Ally's first playdate AND pony ride!

Ally had her first playdate with her half-brother Bryson and Bryson's cousin Brock. Bryson and Ally are exactly 9 months apart and Brock and Ally are about 3 weeks apart. With them all being so close in age we thought they would have lots of fun together! Bryson probably had MORE fun because he is the only one who is walking so he could climb and explore more than Ally and Brock could.

This is me and Erin with our kiddo's at the Children's Garden at Thanksgiving point.

Ally and Bryson at the "Kitty's Dance Hall". LOL Their EARS are the same shape and angle! :)

Here Ally is with Brock. LOVE his blue eyes!

All three cuties together....its nearly impossible to get all 3 looking at the camera at the same time!

Okay NOW take the picture...doh! Now ALLY isn't looking!

Here Ally is on her FIRST pony ride!!

She was smiling and really liked it at first...but then after a couple of minutes she decided she wanted off this bumpy ride!

My attempt at pretending to be a photographer at the lily pond. :)

Blond Blond Blond

So, I was so unhappy with Samantha's "blond" highlights, I took her back to the salon to have them add more so she would look more blond since that IS what I paid them to do in the first place...and I'm MUCH happier with the results! I am as dark as a brunette as Samantha WAS, but now we are both part blondy's! :) Ally's hair is also getting more and more blond. Her hair is blond at the roots and brunette at the ends...its my hair in reverse!! haha! So here are my two almost blondys!

8 MONTHS! XIN CHAO! (Hello in Vietnamese)

Ally is 8 months today!
She is in a cute little Vietnamese outfit my sister brought back from Vietnam while she was there on a Humanatarian Dental Hygiene trip for school. I've been waiting to post about it til after she sends me some pictures from her trip and tell you some fun things about Vietnam but she has been soooo busy she hasn't had time! But I will post eventually!

Now that she is crawling everywhere, she is also getting into a lot of things. So she has also learned what the word "NO" means, and it REALLY hurts her feelings when she hears it. Ally also gets her feelings hurt and cries if you say her name in a grossed out or annoyed way (like this morning, we were playing and she puked on me and my bed and I said, "oh ALLY! EWWW!" Her little bottom lip curled under and she started to cry.) I didn't even say it mad or anything, just a little grossed out and I had a scowl on my face which also makes her cry if I ever scowl (like at a stinky diaper or trying to wipe a snotty nose). Now I have to pretend I like to do all those gross parts of being a parent because it hurts her feelings if I dont! She is pretty tender hearted but still so so sweet!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAMANTHA!!!

Samantha is OFFICIALLY A TEENAGER!!!!! Yep, she turned 13!! She got Guitar Hero 3 for her birthday from her Grandma and Uncle Mike! Here she is holding her "guitar".
She got a 507 note streak on EXPERT!! Yep, she is pretty good! If only she was as good on a REAL guitar!


For her birthday, I took her to a spa to get her hair done, cut and colored and eyebrows done. This is the "before" picture in the waiting area (taken with my cell phone).
This is her "after" picture. The highlights are hard to see (much to my dismay, I wasn't there for the whole process, I took Ally for a walk around the mall) but I LOVE the cut and LOVE the eyebrows!

I got jipped out of a sour face

So today me and Samantha went to Applebee's for lunch. While there Ally was grabbing at everything so we decided to give her a lemon to teach her a lesson. We thought when she finally put it in her mouth we would get a good laugh, anxiously awaiting the sour face...but nope! She LOVED the lemon kept it in her mouth licking it and gnawing on it for a good 15 mintues! Even though we didn't get to see a sour face, we had a good laugh at how much she just chomped and drooled all over herself working on that lemon! Samantha took a picture with her camera phone.

Ally's hair in the morning...

So the other morning when I got Ally up for the day, her hair was its normal crazy self...it made me laugh so I decided to take pictures of it in the tub....then I dumped water all over her to wash it...Ally is not the biggest fan of water in her face. LOL

7 MONTHS OLD!

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Recap/Lagoon!

So Saturday, Ally's G-pa and G-ma Young stopped by for a visit and brought with them Ally's newest favorite toy! Its a cute little boat that lights up and sings when you push it and Ally loves it!!
Then Monday, (which I don't have any pictures of) me and Samantha and one of Samantha's best friends went to Hollywood connection. We played miniature golf and went on some of the rides and saw the movie, "MAMA MIA". Then we went and played video games and went out to dinner later that night!



