The Difference a Year Makes

A year ago,I was still rocking Alice to sleep.
She was an accomplished crawler and could pull herself up to stand and cruise the furniture.  She was definately on her way to becoming mobile.
I miss that baby girl, but I adore my toddling sugar bear.

THEN                                                            NOW

The many faces of Alice

This is a sampling of pictures from November

Growing up

You know your little girl is growing up when she can have a hairstyle.

Obsession

Since Alice was little, we have been showing her movies by Hayao Miyazaki. 
We started with My Neighbor Totoro and Howl's Moving Castle
Graduated to Kiki's Delivery Service
and now, she is obsessing over Spirited Away

Every morning when Alice gets up her first words are "Away".  She wants to watch it morning, noon and night.  The difference with Spirited Away, is that Alice has begun to imitate and mimic the movie.

There are several scenes where Alice will copy Sen's movements and words.  The more she watches it, the more she is begining to understand it (we think....)

Yesterday and today, we saw a new development.  There is a scene where Chihiro's parents have been turned into pigs and Chihiro's is very upset.  Alice is now scared of this scene.  She starts to shake and cry along with Chihiro. 

This is very interesting and disturbing to us as parents, because she obviously understands this is an upsetting scene, and is sympathetic to Chihiro.  However, we all hate to see our children upset, so we will be forgoing this scene for a few years. 

We just hope that the scene hasn't made her afraid of pigs for the rest of her life!

Bobby

Although Alice can say doggie (goggie) and puppy, Alice prefers to call dogs she likes - Bobby. 

We think Bobby comes from Alice trying to say Bailey when she was younger, but the term has morphed to also encompass all cuddly animals Alice wants to hug.

Todd's dog Ginger has officially earned status of "Bobby"

Here, Alice is feeding Ginger (AKA "Bobby") a treat.

It's Good Luck - Right?

It is Sunday morning, and we are back from our family vacation from South Padre Island.  We take Alice to Terraburger to swing and play while Larry and I drink our organic coffees.  Alice sees all the birds (who are waiting for a free meal) and she wants to chase after them.  A while later, I notice something in Alice's hair.....
I've heard that a bird pooping on you is good luck, so I guess Alice is the lucky one today.