Growing Up

We have some major blog catch up to do, but I didn't want to rush through the last few weeks too much because we've had some really fun times. So, I will just try to do several blog posts in rapid succession :)

Alyse is growing up SO fast! She will be ONE in under two weeks. There are definitely moments of this last year that went slowly (i.e. months of sleep deprivation!), but for the most part it has gone rather quickly. And, it's hard to remember that a year ago we didn't even know this little baby girl! We definitely feel like she's been part of our family forever.

I will do an official one year post, but just to document what she is up to right now here are some pics and a list of my favorite things that she can do:

-after months of army crawling with one arm then with both arms, she is finally crawling consistently on her hands and knees (now her belly no longer sweeps the floor for me!)
-she claps for herself and when I say "yeah!" she starts clapping
-she is standing up and gets so proud of herself (smiles really big) when she looks up and realizes she's seeing things from a higher perspective
-she LOVES other kids and is getting much more adventurous since she sees other kids all the time trying things like climbing up the slide, etc.
-she points and says "da" when she sees something she wants to know more about or when she wants to eat something different than what you are feeding her-- she also shakes her head no when she is done eating something/she doesn't want to eat it
-if you ask her where her head, toes, or ears are she can point to them!
-and my favorite new "trick" is that if you ask her "what does a doggie say?" she purses her lips, and after a few stifled giggles says "woof woof"!