Christmas with Aria 2010!!!

Our first Christmas!!! and it was wonderful. :)

we flew down to lynchburg, va to be with my family for Christmas (which explains the lack of posting the last few days...) and so that they could meet Aria - most of them hadn't been able to see her since she was born. this year we definitely had a white Christmas and had to stay very bundled up. Aria got to meet my grandparents for the first time (she LOVED my Papa right off the bat, and Grandma soon after lol) as well as my Aunt Gail, Uncle Tom and lots of cousins. we also got to spend the time with my brothers, both of whom have been away at college since August. Aria definitely made out with the biggest present count, and now has enough clothes to get her to kindergarten. lots and lots (and lots...) of singing animals later, she has tons of new toys to get her through the next couple months as well.

this trip also marked Aria's first time flying, and i couldn't have been more proud of her. she did SO well, despite the fact she had to be held the whole time with very few toys to entertain her. even the flight back (which had to be moved back a day because of the weather, and was not our favorite as it left at 5:26am) went incredibly smoothly.

the night we got back, we then had Christmas with josh's side of the family and, once again, Aria brought home the most gifts :) what can i say though? baby girls are SO MUCH FUN to buy for :) more clothes, singing animals and lots of books plus a very much needed air purifier were among some of the highlights :)

i'm still trying to get pictures posted, but due to my AWOL connecting cord for my camera, they're still not on here. my mom and aunt have posted a few, and i'll try to get a couple of those on here to show Aria's great love for her new dolphin pillow pet :)

i hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and will have a great New Year!! if your child had a special gift that really stood out this year, or there was a great memory made with family members, feel free to share!

Funny Lessons Part 2

well, these aren't so much lessons as much as just funny things aria's been doing the last few days since i wrote. she's still discovering everything via her mouth, which is VERY entertaining at times and very inconvenient at others, lol, but always amusing. just when you think she's being affectionate and going to give "kisses" you realize, she just wants to put you in her mouth, as odd as that sounds. it doesn't matter what it's made of - she will find a way to get it in her mouth. and if she can't, she wil express her anger at whatever toy/object refuses to do what she asks.

she's also started flipping herself over from her stomach to her back -  not theother way around yet, but it's the little steps :) she hasn't quite figured out what she's doing yet, i don't think, as is implied by her confused look when she lands on her back, but she's doing it and rather well!

currently her favorite thing (as i think i mentioned in a previous post) is playing with hands and toes. mostly her own toes, but anyone's hands will do. she can be entertained by you just moving you fingers a little bit for quite a length of time and then after she finally gets your fingers in her hands what does she do? but of course, stick them in her mouth.

a couple more less interesting/entertaining things are that she's sitting up almost entirely on her own now...until she bends over to grab previously mentioned toes, at which point she tumbles forward. she can stand up for a couple seconds at a time with very little help, and is incredibly proud of herself for this. she's started recognizing her grandparents and aunts/uncles, which makes them happy :) she also finds tissue paper almost as fascinating as your fingers. she still hates being put down for naps, but will acquiesce if we play music for her. she has figured out that when we start to make he bottle, she's going to eat soon, and she gets very excited.

excuse the random ramblings of a proud mommy. i just can't believe how big my little baby is getting - she'll be 5 months this coming sunday!

Weekend fun - More Christmas Adventures Attempted

well, we tried to do another Christmas adventure with Aria this weekend by taking her to downtown Rochester to see all the gorgeous Christmas lights they put up. If you live in the area and have never done this, i highly recommend it - it's amazing. Anyways, we went to a pretty beautiful hotel as a side trip (royal park hotel or something like that in Rochester) and saw a huge real gingerbread house...decorated with real candy and made of real gingerbread - it smelled AMAZING and aria LOVED all the colors! pictures will come; we had to use my mom's camera, so as soon as i get them, i will post. we then tried to take Aria shopping at all the adorable shops downtown, but.... OMW IT WAS SO COLD. so we didn't. we went to one shop and decided to call it quits. Olive Garden and warm food were waiting for us just around the corner. OG is also where we did family Christmas with my parents and, like always, Aria made out like a bandit :) (josh and i can't complain either - my parents gave us a wii for christmas :D) Wwith new toys, bottles, diapers and all sorts of other fun stuff, she's stocked up for the next month or so ;)

so, alas, we didn't get to have another christmas adventure, but we did stay warm. which is pretty important in my book anyways.

merry christmas to you and yours!

