Sunday bow

Lexi really likes to pull the bows out of her hair and then try to put them back on her head. It doesn't work, of course, so she hasn't been wearing many bows. We keep trying though. She kept it in for a bit after church and we took some photos of our cutie. There is also a photo of our tree. We really like our tree. It looks prettier in real life. Notice the barracade. Lexi could get through if she was deteremined to, but she hasn't tried. She just points and says, "mmmMMM?" You will have to imagine that sounding like a question.

A craigslist find long coming

I found this toy on craigslist and the person selling it lives about 45 minutes from us. It took us a couple weeks to finally link up, then me a couple days to clean the toy. This past week Lexi has been enjoying this house with lots of things to do. She has spent a lot of time playing with it so I'm happy with my purchase. I have it in the kitchen right now so it's a great thing for her to play with as she roams through. It needs a small rug or something under it, though, because she stands and pushes it around in a circle. Very funny! And the tile floor is COLD! The balls in the rain spout on the side don't fall through, though. Not sure if they are supposed to. This is a bit of a source for frustration because she has trouble remembering how to get them to come out the bottom. She will have it down soon enough. She really thinks peeking through the door and openning with one of us on the other side is a lot of fun! And it plays some songs she likes to hear over and over. I keep singing about the star, circle, triangle and square...ugh...but it's nothing to complain about as a whole.

Christmas card photos

A couple weekends ago we set up to take some photos at home. We used a large box, of course, to hold up the camera. We actually got some good shots and once again didn't use a photographer. We really need to find one, though. Here are a few of the photos. We didn't share the ones that are on the Christmas card. We don't want to spoil that. You see David's grandma's rocking chair in the first two photos. See our happy girl! And thanks to Aunt Lisa for a cute outfit. We lucked out that G isn't quite big enough. Too bad for G, though.

Back to Thanksgiving

I realized I never blogged anything about Thanksgiving. We had a great one. David's parents came out, via car (that's a long drive! thank you for visiting us!) and we really enjoyed having them. On the actual day of Thankgiving we headed to the home of one of David's cousins and there we had large gathering for a wonderful feast! I think there were about 16 people! We contributed a Caramel Pecan Pumpkin Pie, a yummy Apricot Jello Salad, fresh veggies and yummy dip, and a Pumpkin Cheesecake that Ted made with lovely assistance. We had a great day. A few photos are below, as well as a couple from the visit at our house. Lexi really enjoyed her 2nd cousins, as she always does. She loves to watch them and play with their toys! Before heading out there was a stressful game of Jenga - you would not believe how tippy it was and I came into it halfway. I lost. I was behind on the learning curve, I'm sure. :)

Happy walker walker

Some photos of our happy Lexi assisted walking, but oh so proud because she is doing it by herself! The first night we had the walker she stood behind it, but wouldn't move with it. She would push it a little farther away from herself and pull it back, feet planted firmly in one place. The next day daddy pushed the walker away from her while she was holding on, just far enough that she had to take a step, and off she went! She likes to walk around with the walker and play with the compartment on the front, as well as the spinners. She is very proud that she figured out how to turn this clicker thing all by herself.



Do you see the blur?


Just getting momma!


AND THEN - on Sunday night, right before bed we had 13 steps in a row - UNASSISTED! This was very exciting and she (and we) are proud and excited! She turned 15 months (unbelievable) last Friday so this is just about right for her that she would start a few days after. It's so cute now because she will slowly stand herself up in the middle of the kitchen or the dining room or anywhere and then start to take some steps. Sometimes she gets a bit off balance so she does her "gymnast bend" where she bends her knees and sticks her bottom out to keep her balance. Then she slowly straightens back up and tries again. Other times she just goes right down hard on her bottom. Yesterday she was trying to walk in the kitchen and then I asked if she wanted her milk. She got excited and couldn't quite keep her balance to walk (although she tried 3 or 4 times) so she gave up and crawled. So much fun!

Helping Daddy

Lexi really likes to be around whenever we are doing a project. Daddy is really good at letting her help when he is assembling/installing things and she loves it. We purchased a simple, relatively inexpensive push walker for Lexi a couple weeks ago, some assembly required. As daddy assembled Lexi was very interested. You can see she was very helpful :).



Note the hand on daddy's shoulder - this is one of our favorite things, a little Lexi hand on the shoulder. Sweet.

Under the closet door?

I was in the office a few minutes ago looking for something on craigslist. Lexi was going back and forth between the office and the family room. She came back to the office to see me and she didn't have her socks on. I asked her where her socks were and if we should put them back on to keep her feet warm. She proceeded to get flat on her tummy in front of the closed closet door. She reached her little arm as far under the closet door as she could (it seemed) and pulled out one of her socks. Such a little smartie! She let me put them back on, but I'm not sure how long that will last. She is quite happy with her skill of being able to remove her own socks whenever she can - in her highchair, on the changing table, any other time. She has also begun to point to the foot that doesn't have a sock on it or lifting it in the air to "help" when we are getting her socks on.

Snow and blogging

Yesterday it was snowing off and on throughout the day. It was strange. It would flurry and then stop and the sun was out! You can't really see the mountains in this photo because of the snow. I was trying to get the snow in this photo out our kitchen window, but you can't really see it.



And this is what Lexi was doing while I was blogging yesterday. Apparently being sick is good for my blogging. She loves to play with these playing cards. She just picks them up and tears up the boxes. She likes to hand them to us and put them in and take them out of a paper shopping bag. Sometimes she wads one up into a ball or folds it up. We used the cards as a great distraction on a recent plane ride. Yesterday she found this lid on a file box in the office and was having a good time with the cards.

