Allys' Funniest Videos

Backyard Artists

Sophia and Ally LOVE to paint, but it's so messy and requires so much supervision, that I rarely let them paint at home. After asking me multiple times, Sophia finally convinced me to let them paint on her easel in the backyard. It started out great! Both girls were happy painting their own pictures, and they even enjoyed sharing !

Despite my best efforts to keep the mess somewhat under control, the paint was soon all over the girls faces, clothes, hands, and the patio.

Before I knew it, the girls started finger painting, which meant the mess was going to spiral out of control.

Just as I was going to get really mad at Ally for getting paint on the side of the house, she struck this cute pose, which gave me just enough time to realize those hand prints were much too big to belong to her.

The girls obviously enjoyed painting, but I'm still a little twitchy from all the mess, so it may be awhile before Sophia can convince me that it's a good idea again.

Fairytale Town

I took the girls to Fairytale town for the first time this season and was thrilled by how much fun we had. They looked so grown up walking into the castle together.

Poor Sophia saw this sign and started screaming and crying when Ally ventured too close to the water. She was sure Ally was going to get eaten by an alligator, but I assured her that Ally would give the alligator a good head butt and be just fine!

At the alphabet garden, Sophia happily filled up watering cans for herself and Ally.

Sophia carefully watered each plant.

Ally wasn't quite as careful!

Sophia made a super cute Dorothy, but I couldn't convince Ally to join in as the scarecrow.

The girls loved all the slides. They had fun going down together, but Ally didn't hesitate at all to go down the biggest slides all by herself.

Later in the day, Ally took a fall head first off the Crooked Mile, but overall it was the best experience we've had at the park. In the past it hasn't been one of my favorite places, but now I'm really looking forward to going again.

Nooooooo!

The high pitched little "Noooo" makes us smile now, but I'm sure it will make us cringe soon.....very soon.

The Science Museum

Will had a week of vacation last month, but the weather was horrible and Ally and I ended up getting really sick, so it ended up being more of a staycation. We did manage to squeeze in a short day trip to Berkeley to visit the Lawrence Hall of Science. I used to go there all the time as a kid and I remember always having lots of fun. It made me smile to see the girls enjoy it just as much as I did as a kid.

Sophia's favorite part was playing on the whale in front of the museum (which was my favorite part too!)

Ally's favorite part was the air blowing machines that shot trash up into the air.

Will and I's favorite part was the view. It was windy, but we had a fantastic view of the entire Bay Area.

Since Ally was sick, she ended up crying the entire way home. A lollipop kept her happy temporarily, but it was only minutes before she threw it on the ground and resumed screaming, making the drive home a looong car ride.

Sophia's been asking regularly now to go back to the "science museum" and we can't wait to have another opportunity to take her.

20 Months

Twenty months?? That means only 4 months from now, my baby is going to be 2! *sniffle* We took Ally in for a check up and our lil peanut weighs 23lb 10 oz, which is in the 25th percentile, and measures 32 inches, which is in the 50th percentile. Her beautiful blond hair has grown quite a bit and I can't help but wrap my fingers up in her gorgeous curls. Ally's progress with her speech seems to have stalled again and she's relying almost entirely on gestures and sounds to communicate. She can say hi, bye, uh oh, nana (banana), and baby perfectly, but all her other words still sound like babble. Some new additions to her vocabulary are "wawa" for flower, "gogo" for sticker, clicking her tongue when she sees a bird, and gasping when she sees Barney. We love her toddler speak, but we've been working with her regularly to help bring her up to speed.
Despite our efforts, we just can't understand a majority of what Ally is trying to tell us, which leads to frustration for all of us. Her pediatrician has diagnosed her with an expressive speech delay and has recommended she have a formal speech evaluation. She's not very concerned, and neither are we, but we all think Ally might catch up a little faster with the help of speech therapy. For some reason, mealtime has become a challenge with Ally lately. She's becoming more and more picky, and she hates to have food she doesn't want sit on her plate, so the combination results in a huge mess. If she's in the mood for table manners, she'll eat an entire meal with her silverware and carefully wipe her face with a napkin. Unfortunately, she's not in the mood very often. Unlike her older sister, Ally is an avid climber. I joke that she is half billy goat because every time I turn around, I find her standing on the back or side of the couch, standing on the coffee table, standing on the top of Sophia's book shelf, or standing on my bedside table. It drives me nuts because #1. She's very accident prone and #2. It makes it very hard to keep things out of her reach. She loves to organize and pick up small objects, which would seem like a good trait, but she now purposely makes messes so she can clean them up. She'll dump over containers of crayons, markers, puzzle pieces, etc. If she were as good at cleaning up the messes as she was at making them, I wouldn't mind as much, but I guess practice makes perfect!

Fortunately for her, Ally is also one of the sweetest most lovable little girls ever created, which makes it very easy to forgive her and very hard to discipline her!

The Ball

During my last Costco trip, I was standing in the check out line when I saw this huge inflatable ball on display. It had two holes that were large enough to crawl into and several see through patches. The kid in me just HAD to get it ( and I noticed the weight limit was 150 lbs, which means I really could play in it too!) It took Will and I much longer to inflate than the instructions indicated, but once it was ready to go, the girls were thrilled.

It was cute to see the girls with "crazy hair" when they were inside The Ball.

News of The Ball spread through the neighborhood quickly, and in less than a day, every kid on the block had knocked on our door to play with it. Will and I quickly got sore backs from rolling The Ball full of kids around the living room, so they learned how to roll The Ball themselves.

Now that the novelty has worn off, we're not sure what exactly to do with The Ball. We're hesitant to deflate it since it took us so long to blow it up, but it's so big, we can't fit it out our door to pass on to a neighbor or even put in the garage. So for now, it's remains an "accent piece" in our living room!