A Photo a Week in 2015 - #49

Another trip to the beach to visit Grandma Sara and Uncle Alex too place this week. In addition, Miss Alexandra has her little Christmas tree decorated and is ready for Christmas!

A Photo a Week in 2015 - #41

What a busy week it was! A weekend in San Diego to see Uncle Fer and Grandma Sara. The weather was HOT and so a visit to the pool at the hotel was a must for Miss Alexandra. During the middle of the week, I took a day off for my mom's birthday and got to take this sweet girl to the pumpkin patch. She was so excited that she is now 3 feet tall, but that did not mean she was ready to ride any rides other than the little train with mommy.

"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.

A Photo a Week in 2015 - #37

This week we have two photos, both taken during a visit to Redondo Beach to see Grandma Sara. Alexandra loves the ocean and had a great time getting her feet wet. After a shower, we changed her into the U of A cheerleader outfit that Grantie Lorel had bought for her. Thankfully, the Cats beat Nevada that day!

A Photo a Week in 2015 - #34

This week, we went to Orange County to have lunch with Grandma Sara, Grantie Lorel, Uncle David and Don & Shirley Tobias. The other photo is just a fun one taken on a walk around the neighborhood.

A Photo a Week in 2015 - #29

This week's first photo was taken while visiting my Uncle Bob and Aunt Sarah in Reno. We took a road trip that included stops at Manzanar National Historic Site, Lake Tahoe, Reno and Mammoth.  The second photo is Miss Alexandra at Manzanar.

 

Twenty Three Months

And then there was just one month left until Alexandra turns two! TWO! Wow! Where has the time gone. When asked how old she will be, she even answers "TWO!" This has been quite an exciting and busy month for Alexandra. She is developing into an intelligent, independent young lady. She wants to sit at the table with adults now and we just bought her a booster seat to make that easier.

As of this typing, Alexandra has almost 50 words that she can use to express herself. While some are not completely perfect sounds (more, please, down) she can use them in context.There are many, many words (at least 25) that she says completely such as stay, stop, up, off, duck, pay, buy, read, bye, mom, eat, dad, two, five, hi, go and see. For example, once I take a picture of her, she says see. One day we were out shopping and let her look at a book at Costco. When we started to put it back, she got all teary eyed and said, "buy." She can also now tell us to pay for something when she holds a credit card. I am amazed at how rapidly she has added words over the last two weeks. Many people don't even believe me when I tell them how many words she says, but we have started keeping track in order to count. Just today, she started trying to say stuck and pull.

With all the warm weather, mid 80s, we have been spending more time outside. Alexandra can say "side", but does not quite have the whole "outside" down, but she asks to go out a lot. She loves going down the slide at the park next to our house. She can't say slide, so says "whee" to indicate slide. It is so funny as that is what she says when she goes down the slide. When outside, she also likes to help water the lawn and pull weeds at Grandma's house and play with her toddler lawn mower at our house.

Mommy had a four day weekend, so we spent Friday at Sea World. She loves the animals. She got to get close to an African hedgehog and was quite intrigued. We both had a fun time watching one of the polar bears swimming. Because I am a teacher, I get a free annual pass and so plan to take her more this summer. Then on Saturday, we went to Orange County to have lunch with Grandma Sara, Grantie Lorel and Uncle David at Corner Bakery Cafe. It was a fun lunch!

At the beginning of month 23, we went to Arizona. Alexandra earned her 14th flight and we met Daddy in Phoenix. We spent one day in Tucson visiting two of Mommy's former students who are attending U of A and seeing the campus. On Sunday, we drove back to Phoenix and had a nice visit and lunch with Grandpa Stacy and Nana Kathy. On Monday, we all drove home, making one stop at the General Patton Museum. Poor Alexandra had the sniffles, but managed to enjoy the tanks at the museum and even pose for the camera.