Sick update

When we went to bed I couldn't get warm. David went and got another blanket to pile on top of me. I woke up about midnight and had a fever of 101.5. So I took some Tylenol, the fever went down a bit and I warmed up. Had to remove some of the extra blankets.
I called the nurse line through our insurance and they said if I still have the temp tomorrow morning (over 101) I should go in to a doctor. I don't have one yet, but my neighbor gave a recommendation. Hopefully I don't have to go.
Lexi is definitely not well yet, but I am not convinced that I should get the antibiotics that the dr. sent home a prescription for on Monday. She got very fussy when she was tired and then ended up throwing up once. Hopefully that doesn't happen again. I think it was from the congestion. Poor little one. The coughing continues. Ugh. I hope this all goes away soon!
Oh, and by the way, Lexi is up right now. I slept the whole time she napped earlier. This morning I actually was on the couch and she was playing with some toys on the floor. She was being so helpful and she probably didn't even know it!

New car seat

A few weeks ago Lexi's new car seat came (very quickly for free shipping, I might add) and I thought it would be fun to have her help us unpack it. Then she could try it out in the house before we installed it in the car. You can see she was a great little helper, "reading" the directions and even interested in the seat, until we strapped her in...

Following directions

I forgot to mention last night that before bed I asked Lexi to clean up her blocks and she promptly started placing Mega Blocks in the bag. Then I turned her toward a block on the floor and asked her to go get it and bring it to me. She did! She crawled to get it and then turned to show it to me and I encouraged her to bring it back. I was so impressed and she is such a happy helper!

Cough cough

Our poor little pumpkin was fussy and tired so I put her down for a nap, but I keep hearing her 'cough cough.' :( I hope that stops soon. And hopefully her ears aren't getting worse. I just couldn't get warm this morning, and then was so warm I had to take the covers off. Ugh. Now I feel ok, but I'm going to go lay down and rest since this is my chance. I just want to kick this thing FAST!

Just sick

We don't have much to report from our house. Just sick baby and sick mommy. I'm listening to Lexi cough up junk over the baby monitor as I type. Hopefully daddy will get a pass on this one. Last week Lexi had a low fever off and on and a drippy nose. She was very tired and taking extra long naps. Friday she was still tired, but doing much better. That night we headed to stay with friends back in the old neighborhood because David has something at the office Sat. morning. Sat. night she started to get congested and had this cough going on. Today I took her to the doctor on ibuprofen so I wouldn't be too achy while we waited. They said they would get her in but we would have a wait and we did wait. It wasn't too bad - just seemed longer because she was wiggly. Of course there was much sadness when the doctor looked at her mouth/throat, ears and listen to her breathing. He said her lungs were clear, but her ears looked very red inside. We left with an antibiotic prescription in case in the next few days she gets a fever, gets fussy, stops sleeping well, etc. She hasn't had antibiotics yet in her life. We shall see what happens. Hopefully I can kick this QUICK. Sick mommy is a struggle.

Our sweetie

Lexi has been doing baby signs very well. She has started signing for water sometimes without being prompted. She does more ALL the time. She has started doing a sign for milk.

But last week she actually said 'HI' - my neighbor friend got her to say 'HI' to Louie their dog. She says hop and bib and she makes some sounds for some other things. She tries to copy what we say sometimes, too. It's so amazing! She had a rough night last night and that just doesn't really happen with her. She is all runny-nosed and water-eyed. We had to go in and give her some water and try to clean out her nose last night. She was fussing off and on. Poor sweetie. She is doing pretty good today. She has a very drippy nose and was tired. She is finishing up a long nap right now. We aren't used to interrupted nights - I know we are spoiled.

On another note - last night Lexi took 3 little steps!!! She was holding onto a chair in the dining room. I was in the kitchen cleaning up dinner and David was with her so he saw it. We couldn't believe it! They were little tiny steps, but she was trying so hard. She has been trying to stand longer on her own and has amazing control in that she will bend her knees to lower herself instead of falling sometimes. We did get her to take a couple more steps after that last night. She did this difficult pivot and a step before grabbing on to something. Wow! Just shocking and so exciting! She was very proud. So were we - there was much clapping and cheering, and ok, maybe a tear or two from mommy. Here is a photo of one handed walking practice with daddy last week.

The marching band parade

The night after trick or treat there was a big parade in town. They do it every year and it's a lot of marching bands. The weather was beautiful. We got seats so that we could be right in front for Lexi's entertainment. The University of Maryland marching band played. They were very good. Many area junior high and high school bands played, as well. It is apparently a VERY LONG parade - like 4 hours or something? We didn't stay that long, but Lexi enjoyed the time we were there. She did a lot of clapping!

Lexi and the Jack O Lantern

After Lexi went to bed we carved the pumpkin and then we lit it and put it on the porch for Halloween. Really, I spent most of the time running back and forth from the dinner table to the door during trick or treat. We were out running a couple errands and didn't have dinner before it started. I asked for a joke and most kids didn't have one - so disappointing. Is that uncommon to be asked for a joke for candy? That is what I did growing up. A few of the kids did come through, though, and one group of boys didn't have a joke, but did the Big Mac rap or something. Very entertaining!

After it was over we took a few photos of Lexi with the lit pumpkin - don't worry, David was right outside the photo. See more HERE.