Using her spoon

Alina is getting really good at using her spoon, especially if its something that doesn't just run off. Some of her favorites are cream of wheat, mashed potatoes and using a fork to stab fruits and veggies!

Thank you Tennille!

Thanks to our friend Tennille, and her kids Bryson and Mary Catherine, Alina has two new favorite things:

One, her Disney princess purse they gave Alina for her birthday. She loves to take it out of her toy basket, put it on her shoulder and scoot around the house with it. She is such a girly girl!

Two, chocolate milk! Yes, she loves it! When I told Tennille that Alina was not drinking milk very well she suggested that I put some chocolate in it and then back off on the chocolate as she gets used to the taste (for now she just pushes milk away). So today was a cold and rainy day and we decided to make some hot chocolate. I gave Alina some in her sippy cup and she loved it!

Thank you Tennille, Bryson and Mary Catherine!

Nursery Crew

On the fourth Sunday night of the month I volunteer in the nursery at our church. Sara is in there with me. Since I've been volunteering we've only had kids other than ours a couple of times. Its fun to see Alina play with Jacob and David. She mostly watches as they play. Jacob is really good about finding toys that she would like and bring them to her. When its warm outside we sometimes go out to the playground. Its fun to have time to talk to Sara while the kids play.

First Birthday

Alina turned one on January 7th and on Monday, I took Alina to her first year well-check. Everything went well, except we found out she had an ear infection we didn't even know about. She is taking Amoxicillan for the first time, and loves it! She will go back in two weeks to get checked and also get her shots. Here are her stats:

Height - 30" (75%)

Weight - 19lb (20%)

Alina was lucky enough to get to celebrate her first birthday twice! Before we left Texas, we had a small family birthday for her at my sister's house. She had a ladybug cupcake cake and a small smash cake for herself. She wasn't sure about it at first, but then dug right in. We had a great time together, on our last night before coming back to SC.

What is this anyway?

Whatever it is, I like it!

Lily, Alina's cousin, got her a baby doll stroller for her birthday, and Alina practiced pushing it by giving Lily a ride. They both enjoyed it! Doesn't Lily look like a little baby doll?

Then on January 9th, we had Alina's birthday at our house with all her SC friends. Here she is with one of her best buds, Patrick. We kept the ladybug theme, because she and I both love it!

Here are more of Alina's friends having fun with toys in her room. From left to right we have, Abby, Jesse, Keagan, Josiah and Harmony.

All her friends wanted to also help her open presents. So when it was time to open the present they brought, each friend helped a little.

We kept the ladybug theme, because she and I both love it! Pauline made these adorable cupcakes to go along with the cake.

I remember this stuff, it was good! We let her have quite a bit of her cake.

Alina loved the balloons from the Waters, Bells and Michaud. Here is Mrs. Kim helping Alina play with them. The ladybug tatoo on her arm is from Mrs. Leslie, "the crazy fun aunt" apparently. Alina liked it:)

We enjoy our big girl so much!

One Year Old

I can't believe that it has been a year since Alina was born. She is such an amazing blessing to our family. We absolutely love being parents and pray that God will teach us how to raise this little girl in His ways. Until we held her we had no idea that you could love something this much! Here are pictures from each of the last twelve months, it is amazing how much she has grown and changed, but still she is our little doodlebug:)

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Happy Birthday Alina!

Blessing

If you look at the blogs I follow, you will see the Rogers' Neighborhood, which is Pauline's blog. You will see these pictures on there (sorry Pauline, I needed them too!), but I had to also put them on here, because you need to know my side of the story:) We are so blessed to have Pauline take care of Alina. Alina and Josiah (Jo-Jo), who is 2 1/2, are such good friends. I have such a peace knowing that each day she is going to a place where they can't wait for her to get there. Alina loves the Rogers children and they feel the same about her. She has a great time and even takes a bottle from Pauline, which if you know about Alina, you will understand!

Thank you Pauline (and the rest of the family) for all you do for us!

Merry Christmas!

To match the snow outside, my mom set up this amazing table with snacks on Christmas day. Justin loves to give her a hard time and kept calling it a cloud, when she kept insisting it was snow. She made great food and we all enjoyed being together!
Alina's first snow experience, she was a bit confused by all the white stuff. I guess she doesn't yet know what it means to not have a white Christmas!
We enjoyed a couple of snow fights in my parents yard. Here is my brother, Mark, about to peg Justin with a snowball. From what I understand, Justin got him pretty good too:)

The snow made for some beautiful scenery at my parents house. We all took lots of pictures and loved having such a perfect Christmas day!

Here is Alina once again surrounded by presents, many of them for her. However, here she is more interested in a toy Major and Macy received because it squeaked!
Nina and Papa Ovi bought Alina a toy to ride on that also plays music and has moving characters. She loves it and has gotten so good at riding around the house in it!
It was a long day for my niece, Lily, who is only 3 months old. Its a lot of work to be so cute! Here she is with my brother-in-law, Justin (her daddy, yes my sister and I have husbands with the same name)
For dessert Alina got to have pumpkin pie on Christmas day. She ate a whole piece!
Ten years ago this was not even in my imagination. Here are my best friend Cindy's kids, Ben and Kinsey with Alina and my niece Lily. Wow, time flies and we may be getting old!

White Christmas!

Well, Alina's first Christmas will be a white Christmas. We can't remember the last time this happened right on Christmas, but it is exciting. It started snowing this afternoon and by 5pm the grass, houses, trees and even the roads were covered in white. It is supposed to continue snowing and stay well below freezing, so we should wake up to a blanket of white in the morning. The weather did keep us from going to Christmas Eve service, which is our favorite, but we decided it was better to stay safe and warm. So we'll enjoy some hot chocolate and wait for Santa!

This is the backyard at Justin's parents' house.

Earlier this week we did presents/Christmas with Justin's family because his sister and brother-in-law will be out flying. We had a nice time together and Alina loved the gifts, bows, paper and excitement. We are looking forward to having Christmas with my family tomorrow!

Presents taste good too!

Teeth!

Well, we were pretty sure Alina would be gumming things the rest of her life, but it looks like she will actually have teeth! Her bottom two are about to come through, she must have been waiting to get them when she's with her grandmothers, that way she'll get even MORE attention! She's been a little more fussy and clingy, but the Tylenol helps. We'll see how tonight goes. As you probably can guess, there's no way to get a picture yet, we'll have to wait until you can really see them and get her to smile big. Meanwhile, enjoy another cute Alina picture, with her daddy's Carolina hat on.

On the move

Alina has been a little slower on the gross motor skills, so she's just starting to pull up. She's getting better and better at it though. She likes to hold on to her toy chest (that Justin made for her) and grab at the toys. She has also started to army crawl. Its amazing how once she gets something, she's gone! Friday she started to move around her room and yesterday, she crawled from her room into my room to our bathroom in no time. She's decided its time to get moving!
Alina has gotten faster and faster at scooting around on her bottom. Yesterday, she was in the kitchen with me and before I knew it she was off. I walked away for less than a minute and when I came back, she had decided to join the dogs as they ate their dinner. Luckily, they are very patient with her and let her watch them eat.