Happy 1st Birthday Aislin

My baby is 1! What!? How did this happen?
One year ago today Aislin Rae entered our lives and stole our hearts immediately.

Where oh where does the time go?
Aislin is learning lots these days.
Some things about her:
She blows kisses.
She says "Hi" in a whisper voice.
Her second tooth broke through on August 24th, and her first tooth is still not all the way out just yet.
She gives hugs, we call it "loves"
She is very close to walking on her own. She stands unassisted all the time, but just hasn't taken that step yet.
If you ask her how old she is she can show you on her fingers. We taught it to her in one night.
Edited to Add:
Aislin can also do some sign language. She does the sign for "milk'' when she wants to nurse, and the sign for "more'' when she wants to eat.



Aislin,
Dadda and I love you more and more every day. We are so thankful for the joy and spirit you bring to our home. We love to watch you learn and grow everyday. You make us laugh all the time with your great expressions and sense of humor. We hope you always have the confidence you seem to have been born with. I am excited to continue our journey as we start this next year of your life. Loves, and Kisses,
Mamma

Please enjoy this video.

11Months... a little late...

I know I'm almost a month late, but I wanted to write down the changes this month brought.
Aislin's first tooth broke forth on July 22nd after a very restless night. She is an awesome crawler and walks around the furniture. She learned to blow kisses and waves hello and goodbye to everyone. She loves her stuffed cat and has figured out how to press her paw to make sound.

I will be updating soon with pictures from our trip to Oregon.. stay tuned.

Tutu!

So I decided to make this tutu for Aislin. I really like the way it turned out.
She really likes it too.

Window Love

Aislin can now pull herself up to standing and cruise around the furniture.
She always ends up at the sliding glass door. She loves to look at the world outside.

She also likes to give her reflection kisses.

She's such a ham.

Independence Day

Happy Independence Day everyone!! We went to the Grand Parade here in Provo. It started to rain while we were walking there and looking for a sweet spot to park the stroller. Since it's been getting warmer, the rain was a welcome refresher. We lucked out and got a spot right under a tree on Center Street.

Aislin is wearing a dress that I made with lots of help from my friend Krista. She is also sporting some patriotic babylegs.
Even though it's not great, this next picture has me in it per request of my mom.

Aislin had such a good time. She mostly sat on the top of the stroller, with me supporting her, and watched all the people and floats. Apart from the one time she got scared from a fire truck siren, she didn't complain the whole time. She just waved and danced.

She really enjoyed when the marching bands came pass us. She would just start grooving to the music. Jordan shot a little video of her. Enjoy!!

Aislin is 10 Months!

Aislin is fast approaching her first full year, and is learning to do lots everyday.
She is very close to crawling. She mostly just does an army crawl, but she does get on her hands and knees and rocks. She waves bye-bye and gives "5" She also makes a kissey noise with her mouth by sucking in her bottom lip when we do it to her.

The last time she was weighed she was almost 24lbs, but we think she is slowing down on that front. She has started to slim up just a little bit since we started her on solids. She still has the cutest rolls ever.

She eats carrots, sweet potatoes and prunes. She has tried squash, but it clogged her up really bad. Same thing happened with the peas and green beans. We have also started giving her a sippy cup with water. She mostly just plays with it and chews on the tip. She still has no teeth and hasn't really shown any more signs of teething recently.

She has started to pull herself onto her knees and once she pulled up to her feet, but I didn't have the camera ready. She really likes to pull all of her toys out of the toy basket and just throw them as far as she can. She still laughs all the time at everything. She says Ma-ma and Da-da all the time now, along with other jabberings.
We are excited to see what the next month brings.

Happy Father's Day

Here are a few videos of how much Aislin loves kisses from Jordan.

Aislin Really Likes Hair.

Aislin has always had an attraction to hair. As you can see in this video of her going for her friend Gawyn's head.

Groovin To The Music

Aislin has started dancing. She loves to dance to any music she hears. These are kinda long...just for you Mom!. Enjoy

Sniff-ul-upogas!

Aislin recently learned how to sniff. She does it a lot now. She's so funny.

9 Months!

Aislin is 9 Months old as of yesterday. I know I say this every month, but, time is flying by as we watch her grow and learn.
She now weighs 22 1/2 lbs!
She is very close to crawling, but she just rocks when she gets on her hands and knees. She hasn't quite figured out how to propel herself forward. She just rolls all over the place, or scoots while she's sitting.

This is the smile that she has on her face most of the time. It's just one of the million faces she makes. If you look closely, you can see a small bruise on her forehead that she got while she was in bathtub. She got scared and lunged toward me and hit her head on one of the whirlpool jets. Poor thing. She's okay though, it's almost all the way gone.
She is still teething. I just know that tooth will pop through anytime now.

I love this picture, because it's so classic of her. She likes to sit with her ankles crossed. She is watching one of her Baby Einstein dvd's here and probably chewing on her tongue.
She has started trying some food recently. We gave her Sweet Potatoes for about a week and she really loved them. We then tried Squash and she was definitely not having it. So we moved on to Peas. She was okay with them, but we noticed that she was more fussy and her bowels were not happy. She also puked them up the second day. So now we are trying Carrots. Today was the first day and so far she likes them allright. We'll see how it goes.

