Week Twenty Eight

This week flew by and I just realized that it is time to update the blog again. Daddy has been on the east coast all week and got home tonight. He was delayed almost 4 hours due to bad weather so we are very, very happy he is home safe and sound.

Alexandra is already half way to 7 months and her personality is shining through so much these days. She loves to smile and to talk. Marivel (her nanny) tells me that she is quite the chatter box on their daily walks. She loves the walks and got 4 yesterday - three with Marivel and 1 with me. One of those walks involved seeing Grandma Janet's new home which is walking distance. Every morning, Marivel takes Alexandra on a walk down the street as she walks her son to school. On Friday, it was parent day to join their kids for lunch so Alexandra went with Marivel. Her son, Dylan, got so excited one day this week when Alexandra smiled at him. It made his day! I think Alexandra will be sad when the weather turns colder and it gets dark earlier because she won't get as much time outdoors. Thankfully we live in Southern California so there will be plenty of warmer days with sunshine interspersed throughout the fall and winter.

My mom and I watched The Voice this week with Alexandra and she was very interested in it. At one point she even started babbling like she was trying to sing herself. I remember last year when I was pregnant how she would kick when The Voice was on. We really think that she is musically inclined. She loves everything that we give her that has music.She also seems very interested in watching football on TV.

Alexandra is such a happy baby. She is almost always in a good mood, unless of course she is tired, wet or hungry. But she will go shopping with us, out to dinner and on all kinds of other adventures and rarely fuss. We are so fortunate.

Marivel made an awesome taggie blanket for Alexandra out of some of her 0-3 month clothes. It is so cool and Alexandra loves it! I am thinking about setting aside some of her 3-6 month clothes and maybe even 6-9 once we get there and having Marivel make something with those as well. Here are some pictures:

I guess that is all for now. I know very soon it will be Saturday again and time to write the week 29 blog update, so for now I will leave you with some more fun photos from this week:

Week Twenty Seven

It's Saturday again? How is that possible? Time is flying by now that I am back at work. That is a good thing because it means we are getting closer to Thanksgiving Break when I will get a whole week with Alexandra. But it also means that Alexandra is also growing up so fast.

The big news of the week is that Alexandra can sit up on her own. She is able to sit for several minutes without toppling over. This means there is a whole new world of play for her. She has yet to pull herself up from a lying position to sitting, but I am sure that will come soon.

She is a pro at rolling now and spends a lot of her time on her tummy. Speaking of tummies, Alexandra tried sleeping on her tummy on Monday night. Mommy would not have any of that because 1) it is safer for babies to sleep on their backs or sides and 2) she always cries when she is on her tummy in the crib. She tried again on Tuesday, but realized that mommy would simply roll her over if she got caught. Now she is back to the normal side sleeping with her legs completely out of her crib. She seems to like that best!

Alexandra tried sweet potatoes this week which she liked. She also had her first taste of non-pureed food. Marivel cut up a piece of pear and put it in a mesh container. Alexandra then was able to hold it and suck the juice out of the pear. She loved it.

Tonight we went to a Toastmasters potluck. It was fun to see everyone and they loved seeing Alexandra.

There is not much else to report since Alexandra just posted her monthly update on Monday. So I will just end by sharing some other photos taken since Monday. Alexandra decided to help me grade papers one night and tried to eat the essays. Now I will have to explain to a few students why their papers are all crumpled!

Six Months - Half Birthday

Hello Loyal Readers,

Its my 1/2 birthday! I am 6 months old! Wow - time flies when you are having fun!

It has been a busy month for me and I have grown so much. I have been a lot hungrier this past month and mommy says that is because I am a growing girl. If you look at mommy's blog post from Saturday, you will see that I have grown both in inches and in pounds.

I have lots of nicknames. Mommy calls me Smiley Girl and Sweet Stuff. Grandma Janet calls me Cute Stuff, Queen of Adorable and Sweet Pea. Both call me Sunshine, particularly in the morning...as in "Good Morning Sunshine!" and Prune Face when I have prunes all over me after eating them! Daddy also calls me Sweet Pea and Lady A (that you already knew). Everyone calls me Sweet Girl.  I love all the nicknames and give lots of smiles!

I want to explore my world and am ready to start crawling. Now if I could just get my arms and legs to cooperate, I would be unstoppable! I am getting really good at sitting on my own. When someone sits me on the ground, I can stay up for a whole minute before I topple over. Mommy says soon I will be able to sit up from when I am lying down. I really am not excited about lying down unless I am taking a nap or on my play mat. In fact, I did not want to cooperate for this month's laundry basket photo. Mommy and grandma got a couple of photos before I started crying.

I love playing with my toys. Everything goes in my mouth. There is no object off limits as far as I am concerned. I have tried to taste mommy's phone and other items she owns, but she does not let me. I don't know why I can't taste them! My favorites are my monkey (Keko), Sophie the Giraffe, items that hang from my play mat like a giant ladybug, and my musical turtle. Oh and I love my feet. They taste so good and my hands. Sometimes I even try to see how mommy and grandma's hands taste. I don't think they are as good as mine are.

I know mommy has told you how much I love my food. I am really good at feeding myself. Yes, some of it does end up all over my face, but I like it that way. In fact, I get really angry and start crying when mommy or grandma try to clean my face after a meal. Pears, peaches and prunes are my favorite. I smack my lips after I eat them (and after I drink my milk) to show how yummy they are. Speaking of milk, I am learning sign language. Mommy, Marivel and Grandma all make a sign with their hands when they say milk. They make a fist and open and close it. They also are teaching me Spanish. Leche is the word for milk and I know what milk is when they ask if I want some.

