Ayla's 6 month pictures

30th Birthday party December 27th

I am 30!!!! I can't believe it. This was by far the best birthday ever. Mike rented out Bridges restaurant and we had 25 of our closest friends come and help us celebrate entering my thirties with some great food,drinks, and cake. I think this is a real milestone birthday. My 29th year was filled with so many changes most notably Ayla's birth,parenthood,work achievements and advancements. I now feel like a ADULT not a young adult (i.e. someone who just graduated from college) but someone who is responsible for so much more than just oneself. It feels great! Cheer to 30!!

Megan's Baby Shower

“A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bank balance smaller, home happier, clothes dirty, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for.”-Author unknown


Oh, yes the cupcakes!! I had to take a picture of the cupcakes!! I went to 3 different bakery's and I couldn't make up my mind of which one to choose. Paris recommended this cute little bakery in Danville and that is where I decided to put in my order. With all the commotion of the day I didn't even taste one of the cupcakes.

My wonderful mother with Ayla. I swear Ayla jumped into every picture!

This is my Mother-in-Law, Donna, with Ayla
Megan with all her girlfriends. Ayla is being held by Julie.
The guest of honor. Megan!
I hosted my sister-in-law's baby shower yesterday.It was a nice group of friends and family and coworkers. It was amazingly hot here in the Creek,78 Degrees to be exact. It's November and I had on the Air Conditioning!! One of Megan's best friends TJ created a cross word puzzle for the baby game and it was so adorable. It had questions about what Megan was craving to what Luke's middle name will be. I have never seen this type of game at a baby shower. It was so creative and fun to play!

Ayla and I at the polls

Everyone loves getting the sticker!!! So I took a picture of it and loved wearing it all day. :)



I feel such a sense of pride to be an American. I love reading all the propositions and measures, talking with friends about our different positions on them and then doing more research to have an informed opinion. This election has been really tough as I am Conservative on many issue but liberal on social issues. I am glad it is over. Here are some pictures of Ayla and I before heading to the polls.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!! Many more pictures to follow tomorrow.

Riley is the other little animal in this picture...

Ayla goes to Grandma Allocco's house during the day while I am at work. This picture was taken while Donna was changing Ayla's diaper and clothes in the morning. Riley is Donna's dog and she seems to be getting less attention when Ayla is over. Riley jumped up, rolled over and put her paws up trying to get noticed. Pretty funny!!!

Back to work...

Last night I was really unable to sleep. I tossed and turned. I was both nervous and excited. I ended up getting out of bed around 5am to go into Ayla's room and watch her sleep. I think all babies are so sweet to look at while they sleep. Ayla will actually make facial expressions, some smiling and others she frowns as much as she possibly can before crying - both equally cute. So, I sat in there for about half an hour and then fed her. I went back to bed and proceeded to watch Mike sleep until my alarm went off. I thought about this whole experience and how truly AMAZING it has been. Without sounding like I am on a soapbox....some of life's biggest hurdles yield life's biggest rewards. I thought about using the word obstacle instead of hurdle but obstacle sounds too big, hurdles seem big, but with some effort and skill can be jumped. My hurdles were health issues, my reward is my beautiful Baby and wonderful little family.
I did not write about this during my pregnancy because I was going through it, and without a happy ending, I was not emotionally ready to share. In my family fertility was defiantly an issue I was worried about but luckily for us we conceived. I was extremely ill for my first 4 months of pregnancy(I actually lost 15 pounds during this time). I want to be clear here....I mean literally going to work everyday and puking before meetings (not fun and bad breath, haha). Oh poor me right... well besides many other less than wonderful things happening with test scares and so on, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Any of you who have been pregnant know you take a glucose tolerance test where you drink a Gatorade like sugar drink and then wait for an hour and test your blood sugar. I took this test and almost passed out. I was shaking. It felt like I had about 10 shots of tequila in 5 minutes (not pleasant to say the least). You are supposed to score under 140...my result 201. I took diabetes classes, had a nutritionist, and wrote down everything I ate or drink as well as counted grams of everything. I also had to test my blood sugar 4 times (a simple pick on the finger) a day while injecting myself 4 times a day with insulin in the abdomen. All of this really sucked because before this I was scared of needles. Overcame that fear! I also have a major thyroid problem that added insult to injury when it comes to a women's weight. I gained right around 30 pounds in my pregnancy (I think 7 of those were in the last week). The point of me sharing this is simple, each of these things were hurdles. They were NOT pleasant however necessary evils for me to go through to have the family I have always wanted. I think this really can apply to everyone as we all have our own type of hurdle to leap over. WOW...let me catch my breath. So my latest hurdle is coming back to work and thankfully this has been more of a step. I love my work, I love my boss and I work for a great company so this was really a no brainer. I dropped Ayla off at 8:15am at grandma Allocco's. Neither Ayla or I cried (way to go me). I picked her up at 4:30pm and she was so happy. She played with new toys and seems to have had so much fun. I really had a renewed focus while at work as I view every minute as time to be productive. My first day back (today) I sent out around 70 emails announcing my return with pictures of my little darling. I have had an overwhelmingly great response. I could not be happier with this decision. Here is to hurdles. They really make us stronger, wiser, and more interesting people.

Member Guest Golf Tournament 2008

Mike and I were involved in a Golf tournament up in Saddle Creek this past week. I say "we" even though I only played 9 holes in the practice round (Ayla was along for the ride too). My dad and Mike were the actual players in the tournament and they ended up taking 3rd place. They played 63 holes in 5 days. WOW! I did however go to all the events that the wives could go to. My favorite was a 50's theme "Sock Hop". We had to dress up in 50's attire. I wore a Pink Lady outfit with a scarf around my neck and Mike wore Jeans with a white T-Shirt and his hair slicked back. There was the best appetizer's I have ever had. I must give examples...Okay so they had hollowed out miniature apples with Waldorf salad, SOOO good. They also had hollowed out miniature pumpkins with squash soup. OMG...and YES I had to take a picture of the little soup. It was amazing!
Here is a couple pictures of the course so you can visualize what I am talking about.




Check out how Cute Ayla was in the golf cart and notice the bungee cords holding her seat in the cart. Ayla got the cutest golf shoe socks and she was wearing them on the course. SOO adorable!!





This is Ayla on "Grandpa's Chair" at my dad's house in SC. She loved sitting up and acting like a big girl. She was even wearing her "Grandpa's tiny sweet pea" shirt.
We had so much fun and we needed so badly to relax and enjoy ourselves before I head back to work Oct.15th. Yep that is Wednesday. That means I am down to 2 more days of maternity leave.

Recap of Memories....

I have so many cool pictures that I haven't even printed out. They just sit in my camera for nobody to see. So, I decided to go down memory lane today and invite you along. These are some of the most fun things we have done in the past 3 1/2 years. Enjoy!!

Capitola for a girls Weekend...

This weekend I went down to Capitola Ca to hang out with some of my best girlfriends (Melissa, Amy, Tracy and Heather) and to see Melissa's new home right on the water. Here are some pictures from her bedroom... and yes this is what she wakes up to every morning. BEAUTIFUL!! The sound of the waves crashing down on the beach was so relaxing. This begs the question where was Ayla?? Well Mike wanted a best husband award. He took care of our little one so I could go and enjoy myself with great friends while playing fun games, discussing (and solving) world issue's and drinking good wine.


This is a great restaurant called "Hanks". Melissa took us here because it is a build your own salad place, it was so good. Great pick Melis.

3 Months Old

I went to the mall this morning before it opened to walk around and saw a store called "picture People". I waited for them to open and went in and got a few pictures taken of Ayla. Here are the two I bought. She is smiling and laughing now all the time and it melts my heart, I just love it. In the morning she loves taking a bath and playing the kicking game when I change her. This involves moving her arms and legs as fast as she can while giggling. She is just wonderful!!!

These are the two I bought and did the take a picture of a picture routine.

I got this one off the website.

Allocco Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family history - Old black and white photos
REALLY???? I definitely see both of us in her but I really thought the program would say she looks more like me.

Notre Dame- A Saturday Tradition

Ayla with "Papa" Richard Allocco.
Mike and I have a group of friends and family over every Saturday to watch college football. Mike is a HUGE Notre Dame fan as both his Dad and Uncle went there and played football. Anybody seen the movie "Rudy"??? Well that movie was set in the early 70's when Mike's family played. Just one more fun fact Joe Montana played for Notre Dame as a back up QB until Mike's uncle got injured. Here is some pictures of little Ayla during her first game.