Happy New Years!!

This is how I'm used to feeling on New Years Day...
But this New Years I found myself up and out the door at 8:30 am to pick up Susannah and her son Kyos who are visiting from India so that we could get some errands done. Holy crap! Target was like a vacant lot at 9am when we rolled up. Truth be told, it was sooooo nice not only to beat the crowds, but to hang out with Susannah like she lives here and do something so simple like errands together. Kyos and Ari seemed to enjoy the ride together too...

And then they got over it....

While we were busy dwaddling, Lupine was checking in to Swedish to give birth to an adorable baby girl Lucy! Ruby finally gets to be a big sister and Ari now has a baby other than her dolls to fawn over.

Here are Ari and Ruby checking Lucy out...




Welcome Lucy!

Finally, in Ari development news, here is a sweet video I got of Ari walking last week. Now she is even more sure of her steps although the tumbles are inevitable....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

It's hard to believe it's been a year! Ari took her first steps several weeks ago but didn't start to take off until Christmas week. It's been a great week to have off and watch her become more and more confident walking even from the morning to the evening. With both mine and Ari's birthdays this week along with that Jesus dude, we've had one party function after another. Luckily, Ari was given a tutu to ring in her first year.





She got lots of great gifts. Santa reupholstered a chair in hot pink velour with black trim. He also got her a dolly with it's own stroller that she likes to push around. She got a stuffed dog that looks like her grandparent's dog. She affectionately calls him Woof and asks for him when we get in the car. Here she is enjoying some of her gifts:

The chair, her Pat the Bunny from Dustin, Lupine, and Ruby, her dolly that Santa left at Grandpa and Nana's house and her cute new jammies from Uncle Tony.

Her cute hat from Rayne.

She Walks!

Lets Get Vertical!

The last couple weeks it has become evident that Ari is in the preliminary stages of walking and I've been looking forward to buying her a new toy to help the process out. As soon as we got back from LA, my mom and I each bought Ari a push toy and because it's been such a hectic week, we just got around to trying ours out tonight (she did have a practice run at nana's so these aren't the first steps). There is something about this video that makes me incessantly happy. Perhaps it's her need to dance AND walk at the same time, but most of all it is just that she is starting to show so much personality, even in a video that hardly shows her face.

Attack of the Fall!

Seriously, are we really at the end of October? Fall came on so fast and usually by now I have a couple batches of homemade soup done and have had spent at least a couple rainy weekend days in my slippers and nestled up with a good book. Not a yet. Instead, I packed my flip flops, husband, and baby and headed down to LA for some fun in the sun. We just got back last night from a few days of food, friends and fun. The occasion was my friends Isaac and Lizz getting married and we got to stay with our other friends Kirsten and Carlos. K and C are excellent cooks and we brought them a salmon from Pike's Place and feasted. Ari did great on the plane and she was quite the social butterfly. She turned 10 months yesterday and started saying "wow". I also caught her trying to stand on her own.

Getting ready for her first plane ride..

First peek at the ocean...
Directing traffic at the wedding....

Just being cute...

Potty Humor

Ari has already developed a sense of potty humor.

Stari

I've been hanging on to a photo album with baby pictures of Steve which I borrowed from his mom right after Ari was born. It's taken me awhile to get around to scanning the photos, but the timing was perfect as I realized that Ari is now just past the age Steve was when the photos were taken. I've always known that Ari looked a lot like her daddy, but when I really started to look at the pictures I realized that not only do they look A LOT alike, but they also have so many of the same expressions. My favorite Ari expression is the "WTF" (what the F@#^*?) eyebrows raised expression, as evidenced in photo this first photo.


No genetic testing necessary. And if you want to know what she inherited from me: it's my small ears (see last photo). We are still hoping she doesn't have my teeth. Seeing as how she just got her two front teeth, things are looking good since I had three come in when I was a baby. :)