We had such a great first Christmas with our precious Ally. It was so much fun to celebrate with her and begin new traditions as a family. Some of our old traditions will hopefully come back as she gets older. We spent Christmas day with Danielle’s family. Presents and an early Christmas lunch before Uncle Dusty and Michelle headed off down south. The rest of us went to our usual Christmas move, Marley and Me. Ally did great in the movie theater. She played for awhile with the lights along the wall, then slept awhile, had a bottle, and then momma held her and bounced the last 20 minutes. At one point she started to cry so Danielle ran across the theater and everyone in the theater laughed.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday we spent with Jonny’s family at the Lien Ranch in Orange Cove, CA. Ally enjoyed seeing all her gma, gpa, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It gave Danielle a much needed break. We opened presents, did our usual stocking exchange, ate, laughed, and ate! All the family was also able to see Ally crawl two WHOLE inches for her first time. She has been so close and this was the first time she actually did the crawling motion forward. We all cheered her on!

Other firsts that have happened over the last few days: waving hello and going from laying down to sitting. This last one has been both a blessing and a curse. She is now able to sit back up when she falls over which is great, now I don’t have to come running everytime she gets frustrated. Unfortunately it has also made our already difficult naps even harder. She now will sit up in her crib when I lay her down for naps and can fight sleeping even more. This has resulted in far fewer naps and a little more crankiness. I am sure we’ll get through it.

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Ally visited Santa this weekend to ask for her heart’s desires and how could he not grant them when she was such a good girl and SUPER cute. She never once cried and smiled big for the camera. People waiting in line were so impressed with her smiles, we were SO proud.

We try to see our cousins Micheal, Shanna, Mark and Cayden as often as we can. This time we met at Ventura Beach for a fun day in the sun. All the kids had such a great time and we adults enjoyed catching up. And only in California do we spend a December day at the beach!

We thought it would be fun to have matching hats...didn't turn out as cute as i hoped.

So, I didn’t order enough Christmas cards this year. So here is the photo in case you don’t get a card and I appologize!

It was so cozy and rainy a few days last week. Ally loved to sit by the sliding glass doors and look out at the rain. So sweet!

ally is so cute in her car seat and growing out of it so quickly! here are some cute photos taken of her in the car on our recent road trip.