Just A Girl & Her Dog

Oh, what would we do without Morty?  Not a day goes by without Ali giving him some 'love'.  He is  perhaps the most patient animal alive!
I have no idea what's going on here.... I think Ali is copying his yawn, she is into copying everything these days!

I was vacuuming yesterday and I turned around and saw this!  Yup, Ali got on Morty all by herself and was 'riding' him.  He was so great and just sat there for it!

 

Playing in the snow is much more fun with your dog!

Do they look guilty or what?!?

I'm so sad that Morty is already 10 years old.  I hope that he can be around for Ali for many more years!  We love you Morbid!

Merry Christmas!

Ali got all dressed up for church today!  I love the Sunday before Christmas!  I love the music and the spirit that is in Sacrament Meeting.

Ali looked pretty stinking cute in her Christmas dress.  It is a hand-me-down from Whit's girls, but it still looks brand new!

It's funny that the 'HoHoHo' ornament is the one she picked off the tree, when we ask her what Santa says she says 'Oh Oh Oh'.  I love it!   She makes these cute little fishy lips while she does it.  It's also funny that she took an ornament off the tree because she doesn't really seem to care about the tree!  She'll go over and shake a branch occasionally, but otherwise she just leaves it (and the presents underneath) alone.  She must know Santa is watching!

Santa

We took Ali to visit Santa at a local grocery store.  They have the best Santa and Mrs. Claus there!

Ha!  I love the way Ali is looking at Santa!!!

We love Santa!

Knuckles

We taught Ali how to do 'knuckles'. :)  Her cute little thumb always sticks out to the side, and she concentrates so hard on what she's doing.  The first few times she did it with us, we clapped, so now she feels as though clapping afterwards goes along with giving knuckles.  The cutest part is that she claps with her  knuckles!

In other news.... both of my favorite people have been sick... for 2 WEEKS!  Lots of sleepless nights for all of us.  They are both on antibiotics now, thank goodness!  However, last night Stuart and I ate some popcorn shrimp for dinner and Ali decided she wanted some.  She ate tons of shrimp.  We couldn't believe she liked them so much!  Then we put her to bed, and then we went to bed a bit later.  Well, at 1:00 a.m. those shrimp came back.  Apparently eating your body weight in shrimp isn't a good plan.  Poor baby!

First Steps

I don't have a picture for this post yet, because Ali has been throwing-up all night long.  I will add one later on, but I did want to announce.....

ALI TOOK HER FIRST STEPS TODAY!

Yay!  We were at Aunt Whitney's house and Ali was standing at the couch and Lydia was about 2 feet away.  Ali let go of the couch and walked for 3 steps without holding onto anything!  Her cute little arms were stretched out to hug Lydia.  Thankfully, Lydia didn't move and it was successful!  I'm pretty sure Ali doesn't even realize she did it.

How sad that she is celebrating by having the flu.  :(  Still, we are so proud of our little girl!

Feeling Frustrated...

As many of you know, we are getting set-up through LDS Family Services to adopt again.  I feel as though we really need to be doing this, but I keep hitting road-block after road-block.  First off, I filled out all of the preliminary paperwork and got my bishops referral letter and mailed them in.  I waited the 2 weeks they said to wait and then when I heard nothing I called them.  They had no idea where my paperwork was.  So, two weeks wasted there.  Luckily I had kept copies of everything, so this time I hand delivered them to the office in an obnoxiously large envelope with our names written in huge letters.  This time they got processed and we got to meet with our case worker.  

Our case worker is a very nice girl, but I find it hard to believe she's been doing this for all of the years she claims.  Every question I've asked her she hasn't known the answer to.  She is good to find out and get back to me, but I feel like my questions aren't that hard.

So, I've been crazy busy filling out form after form on the computer.  The website is confusing at best.  I feel like they only give you half of the information in one area, then you have to search somewhere else to find the rest.  

I went to turn in my paperwork for our background checks and didn't know if I needed to include a check.  I had called my case worker and  she said she would talk to the adoption secretary and get back to me.  She said that I could drop them off on Wednesday and the secretary would be there all day.  I went to the office at 4:30 and the secretary had left for the day and nobody had gotten back to me on if I had to pay or not.  The lady at the desk didn't know, but said she would call me if I needed to bring a check in.  She also said they needed a signature on the bottom, but she would just forge it.  These papers are very time sensitive and have to be submitted by the agency 1 week from the date I dated them.  I told her that if they needed more time they could just change the date.  She said, "Oh, no!  We can't legally do that!"  Ok, so it's ok to forge a signature but not change a date???

On Saturday my referral people got the letters they need to fill out in the mail.  My brother called me to inform me that they are made out for 'Stuart and Chelsie Brower'.  Seriously?!?  So... I called my case worker, she said it's not a big deal, she would just change it after they are mailed back in.

Then today I am trying to register for the stupid 9 hours of online training that are required and when I try to purchase the classes they are $100 more expensive than what is posted on their website!  Needless to say, I'm frustrated.  I would really love to find a baby privately and not have to go through all of this crap.  I feel as though nobody knows what they are doing.  I don't mean to sound negative, I just needed to vent.  Thanks for listening :)

Thank goodness for this cute little bug!

A Typical Morning

This is a pretty typical morning for Ali.  She's had her breakfast of two frozen waffles, drapes herself in some random piece of clothing, wants the ipad on and reads a book.  She sits next to the ipad and every so often she touches it so it doesn't time out.  She 'reads' books rather loudly and with quite a bit of expression.  She loves to drape her shoulders in random clothes, sometimes it's her own clothes from the night before, sometimes it's a sock but we always tell her how pretty she is and she'll often check herself out in the mirror.  It's hilarious!!

Kittens

Lydia and Howie came out to visit a while back and we all got to spend some time in the garage with Aliyah's kittens! 

Lydia held and pet the kitten and Ali pet Lydia.... strange, huh?

Lydia is in love with kittens!  She does great at holding them too!

It's all fun and games until someone gets scratched!

My Favorite People

Stuart is such an amazing Dad!  He is always taking time for Aliyah.  He reads her books, plays hide and go seek with her and gives her tons of kisses.  She adores him and loves the time she gets to spend with her Daddy! (Doesn't she look studious in her glasses?)

Happy Halloween!

This post should have come before Ali's birthday post, but better late than never, right?  We had a great Halloween this year!  Ali and Mom dressed up as cats, and Dad was a missionary. (Funny story, Stuart was at lunch with a co-worker a couple almost purchased his lunch because they thought he really was a missionary!  He quickly told them it was just a costume!)

We had a low-key party this year.  Halloween is really close to Ali's birthday (2 days) and I didn't want to burnout our party vibes.  Dallas came over and we created a 'haunted grocery store' in the basement.  The kids got 'bat bucks' and got to go shopping for treats!  It turned out cute and I think the kids liked it!

Aliyah is 2!

Ali turned 2 on November 2nd.  She had an ice cream party!

Daddy brought home yellow roses for her! :)

Aunt Whitney (affectionately known as Papa Whitney) brought Ali's favorite food, french fries!

Eating a cupcake!

 

Ali and Mom!

Enjoying some ice cream (another of Ali's favorite foods!)

Opening presents!

My Grandparents sent her a gift and a card with their picture in it, she loved looking at the picture (she is pointing at it here).

Such a cute 'ooohh' face!

Hanging with her Grandma's!

Howie was great at 'helping' Ali open presents and she made sure she played with them all!  They are the best of friends!

Ali and her birth Grandparents!  So glad they came!!

Snuggling Grandma Brower (her favorite lap of the night!)

Snuggling Grandpa Amussen.

Playing with Aunt Heidi and a balloon.

Snuggling Grandma Cutler

Happy Birthday baby girl!  We love you!

Swimming Lessons

Ali had her first swimming lessons this past week!  It's a mommy and me class.  She was the only little girl in her class.

I promise we did listen and follow directions!

Ali loved 'jumping' in from the side of the pool!  She would scoot her little body to the edge and kinda flop in.

Ali didn't love the floating on her back part.  It really seems to stress her out, but by the end she wasn't freaking out quite as badly. 

She really did a great job and even blew bubbles! I admit that I had a hard time sticking my face in the water to show her how. These lessons are in a tiny little pool with LOTS of kids. I can only imagine what fun stuff was in the pool.
It was a great time though and I'm excited for Aliyah to learn more!