standing and groovin'

Dalia's Grammy got her a breakable walk-man with some cool (albeit slightly annoying) toddler tunes, which she loves, just about the same time she decided she could stand up unassisted. This video was the longest she'd stood up ever. Now she just does it all the time. . . oh, that was yesterday.

steps

Dalia took three confident steps tonight on her way from mom to dad. She was so thrilled, she hugged us both and laughed. To go with the good news, here's a family photo from our vacation (just cuz we don't have anything new downloaded, though we have some fun/funny stuff to post soon, I promise).

Partay

We had our first party since Dalia was born, and what an occasion for it - Dalia and Mark's birthday! It was mostly just for Dalia with a billion little girls running around or crawling around and boy was it fun! Dalia had a pumpkin spice cupcake with cream cheese frosting. I made them, though they did have sugar, sugar, sugar in them. She made it through with just a diaper rash for a few hours. What a weird rite of passage. In any case, thanks to everyone for making her b-day so special. For someone who's shelves were filled with library books the other day, she now has a giant personal library of her own. She also got this super cute chair from her Grammy N. and she's been wanting to do little else but read books in or by her chair all day.



she's really smiling big in this photo

have you met miss violet rae? isn't she something!

of course, the piano was well used

miss amelia has arrived, but no photos please!

neva has decidedly come out of her shell!

little owen was the only kid dude and boy does he have choices!



cake time!

Wow, Dalia is one!

It's hard to believe a whole year has past. Our little girl is one today. Mark took the day off and we went to the zoo. Well, you all know that she loves frogs and dogs, but many of you don't know how much she likes elephants. Probably a lot of you also don't know that the Oregon Zoo was blessed with a baby elephant last month. Oh, man, did Dalia FREAK out when she saw the elephants. We weren't sure how great of a time she'd have, but we certainly didn't expect she'd have as much fun as she did. Unfortunately, it was FREEZING (wtf). But, she managed to sport a really cute girly outfit to boot. I think Mom was way colder than Dalia was. She was far too busy being excited about the animals and charming the pants off of all the other zoo visitors.

In addition to the zoo, Dalia had her first real experience with presents today. As usual we didn't get any photos of Dalia with Pops and Grammy before she melted down. She went to sleep at 6pm tonight - a record. On top of everything, she is almost taking her first steps and stood up unassisted while dancing to some music today. BTW, she can now stand up on her own as long as she is lifting something - don't ask us. Clearly she can stand and walk, she just doesn't really realize it yet.




We are so proud of our little miracle. She is such a lightbeam, filled with humor, silly faces, hugs and kisses. She is both an independent firecracker and a sweet baby who needs her mama and dada. She says so many words both verbally and in signing, it's relatively easy to communicate with her. She is quite the animal lover and is an avid reader. Thanks to all of you who shared our family vacation, she is also now less shy and uncomfortable around others, which makes her that much more of a little star. We are so thankful for this gift, this beautiful child.

first...

Before we post Dalia's birthday adventures, we couldn't move on without posting these great photos of Neva and Dalia playing together the other day. We thought Dalia rocked out on the piano. You should see Neva. She's a natural. Not only does she play a mean piano (like her dad), but she sways her hips while she does it. What a girl.

What a trip!

This is going to be a long post. We had an amazing adventure to California with our little lady - who is going to be 1 next week! We started our trip in the Redwoods, which is where Mark and I met. I haven't been there for years and we wanted Dalia to experience the BIG trees as early in life as possible. And since her new favorite sign is tree, it seemed quite fitting. After the Redwoods, we headed to the Sierras for a week at the Berkeley family camp Mark grew up going to. You have no idea how fun and funny it was to take Dalia to the forest for two weeks. She learned how to look up and go "ooohhhhh" with wide eyes and breathy smiles and the first morning we woke up under the trees she blearily sat up, looked around and started frantically signing tree (her version is her arm swinging back and forth).

In the Redwoods, we saw the ocean:




and we stayed with our dear friend Scott's folks, Linda and Bill. What a treat to see Linda with Dalia. She taught us that all babies like having their face smothered by a hand.

we visited the tallest trees in the world (yes, I hugged them and Dalia did too).






we met a toad, a rooster and some chickens, and a horse! and got to visit with the rest of Scott's family.




for our one day stop over in the bay (where we were, as usual, graciously hosted by our kick-ass brother and sister in-law Jim and Ali - Jim being the master of ceremonies at camp), we visited aunt dee dee and our friends Scott and Dana (where Dalia got to eat goldfish crackers for the first time - yum!)



and camp was just cool. Dalia met so many friends and family including her cousin Ashlyn. She got to play on Party Fun Island in the swimming hole (we unfortunately have no photos of this yet as we were joining her on the giant flotation device we so love - thanks auntie and lito). She generally had fun getting totally filthy in the dirt, sand and in the dining hall. Note to self - teach baby to walk before taking her somewhere where all there is is dirt to crawl around on. We prepared for this messy part of our trip by letting her play in the dirt and rocks at home before we left. It truly helped. We didn't anticipate how much sand she would enjoy eating on kiddy beach while playing with her kick ass green bucket and shovel. It was exceptionally fun to hang out with my bro and sis and cousin Anders and watching him turn into the tie-died t-shirt wearing, blues band loving kid he always wanted to be. There are so many people we want to mention as part of the joy of our trip - her grammy Karen, the Barbs, auntie Ali for spending so much time with Dalia, Andrea (one of Dalia's new "aunties"), everyone in the Buchanan/Fonseca clan and the Nakaharas; the BTC girls - Suzanna, Christine, Anya and her little one, Eyana; Rishi (his fuzzy face) and Amy; and our Seattle fam, especially dear aunt Robin who broke her ankle and had to endure backwoods medical care for the sake of Connor having a total blast at camp for the first time.









Thanks to everyone for making Dalia's first California adventure a loving, laughing, silly-faced extravaganza. We love you so much!