Look what I can do with Pasta

Aria usually sits in her high chair at the table when we eat dinner so that we can enjoy dinner time together. It also gives her a chance to try some of mommy and daddy's food. Aria enjoys experiencing new shapes, textures and, of course, new tastes, so we figured she might enjoy to try some of our pasta. See what great things she can do with it? Aria's birth mother, Amber, told us that one of her favorite memories as a child was when her mother cooked up a pile of spaghetti and let Amber play in it. Looks like Aria likes to play with pasta too. Photo taken December 21, 2008.

Aria's first Christmas

Aria's first Christmas was a big day. In the morning, our little family of three opened presents together as more beautiful fresh snow fell outside the window. It's rare to have a white Christmas here in Northwest Washington, but Aria was blessed with loads of the white stuff on her very first Christmas.

After breakfast and a nap, we went cross-country skiing in the park by our house. Afternoon brought a visit from Aria's birth parents, Amber and Charlie, and lots more presents for Aria from Amber and Charlie's family members. Many thanks to all who sent gifts. We've never seen such a tiny girl pull in so much Christmas loot! In fact, there were so many presents that we ended up waiting until the day after Christmas to open up one more box from Ted's sister Kathy.

We, of course, took many many photos, but I decided to narrow it down to three to give the flavor of the day: skiing with Mommy and Daddy in the park, with Amber and her new beany babies (we understand these beany babies belonged to Amber when she was little), and last, with a big smile as she sits in the empty box from Amber's mom, Vicki. Photos taken December 25, 2008.

Birthparent visit

Aria's birth parents Amber and Charlie stayed with us for a couple days last week. Amber says three of the books we read to Aria regularly are the same ones her mom read to her as a baby: Good Night Moon, Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See, and (I think) Dr. Suess's ABC. Amber loves to read to and play with Aria when she visits.

Charlie received a brand new laptop computer for his 21st birthday, and Aria was very excited about it too. She loves to reach out and explore anything new to her, especially if it's silver and shiny.

Photos taken December 15, 2008.

More Snow Fun

Aria got to go for another walk in the park today. As hoped, the temperatures have finally warmed up to the high 20s and we had more fresh snow. There is well over a foot of snow on the ground and more forecast for tonight. Aria got a few more firsts on this walk. She got to taste snow and to feel snow with her hands. She seemed enthusiastic about both at first but didn't seem very excited after a little while. Perhaps the coldness and wetness of snow was different than she expected. I've included a couple of pictures to show how pretty the snow is in the trees and to show all 3 of us together by a waterfall. Photos taken December 21, 2008.

Snow day!

The first snow of winter fell last week, and the next day we went to the park to enjoy it. Here' Aria wrapped inside Ted's jacket to stay warm. The weather was in the mid-20's that day. Since then it's snowed some more, and the temperature has dropped into the teens and, at night, single digits. We decided that's too cold to take Aria out in! More snow is on the way, and hopefully we'll get some "warmer" weather again and go for another snow walk. Photo taken December 14, 2008.

Aria meets Santa

Aria is starting to get her first Christmas experiences. We went to a Christmas art fair yesterday and, lo and behold, there was Santa. Aria knew just what to do. She crawled right into Santa's lap and stuck her fingers into his long beard. She whispered something into Santa's ear when he asked what she wanted for Christmas. I bet she'll get what she wants with presents arriving in the mail from Amber and Charlie's relatives as well as Karen and Ted's. What a lucky little girl. Photo taken Saturday, December 13, 2008.

Aria has fun with her new blocks

Aria got a new set of blocks from Grandma and Grandpa Williams. There are 100 blocks of different sizes, shapes and colors. Sure, the package says they are for 1 and 1/2 year olds but she's getting an early start. One of the things she likes to do is have daddy make a stack of them and then she gingery picks off the top one without knocking the stack over. Or, if she's in a different mood, she'll send the whole stack flying.

On another note, Aria is starting to pull herself up to standing while holding on to a table or chair, then releasing her hands and standing for a moment before holding on again. Sometimes she shifts her hands to another nearby object if it's within reach. Can walking be far behind? Photo taken December 6, 2008.

Little pianist

Aria loves to play the piano, as you can see in this photo. She also plays guitar and drum, which don't even require adult help because we leave them on the floor for her enjoyment. She hasn't had a chance to play violin yet, but enjoys watching Karen's friend Laura play. She also loves watching Karen, Laura, and Beth sing every Wednesday afternoon. Ted likes to play his guitar for Aria and makes up little songs about her. We are a musical family, and plan to continue to provide Aria with opportunities for musical expression, though we promise not to push her to do anything she doesn't enjoy. Photo taken November 8, 2008.

Mirror mirror...

... on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? Why, Aria, of course! Photo taken November 8, 2008.

