Some friends of ours had a baby in March, and I finally got a chance to get my camera on him.  Isn’t he a cutie?

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Alaina and I are spending a bit of time at my mom’s house while Prince Charming works on some long overdue construction projects at our house.  Now that Alaina is mobile, it didn’t seem like a great idea to have her and a tile saw sharing space.  While we’ve been here, we’ve had lots of great time with Nana, Alaina’s adopted aunties, and her buddy Evan.  One of our favorite evenings involved a long overdue Christmas gift exchange and some playtime with Alaina and Evan in matching jammies.  Here are a few of my favorite moments:

She’s heading right for him..  Watch out, Evan!

“Oh look, a camera!”

Evan has no idea what’s coming, as he’s still being adorable for the camera…

Almost there!

Surprise!  The wrestling match begins..

Evan sneaks in with a chomp to the arm…

Alaina tosses him, but he manages a hair pull on the way down!

So cute!  Hard to believe there’s a 3 month age difference between these two!

Evan has had enough.  Soak up the victory, Alaina, this kid is going to be twice your size in no time, and he’ll get his revenge!

Playing nicely again.

Alaina’s first Christmas was so much fun.  As expected, she had an overwhelming amount of gifts to open between the two family Christmases.  In addition, her Aunt Anissa gave me one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten -some great photos to remember Alaina’s first Christmas by!  We are so lucky to have such a talented photographer there for all of our big moments, and so grateful that she’s willing to take some time to work during her family vacations -I can’t thank you enough Anissa!

Here are a few (yes, I could only narrow it down so far!) of my favorites:

I was so excited for Alaina’s first Halloween.  The costume options were endless.  So endless, in fact, that I nearly didn’t decide in time!  Luckily, we found this great (warm AND comfy!) ladybug costume at Macy’s and Nana got us an even greater discount on it!

Alaina is too little to enjoy the payoff of trick or treating, but we went along with her friend Teagan for fun.  She LOVED seeing all of the kids all over the neighborhood, and I loved getting a chance to show off our little bug!

Here are the highlights:

The Pink Pirates have done it again!  Racing to “Save Second Base” in this year’s Denver Race For The Cure in honor of friends, family, and strangers suffering from breast cancer.  This year was a special year for us, as we welcomed two new pirates to our crew:

Alaina, snoozing all the way to the start line

Evan, decked out in his pirate garb

Navigating a crowd of over fifty thousand people is a bit different when you’ve got a stroller, but once we got going, the day couldn’t have gone better.  Gorgeous weather, happy babies, and an amazing group of people with a common goal made for a perfect morning!  (Brunch afterward at McCormick’s didn’t hurt either!)  It is a great feeling to bring my new baby in on a tradition that I’ve shared with my mom and some of our closest friends in celebration of so many amazing people.  My grandmother is a survivor, with over 36 years cancer free.  Her strength is an inspiration, and something that I plan to celebrate with my daughter and her grandma for years to come!

I don’t have all of the photos from everyone yet, but here are a few of my favorites:

The past few weeks Alaina has discovered her lower half -holding her feet, kicking, and most recently, trying to stand.  She wants to be “up” all the time these days, either sitting or standing on whomever is holding her.  We are very fortunate to have been blessed with the BEST. NEIGHBORS. EVER. -Proven again by Alaina’s reaching of her most recent milestone.  Our neighbor Janet dusted off her granddaughter Teagan’s jumperoo and set it up for Alaina to play with.  Alaina LOVES it, and we’ve been provided with a source of constant entertainment.  Here’s a bit of what we’ve been enjoying the past week:

She isn’t quite tall enough for this thing yet, but she still loves it!

Forget all of the toys and learning activities, Alaina’s favorite thing about the jumperoo is chewing on the seat!

We had to make the floor a little higher, those legs aren’t quite long enough for her to touch just yet.  (if you know me, this shouldn’t surprise you.  My feet still don’t reach the floor in our truck.)

Woah! What is that thing?

Here she is, telling us all about her new favorite activity.

Love this face!

Another view of her “floor” lifted up.

Chatting with Cooper about her day.

Here she discovered that she can play in the jumperoo AND see the ceiling fan at the SAME TIME.  Life doesn’t get much better than this!

Well, its been three months since Alaina joined the Team, and nearly as long since I’ve paid any attention to this site.  I really want to get back into writing and using this site as a chronicle of our crazy life.  I don’t plan to become a “mommyblogger” but considering my current at home with baby status, there is a good chance most of my writing will have something to do with life with baby.

Alaina is an amazing, happy, healthy baby.  We are so lucky!  Her arrival into the world started out as a normal “baby is a week late so we’ll try to induce” situation.  Everything was going smoothly until two pushes in when it was decided that we’d be having an emergency c-section.  Nothing like going all the way through labor to find out that we could’ve scheduled it on a calendar and skipped all those lovely contractions.  Good times.  Turned out, our little angel had been so active that she’d tied her cord into a True Knot.  Apparently, this is pretty rare, and our OB let us know that this kid is destined for big things.  One of these days, I’ll take the time to write up her birth story (I know, you’re waiting with baited breath, right?  Really, I’m mostly doing this so I have a record somewhere.  If you’re interested, great.  If not, don’t read it.  There won’t be a quiz.)

Anyways, here are some of the highlights of the past three months:

Alaina Lynn was born on May 14, Team Jones is exhausted but totally smitten with this little girl!  She is amazing!

Full details coming soon…

Images Courtesy AH Photography

Last week, Cooper turned two.  Two?!?  It doesn’t feel like its been two years since he joined us, but at the same time, it feels like he’s been part of the team for much longer.  He may look like a dog now, but he still has the enthusiasm and energy of a puppy!

A look at the year leading up to his second birthday:

The holiday season has been amazing here at Casa de Jones!  Highlights included great food, lots of family, quality time shared around the Wii,  gift overload, a surprise trip to Movado, and tons of great memories.

We’ve got tons of photos to pull off of the camera, but thanks to a photo session compliments of Colorado’s (and soon to be Idaho’s) favorite photographer, here is a preview: