**Aliya's bite update**

I just heard back from Urgent Care and Aliya is in the clear. The tests showed no sign of infection or bacteria, so we can discontinue the antibiotics right away! It appears as though or little ladybug is just very sensitive to bug bites! What a relief!

Friday Fun

Friday I took the day off of work to spend with Aliya (since I had to work Saturday). Mid morning we met up with Jennifer and Aliya's friends and headed to the Rec. Center for Pre-school swim hour. Since I spent all the time in the water with Aliya I didn't get a chance to take many pictures, I actually only took one picture of Aliya the entire swim. She loved it!!! I loved it!!!

Aliya getting out of the water at the end of the swim time, she wouldn't look at me to save her life!


After swim time we walked over to the park area at the Center for a picnic lunch. There were a ton of geese (that Aliya loved and chased all of them).

Here are three of Aliya's friends that we spent the day with!


Aliya was very proud of herself eating her yogurt all on her own. I wore just as much as she did by the end of the cup.


Here she is chasing the geese. I was pleasantly surprised she didn't get hissed at by them. We took bread to feed them, but she ate the bread herself and and just ran ofter the geese.


After her goose chase she played on the equipment. The slide is always her favorite. BUT there was goose poop all over the place and she started eating the sand...so we finished up pretty quickly.


She played so hard that she crashed on the way home. We ended up making a run to Urgent Care later that night for a bite on her leg. We are still not sure what it is, but it seems to be healing. She was given a sript for antibiotics until we hear the results of the swab test they took of the puss. YUCK! You would have thought the stethoscope had a huge needle on the end of it the way she screamed and carried on...and the evil scale. Our little ladybug threw quite the fit for the nurse. But we did get a current weight on her, 24 lbs! She doesn't appear to be in an pain from the bite, so that's good. I'll keep you posted when we get the test results back, probably tomorrow they said.

Oh, I almost forgot. We also put the super gate away Friday morning. Before we left for the pool I was putting dishes away while Aliya was playing in the living room. She got really quiet and the next thing I knew she had moved the gate from the stairs that head downstairs and was in the lower level of the house. She looked up at me with a huge smile on her face and clapped for herself. So, I took the gate away all together. She is LOVING her new found freedom in the house! Of course I kept the gate at the top of the upstairs gate up...but she is a pro at the stairs now. She is such a big girl!!!

I tried something new...what do you think?

Okay, so I tried something new with Aliya's hair. She sat so still for like 30 minutes then she was DONE! (and I wasn't) I hope to finish the back in the morning. I will try to get a picture once the look is complete. Not bad for my first try.

Aliya's 17 month update

I can't believe our little ladybug is 17 months old already. She is doing new things everyday, but here are a few of her newest...

*Finally in size 4 diapers
*in size 4 shoes
*wears all 18 month pants/ 18-24 month shirts
*RUNS everywhere, her new thing is "set go" and she takes off running
*Uses a "big" fork (salad fork) with each meal, she HATES her baby forks
*learned to drink through a straw a few weeks ago
*has about a 30 word vocabulary, some words she uses every day, some are few and far between. Her newest words are "school, elbow, work, look, set go, body, baseball".
*if you ask her where daddy is in the morning she'll say "work"
*if you ask her where Joel is (when he's not with us) she'll say "cool" (school)
*loves to brush her teeth
*still loves to pray at each meal and before bed
*if you ask her where anything is on her body she bats her eyes at you then, if you're lucky, points to whatever you are asking
*is obsessed with mommy's body parts (if you know what I mean!?!)
*can turn on the TV with the remote, change the channel and the volume
*wants mommy and daddy to watch everything she does and yells at us until we look at her and comment on whatever it is she's doing
*loves to read books
*takes her shoes off just so she can try to put them back on herself
*she tells us she loves us daily

I'm sure I'm missing a few, but for now this will do!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day everyone!!!!

Family Game Night

Joel has been very interested in playing games together as a family lately. He brought out an old favorite the other night, Connect Four. He warned me that "he rocks" at the game (those are his words, not mine)! He really is good!! Aliya wanted to play too, she did great putting the pieces in. Joel let her win a few times, it was really cute. He was telling her where to go (not that she listened or anything). It was a nice night, I think we will have more of these this summer!








I'm not sure why we played on his travel Connect Four game, he has a regular one we played on the following night, but whatever works!

From "Hollywood" to Now

Here are two shots of Aliya, the first is last year during Joel's baseball and the second is on opening day this year. The team mom's nick named her "Hollywood" last year, not sure what we'll call her this year.







I can't believe how fast this year has flown and how much she's changing!