And we're rolling

She did it! Alyssa rolled over! We were expecting her to go from her back to her tummy before she rolled from her tummy to her back, but she tricked us; Alyssa rolled over yesterday (February 13) from her tummy onto her back. This is the easier way to roll, but because she spends so much time on her back, we thought she'd go the other direction first. Since then, she's rolled three more times, and she's starting to get a look of accomplishment on her face after rolling, like "Hey! Look what I did!" I have a feeling that tummy time is going to get a lot shorter now that she's figured out how to get off her tummy on her own. She's really close to rolling from her back to her tummy as well, she gets about 3/4 of the way over and then tips back on to her back. I don't think it will be too much longer before we have a roller! I actually caught her first "roll" on video; she had been talking up a storm, so I pulled out the camcorder to record her talking and ended up catching something else. Kind of cool to say the least. You can check it out below!

Alyssa has had a cold for most of the last week. About a week ago, she woke up twice over night, and we ended up (against our better judgment!) having to have her sleep propped up against us in bed that night, and then there was one other night where she just couldn't fall into a deep sleep. The next two mornings we were dragging a little bit, but we said a little prayer of thankfulness since that is not our normal state of being. Alyssa actually likes the blue bulb (aka "the snot sucker") that cleans her nose out, she even giggles sometime. We could only be so lucky for her to continue to like it!

Alyssa is now a little over three months old and she continues to grow like crazy. We can't believe how big she's getting. Aaron didn't realize how big she was until I had pictures of her with the other babies from our Mom & Baby class. In his words, some of the other babies look tiny compared to her. She is getting pretty big, we estimate about 16 pounds; she's filling out her sixth month clothes really well in both length and girth. We're trying to make sure she wears everything at least once before she outgrows it. We just boxed up a laundry basket full of clothes that she no longer fits into.

Alyssa continues to do well at day care; I think she enjoys being around the other kids. You can tell she's getting used to watching others from being there. When we were trying to take a picture of all the babies together at class the other day, she was trying to hold the one other little girl's hand - too cute! And Alyssa now watches Roni when they're both on the same level. She's not reaching out to touch him just yet, and he's not really getting close enough for her to do that, but she definitely knows he's around.

Probably our best news from the past two weeks is that I no longer have to go to San Antonio. After talking with my advisors, they decided that it wasn't necessary and that I had enough data to complete my dissertation. I had to promise at some point to add on this additional component, but it's not necessary for me to complete my Ph.D. - yipee! So now I can get to work on data analysis (as soon as I finish the article I'm writing).

Aaron & I are headed to see Annie downtown this afternoon while Grandma & Grandpa Menke babysit Alyssa. We're excited to go on a "date", but I'm sure we'll be ready to get home and see the real love of our life. And we're all looking forward to next weekend for different reasons...Aaron because he gets to go snowmobiling over in Cable, WI and Alyssa and I because Nana is coming to visit! We're all sure to have a terrific weekend. We hope that all of you have a love-filled Valentine's Day and we look forward to hearing from you soon!