Thanksgiving and a Developmental Burst!

We have had quite a week to say the least. No pics because I am not home yet to upload them. I will have tons though when I get there! For now a recap of our rather busy and exciting week. We got to Atlanta November 19th. It has been wonderful to see friends and catch up. My family all made it to Atlanta Thursday which began the circus at my mom's house. Four kids under the age of 5, 6 adults, 2 black labs, and a cat made this house seem a little snug! There were kids, toys, clothes, diapers, food, little shoes, big shoes and more scattered everywhere. We enjoyed our big shopping day on Friday. Tradition still stands. I will say not being 9 months pregnant this year made it much easier and more pleasurable, even at 4AM. The best part...I am pretty much all done with shopping for everyone! Friday night we all managed to hold our eyes open and our mouths full and enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner. It was delicious! Saturday started out with a bang as I made Ayda's birthday cake (with the help of my SIL Allison). It turned out absolutely adorable and I cannot wait to post the pics. Then we headed to the park for Ayda's one year old pictures by Allison. We had a blast capturing her goofy faces and fun personality. Then we came home in time for lunch where we stuffed ourselves again, cleaned up and had a big birthday party! Ayda loved opening her presents and had even more fun eating the cake (which I paid for later when she didn't go to bed till 10pm)!!! All in all it was a wild but amazingly fun weekend! It was awesome to spend so much time with my brother's family. Ayda loved playing with her cousins!!
And as for the developmental burst...well Ayda has taken off! In the past week she has started pointing to her nose when asked where it is, signing "please', "more" and "all done", and blowing kisses (my favorite)! She is also saying "uh oh" any time she drops something! It is so neat to watch her figure something out each day and communicate with us better. Much less frustrating for her for sure!! I also think we are working on two more teeth...because 10 on her first birthday is simply not enough! AHHH!!!! Where did my baby go?!?! Well that is all for now! The blog was calling me for an update of some sort. Check back soon for pictures of all these festivities!

Wordless Wednesday

A Lease and A Senior Night

Yesterday was an exciting day around here. Kevin got a call from his lawyer saying we had a lease on the property he was negotiating for his practice!!! It is such a relief to know where his practice will be and to move on to the next phase. As Kevin said it is always exciting to finish one chapter but also a little nerve wracking entering the next one. The place is perfect though. Room to grow, great location, in great condition. We are thrilled!

There are two suites in the building. He will be suite A.

The inside, which will end up looking drastically different as they build walls. I'll post pics as the office becomes his own!

Then last night we headed over to Southlake High School for George's (kevin's brother) senior night. He is in the marching band and they were announcing all the football, band, color guard and cheerleader seniors. George asked Kevin to escort him on the field which Kevin enjoyed doing so much. I think you can tell he is proud of his little brother by the huge smile on his face!

Two handsome men

Ayda simply loved being out and part of the festivities. She loved running around and one of us chasing behind!

Ayda playing with Aunt Ivory!

Congrats George! We are proud of you and can't wait to see where you head after graduation!!

A Cold Day in Florida!

I was pretty excited when I got up this morning and it was only 56 degrees outside. Ayda did her morning routine of getting Kevin up and we all bundled up and headed outside. Ayda LOVES being outside. She has so much room to roam around and play. She would be out there all day if I let her! So still in our jammies...with an extra layer added on we had fun playing just after breakfast!

Her way of going down the slide all by herself. She walks up to it, leans over, and "slides" down on her tummy.

Like I said...we got bundled. Kevin was not as excited about the cold weather though!

Quick picture with mommy! Ayda really would have rather been running around though!

Later today it warmed up a little but the wind was still cold. I was super excited to get out the coat my cousin sent Ayda. I was afraid she would outgrow it before she got to wear it. It is super adorable!!! We had fun running around the front yard for over an hour!

Always on the go!!!