Tuesday was LAGOON!! G-ma Marianne watched Ally and Me, Samantha, and Isabella (Ally's paternal Aunt) went to Lagoon! We were so glad Isabella came because I don't like the rides that spin so Isabella was a good partner for the rides with Samantha
















On the Samari











The Jet Star









Then Marianne brought Preston and Ally to Lagoon to join us. I took Ally on the 2 rides she can go on: The train and the Merry-go-round. Thanks Marianne for the Lagoon passes and for watching and bringing Ally!






Here she is on the Merry-go-round

CATCH UP!!

Okay, so last week I was off of work for the WHOLE week...it was my vacation time. And since having little miss Ally, she has thrown a curve ball into my vacation plans. So due to finances, etc, we decided to take a "vacation" right here in good ol Utah and spent every day doing SOMETHING!

It started on Friday, July 18. We went and got Ally's 6 month pictures done (yeah, i know it was a week shy of 7 months...but hey it got done! We also got a family picture done too:


I'm also going to cheat by posting what we did for each day by posting that DAY on here...hehehe...more to come!

Bowling Fun

We went bowling on saturday! Ally had fun watching everyone...here she is in the black lighting!

She loved the bowling ball we let her play with for a bit! The colors were so bright in the black lighting!


I got a spare on the first frame and thought..woohoo! This is going to be a good game....NOPE! Gutter gutter gutter...many gutters later...67 was my score :( Oh well, at least we looked cute!

Here is Samantha bowling! Her score wasn't much better...she doesn't use the bumpers but maybe we should have!!

Ally's first 4th of July

We had a pretty chill 4th of July... No, Ally can't really stand on her own yet...I had to pose her against this flag that was in my sister's yard for the holiday and hurry and run and snap the picture before she fell over. (This was the 4th try pic)..hehe. We just lit off our own fireworks and watched the neighbors elaborate illegal WY fireworks! haha! Ally seemed to like them and wasn't afraid of the noises..(although I covered her ears just to be on the safe side if it seemed too loud).

6 MONTHS OLD!

Wow I can't believe it has been 6 months already! How time flies. Well, as I have mentioned, Ally is getting quite the personality. One of mine and Samantha's favorite things to do now, is make Ally laugh. I can always make her smile, but making her laugh...that is Samantha's department. Samantha is a pro at getting her to laugh. So here is a little clip of Ally laughing at Samantha while in her new favorite thing: her Jumperoo.

(This is only 40 seconds long)

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

pigtails

So my sister put Ally's hair in pigtails and it was too cute! I didn't have my camera, so the good ol cell phone camera had to do...it is so cute....Ally's hair is getting lighter....and she is just getting more fun by the day!!!!

Oh I just love this sweet face!!!!! She has also developed this habit of sucking on her bottom lip...hopefully that doesn't make her get an overbite when she is older!

Happy Father's Day

For Father's Day, I have been making a little slideshow for Samantha's Dad, John. I did this for all the help he was to me during my pregnancy last summer. He helped fix quite a few things around the house and made my life less stressful during a stressful time. How many ex-husbands do that?? It took a long time to get to this point, but I'm so glad we are good friends now.
Anyway, the video started out to be a cute short one, but then as I have been getting baby pictures done of Ally, Samantha commented on how she wished I would have done pictures like that of her when she was a baby. Well, I literally make 5 times what I did when Samantha was a baby. Yes, I was THAT poor and couldn't get as many professional type pictures done, but we did take a lot with our little camera.
So my slide show to John also turned into a tribute to Samantha as well. I made this just as much for Samantha so she would know how much I have love her and how many people love her too. And although I couldn't put the HUNDREDS of pictures I do have of Samantha on it (the video would be way too long and boring for that) I put a few for each year of her life and all the people that have been in her life over the years.

It is 10 minutes long.....I put this on a DVD to give to her dad today. I hope he likes it! And now everyone who visits my blog will get a glimpse into Samantha's life over the years....(p.s. Samantha's dad is a redhead, and anytime you see a redhead in the slideshow, it's someone from HIS family...lol)

For Samantha and John:

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VEGAS!

We went to Vegas this past weekend for my friend's Jenny's and her daughters baptism. So Ally had her FIRST plane ride!! I thought Ally would do great since she is SUCH a good baby and never cries, I take her to movies ALL the time and she is fine. Well....she wasn't so happy on the plane ride. She wasn't screaming, but she got fussy towards the end of the flight. I didn't know about air pressure and babies...no one tells me these things. But I figured a 1 hr flight was better than a 6-7 hr car ride each way being trapped in a car seat.

We stayed with Jenny and her family and they have a pool so Ally had one more first while in Vegas. She wore her FIRST swimming suit and went in a swimming pool for the first time.

Jenny's and Kate's baptism went well and Ally did much better for the plane ride home.

Here is a little video of some of the trip....

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