Monday, June 16, 2014

15 Months

Since I have failed miserably at getting the blog updated on time for the last two months, I am going to write this one early in the hopes it will actually be posted on June 16th! Since I am finally on summer vacation, it should be easy. Let's go back to about May 25th since the rest was part of the previous blog post.

On May 27, we took Alexandra to her 1st baseball game. It was a Lake Elsinore Storm game and she had a lot of fun. She loved the mascots most of all, so we made sure she had the chance to meet Thunder, the team mascot.

Now that I am on summer vacation, our days are filled with walks, swimming, playing at the park, naps and even shopping. Miss A is taking swim lesson on Saturday mornings and loves jumping into the pool and using the kick boards. She does not, however, like the idea of floating on her back. We are fortunate that we have several nice parks in our community where she can run around.

Miss Alexandra can express herself even better now, often pointing at things she wants. She says mom, da, uh-oh and up, although not always in context.  She will see Dave either in person or a picture and say da. Sometimes she points to the wrong person in the picture, but I think she understands da is daddy. There are times that she will look directly at me and say mom, but she also says ma for more. Lately when something falls she says uh-oh and on June 11th, she started saying up when she wanted to either go up the stairs or be picked up. She understands even more than these words she expresses. When there is a container, she can follow the directions open and close with the lid. If I mention that we are going upstairs, she will walk towards the stairs. When I say bye-bye, she waves and sometimes even for hello.

The play remote control is still one of her favorite things. It was the best $10 I have spent on her to date. She loves that thing. Of course, real remotes are still even more interesting. The second she sees my cell phone now, she wants it and even throws a mini-tantrum when I won't give it to her. Other things that she loves include stuffed animals, books, her baby laptop and a musical tea pot. She plays the same song over and over, which I sing to her in a British accent (imitating the song). She loves that! She likes when we sing to her, the favorite song being Itsy Bitsy Spider!

Alexandra loves books. She will frequently take every book out of the container where they are kept, flip through the pages and then toss it aside for the next one. Her favorites include the peekaboo books, Sophie the Giraffe books, Penguin Says Please and Itsy Bitsy Spider. She "reads" the peekaboo book over and over. Unfortunately, Miss A also likes the taste of books and has been caught eating them a time or two.

With nine teeth now, Alexandra has become a pretty good eater. She loves cheese puffs and veggie puffs, little owl crackers, strawberries, pancakes, breads of all kinds, Belvita crackers and juice. At Olive Garden the other night we got her a peach-mango smoothie that she loved! Another milestone is that she can drink through a straw and does it all the time with water now.

For Father's Day, we had lunch at Fuddruckers and then Dave went and did a Go Kart race at K1 Speed in Ontario. For dinner, we went to our favorite neighborhood restaurant called Teakwoods. Everyone there loves Alexandra and she loves them. They take the time to say hi, play peekaboo with her and I honestly think they are just happy to see us because we bring her along!!

A few other things: she has started trying to stand on her head, can climb up onto the ottoman in the media room, has her own chair in the living room, and is finally wearing sunglasses (although not all the time). She has the most adorable straw hat that she happily wears when we go outside. Miss A is a total night owl, often staying up until nine and even after ten on nights where she takes a nap too late in the day. Before I go back to school in August, I will have to change this and get her to bed earlier.

Here are some fun photos from Month #15!

Sunday, June 1, 2014

14 Months and a Little More

Once again time slipped away from me and since it is almost half way to 15 months. I will update you on Miss Alexandra's adventures through May 18th.

Miss Alexandra is exerting her independence more and more. We were at Michael's one Sunday (near the shirts for decorating) when she decided to go into my wallet, grabbed a dollar bill and started to walk away with it. Then a few minutes later, she took two shirts off the stack and started to walk away with them.

Alexandra has an infectious laugh. One night, we were having dinner at my mom's when she started to play a game with me. She would knock her sippy cup full of water off her high chair tray, I would catch it and place it right back on the tray. She would then knock it off again. This continued for several minutes with her laughing and laughing. I was almost in tears I was laughing so hard at her laughing!

We had the opportunity to spend the first weekend in May in Palm Desert. Daddy was attending a Toastmasters Convention, so Miss A and I had Saturday to ourselves. During that time, Alexandra had a play date with Lisa, whose mom is part of my after loss group. It was fun to catch up with Chelsea and see Alexandra and Lisa play together.

This month we also celebrated Mother's Day in Redondo Beach. Alexandra's uncles Alex and Fernando came all the way from Hong Kong. Also at brunch were Grandma Sara, Grantie Lorel and Great Uncle David. Grandma Janet was traveling in Asia for a school accreditation, but we spoke with her on the phone.

As a teacher, Sea World gave me a free pass for the year. So Miss Alexandra and I went for a couple of hours. Daddy dropped us off and went shopping. We started out in the Wild Arctic display, but the polar bears were on loan to another zoo. We will be going back to visit them another time as Miss A loves polar bear stuffed animals. Next we saw the walrus. At first she was intrigued, but then decided he was just too big and got vocal when he would swim nearby. The penguins were interesting, but the puffins were definitely her favorite! She was in my arms at the time so that she could see and started kicking her legs when she saw them paddling their feet! It was adorable!!! We also visited the sea turtles and fish, the sea lions (whom she was not at all interested in) and the dolphins. We will be going back once I am out for summer vacation. Here are a couple more fun photos from that day. After Sea World, we all went to Coronado for dinner and Alexandra's first visit to the Hotel Del. And we should mention that she loved the MooTime Ice Cream!
Here are some fun pictures from Month #14!