These are really late, but here are the pictures from our annual Fourth of July get-together!

Here we are at Ally’s second Halloween.   This year she was the cutest little duck.  We spend the morning at Pumpkins on the Pier in Pismo with friends and family.  It was a really fun little carnival for the kids and was pretty much free.  Ally LOVED the jumphouse…I think she could have stayed in it all day long.  Then we took her trick-or-treating for the first time around our block.  She was shy at first not wanting to take anything, but then she got the hang of it.  She was so cute, she would get the candy and drop her bag.  She never actually ate any candy, just liked to crinkle the bags. 

Here are some pictures!!

Firstly, I have to appologize for the lack of updates.  Our main computer has not been working and that is where all the pictures end up and I haven’t been able to transfer them yet.  But to catch everyone up…

Ally is now 16 months old and as independent as ever.  She has been walking for a couple months now and is just happy, happy to be exploring her new world.  She absoluitely loves to be outside.  We usually end up in the front or backyard at some point during the day.  She loves to pick flowers, collect rocks, play in her baby pool, walk up and down the drive-way, and water the plants. 

Ally is just starting to really express herself with words.  She has been great at signing to communicate her needs, but we are finally starting to get some cute words.  Her is a little list: Dadda, doggie, ish (this can either mean fish or shoe), duckie, done, dye-dye (bye bye), nana (banana), ni-ni (night-night), up, dady (baby), naaa (sheep), and NA! (no!).  But still no MAMA….errr!

Her newest thing is to play shoes.  She loves to get down her shoebox and go through and pick out shoes to wear.  This is usually the first thing we do in the morning and then there are many shoe changes throughout the day.  It is so cute to watch pick them out and actually pick out matching pairs.  The other day she picked out shoes for me to wear as well. 

She discovered her belly-button this week and is constantly lifting up my shirt to poke mine as well.  Which is lovely when you are at a park!

She is now somewhat interested in TV,  we have a DVD player in our car for long trips and she just disovered it.  One of the songs from the cartoons was stuck in my head and I was singing it aloud when she mimicked my singing…seriously ADORABLE!!

Well for now this is as much as I can do.  I promise to try and update with pictures SOON!!

For Jonny’s birthday, we took Ally to the Santa Barbara Zoo. It was her first visit and she loved it. Her favorite was definitely the bird exhibits. She loves anything thats flies.

thought i would write a few things that ally is up to these days. i am SO enjoying her being 1…such a big girl and growing so fast. here are some current fun facts about ally:

* ally loves flag and i mean LOVES flags. we have one outside her window on the house and she loves to wake up and point, yell and wave hello to it. everywhere we go she will find a flag of some sort and this girl has amazing vision. she can find a flag more than 50 feet away.

* ally loves to read books. she loves to sit in her rocking chair with you and read. now, sometimes you are not able to read all that is on one page because she turns the pages so fast. but it is such a sweet time with her, all snuggled together reading.

* ally has just started to notice other babies. she especially loves to find pictures of babies or look at herself in the mirror. she smiles and giggles at the pictures…it is so precious.

* ally and i (or whoever is in a 2 foot radius) play peek-a-boo a lot. she puts her little hands over her eyes, with usually one eye peeking through the fingers, and then brings her hand away and YOU say peek-a-boo. she also will look away from you and then look back, like if she can’t see you, you can’t see her. we play it everywhere and always. she plays it will strangers, though they aren’t always aware she is playing it with them.

* ally loves to play shy when she meets someone. she smiles at you and then looks away. then looks back and smiles and looks away. people love it and her.

* ally is getting close to maybe walking. she can stand up from a sitting position and tends to like to pick things up as she stands, sometimes throwing her off balance. but it is so cute because she is so proud of herself. she walks with her little push-walker, but will see something she wants and know she can crawl there faster leaving the push-walker behind.

* ally is a big begger!! she loves food and wants to have anything you are having. she can hear the crinkle of plastic/paper from the other room and come crawling. so funny. i can never sneak a snack anymore with out her wanting a piece! she also begs from everyone else, especially playgroup where there is usually an abudance of food. she just crawls from person to person getting different snacks.

* ally is now sitting forward in her car seat, which makes her look like such a BIG girl. ahhh, i love to look at her sweet face in the car and hand her toy after toy. she loves to watch the world go by from her big girl car seat.

* ally LOVES her push-buggy. we go everywhere with it. in the morning she pushes it out wanting to go for a ride and had her first little tantrum when i told her “no, we weren’t going anywhere” she layed on the ground and cried. it was so so cute. some days i just take her in the driveway and push her back and forth from the neighbors and back to ours.

well, hope this gives you a little update on the fun things happening with ally. pictures from her birthday party and other fun moments to come SOON (I promise, gg!)