Fun with Pappy and Grammy

Allie got to spend several days with her Pappy and Grammy last week. Since they live in Mississippi, we don't get to see them that often. Despite Pappy having a rather traumatic accident mid-way through the visit, we had a wonderful time; and Allie experienced several "firsts."

She had her first ride on a train, her first ride on a carousel, her first trip to the fair, her first pony ride and her first visit to the Emergency Room (for Pappy, not her). What a week!

Allie's favorite things were the carousel (that she liked to watch as much as she liked to ride), the pony and all the animals at the fair.

Here are a few pictures from our fun-filled week:

She's a Big Girl Now!

So, Allie's latest endeavor is feeding herself. She is rapidly widening the number of foods she thinks she should feed herself, including spaghetti and rice casserole in addition to peas, carrots, etc. It's interesting, takes a lot of patience and gets VERY messy!

Allie LOVES football, music, animals and outside. She isn't shy at all. The other day, we went to a playdate with several other kids, some much bigger than her. She ran right in the middle of them and didn't seem concerned when they bumped into her. She only got upset when she realized she couldn't do all the stuff the bigger kids could do.

She has seven teeth and we can see white under the surface in a couple of places, plus her gums are quite swollen in a few other places. As history has shown us, that could mean a bunch of teeth tomorrow or another one in a month or so. Who knows?

She's definitely a "busy" baby. She's always doing something. She's rarely still and quiet. She doesn't walk when she can run. In other words, we're worn out!

She has a beautiful smile, a precious laugh and a mischievous glint in her eyes.













Game Day!



Uncle Justin and Aunt Tonya sent Allie the cutest stuffed rabbit that doubles as a radio. She walks around hugging him and swaying to the music. It's too cute!

New Blog

Just so you know, we have not abandoned our blog:) In fact, we plan to put up a new post later this week complete with some cute pictures of Little Miss.

However, we want to share with our blog readers a new blog to add to your collection: http://amomlikeme.blogspot.com/. Joy just started it this weekend. Currently, there are three posts on it, complete with one sweet comment! When you go to the site, you'll read all about the purpose and why she did it; but, briefly, it's a blog by a mom about motherhood, life, current events, etc. to serve as an encouragement for other mothers and to provide a resource for moms to find helpful mom-related websites, etc. Joy also hopes to use her journalism skills at some point to include Q&As with well-known (and possibly even quite famous) mothers--that's a work in progress (and a bit of a pipe dream), so we'll see.

Please tell all your friends who are moms about the blog and encourage them to pass the word along as well. Joy hopes to have a lot of comments and feedback from dedicated readers.

If you'd like, you can subscribe to the blog; so you will receive an email any time Joy adds a post. Let us know what you think!

Beautiful Toddler

Here are a few pictures from a photo shoot we did this past Monday. Allie has always been a beautiful baby, and she continues to be a gorgeous toddler. She's growing up so fast!

By the way, the pictures with the red bow show Allie sitting in Joy's rocking chair from when she was little; plus, the dress she's wearing is the same one Joy wore for her one year pictures!

Birthday Fun

We had a wonderful birthday week with Allie. (Her birthday was Sept. 2; I'm a little late getting this up.) She was PRECIOUS opening all her gifts, eating her cake and toddling about while enjoying being the center of attention. We enjoyed having some family here for her special occasion. The Rancatores came in on Friday before her birthday and Jane and Jacob came up on the Sunday before.

Allie has continued to do well with potty training. We hit a bit of a wall with the different schedule of her birthday week; plus she was very sick with teething that week (poor baby). She had fever several days, in addition to general ickiness. But, we had our first accident-free day on Saturday, Sept. 13!! We still have a ways to go, of course; but it's nice to see such awesome progress. We're able to go out a little more now (which is very helpful for Allie AND Joy). This week we may even attempt the grocery store!

Allie's seventh tooth finally popped through Saturday. We think an eighth one is on its way. She has had such terrible times with teething, especially with the bottom ones. We're looking forward to getting all those pearly whites in place so we don't have any more miserable weeks; but we've been warned that the molars are the worst. Honestly, we can't imagine worse and would really rather not even think about it!

Keep checking back because later this week we'll update with another post. We did a photo shoot with Allie on Monday, Sept. 15; the pictures turned out very cute, so we're anxious to share them, but we didn't want to pile two posts right on top of each other! Plus, it will give our family and friends something else to look forward to!

Also, Joy is much closer to having the photography web site finalized. She had a final meeting with the guy who is her "web guru," and he should have the finishing touches put up and kinks worked out soon. When it's ready, she'll send an e-mail to those of you who have expressed an interest and support in the project for some feedback and critiques. Then, we'll post the address on here; so you can check it out and refer Joy to anyone who's in need of a photographer!

Thanks for all the support through this endeavor. It's certainly taken many months more than we anticipated in getting started, but we're almost there!

We have figured out how to put up vertical pictures on here now, so we've included another of Allie's one-year portraits below. Also, we've put up our favorite pictures from her birthday week. As you can tell from the pictures, she had a ladybug-themed birthday party. Enjoy!