23 Months, Just About 2!

Been a long time, we've been busy! Here are the bullet points:

• The term "terrible twos? We're starting to understand


• Went through ear tube surgery. Now Alana has a decent vocabulary and will surprise you at any moment with a word she knows. Scary...


• Hair? It's coming in, but it's coming in however the heck it wants. If we find a robin family living in there it won't be a surprise.


• Long winter = a child that wants to be outside all the time. Taking her inside is the equivalent of dental surgery to you and I.
  
• The best thing? Everything is new to her. It's just amazing. Birds, squirrels, wind, shadows, airplanes, the sun, the moon, gas (all gas) stars, seat belts, trains, bugs, and the list goes on. When she's in adventure mode it makes it all worth it.


• Mom and dad? We both have learning to do... It's the trick part.

The love is still there, and it just grows and hooks you deeper and deeper. Nothing quite as good as having her fall asleep on your lap, or making her laugh, or making her surprised.

Or having a daughter.

She Loves the Barney Song

When she hears this song her undivided attention is put on it. Can't say the same for myself...

Hi! Remember us? We know it's been a long time, and we have no excuse. Alana is still being such a great child. I think we say that tongue in cheek, because her energy level is picking up by the day; no wait, buy the minute.

Currently we have increased energy and 10" of snow to keep us locked in the house. Pair that with minus 20 degree wind chills and you get a recipe for cabin fever. Time to figure out where to take a child while it's freezing outside!

Alana gets faster by the day. She's getting better at watching where she goes, but would still walk off a cliff if you don't watch her. She just loves to throw any size of ball (or anything that resembles a ball) around. That too is getting stronger, so you better beware if she comes towards you with an object. You'll wear it like a hat without the right defense. She also loves to bounce on everything, and that includes mommy and daddy if given the chance. Then there's "dance dance", "jump", and "spin". All fun. All dangerous.

She really wants to talk, but her language is just not quite comprehensible yet. She'll mix in a word here and there but you have to listen for it. Force her to say "da da" or "ma ma" and you'll get it. Other than that she just looks you right in the eye and fires off some random babble. I think we're supposed to understand it but we don't have a clue. It's awfully cute though, and I'm not quite sure I want what's coming out of her mouth to come out as words I understand.

Halloween was great. She was wondering why we were leaving her on people's porches and running away for the first couple of houses, but after people came to the door and gave her candy she quickly caught on. After that she wanted to go up to every house we walked by. She had a blast. We have been having swimming lessons every Saturday morning and she loves the water. If she'd eat more she'd be warmer! As you can see by the picture, Santa isn't her favorite quite yet. I have a feeling that will change right about 7:00am Christmas morning...

If we don't get out here before Christmas, we want to wish you all a great holiday season. With Alana in our lives, I know we are looking forward to this holiday in a whole different light. May you all be blessed with family, friends, and relaxation during this time of year.

And most of all, take care of each other.

Lora, Michael, Alana

Baby Alana at 16mos.

I'm gunna head for the waves. Anyone want to join???

No, we don't let her run straight into the ocean but we sure think this pic is cute. Alana took her first real vacation to San Diego, CA. Four flights and one week later we are reminded that we have a wonderful, happy child to be with. While in San Diego Alana got to see her Aunt Kelly & Uncle Ed get married. She saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time, and saw her first live MLB game at the new Petco Park. She stayed in a Penthouse suite and got to roll in a new Mercedes!!

Alana had the chance to stay on Mission Bay which is right next to Mission Beach. When she was in the mood she went out and played on the beach with the waves, but when it was too fierce out there she went for the bay side where she didn't have to deal with the waves. As everyone was rolling up and down the beach on bikes and blades, she took the chance to put some miles on the shore in her own personal chariot. Her first trip was a big hit for Mom, Dad, and Alana.

In the video we see her in the backyard Wal-Mart $10 pool (her favorite), walking around the house with her hat and purse (she just started doing this on her own), at the Henry Dorley Zoo, doing some of her tricks (notice at the end of the edit where the sound a dog makes is a pant), at Mc D's in San Diego (we know how to vacation!), and finally at the beach.

We are in the midst of a 2-day fever now, but it seems that Tylenol and love are keeping it in check. After all, there's nothing we wouldn't do to make sure our little Alana is in tip top shape!

Congrats to Ed and Kelly!

Starting to Walk

First of all, sorry to everyone for us being such slackers out here. We have wanted to update this forever but just have not found the time. How you people do it with 3, 4, 5 kids is beyond us.A lot has happened since her 1st birthday. The first thing that happened was Alana took us on her first "vacation"... to the hospital.