Aria spots an owl... then takes her first swim class

Aria and I went for a walk in the woods the other day. Aria started wiggling vigorously like she does when she sees a dog or a cat or any animal (she loves seeing animals). I didn't see anything at first but heard some rustling in the trees. Aria was looking up and there it was - a large owl up in the tree. Two woman came by and we all watched the owl in the tree above. One woman mentioned how my baby had spotted the owl. Yeah Aria!

Then yesterday Aria started her first swim class at the community pool in Bellingham. I had assumed that only one parent could attend but Karen said the instructions said both parents could attend... so all 3 of us attended. It was great fun. It turned out that Aria was the only baby enrolled so she got a private class. The teacher showed us games and songs to help Aria get used to the water and get started learning swimming skills. Aria absolutely loves the water and, after getting used to a new person and a pool (much larger than our bathtub!), she did great and enjoyed it. She blew bubbles (which usually doesn't happen until babies are over a year old according to the teacher) and got started splashing and kicking. She even got started crawling out of the pool and falling into one of our arms on cue. The class may not continue because there need to be at least 3 babies enrolled by this coming Thursday but we can go to family swims together and enroll for the next class in January.

p.s. by Karen: I just wanted to tell everyone how much Aria loves her bath. She's always enjoyed it, but it seems she's getting even more excited about it as time goes by. On Sunday night when she heard us start running the bath water, she got really excited. She went to the tub and couldn't wait to get in. When she's in the tub she kicks and splashes and smiles and laughs. It seems to be her favorite thing to do. That's partly why we decided to start her on swim lessons ... because she's obviously such a water baby. The other day when I was washing the dishes she got real excited about the water in the sink, almost like she wanted to get in. When we walk in the park she loves watching and listening to the waterfalls just about as much as she loves watching squirrels and ducks.

Just another cute picture...

What can I say? She's just an incredibly photogenic little girl. Aria loves to smile at people. Wherever we go she smiles at people, and they comment on what a happy baby she is. We are so lucky to have her in our lives! Photo taken October 27, 2008.

Election Day

Aria took her Election Day choices very seriously: "Shall I pick the red one or the blue one?" As you can see in the second photo, she decided to dump the red one and keep the blue. Photos taken November 4, 2008.

Stairs -- mastered!

Well, almost mastered. Getting there. Notice toward the end of the video what provides Aria inspiration to quickly complete her ascent. Video taken November 6, 2008.

p.s. November 8 -Aria can now "charge" up our longer flight of stairs all by herself. She's getting quite good at it. The first time she climbed the longer stairs our cat Spirit sat a few steps above her as she proceeded upward and gave her a goal to try and reach him. We called it "Aria's first ascent of Mount Spirit." Maybe she'll grow up to be a mountain climber. (p.s. written by Ted)

Halloween Ladybug

We had thought that seven months was too young for Halloween, and that Aria's first Halloween would be next year. But just in time, my friend Beth came by with this ultra-cute ladybug outfit. Here's Aria all dressed up and ready to go trick-or-treating. She didn't collect any candy, because she really is too young for that, but she brought joy to several of our neighbors. Photo taken October 31, 2008.

Aria Enjoying Fall Harvest

In addition to enjoying Aria's new vocabulary today (make sure to listen to Aria babbling below), we also enjoyed a lovely sunny late fall day by hanging out on the deck. Aria really enjoys animals and plants, especially if she gets to feel them. In this photo she was on the deck discovering freshly picked squash from our garden. Photo taken October 26, 2008.

Babbling away!

Aria's always made plenty of interesting sounds, but today it really felt like she started "talking" to us. No, there are no real words yet, but today she started to say syllables like "ba" and "da" quite a lot amidst the usual coos, gurgles, and squeals. Click on the link below to listen to a recording I made tonight as we sat at the dinner table. (Just so you know, I did edit out a lot of the blank space between her vocalizations.)

Aria babbling

Recorded on October 26, 2008.

Look at me now!

This photo was taken the very first time Aria pulled all the way up to standing by herself! She's still pretty new at it, and, so far, once she's up her feet stay firmly planted in one place. But we're holding our breath for the next stage -- cruising. Oh, and by the way, Aria turned seven months old yesterday. Photo taken October 14, 2008.

Nature girl

Last weekend we visited the North Cascades. We spent Saturday night at a quaint little resort in Marblemount where I gave a piano concert. The next day we explored the area around Baker Lake. I just love this photo Ted took of Aria so at home in the woods. She also got her first chance to play in the sand by the river that flows into the lake. The third photo shows Mommy posing with Aria under snow-covered Mount Baker. Photos taken October 12, 2008.

