08.03.10

Ayla is 22-months today...I'm floored that she will be two in a couple short months. This year has gone even quicker than the last. She is. So. Much. Fun. Still talking up a storm and learning all kinds of new words and phrases. Kids this age are incredible...their rate of learning is staggering. Her memory is insane. A couple months ago, I tried to get her to "pose"...I put my hands on my hips and said, "Pose!" Nothing. Fast-forward to a couple weeks ago and out of nowhere, she stood up and put her hands on her waist and said, "I wanna pose!" It's as if she tucks away all this info and saves it for later use.
My favorite new phrase of hers? "I love you, Mama." It is the best feeling in the world to hear her say that and to know that she gets what it means. She has become more lovey...hugs, kisses, and all. I love it.

She has also learned how to say "cheese" for the camera. It's not always a good thing because she looks like this:
And this:I've been wanting to make this blog into books for a while now. I looked at blog2print.com about a year ago but the way the layout worked, it would mess up all of my captions on my photos, so I gave up on the idea for a while. I got the bug again a few months later and tried another site where you could create gorgeous "coffee table" books but after playing with that site, I realized that I had to pick and choose pictures to go in certain spots and also had to resize all of my photos. I would pretty much have to redo everything. Eventhough the end result would be great, I don't have the time nor patience to do something like that. Plus, I wanted to include too many pictures for it to work. I pretty much wanted my blog, exactly as shown, put into a book so I could have a hardcopy of all of my entries. A couple weeks ago, I went back to blog2print and was ecstatic when I saw that they had revamped how I could do the layout. It took me about 20 minutes to create three books...all of 2008 and 2009. I received them in the mail and they're exactly what I wanted. Because all of my pictures are digital, I rarely get anything printed. I've been bummed that Ayla doesn't have an actual photo album...but these books are better than a photo album. Not only are all of the photos there, so are my words, feelings, and thoughts for that particular time. I became teary-eyed as I flipped through all of my memories. I know I'll continue to get these books made for as long as I have this blog. I am thrilled to have them and I hope our kids will appreciate them someday.