Lovely Lady...

I love this picture of her...so sweet and innocent.

Saying "cheese" with her buddy, Elmo in the background.

Close-up!

"No more pictures, Mom!"

Walking update: Today she walked clear across the living room a couple of times, but she still prefers to grab onto our fingers for support. She's getting there though!

Husker baby...

We're less than one week away from Ayla's first birthday! We think she might be walking by then. Just today, she has been taking several steps unassisted without us prompting her. She has also figured out that her walker can help her and was almost running across the kitchen with it. I got so excited seeing her walk on her own but at the same time, I got tears in my eyes. How has this year gone so quickly?
I took this picture of her after she went down for her nap today...I just want to pick her up and squeeze her. This past week, she has whittled herself down to one measly nap around 11:00 or noon and unfortunately, she only sleeps for about an hour. She refuses to take her second nap that used to fall around 3:00 or 4:00. Needless to say, she starts to get cranky early in the evening so she's been going to bed a little earlier. Tonight, she was out by 7:15...we'll see what time she wakes up in the morning.

Mess

This is a picture of how a table was left at our restaurant and this is the very reason why I insist on cleaning up every last crumb that Ayla leaves within a five-foot radius of her highchair when we go out to eat. I'm not here to toot my own horn and say that I'm SuperMom or anything like that...I'm quite aware of the fact that I'm not perfect. Trust me. However, I would never leave three pounds of food on the ground. When we go out to eat, our server is there to do just that--serve us food--not clean up after my child. That would be my job. I know kids can be messy, Ayla is one of them, but seriously, look at the floor in this picture. It's ridiculous. It's quite possible that that poor child did not get a single bite of food in his mouth.

FridaySaturdaySunday

We (and by "we" I mean Dean) put together a shelf in the living room for Ayla's toys. We started out with one small basket in the corner of the room, but after nearly a year, that basket turned into an out-of-control pile. It was an eyesore, so we decided to get organized. And just for the record, I am totally capable of putting together a shelf. Ayla has the same one in her room and I put it together all by myself while I was still pregnant. It may have taken me three times longer than Dean, but I got it done. :)

On Saturday, we watched the Husker game, which turned out to be such a disappointment. We were so close...only lost by one point. That deserves a triple SIGH. Lisa and our neighbors, Dave, Megan, and their adorable little man, Jack, came over to watch with us. Ayla was so busy watching Jack play that she actually stayed in one spot for possibly an entire half an hour. She just leaned against the couch right next to me and quietly observed. Very weird. It was so unlike her. She had an awesome Huskers onesie jersey on...the only picture I took was this fuzzy one from my cell phone. The best part was the "HUSKERS" printed across her butt. I'll get a better picture next weekend...
On Sunday, we hung out at home for a while and after Ayla's nap, we picked up Grandma and Grandpa and drove to the small town of Plattsmouth to roam around for a couple hours and enjoy the nice weather. We also went to Pamida to check out the sign with Ayla's picture on it. We think she knew it was her...when she saw it, she smiled and kept pointing at herself.

After our little trip, we headed home for dinner...it was a beautiful evening so we spent some time outside on the deck. All Ayla wants to do lately is hold on to our hands and walk. Everywhere. She just can't get enough of it! She will be so happy when she's walking independently...she's still just taking a few steps at a time but we can tell she's becoming more and more stable. One of these days, she's just going to take off.

Teetering and Tottering...

The past several days, Ayla has started standing on her own up to 15 seconds and she has also been taking two to three wobbly steps at a time. It's so fun to see her do it! She gets a little over-excited and ends up diving towards us at the end of those couple of steps. I hear that once they start walking, it's no time before they're running. So, baby steps are fine by me for now. There's hardly a still moment as it is...she can crawl fast enough for me to have to actually run to catch her. She's been working on using her walker but when she really gets going, it gets too far ahead of her and trouble ensues. Cute little noggin meets wall.

Stopping to play a few tunes.

Digging for treasures...ahem, not that I stuff things under the couch or anything like that.

Somebody's ready for a nap.

