"Name's Andra" - 2 Years 6 Months

The end of summer and her approaching 1/2 birthday seemed like a perfect time to do a real blog update. However, it is now October and I am finally posting! We certainly were busy over the nine weeks that I was on vacation, but now I have already been back to school for eight weeks.

First let me mention that we purposely did not use a nickname with Alexandra because we wanted her to choose for herself when she was older. Apparently older was this summer, because she now introduces herself as Andra. I personally love it because it is pretty and unique!

Over the summer, Andra and I took a tour of the different parks of Corona to see what we liked best. We decided the Deleo Sports Park was our favorite. It has the only covered playground and has a very nice splash pad. Plus it is in the neighborhood.

Because it was so hot during the day, we busied ourselves with indoor activities, including trips to the library, painting and reading. Now that I am back at work, we have continued evening trips to the library once a week. She loves to play with the building blocks, the horse and dinosaur figures and the puzzles. Alexandra continues to love books and has quite the library of her own. Her favorites are Dora the Explorer, Go Diego Go, Curious George, Sofia the First and Clifford the Big Red Dog. She has many books in each of those series, including some Seek & Find which she is very good at. Before bed each night we also have to read The Little Blue Truck and Little Blue Truck Leads the Way.

On a few different weekends, we took Alexandra to the beach in Redondo where Grandma Sara lives. Alexandra loved having the waves hit her feet. We also went to a park in Orange County and one in Riverside with Sara...a continuation of our summer park tour!

We took a few trips this past summer. One was to Reno to see Uncle Bob and Aunt Sarah. Along the way, we stopped at Manzanar National Historic Site, Lake Tahoe and Mammoth Mountain. It was a fun road trip and nice to see family! Another girl's trip was out to the desert in Rancho Mirage for a few days. We spent most of the time swimming - no surprise there! And in August, we took a quick weekend girl's trip to La Jolla to escape the crazy heat when it was 107 in Corona and Dave was in Vegas for a Toastmasters Convention!

Grandma Janet continues to take her to swim lessons once a week and Alexandra is very good. Her instructor even uses her as a "teacher" for others sometimes! She made a video that is posted on this blog. I am impressed at how far she has come in the last 15 months! Everywhere we went this summer, people would stop us out by the pool and comment on what a good swimmer she is.

Miss Alexandra is quite a chatter box! And sounds so grown up in some of her comments. I have started writing down some of her sentences and comments. Here are a few:
- I am not tired. I am hungry. That is all.
- Casey (the car) is clean. She is not dirty.
- I wiped my own face. Now it is all sparkly and clean!
- I want to wear the Halloween shirt. I love Halloween. It is my favorite!

In July, we transitioned Alexandra to a big girl bed. She now sleeps in a full size poster bed that was my grandmother's and thus a family heirloom. She loves it! Here is a picture of her the first time she saw her new bed. Her grandpa Stacy came to California to help move it from the guest bedroom and left her the stuffed dog as a gift. She calls it "Papi Puppy." Daddy picked out the sheets and comforter which went nicely with the orange and pink tropical theme we already had in her room.

Overall, it has been a great six months (and a little more) full of activities and growth (physically and mentally) for Miss Alexandra. As the holidays approach, I am even more excited knowing that this year she can appreciate them so much more than she did last year.