Greenville Pictures Sneak Preview

ok, so these pics only have josh and i in them, but they whole set will be up soon...

TJ Getz and his wife, Michelle are AMAZING photographers out of Greenville SC... i highly recommend them

Pics Sneak Preview - GetzCreative Blog

Christmas with Aria

i know, i know - it's not Christmas yet, but it's in full force here at the wardell household. the christmas tree is currently Aria's favorite thing in this whole world, and today i accidentally put her play saucer a little too close to the tree and she had a bunch of the bells down trying to eat them... entertaining to say the least, but to continue to allow her to munch on them would have been bad parenting; so i removed them from her mouth and they are now back in their rightful place on our tree. in the mean time, she'll continue putting her parrot, pandas and anything else she can get her hands on into her mouth... almost as entertaining.

instead of buying aria a bunch of presents she will never remember, we decided to take a family rode trip to frankenmuth (which was in a previous post) and we're also getting some professional pictures done - something that will last much, MUCH longer than any toys or clothes we could have bought her.

here's a preview of pictures to come :)

The Teething Chronicles Part 1

so Aria's been teething for a few weeks now, but this week has been especially bad. she's been acting basically annoyed with life when you're holding her or distracting her, but as soon as you set her down "annoyed" quickly turns to "violent wrath" ... she has a hard time falling asleep ever - which means i get nothing done - and she's CONSTANTLY shoving EVERYTHING into her mouth.... never mind the massive quantities of drool. there are puddles everywhere she goes - and if playing over the carpet, beware of wet spots the next time you walk in that area. the only problem is the poor baby girl hasn't quite developed the fine motor skills to hold something in her mouth still for a long time, so teething rings don't really work unless i sit there are hold them for her. sigh....

so i know it hasn't been the most interesting of posts, but i never said my entire life was worthy of a novel. just what goes on in the life of us. and currently "us" is going through teething. so there you have it.

Learning about this little thing called life - Part 1

some entertaining things that Aria is starting to discover... and a few she hasn't yet.

1. you cannot shove your stuffed puppy into your mouth when you already have your paci there.

2. piano keys make noise.

3. the plastic pandas on your play-saucer will not talk back to you.

4. i will never sit you in my lap, show you a full bottle and NOT give it to you. you will never starve - it's always coming to your mouth in short order.

5. walking and standing are much harder than they look.

6. rattles don't taste good. at all. they leave fuzzies in your mouth that are unappetizing at best.

7. the stuffed giraffe will not kiss you back.

8. trying to talk while eating can result in bad things happening.

9. not everything you put into your mouth is going to taste good.

10. some things you *whack* are going to move and make cool noises. some things you *whack* are going to hurt your hand. figuring out which thing will do what is a challenge that a 5 month brain cannot handle.

11. mirrors are incredibly fascinating. however, there is no need to be jealous - mommy is not holding another baby. it's you. i know this is beyond you still, so you'll have to trust me. but yes, that baby in the mirror is pretty darn cute.

12. seeing a friendly face when you're waking up is much more pleasant than waking up alone in a dark room.

13. putting your feet into your newly removed dirty diaper isn't funny. at all.

14. you have hands. i have hands. lots of people have hands. you'll have them your whole life. as fascinating as they may, there's a much bigger world out there. trust me on this one.

15. watching someone else play with toys is not near as entertaining as playing with them yourself. this is a reference to "baby mozart" which she finds pretty boring until the baby animals show up on the screen lol.

more discoveries to come later... we are learning new things every day :)

Final Christmas Card Project

Picture Joy Christmas

Turn your photos into personalized Christmas cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Little Words

Aria is going to be quite the chatter-box, i can already tell... it's amazing how she can imitate the vocal inflections of josh and i. her infatuation with watching our mouths when we speak is also quite amusing. from day 1, i've wanted her to have good verbal skills - we talk to her all the time, read to her, and show her words and tell her what they mean... she's also been infatuated with "reading" since she was little too, from staring at her name in big, bold, contrasting colors on her wall to trying so very hard to read the warning labels on her toys, (we had to watch out when she would try to read the one on her swing, however; it made her prety dizzy if she tried for too long lol) she's always been in love with words.

as of recently she's begun to jabber quite constantly. unfortunately, her favorite time to chat it up is when there's something in her mouth - definitely a habit we're going to need to break once she starts eating real food. i so wish i could understand what goes on in her little brain when she looks at me in a very serious, brows pulled down, no smile face and talks to me about something of obvious great importance to her lol. some things she does communicate very well and that's usually when she's happiest....squealing and waving her arms, the big smile - does it get any better than that?!

now we're just waiting for her first word and wondering what it'll be (josh's was "cookie" so i'm not holding out high hopes for "mama" lol.)

what were your kid's first words?