A New Toy

Kevin needs to have a strong core for the type of Chiropractic he is doing. He read that these balance boards help to strengthen the core and your overall balance. So we invested in one...and it has become quite a fun toy around here. I have even tried it out. We have both come a long way in two days too. It started with us flying off the side of it and lots of yelling! Now we can manage to either stay on for a longer period of time or simply "gracefully" fly off the side. Regardless it is pretty fun and my legs hurt today from doing it for 15 minutes yesterday.

Some intense concentration going on here!

Oh no...hold on!!!!

And away he goes...off the back!

Eleven Months!!

11 Months: One more month and I will officially have a one year old. Although, I have many days I feel like I have a toddler already. Ayda has been busy this month:

-Cut another tooth (we are up to 9 now)

-Become MUCH more "talkative".

-Can stand up from sitting position (no more crawling)

-Finally started clapping

-Plays peek a boo on her own

-LOVES her dollie

-celebrated her first halloween as a "busy bee"

-has become quite the picky eater

It's been another amazing month, baby girl! I cannot believe next month we will be celebrating one year with you. It has been the best year of our lives! We love you and are SO proud of you!

11 Months too late...

I have loved these bows on little girls for months. I finally bought one the other day and, well, I am thinking our next girl will have to wear it. Or we will pass it on to someone else. Ayda rips it off about 10 seconds after I put it on. Oh well...I do plan to keep working on convincing her that it is cute but stubborn against stubborn may not work out! We'll see!

I did manage to grab a couple pics of her wearing it though!!!

A Better Day for Dollie!

Poor little doll...

Ayda's doll had an unfortunate afternoon. We were hanging out in our room this afternoon and Ayda was playing with her toys very nicely. I was watching something on the computer and heard her start to get frustrated. When I looked to see what she was doing I saw this...

...pulling the arms and legs of her doll...

Still not entirely sure what was going on I continued to watch her attempts...

...more pulling and more tugging...

And alas I realized she had somehow gotten his little head wedged in the window. Not sure how she did this but even I had to twist and turn him a little to get him free (cause opening the window a little more would be entirely too easy). But her doll is free now...tough afternoon!

Hope her parenting skills improve with age!

Story of my life...

Tonight was quite a night with Ayda. I'll leave some details out for your sake but I did manage to capture a few pictures that show the details I will share. I have been making Ayda's baby food since she took her first bite of it. I love knowing exactly what is going in her mouth and system. So when cooking day comes I don't mind at all using her long afternoon nap to make pureed sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, carrots, edamame, etc. Today I decided to try out some new recipes. The smell in the kitchen was amazing and I could not wait to feed her dinner. Full of colors and flavor. So at 630 we sat down to eat and it all left my control from there. She decided she would much rather play with the food that i worked all afternoon to prepare than eat it. All the good smelling flavorful food was everywhere. It was most definitely straight to the bath after dinner. And I ended up eating most of her dinner tonight. I suppose we shall try again tomorrow. She didn't completely turn up her nose at it so maybe she just wasn't hungry. That's what I am telling myself at least!

All Done!!!

So funny! (Aunt Allison...this is Ayda's cheeeeese face!)

And after dinner, I caught Ayda digging through her high chair (I had not had a chance to clean it out yet) eating cheerios from it. So on a clean spot on the floor I gave her a handful (since she didn't eat much dinner) of fresh cheerios. And about five minutes later I looked over to see what she was doing and she was laying on the ground eating her snack. She was happy!

I find myself asking so often if I really have an 11 month old. She does so many things that make me think she is older but she's not! Sigh!

My mom is in town this weekend! We went to Disney Epcot on Friday and had a blast. We decided Epcot would be good because they are having the food and wine festival right now! It also worked best with Ayda in tow! She did great of course. She loves disney and had fun meeting the characters this time. We enjoyed some yummy food as well. Ayda finally gave up and fell asleep in her stroller at around 2 (she completely skipped her morning nap)! It was a great day at Disney!