Morning What?

So, I said a few weeks ago I was thinking about transitioning Alex to one nap a day. Well, I didn't do it, however, this week she decided it was time. We go through our normal routine, wake up, milk, breakfast, play. At nine I still put her in her crib and she will stay in there for about 30 minutes "resting" and snuggling with her blanket. After she is done, she will start talking so I can hear her in the monitor so I get her up and she is a happy camper for the rest of the morning until 1:30 or so when she goes down for her afternoon nap. She has been in such a better mood. Last week she was getting a little crazy and having fits over the smallest things. This week she has been like a completely different child, my normal sweet calm baby!

One of her bottom molars is about to break through the gums so I have a feeling the fits were caused by teething pains. There are still no signs of her lower lateral incisors, so who knows when those will make their appearance.

Then and Now

Exactly one year ago I started watching Abby. Some days it's hard, some days it's easy, but everyday Alex has her best friend here to play with so I wouldn't change a thing! They went from being little baby blobs who would just lay there to sweet little toddlers who run all over the place right before my eyes!

Alex, 3.5 months old Abby 1.5 months old

Alex 15.5 months old Abby 13.5 months old

Alex used to try to nibble on Abby
Now she kisses her bestie!

Pumpkin Patch

We took Alex to do our yearly pumpkin pictures. I told Josh there are certain things I want to do each year, one being taking pictures with the pumpkins, another being pics in the bluebonnets. To me pumpkin pics kinda signify Fall for me, I love Fall!

2009 Cook Off

Last year after the cook off we said we weren't going to be on a team this year. We stuck to our guns and weren't! Josh did volunteer to be in the dunking booth so we headed to the cook off around noon to eat and walk around before Josh went into the booth at 1. It was cool, but not cold...apparently the water was cold! We had fun, ate a ton of food and Alex and I got to watch Josh get dunked over and over and over again! Alex even got to dunk Josh. Since she couldn't really throw the ball, she got to push the bull's eye. She cried when Josh went in! My little sympathetic sweetheart! After Josh got out, he changed into dry clothes and we let Alex play with Abby in the little kids bounce house! She and Abby had so much fun falling over each other!

Cook off 2008

Cook off 2009

still dry!

First Dunk!

bounce house!

Alex pushing the bull's eye

a few words!

This morning while Alex was eating breakfast, she looked at me, put her hands out like we do for "all done" and said aaal duu! I thought it was just a coincidence, then she did it again! Then while we were on the way to Target, I was singing Row Row Row Your Boat, which she thought was hilarious, when I was done she said oooh, oooh, oooh so I sang again and again when I was done, she said oooh, oooh, oooh.

She loves figuring things out. We have some cupcakes she got for her birthday that she absolutely loves!

They are great because they have shapes you match up then the bottom of the muffin tin has the same shape so you can put each one in their place. She doesn't have the shape part down, but she loves taking each one apart then trying to put it back together. Then she puts them in which ever hole she can get them in. She will carry the tray around the house and pick up all of her cupcakes, put them in the tray then just keep dumping them and putting them back in. When she is tired of putting them back in the holes, she pretends like she is eating them and will give us a bite if we ask for one! She is very big on pretend eating. She will walk around with an empty bowl and pretend like she is eating from it. She is also getting pretty good at drinking out of a regular cup! Every single day she amazes me at the new things she does! She has also started "multi tasking." The other day she got her blanket, sat on her car and watched tv. She will also ride her car to a toy to pick it up or play with it. She just learned how to go forward instead of just backwards.

Sitting Pretty

Alex cracks me up about 1000 times a day! She does the silliest things or makes the funniest faces. Lately her obsession is sitting in bins, baskets, bowls or drawers. It started in the last week or so. We have a few metal bins that are on the bookcases in the living room. They usually have her toys in them, but one day she decided she would dump everything out and get in!

A few days later, she got back in the bin and snuggled with her monkey.
Then after her morning nap, she decided a plastic bowl would do!
My favorite was the next day, she was in the kitchen being really quiet. When I went to check on her she was sitting in the drawer.
About 10 minutes later she got back in with a book and sat there for the longest time just flipping through the book!Speaking of the kitchen. Our has become a war zone. Originally we only put latches on 2 sets of cabinets to keep Alex out. She was really good about staying in the cabinet with the plastic bowls and 2 drawers that had stuff she could play with. This week, she has just gone crazy. She gets into every single cabinet and drawer just yanks everything out. She got into Cooper's bag and pulled out his bones and poor Cooper was following her around waiting for her to give him one. We have a little desk area with 4 drawers and we just keep random stuff in there. This week, I emptied the drawers because she would just open them and grab whatever she could and take off. I went to the bathroom and was gone for less than a minute and came back to find...I picked up the mess and she threw a fit

before realizing there were a few more things in the drawer she didn't get out the first time!

It was getting really bad. We had 7 empty drawers in the kitchen because I just kept taking everything out until Josh could put the latches on them. Josh put latches on the drawers and more cabinets and she was not happy about it. Now she just pulls and pulls hoping one will open!

Her will is getting stronger and she is testing her limits more and more every single day. If she is doing something she isn't supposed to, I will say her name and she will stop, look at me and shake her head no, give me a cute little smile and do it again!

15 Months Old!

This picture total describes Alex's attitude. If she doesn't want to do something, she looks at us like we are crazy!

Alex is 15 months old today! We went for her check up and she was 31.5 inches (76th percentile)21.8 lbs (30th percentile) and her head was 18.4 inches (71st percentile). So she's still our tall skinny kiddo!

She had two shots and cried when she got them. As nurse Heather was leaving the room Alex blew her kisses through her tears so she wasn't too upset with Heather. She blew all the nurses kisses as we left. Other than that, the appointment was just a regular check up. She looks great. We do have to start a daily vitamin with iron. At one of her last appointments, her iron count was low and with the eating issues we've had and her dislike for meat most days, she needs to get some iron so I'll be picking up vitamins for her this weekend.

Alex will say words but only on rare occasions. She prefers to babble and talk gibberish, but she will say Mama, Dada (or Dadee), fffff (for woof) on a regular basis. Every once in a while, she will say other stuff, like pop, Jo (Aunt Jodi), bye bye.

She knows where her head and belly are and will point to them. She loves sitting on me, lifting my shirt and tickling me or blowing raspberries on my stomach. When we are done with something (bath, food, snack) she will put her palms up when we say all done. She did it after her shots today when Heather said she was done.

She loves putting her toys or anything away in drawers or baskets. She will open the kitchen or dresser drawers and put her toys in them. She opens the little trunk to her car or her purse and puts toys in them and gets frustrated if the toy is too big to fit in it. When we were at Barnes and Noble the other day, she got mad at me because I wouldn't let her put a book in the diaper bag! At bath time, she tries to climb in the bathtub on her own. If her toys are not in the tub, she will drop them in before she tries to get in. She loves being chased around the house and will laugh her head off while she is trying to run away.

She is walking 100% of the time and has started kind of running when she is really excited!