Rainbow Pirate

Early this morning I received an e-mail from the hubby that read, "Yarrrrrrrr! The rainbow pirate is lurking!" and this is the photo that accompanied the message:My husband loves pirates (or at least talking like a pirate) and I guess that's what Ally reminded him of this morning. Regardless, the picture made my day...she's so cute! Thanks, Bud, for the early morning giggle!

Trick-or-Treat

We had our first (now to be annual) Trick-or-Treat party last night and it was so much fun. We had quite the crew of Ally, Dylan, Ryan, Alyssa and Jillian all out on the streets collecting candy! All the kids were wonderful (no complaining, fussing, fighting, etc.) and even the littles made it to at least 20 houses. We weren't even planning on taking them, except to a few neighbors, but they were in to it and ready to go so we forged on.
Ally would not let go of her candy bucket, to the point that I thought we might have to let her take it to bed with her (and then steal it away after she fell asleep). She had a great time and ate too much candy!
David got his fill of scaring all the kids in the neighborhood (he is really quite good and funny when he does it) and we had lots of laughs and ate yummy pizza and snacks.
What a fun night!
Trick-or-Treat!!

Opening Day!

Today is Cincinnati Reds Home Opener and I can tell you that there is at least one happy little Truitt at our house this morning (and it isn't Ally)!! ;-)

David has been counting down the days until the Reds start playing and I have to say I have been a little anxious about the start of the season too. Even the spring training games have made my mind wander to warm summer days and ballpark hotdogs! We are not huge basketball fans, although we do love our Buckeyes and we generally enjoy March Madness, so the winter months get very tiring for us while we miss Football and anxiously await the start of Baseball. (At least we have had the Bluejackets!!!) I am really hoping for a good year of baseball from my favorite team from the 'Nati and we are hoping to get to at least one game this year and plan to take Ally for her first Major League Baseball Game!

Here's to hearing a lot of..."And this one belongs to the REDS!!!!"

Oh, Louuuu...Isn't the Mooooon Beeeeauuuutiful?

If you are a member of my family, you will probably get the humor in the title of this post and if not, then I will explain it to you someday (although you may not think it is as funny as I do). :-)
Anyway, David came home the other night rushing to find the camera because he was so impressed with the moon and wanted to see what kind of pictures he could get with our mega-zoom lens with stabilizer (fancy, right?). The moon was so big and full looking that he thought it was a full moon, but turns out it wasn't quite full yet. The pictures turned out neat though! In the one picture, it looks like the moon is almost on top of our house!

Jerky

Last year (2007), I got David a dehydrator for his birthday, because he had decided that if he had a dehydrator, he could dry and shrivel countless number of items and we would be in snack heaven for years to come! :-) Well, he FINALLY decided a year later, that it was time to use it. So, right before Christmas this year, he made his first ever batch of beef jerky and boy was it a hit! David's dad especially enjoyed it (all we heard from him during Christmas gift unwrapping was a symphony of Ooohs, and Yummmmmms and "Man, this is great jerky"!). Unfortunately, I did not think to document the first jerky making on the blog, but I did get pictures tonight of him making his second batch. I don't think he was as impressed with this second batch (he said it was too dry...needed to come out of the dehydrator sooner), but he did eat it! At least he will know for the next batch! Here are some pictures of David creating...

Birthday Boy

Today is David's 31st Birthday and we had a very low key celebration. This is what he wanted, since we had such a big bash last year, but we are going to go out on Saturday to Dick's Den and watch some live jazz with friends. We are going to leave Ally overnight (with my parents) for the first time, so we don't have to worry about coming home too early. David is really excited and I am looking forward to something new and different. So...for this evening, we stayed in and I made a big Mexican feast at David's request, he opened his gifts with Ally, while I took pictures and then...wait for it...he fell asleep on the couch! I let him sleep for a while, because it is his birthday afterall, but keep in mind it is also New Year's Eve, so I did wake him 2o minutes or so before the ball dropped for a champagne toast and a New Year's kiss! It wasn't the most exciting New Year's Eve, but that's fine with me. I'll do my celebrating on Saturday! As long as David had a nice birthday (and I am pretty sure he did), that's all that matters.

Happy Birthday, Bud! We love you!!

We Miss Daddy

So, Ally and I are a little blue today, because we are missing Daddy. David is on his annual camping trip in Kentucky right now and won't be back until tomorrow afternoon sometime. We know how much he looks forward to this trip every year and seeing friends he hasn't seen since the last trip and we hope he is having fun at FOTH, but we want him to come back soon! Safe travels, Bud!

(Sorry no pictures for this post...)

Ally's First Bottle

Well, Ally has been doing so well breastfeeding that we decided to give her a bottle for the first time. It was a little bottle, as mama is still a newbie at the whole pumping thing, but she did really well and it was a nice chance for David to spend some bonding time with Ally. We want to get her used to the bottle early on, so we have a fairly easy transition when I venture back to work (YUK!).

Daddy and his girl go SHOPPING!

Ok, I'll admit that I was trying to pull one over on you with the title of this post. I mean, let's be honest...we all know David isn't much for shopping, BUT, he and Ally did venture out for their first time alone together for a trip to...Lowes! It was a quick trip and then a fast stop over to Grandma and Grandpa T's house to borrow some sort of tool-like item, but they had a wonderful time together and most importantly, everyone is still alive (I promise David will appreciate the Cosby Show reference I just threw in there)!!!

Here's Ally all ready to go before the big trip...

Happy 1st Father's Day, David!!

Ally's Nursery

Well, I know this seems like a strange place to add pictures of the nursery, but I wasn't blogging before Ally was born, when we finished it and we are so proud of it, that I just had to show it off. We went with a Garden/Butterfly theme for Ally's room and used light pinks, greens and white. I LOVE the end result and think it is quite the special place for a little girl to grow up!
Ally would like to say a special thank you to Daddy and Grandpa T. for building the beautiful shelves surrounding the changing table. They turned out better than anyone imagined! And, we can't forget the ceiling lights they installed in the nursery and our office...SO GREAT!
Also, thanks to Grandpa C. for helping to paint the room such a beautiful color! You remain the trim champion, that's for sure!
The room was truely brought together by so many people and lots of love. A changing table and glider from Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw and a crib from Grandma and Grandpa C. complete the look! Thanks everyone...we love you!!!
Pictures coming soon...

Let us introduce you to Dr. Dan!

Today we made a visit to see Dr. Dan Heinmiller, Ally's pediatrician, and as you can see from the picture above, Ally was unimpressed. David and I, however, were very impressed! It was our first official visit with him and we were very happy with everything we experienced. Dr. Dan was a recommendation of Mindy, mommy to Ally's friends, Ella and Claire. (Mindy also teaches with Grandma Clark). He was very friendly and laid back and he was so sweet to Ally. He and David spent a few minutes chatting about baseball (turns out David played ball at GLHS around the same time as one of Dr. Dan's sons and he remembered David from those days) and real estate, before we all remembered why we were there in the first place. :-) The staff at Dr. Dan's office was equally friendly and very organized.

Dr. Dan said Ally looked wonderful and he was pleased with her weight (she was back to her birth weight after 9 days). He said she was a beautiful baby (duh!).

He did mention that the skin that connects her tongue to the bottom of her mouth was very tight and most likely would need to be clipped...a procedure he would do in his office at her next appointment. She would feel a very minimal amount of pain and there would be little bleeding. It is important that we have this done to prevent speech problems in the future. We feel confident that what Dr. Dan says is necessary...my cousin and my uncles had this procedure done when they were young, so I was at least familiar with the procedure beforehand. David is a little concerned that Ally will end up looking like she should be jamming with KISS, but I think Dr. Dan will take care not to clip anything too much. :-) So, we will schedule this procedure for next time...

All in all, it was a good first visit and we left Dr. Dan's office feeling confident in our choice in pediatricians and even more proud of our little bundle of joy...

My Hero

I wanted to take a minute to make a very special blog about someone who was very much my hero through all of my pregnancy and especially during labor...my Bud...my David. David was wonderful during my pregnancy, he truely was and he made every effort with his very busy work schedule, to make it to all of the doctors appointments, he read (part of) the About-to-Be-a-Daddy book that I got him, he went to Babies R Us to register with me, etc, etc...but what really amazed me was how he responded during my labor. If it weren't for David, I really believe that Ally would have had to eventually be born via c-section. We didn't have the most stellar of nurses during the night/early morning and the one we got during my pushing was about as motivating as a park bench. She didn't give me any direction, little encouragement and was a bit grumpy, to be honest. But David...he held on to me and told me how great I was doing and told me what he could see happening and was just a true champ! Just looking into his eyes helped me keep going, because I could see how excited he was and knew something was happening. Thanks, Bud...you were AMAZING! I love you very much!