"Duh!" moment

First, let me apologize for being MIA and not making updates over the past two weeks. Is it excuse enough that last week we drove over 1000 miles and slept in four different places within a 6-day stretch? (I still have yet to catch up on the monster pile of laundry that is lurking at the end of the hallway.)

I might elaborate on our lovely fall road trip another time, but for now let it suffice to say that we had a great time (despite Aliah contracting her first cold): camping with our college buddies was a blast, as was hanging out with my in-laws, playing with our adorable little nephew, and crashing at my parent's house in Maryland for one day.

What I really wanted to say tonight is this:
Tonight, Aliah said "duh" for duck! She has previously repeated a word or sound when I initiated, but never spontaneously said things on her own. She had just taken a bath and I was carrying her out of the bathroom. I turned around to flick off the bathroom lights. (Our bathroom is decorated with ducks, and the switchplate has 2 yellow duckies pictured on it.) Aliah reached up, and I thought she was trying to get the lightswitch - but then I heard her saying "duh duh duh." Ok, now I know that babies liek to babble, but this was a distincting different sound from the normal "da ba ba" baby-speak - and I realized that she was trying to say DUCK! "duh... k-k-k", she tried again. I think we stood there and pointed and talked to that lightswitch for a full five minutes. Hannah was wondering if Mommy had gone crazy... but honestly, it was a cute moment. And I knew that if I didn't write it out immediately, it will never ever make it into her baby book.

So there it is, Aliah's first word (other than Mama/Dada): Duck.

She also loves dogs (sometimes she even attempts to bark like a dog, screeching "uh! uh! uh!", while nodding her head, which is so cute, and absolutely hilarious!). Fittingly, she will be a puppy for Halloween.

Here is a sneak-peak of my costumed girls...

Ok, pardon the interruption, I just realized that the last four weeks of pictures are still trapped inside my camera. That meant downloading them all onto our computer before I could attempt to share them with anyone else.

So, attaching a picture took much longer than I had anticipated. Nevertheless, here are their Halloween costumes (not a wonderful photo of either of them, but you get the idea):



Goodnight, and have a wonderful week!