Budding musician

In case you haven't figured it out already, we are a musical family. Ted and Karen met through music, and Aria's birth parents, Amber and Charlie are also musical. Music drew the four of us together, and we chose a musical name for our daughter (Aria means song or melody in Italian.) Aria gets to listen to and play music, in one form or another, every day. Here she is playing Daddy's guitar. Photo taken October 7, 2008.

Sitting pretty!

It kind of seems like an afterthought, what with all the excitement of crawling, but Aria crawled before she learned to sit up unassisted. Ted took this photo on the first day she actually sat by herself. Don't you love her beguiling expression? Photo taken October 2, 2008.

Omigod... STAIRS!

Aria has just expanded her new found mobility into climbing stairs. YIKES! We knew we were a bit behind in babyproofing the house, but this takes the issue to new levels (pun intended ;-) I'm so excited to see her expanding her skills and want to encourage her in everything, but this really can't work without very close supervision, because she doesn't know how to keep from falling backwards and tumbling down. She's already tumbled from step 1 back down to the bottom a couple times. Fortunately our house is carpeted, so that doesn't hurt too much. But if she gets up more than one step, it's definitely not safe. Now I get the need for baby gates at the bottom as well as the top of stairs. Weekend project here we come!

More photos coming tonight -- haven't decided of what yet.

Open wide!

Now that I've done the concert I was practicing for, I'll catch up on posting more of the great pictures of Aria that have gone by.

This photo is from Aria's six month birthday when she got her first feeding of "solid" food -- baby rice cereal. Since then she's also added bananas and pears to her repertoire. As you can see, she had no trouble knowing what to do! Photo taken September 17, 2008.

Don't you love my sweater?

Aria looks cuter than ever modeling this beautiful sweater, hand-knit by Betsy Senff. Betsy is a member of the Bellingham Chamber Chorale, of which I am a member also. Betsy gave Aria this sweater on her birthday back in March on behalf of the Chorale. It was too big for Aria in the Spring, but now that she's bigger and the cool weather has returned, I suspect we'll be seeing her in it a lot. Thank you Betsy and BCC! Photo taken September 20, 2008.

Crawling & Drumming

Sorry I took so long to get a video posted of Aria crawling. I usually post to the blog at night after she's gone to bed, but the last couple weeks I've been practicing piano at that time because I have a performance coming up.

Anyway, please enjoy this video showing two of Aria's newest skills: crawling and drumming. In the background you can see the baby fence I recently put up. I didn't want to fence her in, so instead I fenced in my office area so she can crawl around freely in the downstairs play area, but be safe from my computer and my electronic piano keyboard and all the attached cords and things. Video taken September 25, 2008.

She's off and crawling!

Omigosh! Aria started truly crawling today! For the last week or so she's been getting about with a combination of frog hopping, scooting, rolling, and crawling a step then falling, but today she really took off. I haven't had a chance to get a good video of her yet, but I'll try to make that happen in the next few days.

Thank you to everyone who's been leaving comments lately. When Aria gets old enough to read this blog archive, she'll find out how many people really loved her when she was little. I invite other friends and family who haven't done so yet to please leave your comments on these posts. It's easy. Below each post there's a link that says "0 comments" or "3 comments" or whatever. Just click on that link, and you'll get a form to add your comment. Thanks!

Aria at six months

Aria's all ready to get to work in her overalls. Photo taken September 19, 2008.

Really ready to roll!

Aria can now push all the way up onto her hands and knees. Can crawling be far off now? Watch the video below to see just how eager she is to get going. Photo taken September 10, 2008. Video taken September 5, 2008.

Sitting practice

Aria's learning to sit. The other day we found that this jar of mixed nuts was just the right size and shape for her to hold on to and work on her balance. Mommy's hand is there just in case she topples over. Photo taken August 31, 2008.

Baby meet and greet

I'm hoping this blog can communicate not just what Aria looks like, but what kind of person she is. Aria is a very sociable little girl. She loves to meet new people. She always gives new folks great eye contact and smiles, and is very interactive. She seems especially interested in other babies. Not all babies are like that, but in this photo Aria met another one who shared that wonderful alert, interactive energy. Aria (left) is 5 months old in this photo, and Naomi (right) is 6 months. Naomi and her mom are just some folks we met in the street in Eastsound when we were visiting Orcas Island a couple weeks ago. Photo taken August 16, 2008.

First four months retrospective

Since I got a slow start on posting photos of Aria, I thought I'd put up a retrospective. Here are photos of Aria at birth, 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, and 4 months old. See Aug. 20 post below for her 5 month picture. Enjoy! Photos taken March 17, April 20, May 17, June 28, and July 12 2008.

Hi there!

Aria's teething and chews on everything she can get her mouth on. People frequently comment on Aria's beautiful eyelashes -- long and curled beautifully upward. Click on the photo to see it full size. Photo taken August 20, 2008.

