Jay & Susan and clan, this is for you! I know I promised it weeks ago and I dropped the ball. She started taking a few steps here and there around her birthday, but now she is doing the real deal!! This video is from a couple of weeks ago and it is crazy to see how much better she already is at getting around. The last couple of days I haven't seen her crawl at all, which just means I have to be that much faster myself!!!
I know, I know she is getting so big and we can't believe it!!!
December 31, 2008, Adelyn Mei Anderson was born. 8 lbs 14 oz, 20 inches. Here is what she looked like when we brought her home from the hospital:
It's been a busy year for us, but a good year and we are so happy to have her in our family. Those of you who are around here know she has quite a little personality. She is very expressive and lets you know loud and clear what she wants, often times just with her face (I'm sure you can guess what happened to this crown right after the picture was taken).
She has been busy adding vocab (and nodding) to her expressions and can say: dada, momma, bye-bye, hi, water, cracker, banana, cheese, hot, dog, go, outside, up, down, sock, and book (my personal favorite). Reading is by far her favorite pasttime, but I think dancing to the ringtones on my phone is a close second. She loves music so much that she even dances to the songs that we sing for her and has recently added headbanging to her repetoire of moves!
She is still working on the walking thing, but is getting braver and braver and now takes up to five or so steps at a time. Here she is blowing out her candles, well, Jadyn blowing out her candles is more like it!
I made carrot cake cupcakes for Adelyn since that is the Baria family favorite and I figured I should indoctrinate her early on. Sadly, I think she would have been a lot happier with the traditional chocolate, as she didn't even finish one little cupcake!!
She is indeed a big fan of chocolate, but her favorite food is definitely bananas. She isn't digging cow's milk so far and last night we discovered she has a love of tofu, so maybe she IS half Chinese after all! Pretty much she just loves whatever we are eating, and wants to be just like us--she even cried and cried to have her own chopsticks to eat. She is also still working on the teeth though and finally almost has four.
Thanks to all those who helped us celebrate...including those who helped us celebrate from a distance. And thanks to all who have helped us out along the adventures...with advice, babysitting, friendship, support, praising her genius and cuteness...it all contributes to our happy standard of living. :)
In case anyone is still interested in Christmas news, since I've yet to blog ours, here you go. Obviously we were pretty excited because this was Adelyn's first Christmas and she was actually old enough to enjoy it, unlike what her first Christmas would have been if she had come on her due date last year.
It wasn't the most relaxing Christmas...Aaron's brother flew into town from Utah on Christmas Eve so we came up with a bit of a crazy schedule between families that involved a lot of driving and a lot of fun.
Christmas Eve we had an early dinner with my parents (who were nice enough to accomdate our crazy plan), during which Jenn showcased her yet again triumphant wrapping. This year instead of tags she used our pictures to identify what was for who, and instead of traditional ribbon, red feather boas...what will she come up with next!
Then we headed straight to the airport to get Seth and then headed to spend the night at Aaron's sister Hillary and her husband Dan's new house. We had too many munchies and too many laughs and stayed up too late to even remember it all. With no little kids around, we slept in and opened gifts at our leisure. Here is Adelyn Christmas morning getting ready for the excitement.
Then we had a yummy yummy brunch, more good times, and headed back down to my parents to open gifts and have Christmas dinner and play more games with them. Every year I am always touched by everyone's generosity and kindness. I love my family and I love my in-laws. And in a random side note, I love our church ward too...I coordinated our Adopt-A-Family this year and was seriously amazed...our living room and dining room were filled with gifts that people had gotten for those in need this year.
We set a record and headed out for our third road trip to Idaho this year in honor of the passing of Aaron's grandma and of course the Thanksgiving holiday. The road trip was very different with an almost toddler than a little baby lump, but thanks to our friends, The Porters and the Baby Einstein division of Disney, we all made it there in one piece!
We thought we would be bored while Aaron's fam was in school, but we had a fun little trip to Idaho Falls one day to visit some friends and some fam there. Little did I know Idaho Falls has a CAFE RIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love you Kim for making it possible. Here is her daughter sharing some quesadillas with Adelyn. So cute, and of course so tasty. We also found out they have one in Twin Falls now...yes, trips to Idaho just got that much better! :)
Now here is the babe proudly showing off her Thanksgiving feast. We had such a great day with all of Aaron's Stoker Family. Brooklyn quickly became Adelyn's favorite because she was the one most willing to get up and walk around and around and around the house with her. Adelyn is STILL missing her terribly. 
Our last day there we had a fun little adventure with everyone and headed up to the mountains in search of the perfect Christmas tree. We drove an hour and a half to get there and tromped around in the snow (Adelyn stayed in the car with grandpa) to find it.
Can we say it is a far cry from the Washington tree farm experience of driving five minutes from our house, getting out of the car, and being surrounded by perfect trees. The first was definitely a better adventure, but Adelyn LOVED them both. 
This is Adelyn's favorite thing to do lately. For those of you who aren't related, you might find the video dull, but I of course could watch it over and over...and watch the live version of course. Who knew how entertaining flipping pates could be. Yes, the book is upside down. That's why it's awesome!
Some may think of Michael Jackson, some of Reading Rainbow, but for us this Halloween it turns our thoughts to the little papoose. She was so excited to get invited to her first ever Monster Bash, which gave us an actual reason to dress her up. Wardrobe was kindly provided yet again by Miss Olivia Rosado...a lovely orange and black butterfly...though you can't really see the wings in this pic.
Aaron decided the only thing we could pull together for ourselves that went a long with a butterfly would be to dress up in 70s garb. Yes, Aaron dressed up without his mullet wig, though I'm not sure how it actually happened, as that is usually the central figure of his every disguise.
We also went to the ward Trunk or Treat with cousin Jadyn and afterward had a little photo shoot. Of all the ones we took of the butterfly and the ballerina cat, this one has to be my favorite. Toward the end of the picture taking, Adelyn realized that Jadyn was already feasting on her halloween candy. Not realizing fully what Jadyn was sucking on, she figured it must be tasty and decided to give the other end a try.
I am sure we all know that this coming Saturday is Halloween and I am sure we have all been busy gearing up for this holiday season. Traditionally, summer is my favorite time of the year and I absolutely loathe its departure (I do live in the Pacific Northwest after all, can you blame me? I love sunshine!!). However, this year I have strangely been enjoying fall immensely.
That of course is aided by my love for EATING all things pumpkin, kicking that off with some ymmy pancakes. But now that we have a little one, we have been doing a little more with pumpkins than eating them. My sister does a pumpkin painting activity every year, so Adelyn and I joined her for that.
Then we went to a local pumpkin patch, which was a first for all three of us. It was an unseasonably warm and beautiful October Saturday, so we, along with the rest of the town it seemed, took advantage of it.
