Our Crazy Life....A Birthday, Earrings, Snow, & One Fabulous Baby!

SO life has been absolutely and completely crazy lately!!!!! Trying to sell all of our things, pack what we will be taking, have a birthday party, stay healthy, pierce a baby's ears, while still constantly loving on a 2 1/2 month old precious princess - IT'S A LOT OF WORK!

Our VERY fun event this month was getting her ears pierced! She did super! We went to Montgomery Mall in Bethesda, Maryland. She did so well. After she got the first ear done, and the whole mall heard her piercing cry (which by the way, I think was more from the scare and me having to hold her down so tightly), she drew quite the crowd of spectators for the second ear. Most were looking at me like, "are you crazy? how old is she?!" :) One lady even got teary eyed! Ha!!!! Anyway, we did the second ear, she let out one more loud cry, and that was it! I was able to comfort her right away, and the crying only lasted a few seconds. She slept the afternoon away after that, and woke up a beautiful little lady with her pretty earrings! That was the end of that craze. I'm so glad we did it when we did! I was waiting for that moment since the day she was born! :)

Here's a picture of my princess showing off her dazzling little earrings, a few hours after she got them! (Video at the end of this blog for those of you interested in seeing the whole thing!) :)

Last Wednesday was Beto's birthday. It was very special - his first birthday as a Daddy! We didn't do much that day. He only worked in the morning, then Aliyah and I went out to lunch with him (to our fav - Five Guys!).
It was special just to all be together. Later on that evening, we went over to our friends' house, Shaun and Brandi, for dinner and cake. That was fun. Then we had practice at church, like usual. The big celebration was on Friday night. We had it at Anthony and Camille's house. About 30 people came over, and we had YUMMY tamales, taquitos, & Beto's favorite, Oreo Ice Cream Cake.

The next morning, we had our first moving sale. People stopped in all day long, to look and buy things. We had posted signs in our neighborhood and on some of the main roads in our area. It was sad to see some of my things go, but a relief at the same time, to be getting it done! We were hoping to have another sale today, but we're COMPLETELY snowed in, so it's a NO-GO! We'll have to box the rest of our things up and figure out what to do from there.

ALIYAH. She's a fabulous baby. I can't say enough about that! :) She's making this difficult and stressful time of life, less stressful than it could've been, had she turned out to be a handful! Actually, she's a constant reminder to me of God's faithfulness, and she's definitely our constant joy. I suppose the Lord knew we'd need an easy and happy baby to get us through all of this! :) She's our little bundle of joy.

Let's see....she's doing great, in all areas! It's hard to believe how fast time flies by. She's 11 weeks old already, and definitely out of that 'newborn' stage. To me, she actually seems more like a 4 month old. She's got quite the little personality, and loves to pretend she's a big girl. She likes to stand all the time. I can't wait to get her into a jumper or a walker, but that will have to wait til after the move. The house is already completely chaotic as it is; the last thing we need is more baby gear laying around!

Here's Aliyah testing out Sofi's Jumper/Activity Center - she LOVED it! :)

She still is a fabulous sleeper! She is sleeping about 10 hours a night, usually waking up once somewhere in between to eat. Her normal bedtime is now around 9:00 pm. She usually wakes up around 7:00 am, goes down for another short nap in the morning, wakes up for an hour or two, and then sleeps the afternoon away. Literally, she takes like a 4-5 hour nap in the afternoon, wakes up, chills for a few hours, then it's bedtime all over again! :) So funny!

Her newest thing, which just started this week, is she scoots in her crib while she's asleep! We lay her down in the middle of her crib (on her tummy - I know, I'm bad...don't tell the doctors! ha!) and a few hours later, when we go in, she's all the way at the top of the crib with her head against the bumper. So last night, she woke around 3 am to eat, so when I put her back down, I strategically put her at the bottom of the crib, giving her lots of scooting room, without having to reach the top. Well, sure enough, when she woke up this morning at 7, she was all the way at the top of the crib, laying HORIZONTALLY! So she scooted all the way up the length of the mattress, and almost completely turned herself around. I was SHOCKED! Those chunky little legs have LOTS of strength!

Let's see, what else? She's all about smiles and laughs! She is a very happy baby! She has her fussy moments too - but when she's content, she definitely lets us know! :) It's so precious.

Among other things, I've been quite sick this week. I've had a horrible sinus/head cold. As a result, Aliyah has had quite a bit more Daddy time than usual. These are some of the activities they enjoyed together.........

Daddy made my toys magically hang from the ceiling to keep me entertained on my change table!

Daddy set up my very own TV-watching chair! It's a front row seat!

I LOVE DADDY TIME! :)

Today we're all snowed in. It started at about 9 pm last night and hasn't stopped since! The news is saying it probably won't stop until about 6 am. It's definitely a WINTER WONDERLAND outside the window! :) I wish we had a Christmas tree to sit by and enjoy, while we stay cozy inside. Makes me a little sad that her first Christmas is being spent surrounded by chaos and boxes - but oh well! It's not like she knows any better....it's me that's missing all the lights, and baking, and all of my other favorite Christmas traditions! :(

Here's a picture of Aliyah opening some presents the other day...she especially loved her bows and JUMBO PJ's! :)