Happy Anniversary, Grandpa

Grandpa with his oldest son - my uncle Allen - his last Christmas

Grandpa with my mom Christmas '08

today is my grandpa's first anniversary of being in Heaven. i'm sure he's enjoying himself most thoroughly - singing with angels and visiting with his parents and sister again. but we miss him. a lot. unfortunately, grandpa never got to meet Aria. and would he ever have loved her. he only had 2 sons and i was 1 of 7 grandkids - the rest were all boys. grandpa loved his girls - his daughters in law and me of course :) today i was thinking of all the things he used to do with me... strolling me around the mall to "polish walking music," letting me play with his hair and stick it straight up on end, singing me ridiculous songs that were only funny because it was grandpa singing them, trying to teach me the rubix cube - which never came to fruition - and how much he would have enjoyed doing these things with Aria - if she had the attention to do them lol. i miss him everyday, and will always tell Aria about her amazing great-grandpa halleck who's watching her from Heaven.

Funny picture of the week

i found this picture while going through some of my mom's from when Aria was little... well, littler lol. i think she was about a month old here. what do YOU think the caption should be lol?

Aria's Weekend of Christmas Past

ok, so once again a confusing title, but if you read last Thursday's post you'll understand. so if you haven't go on, go read it. i'll wait here for you. ready? ok. well, we successfully took Aria up to her Grandpa and Mimi's house to make Christmas cookies and visit Santa. While the Christmas cookies attempt could have gone better (i forgot her swing which was a major fail in the "keeping Aria entertained" department) we did end up with some yummy goodies and still time for me and my mom to have some "girl time" while my dad watched Aria until Josh got up there later that night. the real adventure was the next day...

we left around 11:30 for Bronner's CHRISTmas wonderland :) - a Christmas tradition that has been in existence since... i was born, i think. we were kinda worried about how Aria would do because, as you know, she's a tad high maintenance, and we never know what kind of mood she's going to be in. but i never should have doubted - as soon as we pulled her out of her strolled in Bronner's she was in ADD-baby heaven...the lights, the moving toys, all the people - it couldn't have been any better! she was squealing and laughing and waving her arms - cutest thing i've ever seen. and i'm pretty sure she was happier than Santa himself, who looked like he desperately needed a nap, and she still had 5 hours of little ones lol. you can observe his oh-so-excited face in the picture with the post... Aria, on the other hand, thought it was the coolest thing and was ever-so-happy until the moment we left, when she fell promptly asleep after her adventure with Santa.

later, we went to Tony's off 75...if you haven't been and you're anywhere near the Michigan vicinity, you need to go. order the BLT or the club sandwich and you'll understand how this little "hole-in-the-wall" place got so incredibly famous... but that's another story that has nothing to do with Aria...

all in all, it was a very successful weekend with a very happy baby and some very cute pictures :)

have a happy monday.

Aria's Weekend of Christmas to come...

ok, so the title has some misplaced modifiers. but it basically means, Aria's having her big Christmas weekend this weekend (ie - the weekend is still to come....) the weekend's agenda?

Friday- Christmas cookie bake off with mimi! Aria may not remember it ever and she definitely won't be eating the cookies, but it's the experience, right? the smell, the fun in the kitchen ....with dangerous hot surfaces and sharp knives.... yeah, ok. maybe not. but hey, that night we're going to a "just for ladies" christmas party thingy for my mom's church, at which point Aria will experience massive spoiling and people telling her how adorable she is.


Saturday - We're taking Aria to (drum roll please) FRANKENMUTH!!! her first visit with Santa (we'll see how long she can go without pulling on his beard....) and becoming entranced with all the lights (what baby doesn't love sparkly lights of all colors?!) and buying her "first Christmas" ornament. (ok, so she won't be the one buying it, but I'm still recovering from all the times my English professors told me to use active nouns instead of passive ones. never mind all the the grammatical errors in my blog, though.) I'm so excited because i get to dress her up in a little "mrs. santa" outfit which she will look just adorable in, of course.

i'm sure there will be plenty other festivities with lots of flashing camera lights and pictures on the blog son to follow :) stay tuned for the visual experience of Aria's Christmas Adventure!!!!

on a lesser note, due to the fact my parents don't have reliable internet, you will be unable to read any new posts until at least sunday. i know, tears and sadness, but i'm sure you will survive.

