"Pants on the Ground, Pants on the Ground Lookin' like a fool with your Pants on the Ground"

I decided to put an outfit on Alivia that my mom had bought her for her birthday. It is a 12 month outfit and since she is 12 months I thought it would fit her perfectly. Well, they don't. Needless to say the American Idol song hit fits this description perfectly. Alivia was watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse "lookin' like a fool with her Pants on the Ground."

Birthday's

Alivia has changed so much over this past year...it is so hard to believe! It seems like our family has changed so much! Aaron turned the big 3-0 in December so that was something big! :) He doesn't like me talking about it much so I like to mention it every once in a while and act like it is a big deal to give him a hard time! Ha! I guess I better go easy on him since I will be turning 30 in a couple of years and I will probably take it just as hard as he has.

We celebrated Alivia's birthday the weekend of the 16th and had our family come from Kansas and Missouri. It was a house-full but I absolutely loved the chaos! We had 10 people plus Alivia staying with us all weekend and I wouldn't have had it any other way! We had friends and family for the birthday party and then we dedicated her at church the next day. I didn't think I would get all emotional about that but I was wrong. I shed a few tears knowing that our baby girl is being prayed for and looked over by our church, family and friends. That is such a blessing to know!

Here are a few photos from her festivities:

Happy 1st Birthday Alivia Faye!!

Our little girl turned one on January 19th. Here is how much she has changed over this past year...

I'm one day old!

I'm one month old!

I'm two months old!

I'm three months old!

I'm four months old!

I'm five months old!

I'm six months old!

I'm seven months old!

I'm eight months old!

I'm nine months old!

I'm ten months old!

I'm eleven months old!

I'm one year old! I'm such a big girl now!

Shhhishkabob, Shhhawshank Redemption, Chhhicago!

I couldn't resist putting that title on this blog post...it is from the movie Ace Venture: When Nature Calls. No, I didn't just put that on there for no reason at all...Aaron and I just celebrated our 5 Year Wedding Anniversary on the 29th of May and we went to Chicago to celebrate! We took Alivia along with us and we had such an amazing time together! We arrived at the Inter Continential Hotel on Michigan Ave late Friday night. Saturday we walked everywhere and went shopping for a ring for me. That was Aaron's present for me and so he let me go in and out of shops and pick one out that best suited me! Well, it of course had to be in a certain price range, I couldn't get too carried away! Ha! For lunch on Saturday we saw a place on The Food Network channel's episode of Diner's, Drive-Inn's and Dives. The place is called Hackney's and it has really good burgers, fries and onion rings. It was really good! That night we went to Cheese Cake Factory and then of course hit up Ghiradelli's and Hershey's. On Sunday we walked and shopped some more and then ate at PF Chang's. It is completely sad when we schedule our trip there around where we are going to eat! We had an amazing time together as a family in Chicago. It is crazy we have been married 5 Years already and have a little one.

Alivia continues to change daily and grow up! She is very active and rolling over and over everytime we put her down. We love her deep laughs. Mommy sings silly songs to her daily. She likes to sit up like a big girl in her Bumbo. I keep thinking that it won't be long before she is scooting and crawling all over the place. She likes to tuck her legs under her butt and try and scoot. At night it is adorable to watch her because she likes to do this and stick her butt up in the air. So adorable!

Nana and Papa are going to be visiting us for Father's Day weekend. I know they are super excited to see Alivia because it has been a while! They didn't want to wait this long to see her so they will definitely be spending lots of time kissing and loving on her!

"Roll Over, Roll Over send Alivia right over!"

Ok, so clearly this is not correct, but if you hang out with my husband long enough you too will learn to switch words to nursery rhymes! Another favorite of his is "I love you, you love me, were a happy family, with a knick-knack patty wack give the dog a bone, this old man came rolling home!" Well, that is not the highlight of what is going on in the Wood household, but it sure keeps us entertained!

Alivia will be turning 4 months old tomorrow! I cannot believe how fast she is growing up! She has now learned to roll over and is doing this quite frequently now. The only thing that frightens me now is the fact that she still likes to be swaddled and I don't want her to roll over on her belly at night swaddled. I am only swaddling her from her waist down now so that she can use her arms to push off if needed, but I still worry! She is also talking and giggling like crazy! I absolutely love it! She is such a good baby and we are so blessed. I am enjoying the fact that she is sleeping 11 to 12 hours at night now and I am hoping that mom can do the same shortly! :) By that I mean I still go and check on her to see if she has rolled over on her face. :) I need to completely give my worries to God because he is in control of everything. I have to keep telling myself that.

There are so many exciting things going on right now in this stage. I am so thankful that I am able to stay at home with her and catch these wonderful moments. We are staying busy being at home. We usually have something to go do everyday. Dad is now playing softball so we enjoy going and watching him play from time to time. My mom is coming to visit us this Memorial Day weekend and we are so excited to have her! Alivia doesn't get to see her grandparents very often but when she does she gets lots of lovin from them all!

I will do a better job of keeping everyone informed of her and our family. I am sorry I haven't been on in so long!

6 Weeks Old

I cannot believe that our little girl is 6 weeks old already! Man...the time has gone so fast! We are enjoying this stage of smiles and cooing. It is amazing how much they seem to grow up so quickly right before our eyes and yet we have no idea how that has happened!

daddy's little girl!

Alivia LOVES her changing table! She will begin crying and as soon as we put her on that table she starts smiling and laughing! Part of this is because she absolutely HATES wet diapers. The minute that she wets herself she starts to cry and she wants to be changed. We are hoping that because of this she will be easy to potty train...I hope that is not wishful thinking! We like to sing songs, talk about the Sesame Street characters on her diaper and speak in high pitched voices (ok...only mommy does that!) to get her laughing on the changing table.

Every Wednesday mommy and Alivia go to the mall and meet up with a few other new mom's to walk...ok, sometimes we just go to Starbuck's and we don't walk. She has met a couple of new friends...Ethan Billman and Cole Lovelady. When we come home and I tell daddy that Alivia went walking with her new boyfriends, daddy quickly corrects mommy that Alivia will not have a boyfriend until she is 30!

We suddenly find ourselves as parents questioning everything that we do with her and wondering if we are going to ruin her life...Should we let her cry, or should we run to her side when we hear those sweet little cries? Will she become too spoiled if we do or will she resent us for not running to her rescue? This worrying, I'm afraid, will only get worse as she gets older. Every book that we seem to read only seems to cloud our view of what to do. Sometimes I would like to throw them all out the window and just do what I think is best. As they say, mom's know best, yet I always seem to second guess myself. How funny, when I look back that I thought my parents had all the right answers in life and yet now that I am a parent myself I find that they really didn't...they just went with their gut instinct. Our children will ask me for advice one day and they will think the same thing and they will have no idea that I am contemplating myself of what is right and wrong. One thing is for sure...no one has done this perfect and no one ever will. We will inevitably make some wrong decisions, but we pray that we make more right.

Photos of our little girl

My first outing to my doctor's appointment




I am perfectly content in my daddy's arms




This is a cruel world...I want to be warm again!