Grandparents visit

It's been a whirlwind of family visits for Aria this summer, not to mention numerous visits from friends. Aria's grandparents Anne and Whalley (Ted's parents) have been visiting for the last three days. I chose the top well-behaved portrait to document the visit, but couldn't resist the bottom one of our mischievous little girl grabbing her grandma's tongue! Photos taken August 22 and 23.

Aria is five months old!

Aria turned 5 months on August 17. If you look closely at this picture you can see that she can now push her entire torso off the floor. At first it was just for a split second, but now she can stay there several seconds before dropping back down to the floor or scooting herself backwards. I love the look of determination on her face. Photo taken August 18, 2008.

Aria and birth family

Aria's birth grandma (birth father Charlie's mother) was well enough to visit Aria again before she left to go home to Michigan. Here's Aria with Charlie, Sandy, and birth mother Amber. Photo taken August 13, 2008.

Toe sucker!

As promised, here's a movie of Aria's newest skill, toe sucking! Taken on August 8, 2008.

Baby on the move!

Watch out! This baby's going places! Aria can't crawl yet, but now she can roll easily both from back to belly AND from belly to back. This afternoon I put her down on her play mat, and next time I looked, she was half way across the room. It's time to get on with baby-proofing the house.

Stay tuned for pictures of another one of her newly developing skills!

Birth grandma visits

Aria got to meet her birth-grandma, Sandy, for the first time on July 31. Sandy is birth-father, Charlie's mother, and came from her home in Michigan to spend two weeks in Bellingham. Sandy is a talented crafter, and made Aria this very cute handmade doll. As you can see, Aria finds the doll very tasty! Also pictured is Aria's birth-mother, Amber. Unfortunately, Sandy got sick soon after this visit, and hasn't been able to come over since then. We are hoping she feels well enough for another visit before she has to go back to Michigan. Photo taken July 31, 2008.

Cousins visit

On July 27 Aria's cousins came up from Snohomish, WA to visit for an afternoon. Anne (top left) is Karen's first cousin, making her daughters, Angela and Belinda, Aria's second cousins. Also pictured is Anne's husband, Hendrik. What's the spouse of a cousin called? A cousin-in-law? Could someone please straighten me out on that one? Photo taken July 27, 2008.

Aunt and uncle visit

The first relatives to come and visit Aria were her Aunt Lisa and Uncle Rich. Lisa is Karen's sister. This photo is a bit out of order chronologically because they visited over Memorial Day weekend, so Aria is only two and a half months old in this picture. Lisa and Rich live in Salt Lake City. We hope we can take Aria to visit them at their home someday. Photo taken May 24, 2008.

It's official!

Today was a big day for Aria and for Mommy and Daddy. Today Aria officially became a member of our family! Of course, in our hearts she's been a part of our family since March 19 when we brought her home from the hospital. Now her full name is officially Aria Dyami Riley Williams, and her new birth certificate should arrive in the mail soon. The original one with the name given by her birth parents is safely in our files. Note the huge smiles on Aria's proud parents. We've been waiting for this moment for years! Photo taken August 1, 2008.

Aria's been meeting a number of her extended family members recently. Stayed tuned for photos of these happy gatherings.

Ready to roll!

At three months we discovered Aria could stand if we held her up by her arms. I try to give her a little standing practice every day. Photo taken July 12, 2008.

Caught in the act!

Aria's gotten really good at rolling from her back to her belly. Put her down on her back, and she's on her belly in one second. But she hasn't mastered rolling the other way yet. I often have to "rescue" her when she gets frustrated being stuck on her belly. This photo was taken on July 2, 2008.

Ride that baby!

Aria's four months old, now, and it's high time her mommy got started posting to her blog. I finally finished going through and organizing the hundreds of photos we've taken of Aria since she began her life. I just love this one of Peace Bear riding on Aria's back. Taken on July 12, 2008.

Movie of Aria stretching

I really enjoy watching Aria wake up from a nap. She stretches with her whole being. I'm finding that I pay more attention to my own stretching since watching her. Click here to see a short video of Aria stretching after a nap.

Movie of Aria doing push ups

Aria has been spending some time each day on her tummy strengthening her arms and her neck. For those of you into yoga, she is preparing to do the cobra pose. We are noticing that she is getting stronger and steadier as time goes by. Here is a little movie of her from yesterday. Click here to watch Aria's push up video.

Aria can say her name already!

A couple of days ago Karen and I were astonished to hear Aria saying her name! Well, it was sort of a variation on her name. When she was sucking on a pacifier, which she's gotten into lately, she would say "ariariari." I even recorded it and made it the ring tone for my cell phone. Click here to listen to it,