I'm not sure where she gets those cheeks when she doesn't eat anything.

Oh Baby!

Aunt Marla found another picture of Ayla! www.pamida.com

My little Martha Stewart

Ayla has taken a liking to playing with pots and pans. A couple nights ago, she cooked up some fortune cookies for us. :) She kept taking them out of the pot and then tossing them back in and stirring them around with her wooden spoon.

With her birthday quickly approaching, I've gotten to be uber-sentimental. I started packing away some of her cute summer clothes and each time I fold something up, I get bummed out that she won't wear it again. Same goes for certain toys that I know I need to put away because she's getting too "old" for them. Before I started this post, I went back and read some of my old entries from while I was still pregnant and from the first couple of months after we had her. It really doesn't feel like it's been a year since then. She has changed so much. Sigh.

Anyways...a complete change of subject...Dean and I went to the Husker game this past Saturday with our friends, Lisa and Tom. It was a blast! I always like to make it to one game each season. Last year I didn't go...I don't think my pregnant butt would have been able to sit on those concrete bleachers for three hours. Grandma and Grandpa watched Ayla ALL day for us...THANK YOU!

Labor Day Weekend

Dean headed back up to the cabin for the long weekend, so Ayla, Kody, and I were on our own. However, both sets of grandparents helped out with Ayla so I could get out and do a few things with friends. (THANK YOU). On Friday evening, Grandma and Grandpa came over so I could meet Leah (in town from Ohio) and a few other people. I didn't get a picture of Leah and me, unfortunately...but here is one that Erika reluctantly took. :) And doesn't she look fabulous? It was a great night to sit out on the patio and have a couple of drinks. It was just what I needed.
On Saturday, Yeh-Yeh and Nai-Nai took Ayla so I could go watch the first Huskers game. I had her all decked out in her Huskers gear, but within minutes, we lost a bow and a sock...so they came off.

Her face in this picture cracks me up...she saw my dad coming outside and as you can see from her expression, she was oh-so-excited about it.

The game didn't start until 6:00 pm, but we decided to go snag a table at 3:00 pm. Yes, three hours early. Turns out, maybe just two hours early would have been just fine. We did get a really good spot though and admittedly, it was pretty nice to just sit and not have to get up if I didn't want to for such an extended amount of time. That doesn't happen too often anymore. It was a great game and a fun time, but I'm afraid I'm getting too old for this let's-start-drinking-at-three-in-the-afternoon business. It sounded like a fantastic idea, but a measly four beers later in a span of a whole six hours, this girl was ready for bed. How sad. I was asleep by 11:00 pm.

It was my mom's birthday on Sunday, so Ayla and I met my parents, my brother, his kiddos, and Surina for lunch at Olive Garden. We hadn't been there in quite a while...it was great until, much to my brother's delight, Ayla became the "loud kid". Good thing it was about time to go at that point.

Playing in her crib before bathtime

Monday was horribly boring...by then, I couldn't wait for Dean to get home. Ayla refused to take her usual late morning nap and got so worked up that she got sick. Twice. I absolutely hate seeing her throw up. When she was younger, it was just a little amount, but now that she eats and drinks more, it's much more dramatic so I don't handle it very well. I feel so bad for her when it happens. So, she was crying and then I started crying and she kept looking at me and scrunching up her face because she didn't know what was going on. Then she tried picking the tears off of my face with her little fingers and kept giving me kisses. It was so sweet. Finally, she went down for a nap about three hours later than normal and once she woke up, I decided it was time for us to get out of the house. We were both going stir-crazy. We headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's house and then we all went over to Village Pointe and walked around, went into a couple stores and even stopped for some ice cream. It was a gorgeous day and it was so nice to be out of the house.

After that, we came back and waited for Daddy to come home. He arrived a touch earlier than expected which is always a nice surprise. :)

We had a good weekend (minus the crying-barfing episode)...hope you all did, too!

Triple cuteness...

