. When she slaps the top of it, it counts and plays music. So last night, she was slapping my stomach over and over, but she just couldn't get any music to play. I think she enjoyed herself anyway.

My wonderful mother offered to babysit last night so that I could have a night off for my birthday. Rob picked Ally up from daycare. I came home and fed her and played for about 1/2 hour, got a nice long shower and we went out to eat. I came home feeling sooo rested. That was about the best birthday present I could have gotten. And I only called home to check in once.

If you put her feet the right distance apart on the floor and stand her up, she will stand for 2-3 seconds at a time. She doesn't know what to make of it, though. Once she loses her balance, she tries to stand up again, but the second time, she's excited, and can't hold still, so she just plops to the floor again. we're having loads of fun. Hope to see everyone sometime soon

Well, Last night was the first night that I slept all night since Mother's day. Ally has had 3 colds, and, therefore, 3 ear infections. And she's teething, but not getting any teeth. But, other than nighttime, we're having a great time together. She's getting around very quickly and pulling up on anything that will stand still (and some things that won't). She starting saying dadadada for a few days, but then quit when she got distracted by trying to learn how to clap and wave. She holds her left hand real still and smacks her right one against it. We think it's just hilarious, so she smacks her right hand against (again) anything that is near her, including me. She's 20 pounds now, and I think she's getting taller too. She loves it when we take walks at night, which we've been trying to do, since we're all getting fat.

We've taken her into the pool twice. The first time she'd splash until she got water all over her face, then try to lick it all off. The second time, she was more interested in trynig to gum the squirt toys to death and pull her hat off. I'm still doing monthly pictures, and posted the newest ones. She wasn't in a great mood. It wasn't too bad, but she just wanted to be held instead of sat down all alone.

Graduation is over!! No more school for a couple of months. That is a very good thing, believe me!

Ally is not satisfied now with crawling. (She does it pretty well: we've had to start remembering to shut the stair gate when she's on the floor. The best motivator for getting her to crawl is a tie between one of the cats, and and pair of shoes on the floor. Shoes are fun to drool on.) She doesn't just crawl though. She thinks she should be able to walk. We see crawling one minute then the next, she's standing on her hands and toes with her butt in the air, trying to stand up on her own. She's pulling up to whatever will hold still. If only she would sleep! For about a month she was sleeping pretty regularly all through the night. Then all of a sudden, she fusses every night for a couple of hours. I think it might have been the weather change, but I can't get it figured out. Last night, I had to kick on the a/c and lay her down without a blanket in a onesie to get her back to sleep. I'm not looking forward to when it actually is summer.

Sitting up is old hat now. She does it every 2 or 3 minutes when she wants to get somewhere. She manages a couple of crawling motions, then sits up to see how close she got. Then lunges forward and crawls a couple more inches. She loves to find and slobber on the tv remote, so we have to be careful when we pick it up not to reach for the drool end. What is it with remotes anyway? The cats love to sit on them too. Do they just know the tv is taking attention away from them? oh well...anyway... Rob's graduation from LLCC is Friday at 7:30. We're having a light dinner before and cake (although I didn't tell him about the cake part.) He took one final today and is pretty sure he aced it. The other one is Thursday. Wish him luck!

Last night, all Ally's work paid off. She's been kicking her leg out and flipping her arm back trying to sit up, but the other leg was still folded in the laying down position. Last night she figured out how to swing it out and sit up. The first time she did it, I think she was confused. The second time, she just kept going and ended up on her back. But she did it twice more and thinks she's cool now. When she sits up and quits wobbling, she looks around and waits for applause then smiles real big. She's still working on crawling, but she has no trouble getting to the toys she wants by other means (mainly lunging and turning in circles to get there. She's got all the time in the world). Look out cats!!

We put our gate up on the stairs. Ally has started trying to crawl. She does pretty good, except that almost all of her progress is backwards. I wondered if she'd have any trouble getting that huge belly of hers off the ground, but she manages. She even scoots her legs forward, but hasn't managed to figure out how to move her arms. I hope it takes a while. While she's stationary, she's a lot easier to watch.

We made our first trip to the ER this weekend. Not really an emergency situation, but since Rob's got friends there. We had her checked out and got advice on how to medicate her. She's got a pretty bad upper respiratory cold, which morphed into her first ear infection. She's feeling a lot better now, except for when we make her take her antibiotics. She's not real thrilled with them.

Last Tueesday was her first experience with a babysitter. Rob and I went out for dinner for our aniversary (thanks for the card Harriett). We left her with a nurse that Rob works with who's been asking to babysit since Ally was born. I'm proud to say that I didn't call home to check on her once! I'm not so proud that the first drink I had made me dizzy. It's been a long time! We couldn't think of anything more exciting to do than have dinner. We lead very boring lives. Well, that's about it for now. Love you all

food!!
Ally is starting on eating from a spoon. Mostly she's just slobbering it all over, but she's learning fast. I posted new pictures, so check them out.

Come on...it's "chillin' ". "Chilling" is a scary movie, or the thought that I'm probaly going to turn into my mother someday.Chilin' is kivcking back and being cool. It's an art that Ally has already mastered. hjmnh.l0 - She says hi by the way. She just doesn't spell too well.
(In response to a comment from Uncle Roger re: a picture that was posted)

Oops. Obviously, she inherited the spelling thing from me

Okay, this time Ally cooperated and we got a naked weight. As of 3/24/04 (4 months old) she weighed... 16 lbs 3 3/4 oz. The doctor says she's perfect (ok so maybe there was a little paraphrasing) We also went to get pictures taken (Yet again) at Sears this time, where I was disappointed to find that they don't have online capabilities. So I have to wait until we get them back to scan them in. We won't go back there again. Penney's works just fine. Although, Sears did a great job on the pictures. You'll see. Ally has really mastered the rolling from belly to back, and is now working on the other direction. She discovered her toes last week, and 90% of the time now, you find her with feet in the air holding on to her toes, talking to them. It's the cutest thing!

So life is going on as usual here. We get more playing done than cleaning. Ally slobbers all over everything. So her clothes get washed and ours wait until we need them. Then, one day we're both home, we take turns playing with the baby and try to get everything done in one day. We invariably fail because we don't really take turns. Babies are too fun to let go of. Not much more rolling over. Mostly it happens when she's asleep. She gets her arms under her then. When she's awake, her arms are out next to her and get in the way.

Rob graduates with an associate degree in May!! Then I think he's taking the summer off and starting real school in the fall. Nothing new with me. My life is all about feeding, changing and playing the baby. She's just too much fun. It's a good thing I didn't know how much fun babies are until now...otherwise I 'd have a lot more already! I'm too tired now to have more. We need time to recuperate a little

weight check
I had Ally weighed on Thursday. So far she's up to 15 lbs 12 1/2 oz (with a full diaper. She filled it when I was getting ready to take it off to weigh her, so I thought it wise to leave it on!) No more rolling, but she's been eating up a storm, so I think she's getting ready to grow some more. It's hard to remember how little she was when we brought her home.

Ally rolled over again last night! This is the second time she's done it now. She doesn't quite know what she's doing though. She'll be crawling before long. She tries now and gets very angry when she can't get to all her toys she can see. I can't believe she's growing this fast! We go to the Dr. on the 24th, so we'll see then just how fat she is. For a while there, she was growing in length and making her belly thin out a little, but she's packing it on again now.

Until later
KT