New Walker ;-)

Aria has been playing with her "new" walker all day today. Then she'll empty the contents of the diaper bag that she reaches into in the video... fun times! ;-)

Elephant!

I had to post this right away to tell you all that Aria just did her first animal sound! She has a Noah's ark toy, and you press the animal and it does the animal sound. She pressed the elephant, and copied the sound (and the note!). She did it lots of times in a row. I tried to get it on video, but as soon as the video was pointed at her, she was no longer interested in Elephants, but only in getting the camera from me... BABY!

We're watching Veggie Tales silly songs, and I am wondering why on Earth they're singing about wanting a plate, a fork and a bunny?? Hmmm....

Refreshing!

Water is soooo refreshing! (see, Uncle Chris, she really does do it!)

Singing

Today we had a fun day! Gramma Ginny, Daddy, Aria and Mama went to the Fort Worth art fair. It was very crowded and I wish we could've seen more and lingered in some of the booths longer. Aria just loved looking at all the people. She made lots of people smile today!

Then, we went to Church. Aria joined in with the singing today. She saw everyone around her was singing, so she decided to sing, too. She just might be the next American Idol ;-) ha ha! She was really singing loudly, too. She cracked us all up. She had a very serious look on her face when she sang.

Aria has become a lot more social this week. We were in the lobby at Church and we started talking to a woman, and Aria put her arms out for her to hold her!? She did it again when we were talking to another person. I guess she's over her separation anxiety!

Aria and Gramma hung out in the back seat on the way home. I think Aria laughed more on the way home than she did all week. She sure loves her Gramma!

Later in the evening, our friends Molly & Jeff, and our brother Chris, came over to watch a movie. Molly was dribbling a ball on the floor next to Aria, and Aria started to move her hands in the air as though she was dribbling a ball. She becomes more of a parrot every day!

In a couple of weeks Ahna and Papa are coming to visit. Aria can't wait to see them and show them all the new things she's doing!! Daddy and me are looking forward to their visit, too!

My little parrot

Aria is a little copy cat. She surprised cousin Jim in Phoenix when he made a popping sound with his mouth, and Aria tried to do it right back. She has gotten to be more and more of a little parrot every day. She copies me all day.

She has a little lamb that was made by my Gramma Giliberto that Aria got for Easter. I thought it was a poodle, but it ends up it is a lamb. I call it her Loodle. Today when I said the word Loodle, I'd lift my eyebrow as I said it. Then Aria started to lift her eyebrows way up and said something that resembled Loodle.

When we were sitting on the carpet yesterday, I rolled the ball over to her. She took the ball in her hand, and rolled it back to me! I couldn't believe it! We've played "catch" several times since then. Her daddy can't believe that I taught her to play catch. Next thing, we'll see Matthew teaching her to play the violin ;-)

She started clapping last week! I wondered when she would start clapping. Now she'll clap whenever I do, or whenever she hears clapping. I was snapping my fingers and she tried that, too. It didn't quite work, but she tried!

This has nothing to do with being a parrot... but today at the store she opened her mouth as wide as she could in a big smile for everyone she saw. She was cracking me up! I don't know why she was doing that. It's not unusual that she would smile, just not the big huge open mouth smile. Funny baby!

Poor baby has another ear infection, though ;-( It is her 3rd in 3 months. She didn't seem sick at all, but felt hot. I took her temp and sure enough, she had a fever. I took her in, and one ear is infected. As the doctor was talking, Aria looked at her very intently with her chin down, and her eyes staring right at her, and then started to shake her head "no". The doctor thought that was pretty funny.

Speaking of which... just today she started to nod her head "yes"!! Finally!! Only now I can't stage questions bc I now do not know if the answer will be yes or no... oh well.

I just love her so much! I thank God every day for her!!

Milk or Hi Mama??

I video taped Aria looking up through the clear plastic on the stroller umbrella. She is either waving to me or saying she is hungry for milk in sign language. I can't tell the difference anymore! She kept doing it, though, so I'm thinking she is saying hi. I was running while taking this video, so I just caught her doing it once ;-) I was surprised I even got that ;-)

a couple more things...

I forgot to mention a couple of other cute Aria "tricks" ;-)

When you press or pull the crayons on her favorite chair toy (you can see her next to it below in some of the videos) it plays "la la la la la la la" in an arpeggio (like a singer warming up). Aria says la la la la la along with it.

When we are reading books, Aria loves to turn the page. She used to try to turn the page right away or during when I was reading. So,when it was the right time to turn the page, I would say "turn the page" and then I'd turn the page. Now when I say "turn the page" she turns the page! I was surprised the 1st time she did it when I said it.

Aria Updates

I haven’t written a whole lot about what Aria is actually doing these days. There is so much, it’s really hard to get it all written down. She is changing and growing by the millisecond!

She tries to repeat words a lot. If you say something, she’ll “say” it back. It’ll be the same amount of syllables and have some similar sounds in it. When you say something in a really high voice, she’ll try to say it in a really high voice. It’s very cute! She was watching her Magiq dvd, and there is a Peek a Boo part. When they’d say Peek a Boo, she’d yell it back in a high voice. It sounds like this: pee a oo (said like Peek a Boo without a clear B) so that is why I put “says” in parenthesis.

I don’t remember why Aria did it, but she lifted both arms in the air. I think she was copying someone. Anyway, when she did it, my mom said Hallelujah and lifted both arms in the air. Aria thought this was hilarious. So, my mom did it again, and each time Aria would lift her arms in the air. Now, if you say Hallelujah, she lifts her arms into the air (1 if not both) and “says” Hallelujah. She caught onto that one fast. I didn’t think she’d remember it.

When she is in her carseat, she entertains herself in the mirror that she has in front of her. She’ll lift up her arms into the air and squeal and laugh. She laughs and chuckles for much of the trip. It cracks me up!

She crawls ALL over the house and gets into trouble. She can stand for as long as she wants to. She hasn’t taken anymore steps after the one day where she took 5 steps. She has to wait until we get a big carpet to start walking!!

She’s done this for awhile, but it’s funny when she does it. She shakes her head like she’s saying NO. I think I mentioned below how David (our friend in AZ) took her around the Disney store asking “do you like this toy?” and she’d shake her head NO to every toy. But she’d only shake her head after the question was asked. I like to sit with her and ask all sorts of questions… like this: is there anyone prettier than mom? Shakes her head no… is there anyone smarter than mom? Shakes her head no… is there a better mommy out there than mom? Shakes her head no… it really builds my self esteem. Ha ha ha!

She waves goodbye and hello. She’s done this intermittently for a long time, but she does it more consistently and more clearly now. She just started to wave by moving her hand from the wrist. When the part is on her video where they are waving, she sometimes wave like normal, and sometimes does a motion that looks just like sign language for “milk”.

Her hair gets curlier by the day. I cannot wait till she has a full head of curls! It’s so far only curly on the sides and is starting to grow in curly in the back, too. The top is yet to be determine ;-) not enough up there. Poor baby!

Sleep… she is sleeping SO much better. She sleeps all night now, and gets up (usually) after 8 am. She takes really good, long naps during the day, which makes working from home very easy. Her naps during the day are usually over 2 hours each.

Thanks for reading everyone! Aria sends everyone a big slobbery smooch!