Miss A loves playing with the neighborhood kids! Besides Dylan
who she adores, she also enjoys spending time with Zoe and her brother Zack. Zoe reads to her all the time and the four of them often color together at Marivel's house. Brianna from across the street is always happy to see Alexandra and today they had a good time playing in the park. As you can see by the pictures, Brianna took time to go down the slide with her. Its nice to have some older kids who always look out for her and include her in their play time.

Alexandra continues to excel in her swimming lessons. Soon I will be taking her for Saturday lessons when my mom is busy during the normal Tuesday time. I am very excited to see how far she has progressed and am even more excited for our trip to Maui!

In addition to playing outdoors, Alexandra has grown to like watching Dora the Explorer on TV. Her attention span is quite short, but she definitely likes things related to Dora and her monkey sidekick, Boots.

If you have not had a chance to check out the blog entry for months 21-22, please do so here. And I am also posting a photo of the week every Thursday!

Twenty One Months and Twenty Two Months

Alexandra is now 22 months and I haven't written in two months, so I thought I would try something different and just combine them since I can't really remember what happened in each month in many aspects.

Alexandra has added quite a few words to her vocabulary over the last two months including read, go, please, five duck, juice and two. She now brings a book to me and says, "read, read, read." When she sees a picture of a duck, she will say the word and we even managed to get her to respond "ducks" when we asked her who should win the national championship. Too bad that did not happen.

Reading continues to be Alexandra's favorite thing to do and luckily for all of us, she got tons of new books to read at Christmas. This was by design as we were getting tired of reading the same ones over and over. Her favorite ones right now include: Mac and Cheese and the Perfect Plan, Jingle All the Way (that goes with her interactive dog Jingle), all the Biscuit books (she even reads the "woof" when prompted), Corduroy books and the story of the Star Spangled Banner (her history teacher mommy is quite proud of that one)!

In addition to books for Christmas, Santa brought Alexandra several toys, her favorites being a shopping cart and an animal puzzle. Grandma Sara gave her an easel with a dry erase board on one side and chalkboard on the other. Her Grandpa and Nana Kathy gave her a wagon (which she will enjoy immensely once the weather is warmer). Grandma Janet gave her all kinds of books, including one that includes a hand-held piano that can teach her music. She loves to play the piano at her house. Mommy and daddy gave her her very own vacuum cleaner which she thinks is pretty cool! Alexandra loved opening presents on Christmas morning and helping us out was half the fun!

Alexandra had her very own Christmas tree with soft, unbreakable ornaments. She loved taking them off the tree and then putting them back on. While she did not officially visit Santa this year, she did wave at him from a distance. A visit to Tom's Farms (our local farmers market and more) was lots of fun. She and mommy road the little train through the light display and the Merry-Go-Round. She did not want to sit on a horse, but was quite intrigued as we sat on one of the seats.

Prior to Christmas, we held our annual Chili and Cheer Party. Alexandra had a great time playing with the other kids who attended! She also went to a couple of birthday parties in December.

A highlight of the month (at least for mommy) was that it snowed in the Inland Empire. We were able to take Alexandra to the neighborhood right next to ours and let her play in the snow. It wasn't too deep where we took her and she loved it once she realized it was just ice.

Pictures from all of the Christmas activities can be seen in the post of the Shutterfly book that I created.

Prior to Thanksgiving, we spent a few days in Palm Springs with Grandma Janet while daddy went to Cousin Brian's wedding in New York. A highlight was a trip to the Living Desert to see the animals. She even helped mommy feed a giraffe! Pool time, lots of walking and even some shopping were also on the agenda.

Alexandra's swim lessons continue with Grandma Janet taking her every Tuesday.  She now has a private lesson as well as the Parent/To lesson.  The result is a remarkable improvement.  She now turns over on her own and floats without help; launches herself into the water from the side of the pool or the steps also without help, and thoroughly enjoys every minute in the water.  

She loves counting and sorting objects from 1-5.  She knows five very well and cannot be fooled by 4 or 6.  She is very good at picking up her toys and putting them away.  She has her very own bookcases at home and one at Grandma Janet's house, too.  Her favorite thing is to take all the books out at once and then decide which ones she wants read to her. When told to pick them up and put them away, she does so very methodically. She has learned to tell you what sounds a dog, a kitty, a duck, an owl, a horse, a sheep and a lion all make.  

