From Bubble to non-stop UNCLE BOBBY!

I can't believe my last post was about Afton saying her first word.......which ended up being her only word for a good 4 months, but now she has LOADS of words and as I'm sure you all know, she really likes to chat it up. Of course she has favorites and what she talks about more than anything else is "Uncle Bobby". It's so funny because for the longest time her obsession with Uncle Bobby was in words only as she was not very nice to him in person, but now she's decided he's the BEST EVER! It helps that when Bob and Kristin watched her for our wedding anniversary (yep, that happened too, 4 years!) we came to get her and she was in heaving in the back yard playing ring around the rosey's and many other darling "Uncle Bobby" games that she talks about wants to play all the time.

Afton has figured out all sorts of amazing and adorable things. Here are just a few examples since it's been much too long to go into much detail on her amazing skyrocket of development over the last 5 months or so.

1. She closed a book a few weeks ago and looked up and said.."AMEN"
2. She calls Justin's parents "Baka Baka" and my Mom just "Baka" but it's warping to sound more like "Chewbaka" - so darling
3. She's heavy into cars, but interestingly she notices the make of cars rather than the variety. For example, whenever she sees a Mazda logo she says "DADA CAR!" and points to it, even if it looks NOTHING like Justin's car, she just notices the Mazda emblem, so our car rides are full of announcements about "Dada Car, Cousin Car, Baka Baka Car, Momma Car!!"
4. She sings her bedtime songs with us.......it might just be the cutest thing that's ever happened
5. Her sweet friend Finley bought her a book for her b-day called "The Pigeon Want's a Puppy" - she is IN LOVE with this book, and we read it multiple times a day - she reads it with us...i.e...she has it memorized!
6. SPARKLE SHOES!! - They have almost taken over bunny's place for best item in the world. I had to pay a grip to find them in her next size because she seriously asks for them right when she wakes up in the morning.
7. She is great at inventive play and loves to get anyone who is willing to play with her....favorite games....."ready set go!" followed by a race but Afton for some unknown reason says "bucket..set..GO!", she loves coloring on her new table (literally on the table), bubbles are still tops, anything involving water, and number one is cousins, she just can't get enough of those kids.
8. Picture explanations - Afton has insanely gorgeous huge brown eyes, she sometimes get mad when Mom tries to take her picture so I had to post a pic of her angry face, she LOVES sucker's - and only gets one a week if she's lucky, which usually ends up EVERYWHERE as displayed in the above photo. She's had a rash on her face that comes and goes but doesn't stop her from looking adorable in that little black polka dot dress. Stace (who she talks about all the time) got her the most incredible Nike's ever made and she wore them this one time in the picture to my dismay. Had to put in a picture of the yellow dress of love and dreams from Aunt Care and some pics from her lightly attended but super fun birthday party where we had a doggy theme with real live dogs invited and she had a BLAST, and got a cute table and chairs (yea, so I sat on one of the chairs as she frequently instructs me to and it's broken now, but she enjoyed it for a good week or so before that happened).

I'm starting to realize this list could go on for days so let me get to the good stuff that you really want and post some pictures and videos and tell you all how much we love you, miss you, and want to kiss you!

(I downloaded a few videos but it takes too long to do them on the blog so check my youtube channel where I downloaded LOADS of adorable videos for you all to get your Afton fix)

http://www.youtube.com/user/carolinesrad#p/a

and the word is.....BUBBLE!

Afton loves to play "photo-booth"
Afton playing with Ethan's amazing limited edition super lego set, and below with her incredibly gorgeous cousin Atticus who by the end of the trip would just say "cousin NO!" when she got to close to him because he knew she was going to push him, pull his hair or maybe take his hand and try to bite it. Not sure why she is in this mean to babies phase, but we're hoping she grows out of it quickly!

Below we are at this incredible museum in Portland called the OMSI - Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. It was so fun and the kids had a blast raging around - we loved it!


Sunday mornings are always so manic I forget to take pictures of Afton in her cute stuff. When we get home it's eating time and we change her quickly and get her to bed, I am determined to get more pictures of her all churched out. Especially because she's usually wearing one of the unbelievable items from her Aunt Care's shop-a-thon that we absolutely cherish - as you can see with the skirt below, she wears it well.


I had to take this one because it was just cracking me up how short and small this dress is now - she's getting so big and TALL!!




What an insane couple of weeks it's been since my last post - we've had Christmas in Salt Lake, (15 hour nightmare travel day with a no nap baby, but she handled it better than the rest of us) and New Years in Washington! Super fun travels with amazing blue bird snowboarding and so much family fun in the Northwest it was insanity. Somehow I remember it was a great time even though our whole family has been crazy non-stop sick with all sorts of viruses and infections including pneumonia, chronic cough/ bronchitis and the worst of all - vertigo! So after all three of us being on antibiotics and various other crazy prescriptions we are finally coming out of the woods. Justin and I are actually feeling really good right now, and Afton seems to be feeling okay, but she has the constant runny nose she's had for a few months now. Afton has also had some issues with separating from Mom. She failed nursery the first few times and most recently barfed all over her speech therapist when she picked her up to take her for her session. She's been doing a little better this week with that stuff. The big news around here is Afton's first word...yes I know she's had mumblings of words, but this is the real one, the one that we will tell her when she's old enough to care. Her first word is BUBBLE! And it's so cute to hear her say it I don't even mind that she loves to say it all the time. They use bubbles to calm her down at her physical therapy place so I think that's where she picked it up- but as you can see from the videos below she says it well and she totally knows what it is. I will comment on the rest of what I post so you know what's up with all this stuff. Love to all of you!!




Justin plopped down on the floor and started clapping, Afton immediately did the same thing and I got it on video! So cute I can't stand it! The next one is Afton in a beautiful backyard bubble fantasy. The one after that is my gorgeous little dancer! Check out her moves! Rand and Joyce got her this brilliant "activity cube" which she is obviously a huge fan of. Her first dancing move was this kind of head shake thing that looked a little like a seizure, but so cute, as you can see below she's got all sorts of moves now. And of course the last video posted is her first word within a day or so of her saying it - you never knew "bubble" could make you melt with cuteness over-load, and she also says "Daddy" clear as day, you have to watch it to believe it!