Good things come in small packages

when Aria was born she was barely 6 1/2 lbs, and by the time we left the hospital, she was just hitting 6 lbs. she's slightly more than doubled that now, 4 months later, but she's still a little one, as people regularly point out. she's ALWAYS moving... constantly bouncing up and down trying to crawl around her crib or - her favorite- bouncin' around her "playsphere" ...

now herein lies the problem. while she is definitely old enough for this toy, she's slightly too short for the bottom part - you know, where her feet are supposed to touch. so we placed a pillow under her feet to help her with control. well, as of this week, she's just slightly too tall for the pillow - it pushes her up enough that she bounces around the seat like a pin ball, which annoys her to no end. so, i remove the pillow....and her feet start kicking like crazy looking for the floor lol...we can't seem to find the happy medium. oh well, in another week or so, her feet will find their place, and this predicament will be outdated. but in the mean time, it sure is fun to watch....

Impeccable Taste :)

i'm proud to say that my child has unbelievably classy taste when it comes to music. when she was first born, she would fall asleep to renee fleming's "haunted heart"...she loved rachmaninov and mozart. tonight was the rockefeller christmas special on tv, and she demonstrated some impeccable taste once again. actually calming down for susan boyle but started screaming her lungs out when sheryl crow came on stage. stared in infatuation at josh groban but squealed constantly at annie lennox. yep. i've trained her well :)

Indescribeable

there was no better way to title this post than how i did. watching the way Aria plays and smiles with her dad...my amazing husband. the feeling of gratitude is simply overwhelming. i could never be thankful enough for the wonderful man who is not only my husband, but the best father i could ever wish for for my baby girl. he changes more than his fair share of dirty diapers; he has stayed up multiple nights with her when either she or i has been sick; he plays with her and acts like a goofball as only a father who's madly in love with his perfect little daughter could. i couldn't be happier. and i couldn't be more lucky.

Love like crazy...

no really. crazy. as in i went nuts last night. as i mentioned in a previous post, josh is working nights this week and it's just me and aria at home. now granted, we live in one of the safest apartments  you can imagine. great security system, good locks and wonderful neighbors. i would also like to mention that josh worked nights for over 3 months when we were first married, so this isn't something that's brand new. however, having aria around has totally changed the way i look at EVERYTHING. including being home alone at night. i was FREAKING OUT!!! i was up till he got home (3am) and was checking on her constantly...as if it would affect her somehow... i mean it did when she was awake (see "daddy's girl" post) but when she's sleeping she is of course, clueless. babies don't get paranoid. babies aren't really afraid of things, except getting flown too high in the air, falling down or a scary face that daddy makes. they have no concept of "daddy's not home - something bad is gonna happen." nope. she slept wonderfully. maybe i should take a few pointers from my 4 month old.

Pictures of Aria

Christmas with Little Ones?

moms (or dads) of little ones... we all know our babies won't remember their first (or even second and third) Christmas', so what are you doing to make it special for your family? special Christmas pics? taking a little trip? just spending the money on diapers instead lol :) ?

christmas card

Joyeux Noel Ornament Christmas Card

Get custom photo Christmas cards online at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

Daddy's Girl

if ever there was a time that validated my opinion that Aria is a daddy's girl it was tonight. you see, josh is working an odd night shift this week only, and tonight when he left for work Aria screamed and screamed until i called him and put him on speakerphone for her to hear. only then would she calm down. i hung up and she goes at it again. it was so bad that to get her to eat i had to call his phone repeatedly and let her listen to his voicemail message just to get her calmed down enough to eat. crazy kid. thankfully, after all that screaming, she fell asleep shortly after eating. *whew*

Adventures with Aria

some of you have met my amazing and beautiful daughter. many have not. whether you've met her personally or only read facebook posts and tweets, i'm sure you realize that everyday with her is an adventure. i'm a horrible journal-er but i was hoping that this would help me keep a better record of the everyday moments that make being her mom so special. enjoy.