Haylee and Bennett (my niece and nephew) were at my parents' house this morning so I tried taking a few pictures of them. Whenever Haylee and Ayla are in the same house, I cannot, for the life of me, get their names right. Obviously I know which one is which but I have to think about which name I want to say and most of the time either Hayla or Aylee comes out...I feel like my grandma. She used to say all ten grandkids' names before getting to the correct one. With me though, it's because they both have that "a-y-l" in their names. Or I'm just crazy.

Anyways...

Both Haylee and Bennett are such good big cousins to Ayla. Haylee is very nurturing and loves to give her hugs and kisses; Bennett likes to share toys with her and even puts up with her petting his head like she does Kody. :) My goal is to get a good picture of all three of them together. Mission Impossible at this point when one will not sit still for more than three seconds, another refuses to take a picture, and the other is too busy dancing around.

Isn't she just gorgeous?
Cute little man...

11 months

Our little baby is 11-months old today. Eleven. Why does that seem so much older than 10 months? Maybe because in another short month, she'll no longer be considered a baby, but a toddler? We're going to have a toddler. Insane. I find myself shaking my head in disbelief at how quickly this year has flown by. My plan was to take her pictures outside today, so I was a little disappointed when I woke up to a complete downpour that lasted most of the day. When I got home from work, it was still a bit soggy outside but no longer raining so I put her in a raincoat, grabbed an umbrella and decided to go out and give it a shot. She's been busy cruising along furniture...barely holding on, but too afraid to completely let go just yet. When she "forgets" to grab on to something, she's able to stand on her own, but as soon as she realizes she's not holding onto anything, she sits down. I'm not sure if she'll be walking by her first birthday...we'll see. In the meantime, she's still crawling like a madwoman...she really gets going sometimes.

Her giggles are contagious...especially the ones where she throws her head back and lets out an honest to goodness belly laugh. There's nothing better than hearing a baby's laugh. So awesome. She understands when we laugh and she'll smile and laugh along with us eventhough she has no idea that she is the reason why. She loves to play in her crib before bath time...she crawls all around while we tickle her and she'll pull herself up on the edge of the crib and let go so she falls straight back while she laughs. It's so funny to watch. I really need to get it on video. It reminds me of when we were kids and we'd fall back like that on our beds and yell, "TIMBERRRRR!"

Changing her diaper has become increasingly difficult...I keep thinking this phase will pass any day now, but I think it's been going on for well over a month. Not only does she squirm and try to get away, she has added some loud screaming to go along with it. It's a high-stress operation we're dealing with here. Especially when there's an inch of poo hanging out on her cute little butt that I don't necessarily want smeared all over the changing table...or my hands. Speaking of changing...clothes are evil too. All those cute clothes and she doesn't want to stay still long enough to put them on. Shoes, however, have been winners. (That's my girl!) She'll sit on my lap and let me put them on while she intently studies what is going on. If she finds a random shoe of hers, she'll grab it and stick her foot up in the air so I can put it on for her.

She continues to learn new words/things. I try to pick an object every few days...something I know she'll recognize and I'll point at it and repeat the word until when I ask her, "Where's <insert object>?" and she knows where it is and points at it herself. She's so proud of herself when she knows what it is. :) As for actually saying words, we have a new one: "uh-oh." She likes to drop things on the ground...which is kind of annoying after picking them up for the umpteenth time, but add in an "uh-oh" in an impossibly sweet voice and it becomes quite cute. For now anyways. She also "barks" when she hears dogs barking...this one she picked up on her own. She scrunches up her mouth and says "wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh!"

As far as eating goes, we're still not doing so hot. (Which makes me wonder if she's really ours because we like to eat.) On rare occasions, she surprises us and eats really well. For the most part though, not so good. This is definitely something I will be asking about when we go to her 12-month check-up. I'm running out of ideas. I just want to make sure that she's getting all the right nutrients. I know everyone keeps telling me that she'll eat when she's hungry and that she'll stop when she's full...but seriously, two baby spoonfuls of yogurt does not equal breakfast in my world. And this "phase" is going on six months.

All in all, she is a happy little baby...when we're out, she loves to smile and wave at people. I think if she had a choice, we'd be out all day long. :) She's more and more fun every day...we are really having a blast with her.