Liam Trevor Koch

Alia is going to have a little brother!

We had our ultrasound on March 4th, but we had the ultrasound tech put the gender picture in an envelope and seal it so that we could hand it off to my friend, Emily Prieto. Emily then bought some balloons in the correct color and put them in a box and brought them to Alia's first birthday party. After all the other presents were opened, we opened up the mystery balloon box, and out popped blue balloons!

Although it was still an awesome surprise, Trevor and I both had the feeling that it was a boy after our ultrasound. His profile just looked more "boyish" than Alia's did. But we are so excited to have a little boy! Hopefully he's not a crazy as his daddy was, though! Lol!

Here's a video of us opening the box:

 

 

We've had a boy name picked out since we were pregnant with Alia, so unless we suddenly come up with something we like more, his name will be Liam Trevor Koch. Trevor's main requirement for baby names is that they have a good meaning to them, and Liam means "unwavering protector" which we thought was very fitting for our oldest son. I also like it because it's not totally obscure, but it's not really common either (unless you live in the UK!).

Alia's First Birthday!

Well, we made it to one year! It's been a long and difficult road at times, what with sleeping issues and feeding issues, but I wouldn't trade it for the world! Here's where she's at right now:

* She's such a sweet and happy little girl, and VERY sociable!

* She loves to play and smile and tries to get you to copy what she's doing.

* She's just now started to point at things and then try to imitate what I say. She does pretty good with "balloon," "car," "door," "Goo-goo" (since that's the sound I make when I show her her little baby doll), "baby," and "cuckoo" (since I call her my cuckoo baby sometimes), "mama," and "dada".

* She also claps, waves hello and goodbye, and plays peek-a-boo.

* She crawls (it's a very slow army crawl, but still!) but mostly loves to cruise around the furniture.

* She loves to dance and will dance to almost any sort of music if she feels like it.

* She likes to sing her little heart out when she's in her crib and supposed to be sleeping.

* As of today, she now has 8 teeth! Four on top and four on the bottom.

Her party went really well! We had our immediate families, plus Trevor's grandmas and uncle, and a few close friends. We had pink cupcakes instead of a cake, which made it really easy to give Alia one without any frosting (since the poor little girl was still getting over a stomach virus). But she had a lot of fun seeing all the people that she loves and of course the balloons and bright colored decorations. She got some fun new toys and three pretty, new dresses, including one that was handmade by my friend Emily Prieto. We are very grateful for all of our family and friends who have played a part in Alia's life so far. We're so excited to see all the fun changes that she will go through in years to come! (Okay, maybe not puberty... Lol!)

She loved her cupcake!

Checking out her fun new gifts.

Alia loves her grandma!

And she loves bonking heads with Papa.

We were blessed to have family and friends join us.

Her pink birthday cupcakes.