Mommy thinks I am funny. Last night, I tried to drink my bottle and put my pacifier in my mouth at the same time. Mommy laughed so much. I laugh too sometimes, but I was serious about wanting both at the same time. She tried to take my photo, but was not successful. Speaking of cameras, I want mommy's. I try to grab for it all the time. I can't wait until I am old enough to have my own! Mommy is doing a 365 day photo challenge and has all but 2 days of my life so far. She did not start until July so realized that there were two dates in May that she somehow failed to take a photo of me. I really do not understand how that happened considering there are over 4,300 photos in her file folder entitled "Alexandra." I wonder if that is how many she will take over the next 6 months?

I love to read and have many books. Everyday Marivel reads to me. Sometimes I also get a bedtime story from mommy. Most nights I am just too tired to focus. I just got some new books about Halloween. I am looking forward to this holiday as it sounds like fun. I am going to be Minnie Mouse this year. I have my costume all picked out and hope it fits me by Halloween.

I really enjoy meeting new people and am a real people watcher. Yesterday mommy and grandma took me to Aliso Viejo (in Orange County) to see the Allens, Rifkins and D'Souzas! It was lots of fun but it made me really tired and cranky. As a result, I went to bed early last night.

I got to meet baby Jacob who is only 1 month old. You would think he would be tiny, but he is as big as me. In fact, his feet are bigger than mine. My foot is the one on the left. I can't wait until he is older and we can play together. Here are a couple of pictures to share:

Thanks for reading my blog. I know some of you only read my monthly updates, but my mommy is a pretty good writer too and you should check out her weekly updates while you are here. See you on October 16th!

Love,
Alexandra

Week Twenty Six

Alexandra will be doing her monthly blog update in just two days. I cannot believe how fast she is growing and how much she has accomplished in the last month!

She is a growing girl, eating more this past week than ever before. This has included 6 bottles of milk per day (total of 30 ounces), 3 or so teaspoons of food (prunes, pears, peaches or carrots) and a 5 ounce bottle of pear juice (2 oz juice, 3 oz water).

All that eating has helped her gain at least 1 inch in length. We measured her and she is 26 inches now, maybe even a tad longer. Using the imprecise method of weighing myself alone and then myself with her, she came out at 16 pounds. Since our scale rounds up, I think she is probably closer to 15.5. Either way, she has definitely added some weight! She is still on the petite side for her age and can still wear some 0-3 size including this outfit. Some of her 3-6 month clothes are almost too tight, but others are way too big. It seems that the trend of not being able to have consistency in women's clothing extends to baby girls as well.

She is really rolling around a lot now and getting better at scooting every day. She easily moves between tummy and back these days, although she still cries for help every now and then. Alexandra is able to sit up without help for about 1 minute. We are always sitting close by and she is still very wobbly at times.

Today she sat in a restaurant high chair for the first time. She loved it and is getting fussy whenever she has to be in her car seat. Last night, she sat in a shopping cart for the second time. She was crying and screaming in the car as we drove from dinner to Babies R Us. As soon as we put her in the shopping cart she got quiet and started looking all over the place.

Alexandra has been going to bed early lately and seems exhausted about 7:30. I expect an early bed time tonight since she has fought naps all day today. Finally she is sleeping, although for how long is yet to be seen.

Here are some of the fun photos we took this week. As you can see, she has got quite the personality!

Week Twenty Five

It seems like I was just typing the Week 24 blog and here we are on Saturday again. Only one more week until Alexandra's 1/2 birthday!!

On Sunday, we took Alexandra to Redondo Beach to see her Grandma Sara, Grantie Lorel and Great Uncle David. She really enjoyed the visit and was fascinated with her grandma's watch. We decided to try peaches there and she LOVED them. She is officially a fruit lover! We will have to revisit the veggies at a later date since she has had a pretty mediocre reaction to all of them. Sara also joined us for the afternoon and evening on Labor Day and got to spend lots of quality time with her granddaughter.

Alexandra finds so many ways to amuse herself, often with the help of Marivel. She loves to switch up the items that hang down on the play mat so Alexandra rarely has time to get bored. On Friday, mommy added a few new items to the rotation that had been in the basket upstairs. Her favorite one is a ladybug with lots of things hanging down that Auntie Ayliz gave her. Keko (her monkey) seems to be the favorite toy right now, with Sophie a close second!

She is getting so good at sitting up and can do it for a few seconds before she wobbles to one side. She has been trying to crawl more. She can get completely over the boppy. Practicing standing is still one of her favorite things and always brings huge smiles to her face!

Whenever mommy has Alexandra in her lap and is working on the computer, this little girl gets so excited and starts banging at the keyboard or trying to reach items on the desk. She also loves the phone. I think she is going to be a techie!

She continues to put anything and everything in her mouth. And let me just tell you about all the drool! We think we see the beginnings of her first tooth which may make its grand appearance any day now.

It has been so hot here that we have not had much chance to venture outside with Alexandra and nightly walks have been non-existent. Finally last night, we got in a short walk. She was very happy about that.

Today Alexandra had her first ride in a shopping cart when we went to Target. She loved being able to look around and see everything. Since the cart was so wide, she wobbled a little. Grandma Janet bought her a c cute Minnie Mouse hat that we put on her before we went outside. Here she is:

Not much else to report for this week. I guess I better tell Alexandra to start writing her 6 month blog since we are getting so close. Here are some more fun photos from the week: