Monday, February 22, 2010

Josh's Beast

I helped Josh work on his Trans Am Sunday afternoon while Alex was napping. It is finally running. It still has some issues that need to be fixed before he can actually drive it, but he did get it fired up! Woo hoo!!!

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Gloria

Saturday we said goodbye to an old friend who has been with Alex since she was about a week old. We bought Alex a sound machine we called Gloria (as in Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine) and she has used her every single night since. Gloria has been on every overnight trip we have taken. Her rotating projector broke long ago, but we still used it as a night light. We even plugged it into a plug with a remote so it could stay on every night until we got in bed. Alex loved the rain sound and the blue light. As soon as we'd turn it on she knew it was bed or nap time. We loved having it because we didn't have to worry about loud noises waking her up. Well, Saturday, I was vacuuming her room and caught Gloria's cord. It twisted around the roller in about 2 seconds and the cord pulled right off the plug. We moved our alarm clock in her room for her nap and last night because it plays white noise, but decided tonight we'd let her go to sleep without any white noise tonight. I guess she was going to have to get used to sleeping without it at some point so better now than later. Alex went down tonight without a peep. (But I think she's getting sick so that may have helped.)

RIP Gloria

Thursday, February 18, 2010

flowers, teeth and craziness

Alex loves to climb on her little activity table. She also loves to find random object to wear as a hat. Here she is wearing the insert to her potty (clean) on her head. We have the Fisher Price frog potty and I hate it. It has eyes that stick up and make it difficult for Alex to sit on it without spreading her legs really wide. I do not recommend it...for girls at least. I don't know about boys, do they learn to potty standing up?

Josh brought us flowers today when he came home for lunch. He is soo sweet. We showed them to Alex and she immediately grabbed for them. She was very upset we would not let her grab them and pull the petals off so I cut off a little carnation and gave it to her. She loves to smell it and pretend like she is eating it!



Alex gets really cranky when she is tired. She cries over every little thing. It gave me the perfect opportunity to snap a few pics of her little teeth. They are all in! Her vampire teeth are still coming up, but for the most part, they are through the gums.

We went grocery shopping this morning. I am in a very bad habit of giving Alex a snack anytime we are at the store or she is in a cart. If I don't she is constantly trying to grab everything out of the cart. Today, I tried to keep her entertained while I shopped. We sang songs and she could clap, pat her legs and raise her hands when I asked her to. We made it through the entire store without a snack. She decided to love on Abby. She kept hugging her and trying to kiss her. When she would stop, Abby would put her head on Alex's shoulder. They are soo sweet together!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Bad Blogger

So I start every week with the intention of blogging every couple of days, then before I know it the week just gets away from me.

Rewinding a bit...
Valentine's Day. I spent most of the day in my jammies with my two sweet loves. We opened cards in bed. Alex LOVES cards. She has been carrying them around the house for a week now just looking at them...and every so often carrying them in her mouth like a dog! I made my sweethearts French Toast and we watched the Olympics and lounged around most of the day. I did end up showering and changing (back into clean jammies) before dinner. I made delicious crab cakes (from scratch!), baked potatoes and Josh made peppered bacon wrapped filets. For dessert we had fondue. Alex enjoyed picking up every piece of fruit on the plate, taking a bite then putting it back. So cute! I got my Valentine's gift early. Josh started me on my collection of Le Creuset cookware. If you've never heard of it, look it up. It is the best cookware I have ever used! I love it! It's heavy so don't drop it on your finger, like I may have done!

And after reading my stressed out blog a few weeks ago, my dear sweet hubby told me to order the Restoration Hardware bathroom stuff I wanted for Alex's bathroom so I am the proud owner of these adorable bathroom accessories! They look so cute in her bathroom!


Abby has been sick the last 2 days so Alex and I have been running tons of errands to get ready for the shower we are hosting Saturday afternoon/evening. We met Josh for lunch today and then went shoe shopping for Alex. Her foot grows like crazy and all of her shoes are a little too tight on her when she wears socks. I found a cute pair of Pedipeds I was going to get her, then as I continued to look, I spotted an entire table of shoes that were 50% off so I ended up getting her 2 pairs of Pedipeds that will hopefully last her until it gets warm enough for sandals!

Alex is starting to get better about eating, but is getting worse about drinking milk. She usually drinks a sippy of milk in the morning and spends the rest of the day taking a sip here and there of milk but usually has 1/2 a cup left of milk at the end of the day. She is getting where she wants me to hold her like a baby while she is drinking her milk, which I hate ;) Who am I kidding, I LOVE IT!!!

She is also just soaking up so much stuff. She has a picture book that she loves looking at. She can point out the train, duck, panda, monkey, teddy bear, boat, flower, kitty and ball. When she points at the train she says toot toot, ooooh oooooh when she points at the monkey, and smells the flower when she points at it. She can follow any direction we give her. A frequent one is Alex, please put the box of (whatever snack she has in her hand) back on the shelf and close the pantry door. The girl is such a snacker! She hates graham crackers, graham goldfish and teddy grahams so to remind me last week, she dumped all of them on the pantry floor while I was doing laundry. I walked in to find Abby and Cooper going to town on all the graham snacks. The girl keeps me on my toes, I can't take my eye off her for a minute!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

The Beauty and Her Beast

Cooper and Alex love each other...most of the time. They have their moments where they want nothing to do with each other. If Cooper is bothering Alex, she will point to him then point across the room and say "go!" But other times, they have so much fun playing together. Playing usually ends with Alex in tears because Cooper, being the 67 lb beast that he is, eventually knocks her over and she gets upset. Alex's favorite is playing fetch. She will get his tennis ball and throw it for him and laugh her head off while he bounds after the ball. Cooper get so wild and crazy I have to make sure he stays semi-calm and doesn't jump on her. Alex has absolutely no fear of dogs since she has been around Cooper her entire life. I love that they love each other so much!

The Beauty
The Beast
May I have the ball please?

Not afraid of the big bad dog!

Cooper is sooooo funny!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

19 Months





My sweet little tinks is 19 months old today! This month has been so much fun. Alex is gaining more and more independence every single day, and testing her boundaries more and more every single day. She is slowly building her vocabulary. A few new words: shoes, Koko (one of the characters on a show she watches), see, look, tootsie (foot/toes). She loves waving bye bye and anyone and everyone. If we are leaving a store, she waves bye to everyone. When I am putting her in the car seat, she waves bye bye to all the cars that are leaving.

She is still having eating issues. If it's meat, she usually won't eat it. Maybe she'll be a vegetarian like I was when I was little. I refused to eat any meat until I was a couple of years old. She loves feeding herself and dipping foods in yogurt, salsa, guacamole or anything else that is sauce like. If she is in an eating mood, we feed her and feed her until she is stuffed since we have meals where she eats a bite or two before she decides she's done. We have to keep snack cups put away because if she finds one she immediately wants a snack. Usually Cheerios, puffs or goldfish. Depending on the day, she will drink anywhere from 2 to 4 sippy cups of milk a day. She only drinks milk and water. We are trying to hold off juice as long as possible.

She will follow pretty much any command we give her. I was putting on socks the other day, she looked at me, said "shoe" and went to my closet. I asked her to bring me my tennis shoes and she looked around until she found my tennis shoes and brought them to me. Boots are a little harder since I have like 4 pairs of black boots and Josh and I both have our cowboy boots in there.

She is currently wearing size 4 diapers. I feel like she has been in them forever and will probably be in them quite a bit longer. Her clothing sizes vary. If I can buy separates, she wears 9-12 month pants, sometimes 12-18 for the length, but they are usually HUGE in the waist. If they are big, she will take them off all day long. Tops she is pretty much in 12-18 months, some 18-24 for length. It makes shopping for her so hard. She is in a 5.5 shoe, which is hard to find, so we are buying size 6.

She is still very much a mama's girl. If I'm home, I have to be the one to give her milk or put her down for bed. Every morning, she runs to Josh to give him a big hug before he leaves for work.

She is starting to climb on the couch if we are up here. She tries to climb on top of most of her toys. She is not the most graceful thing and has fallen off the bed twice, so her climbing worries me.

Her current favorite show is Little Einsteins. She will clap, pat and put her hands in the air along with the kids on the show. If we start singing the intro song, she will run to the TV. She loves patty cake will clap, roll her hands and throw them in the air. She mastered ring around the rosie in about 5 minutes and loves to "fall down" and laughs when I fall with her. She can point to her head, nose, mouth, ear, eye (sometimes), tummy and toes. She loves smelling things and thinks it's hilarious to smell her feet while I'm changing her diaper. She will only let me do her hair if I put her on the bathroom counter and let her brush her teeth while I'm doing it. She has to have the water running a little so she can wave her toothbrush under the water and suck the water out of the bristles when she is done. Her hair is getting long enough to need another hair cut, but we are letting it grow out this time so she has been rocking pig tails on a daily basis. I really think her pig tails are somehow tied to my heart because every time I see them, it just makes me smile and warms my heart.

She loves music videos. She leads Josh to the office every evening so they can watch them. Current faves are, Black Eyed Peas "Boom Boom Pow", Kanye West "Good Morning" and "Heartless." Josh tries new ones every day but she just points to the mouse until he turns it back to one she likes. For a few days she would try to get me to play them for her, but I always redirected her to something else. I feel that she and I have so many little things we get to share every single day and I don't want to take her music video time away from Josh. Every once in a while, she will pull me in there with her and Josh and I'll go, but I usually let them enjoy their time together while I make dinner or get a few things done around the house.

Alex currently has 16 teeth. All we are waiting on are her 2nd molars. It's crazy how fast her teeth came in. She went from 3 teeth at 12 months to 16 at 19 months!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

So much on my mind...


I feel like my mind is thinking about a million different things every second of every day. From silly things like, does my child know just how cute she is? Could her painted toes be any cuter? Will my little girl ever understand just how much I love her? To bigger things like crib or toddler bed? When do we transition, do we transition to the crib size bed with toddler rails or just go to the full size bed? Which leads to bedding...I am a planner. I had the fabric for Alex's bedding picked out before we even knew she was a girl. Once we found out, I went full force ahead with her room. So much thought and love went into getting it ready for her. I still love her bedding fabrics, so I'm thinking about making a duvet cover to match the toile fabric that was used for her bumper. I've been working on her bathroom (which is also the guest bathroom) to make it a little girlier. I have a soap dispenser and accessories picked out, but they are way over priced (thank you Restoration Hardware Baby). Am I ever going to be able to find something I like as much or more that is a more reasonable price? On the bathroom note, when am I going to bite the bullet and start really focusing on potty training? Is Alex ready or am I pushing her too soon? Still on the bathroom note, will I be able to get the bathroom how I want it before the wedding shower we are hosting in 3 weeks? Oh the shower...will I ever have my menu finalized? I've changed little details so many times...will we have too much food? Not enough food? Will I have time to make everything I want to? And food thoughts lead back to Alex. She has been so picky lately. She doesn't eat like a toddler, she eats like an adult. She eats black beans, hummus, loves balsamic vinaigrette, anything with lots of flavor and spice. She despises "kid food," chicken nuggets, mac and cheese and french fries. Her eating habits are wearing me out and cause much worry on my part about her getting enough to eat. See, my thoughts just never end and continue to lead to new questions. It's no wonder I am so scatter brained, I can't concentrate on one thing for too long before my mind wanders to something totally different.