Jumperoo

I bought this toy for Alia a couple of weeks ago. She has been slowly figuring out the little things that move and spin, but just today she realized that she could bounce and move around and make the little animal noises happen. SO CUTE!!!

4 Month Check-Up

Alia had her 4 month check-up today. It has been confirmed .. she is growing like crazy!! She is now 27 inches long (100 percentile) and weighs 14 pounds, 4.5 ounces (64 percentile). The doctor said that everything looks good and she is a healthy little girl. She showed off all of her tricks for her doctor, like smiling, grabbing his stethoscope, doing some tummy time and standing up (with help of course).

Alia was a trooper when it came to getting her shots too. We think the nurse this time around might have been a bit gentler, because it was significantly less traumatizing for the whole family. Our little bean was even babbling and cooing in her car seat on the way home.

Included here are some pictures taken by our friend Tom. He purchased a great camera when his son Nicholas (just 10 weeks younger than Alia) was born and is taking some amazing pictures. Tom, Simone, Nicholas, Alia and I all went for a walk to the duck pond on Monday. It was a beautiful day!

mommy's little bean

Alia hanging out with her friend Nicholas and his mommy, Simone

Posing for the camera

Watching the ducks

Birthday Weekend/Grammy Visit

My mom came out for a short visit this weekend to hang out with Alia and help us celebrate my birthday. She gave us the wonderful gift of babysitting so that Jason and I could go out for dinner together. We felt like rebels ... going out and not coming home until 11:45pm. Party Animals! We had a great weekend - dinner out, shopping, cupcakes, basketball (even though the Blazers lost miserably), flowers .... I'm so lucky!

Family photo before Mommy and Daddy went out

Mommy and Alia playing

All dressed up and ready to cheer on my Blazers!!

Cuddling with my Grammy!

A New Little Voice

Yesterday, out of the blue, Alia discovered a new little voice. She just started talking up a storm! At first I tried calling Jason on his work phone and cell phone to try to get it on his voice mail. After several failed attempts, I realized that picking up the camera would probably work better. This little clip is from my little digital camera not the actual video camera so I hope it comes through OK. I just grabbed the closest thing to me. It seems like every day she is learning something new. It is so fun to watch!

Happy Easter!

Outfit #2 for the day.

Alia with the Easter bunny!

This is my pretty dress!

Big eyes!

We enjoyed celebrating Alia's first Easter. This week she had her picture taken with the Easter bunny. She was amazing! I plopped her down on the bunny's lap and she sat there and looked right at me and gave a BIG smile. The photographer was thrilled, but took 4 pictures just in case. They all turned out absolutely adorable if you ask me. On Sunday morning we woke up early and went to church. Alia got all dressed up! She was a very good girl during church. She loved the music and gave big smiles and flirty eyes to everyone sitting around us. Later in the evening we had some friends come over and join us for a delicious Easter dinner (thanks to Jason, Tom and Simone ... not so much me!). Alia took some big naps and then showed off her tummy time skills!

Blazer Dancer Reunion

This year is the 20th anniversary of the Blazer Dancers. We are doing a reunion performance on Monday, April 13th at the Blazers vs. Thunder game (there are 51 of us, I think). We will be performing 2 routines at time outs. It has been so much fun getting together with old friends and dancing again. It has been a little bit of a shock to the system and I am pretty sore, but it is definitely worth it. Here is a little video clip of one of our routines from practice. If I can get video from the game I'll put that up instead. (I'm the one in the white shorts, navy blue t-shirt and dark hair on the right side of the formation!) This video shows only one-third of the entire group.

Yummy Hands

This video illustrates Alia's current favorite pastime ... eating her hands!

Happy Feet!

I know that we posted a video of Alia watching her mobile once already, but this is just too cute not to share. Her little feet were going so fast! We were cracking up!

New Tricks

Alia is growing so fast and it seems like every day she has a new "trick". The biggest development is that she is now grabbing on to toys without us putting them in her hands and wrapping her little fingers around it. She loves to put her fingers in her mouth and she is figuring out that she can pick up other things and put them in her mouth too!! Here are a few pictures and a video clip of what Alia is up to these days!

Putting her dragonfly toy in her mouth

Watching basketball ... seriously!

Sitting up in her Bumbo chair

Wrapping Daddy around her little finger ... OK, that's not a new trick!