She came down with a bug and could not keep any liquid down. 36 hours later we found ourselves in the hospital with all kinds of IV's hooked up to our baby girl getting her the liquids she needed. To say it was scary, heart breaking, and sobering would be an understatement. She checked in on Thursday night and wasn't released till Saturday evening. It didn't take too long for her to bounce back after getting fluids in her, but watching her there without any energy just broke our hearts. We both hope nothing like this ever happens again.




Now, enough with that sad stuff, on to what else has been going on. Alana is on a progression spurt like none other to this date. She is starting to make noises that sound a lot like words, but daddy isn't ready to give her credit for any real words yet. She says something like "daddy" and "mommy", but "what's that" seems to be her most coherent piece of the english language. If she continues to spend too much time around daddy, I fear what the actual first word may be...





One of the best purchases we have made is the $10 blow up pool at Wal-Mart. Alana loves her bath more than anything, so it was just logical that we get her a pool. Mommy and her try to get outside as much as possible to spend some time in the pool. Even though she is lathered up in tons of SPF 45, Alana is getting quite the tan. People comment on her bronze skin everywhere we go, and she really is turning into a very pretty little girl. Even though Alana loves the pool, it typically knocks her out and she has to take a nap. At that time, it becomes mommy's favorite toy and she lays out in the sun enjoying the water. A win-win for everyone!


The newest and greatest trick she has up her sleeves is walking. Mommy and daddy haven't realy tried too much to get her walking as we have been warned by everyone with kids to just let it happed with time. She has walked between us a couple of times and it was really heart warming, but from there she has taken it upon herself to learn. You would not believe the desire she has to learn to walk. When she gets in the mode, it will last for over an hour. She'll pick herself up, walk as far as she can, crawl to the next place she can pick herself up again, walk as far as she can, then repeat the process until she can barely stand up. It will be just a matter of days before she's done with crawling and walking is the new mode of transportation.

As we always mention, but it can't go without saying, we both still feel like the luckiest people in the world. We are blessed with the most beautiful, personable, and energetic child anyone could ask for.

We Made It One Year!!

We somehow did it! Alana turned one year old this month and everything is going great. We had

a nice party at our place and she was having so much fun she didn't even take a nap!

I worried soooo much about her learning to crawl and now I'm wondering why. She crawls. She crawls fast. That lasted about a week and now she wants to be on her feet all the time. If there's a way for her to pull herself up on it she'll do it. In fact, if there's not really a way for her to do it she'll give it a try. That usually ends up bad.

She has been going to daycare at the gym with mom every day and we can really tell that she's picking up stuff there. She's very vocal and is starting to mimic the things we do. I can get her to act as though she has a cough, she'll sing along with me (sort of, she just makes noise), she does patty cake with mom, and several other little cute baby things.

As you can see in the video, she loves to grab her little dolly stroller and walk all over the house. She can't steer it, so it's usually straight line, get stuck, cry till someone can turn her around, then off to the races again.

Then there's the kitty cats. These poor things didn't even know what they had coming. If she could chase them around all day she would. Oh, wait, she does. Once cornered, she attempts to take their ears off, gather clumps of hair, and reduce their whisker count. I can't say they love her like mom and dad do.

We look forward to watching her progress more and more and still can't figure out how we got so lucky...

April 2009, Getting Closer to One Year Old!

First of all, we finally were able to get the video we wanted up for the last post. It's a couple of months out of date, but she still likes to get in the bouncer from time to time. We're just scared she's going to pop out of it! Scroll down and enjoy.

Well, we're getting closer to 1 year old and things are still doing great. Alana still won't crawl the correct way, but don't dare turn your head on her or she disappears. She loves to grab a hold of fingers, clothes, etc and pull herself to her feet. The cats are getting nervous...

We have moved her up to a front facing carseat and she's happy about that. She loves to look out the window as she's riding in the car. It usually lasts about 10 minutes then she's asleep. She went on her first road trip up to Minneapolis. Mommy and her joined dad up there for work meetings. She spent some time at the Mall of America and enjoyed looking around at a new part of the world. She got to meet a distant cousin of hers while up there, and as you can see by the photo she was thrilled!

She has a lot of new tricks which include pulling herself to her feet, shaking her head "no" with enough force to tip herself over, saying "bob bob bob bob" whoever that is, eating lots more baby foods, getting a bit more hair, reaching and grabbing things that seem out of her reach, dancing, clapping, and other cute little things.

We can still take her to dinner and to the store and not worry about a blowup. Everywhere she goes we are mobbed by people that want to look at her, play with her, and talk to her. We consider ourselves very lucky that we are the one that gets to take her home and spend the rest of our lives with her.