She has learned some new moves lately and I'll try to get a video up soon. She has started to feel the groove of music. We noticed it when we would watch American Idol. She started to rock her body to the music, and now she does it all the time... even to the music on commercials.
She also has learned how to give 5. Then she claps. She loves clapping. We are trying to teach her how to wave.

Aislin is such a happy girl. She babbles and laughs at everything; her books, the grass, my hair, her toys....everything.
May you always have that joy, baby girl!

He Reads!

Yep, it's true. Not that he's happy about it...clearly.

He decided to read the Twilight book after seeing the movie. He is almost done with the first book, and has decided not to read the others. Why? Not enough action and too much romance.
He's funny.

Faces

This kid makes so many faces. Here are just a few from one day.

Furry Friend

Harley and Aislin are getting to be friends.
She loves to pet him and play in his fur, and he tolerates it for a short amount of time.
Aislin was just chillin' looking at the mountains, when Harley jumped up beside her to enjoy the view too. I grabbed my camera and took a few pictures.

8 Months!

Aislin is 8 months today! She is such a joy to have in our lives.
I feel like I have never laughed so much. She is such a funny girl.
She now weighs 19lbs!
She is working on crawling, but she just isn't that interested.

In other news, Jordan's youngest sister, Lorraine stayed with us on her layover from Russia to Oregon. We are so glad Aislin was able to meet her.

We can't wait to come to your wedding in August Lorraine!

New Tricks!

Aislin has decided that she is a puppy! She likes
to pant and growl.
This is just a glimpse into her fun personality.
Aislin, you crack me up, chica!

Baby Steals

If you don't know about them already.... Baby Steals is a cool site that gives you a steal on awesome maternity and kid stuff at a fraction of the normal retail cost. Every morning at 9am MST, babysteals.com has a new steal. You have to be quick, because a lot of the stuff they list is so cool it sells out fast! I have gotten several products, including Baby Legs and a That Baby cd/dvd combo. Anyway, check them out. Above is a picture of Aislin wearing a pair of her Baby Legs.

Easter 2009!

We hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter! I know we did.

Aislin was excited to see what the Easter Bunny had brought her. Mostly she liked to play with the grass and suck on her Giraffe Easter egg.

She got new Baby Legs, and two new books! Jordan and I have helped her with her candy.

After Church, I made steak medallions, roasted carrots and potatoes, and steamed broccoli for our lunch/dinner. Afterward, we were all tired and took a 2 hour nap. We decided to go for a walk since the weather was so nice. Aislin loves her stroller. She likes to look around at everything. Plus, she laughs at Harley a lot while we are walking; and since he likes to be out in front, she gets to watch him sniffing around.

While we were walking we stopped and let Aislin experience grass for the first time.

She was not sure about it at first.

She ended up deciding that it wasn't for her just yet. She started to get upset. She did find it fascinating though, because when I put her back in her stroller, she was leaning over the side staring at the grass. She did this the rest of the way home.

When we were a couple blocks from the house, I hit a curb and Aislin hit her face on the tray, so Jordan carried her the rest of the way. Harley was huffing and puffing at this point, so I put him in the stroller. He seemed to enjoy feeling the wind on his face. The cute lazy mutt!


We hope everyone had a great Easter! We are especially grateful for our Savior at this time of year, when we remember the incredible sacrifice He made for us.

A Sensitive Palate.

Here is Aislin having her very first experience with food.


Do you think she wants more?
I think we'll wait a bit longer to try again...
I offered her some more a little later, and she was not into it.

7 Months!

Aislin turned 7 Months on Sunday!

She is quite the little talker. She loves to just babble, and she laughs all the time at everything and nothing. She is such a happy girl, and her joy is contagious.
She loves watching her Baby Einstein Videos....and Mommy can actually get a shower when she's watching them...
Aislin can only roll onto her tummy from her back if she is leaning back on a pillow.
She says "Mama" ALL the time... and has no trouble expressing her very strong opinions.
She ate some rice cereal for the first time yesterday... video coming soon.
We love her so much and look forward to continuing to watch her learn and grow.

Say What?!

Aislin is a happy girl. She is always being silly.
Here are a couple of videos I took earlier today.


As you can see, she has learned how to say "Mama" and variations.

The McCowans!!

Jordan's big sister Eliora and her family came to visit with us. Abe always seems to close his eyes for pictures... he doesn't mean to, but it just happens.

Sequoia is 2 weeks older than Aislin... She's a doll.

They were friends from the start!

Abe hanging with Sequoia

Aislin loves her Aunt Eli.

Juniper is the oldest cousin on Jordan's side. She's almost 4!

I love this picture!

Eli is such a good mom!

Sequoia discovered her toe and promptly stuck it in her mouth!

Bathing beauties!

I wish I had taken more pictures of Juniper. She is gorgeous. Hopefully we'll get to see them again soon. It was so much fun having them here!! We miss you guys already!!