(more than) 15 months old

So, yeah, this is old. She now likes to read books to her Baby Dolly, give medicine to her Baby Dolly when Baby Dolly gets an ear infection, give her Baby Dolly baths in the toy kitchen sink, and repeatedly blow Baby Dolly's nose with Kleenex. Unfortunately, she's not very good about then throwing away the dirty Kleenex, so we usually have a very Kleenex-covered floor. We tried to get her to demonstrate all the animal sounds and party tricks she knows when we were taking these pictures, but she's only a moderately well-trained monkey when the camera is rolling.

13 months

A little bit of the sniffles and a head cold help slow Alice down enough that she'll actually sit still for pictures. Plus she likes to bottle-feed her various dolls.

Alice is one year old!!!!

Alice is officially one year old--we now have the pictures to prove it! Isn't it amazing how much she has grown in the last year?

Her current tricks include "walking" and effective baby sign language communication of "all done", "more", "milk", "touchdown" and "frog" (just the essentials in our house). Her interests include sorting, the "bear in a square book", and climbing into things. She also really likes pointing at things and saying "eee-it" or waving at you from across the table and saying "hi". We are clearly biased, but we do find her to be quite a delight!

Alice is 11 months old....

It has been a grand holiday season, but with all the excitement, we neglected our blogging duty to post a picture update. Here is a much belated picture. We know that it isn't particularly revealing, but we thought it highlighted the difficulties we are having keeping Alice in one place!

As far as Alice's new tricks......she is becoming very "chatty" with near constant blabber and "sign language". She is also the recipient of new wardrobe since she has grown so much recently! The big news is that she has started walking (okay, walking may be an exaggeration, but she is taking 2-6 steps on occasion without support!). As they say, the journey begins with a single step......

10months and not holding still

We're not sure Alice really appreciates being a part of these "Monthly Progress" blog posts. Or maybe she's just shy about having her age publicly broadcasted.

9 months

Alice is 9 months old! New tricks include waving "goodbye" (she doesn't do "hello," though), showing how big she is when asked, and signaling "touchdown!" during Packers games. She doesn't always do the "touchdown" sign at the right times, but Daddy thinks it's cute enough that he'll excitedly shout "touchdown!" with her, even if it was the loathsome Vikings that scored.

Alice is 8 months old!!

Now that she is 8 months old........Alice is pulling herself up to standing on everything within arm's reach, waving bye-bye on command about 30% of the time, and talking primarily in "vowels and bowels" (as evidenced from the most recent video). oh the fun!!

Alice is 7 months old!

Better late than never...here is Alice's 7 month picture. Alice entered her seventh month fairly mobile (which increases the degree of picture difficultly) and in fairly crabby spirits, which have left her parents sleep deprived and even less organized than usual. This crabbiness has been attributed at some point or another to the following causes:

1) Vacation Hangover---aka grandma withdrawal--following a week with near constant grandma (and grandpa) admiration. We've been told by friends that it takes two days to recover for every day on vacation. eek!

2) Clothes that cover the knees---how is a baby suppose to learn to crawl when her feet get caught up in all that stuff.

3) Illness--our baby wouldn't just be crabby (the doctor gave her a clean bill of health on Thursday when we went for an ear check)

4) Diminished cuteness--how is a baby suppose to maintain maximum cuteness when all her parents will put her in are the same 2 onesies (see 2).

5) teething--to which we've blamed every period of crabbiness for the last 5 months--she's bound to get teeth eventually, right?

Thankfully, Alice is in good spirits this weekend and has hopefully remembered how great it feels to be a good sleeper!

6 months old!

It is hard to believe that Alice is already six months old! Her sultry roll pose and "shucks" gesturing are definite signs of her diminishing floppiness.

Five months old

Happy, cute, & feeling patriotic in that dress that Mommy made!

We think it's fun to click on the "Monthly Progress" label and get all these pictures in a row - we forget how small she used to be! She's now really developing a personality.

She's also just started sucking her thumb (vigorously!!) now that she's 5 months old... I'll see if I can catch a picture/video of that sometime soon.

Four months old!

She keeps getting bigger!

She keeps getting stronger!

And her fluffy bunny tastes so good!

Three months old and she can sit up straight!

If you can overlook the drool on her chin and the snot in her nose, she's actually getting to be kind of cute. Or as Kirke says, "she's a nice baby."

Alice is Two Months Old!

Alice is One Month Old!

In a family tradition of sorts, here are the first images of a series that we hope will mark Alice's growth over the next year. She sure is a floppy baby!