Alexandra loves playing with Dylan (3rd grade) when he comes home from school, as well as Zach (2nd grade) and Zoe (1st grade) at Marivel's in the afternoons.  

In honor of her 22nd month, she took her 14th airplane ride; this time to Phoenix to visit Grandpa and Nana Kathy, see mommy's alma mater (University of Arizona) and more. Next month I will include more from that trip. 

Alexandra is such a sweet little girl who loves learning and is almost always happy (even when she has a cold)! 

Twenty Months

The big 2-0, in months that is! I can't believe how much Alexandra has done in this last month. It has certainly been busy and I am sure that I will leave something out. It is amazing to watch her grow and explore her world. I was looking at some pictures of her from a year ago when she still had those baby cheeks. Now she is a full fledged kid! She has so much fun and is almost always happy. She is becoming quite independent and only gets fussy when we don't let her call the shots - for example, we make her go to bed (I know, how could we?) or get in the stroller when she would rather push it. She thinks shoes are wonderful - a typical girl and really is a girly girl. She loves putting on beads, carrying around her purse and gets so excited when she puts new shoes on for the first time.

Yesterday, Alexandra and I went to Sea World for the special members Christmas unveiling. She had been two times before and only lasted 2 hours each time. Previously she had shown only mild interest in the animals. This time we stayed 4 hours and she was very interested in the animals. She saw both beluga and killer whales, sea turtles, penguins, reindeer, flamingos, fish and dolphins. I think the highlight for both of us was being able to actually touch a dolphin on the nose. Since it was the Christmas celebration, Alexandra also got to meet Mrs. Claus and an elf. She wasn't too sure about them at all!

Earlier in the month, my mom and I had taken her to the Aquarium of the Pacific, which she also seemed to enjoy. It is clear she is an animal lover just like the rest of the family!


On Veteran's Day, I had the opportunity to watch Alexandra's swim lesson since it was a Tuesday. It had been many months since I had been to one and it was amazing to see her improvement. She had a private lesson before the parent-tot class. The big accomplishment of the day was her floating on her back without any support!!! She cried the whole time because she wanted to be in charge, but even her instructor was impressed.

This month we also celebrated Halloween. We went to the pumpkin patch where Alexandra got to see baby chickens. turkeys and pigs. She was more interested in them than the actual pumpkins. A second visit to another pumpkin place proved not as interesting. I think the most fun aspect for her was being able to wander around. Alexandra went trick or treating for the first time, but only to four houses. She went as a lady bug and was so cute. When we got home, she helped pass out candy and thought that was so much fun! She would yell after people she saw outside with a candy in her hands as if to say "Come and get it!" It was the cutest thing. During the day, she went to Dylan's school dressed as Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

Alexandra continues to be a picky eater around mommy and daddy, but did have some bites of mommy's hamburger on Friday night. She likes egg rolls that Marivel makes and eats all kinds of things with her including soup. There is not a fruit that Alexandra does not like which is a really good thing! Two things that Alexandra absolutely loves are ranch dressing and sour cream. We went out to eat for Grandma Janet's birthday and caught her slurping ranch dressing instead of dipping her pizza into the cup! Then one night at dinner, she saw the sour cream and wanted some. It was near the end of the container, so we let her have it and a spoon. She was so blissfully happy! She also loves ice in her drinks and is not shy at all about walking over to the refrigerator and asking for some!

Alexandra has added more words to her vocabulary and is trying hard to say whole sentences. She
says bye-bye all the time and then adds words such as Dya, which we assume means Dylan (Marivel's son). Sometimes it is bye-bye pane or tane when she sees an airplane.

We have some new favorite books which must be read ALL THE TIME! These include: If You Give a Pig a Pancake, Corduroy (about a bear) and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Alexandra's favorite thing to do at Grandma Janet's house is play in the yard. She enjoys waving at airplanes flying overhead. She also thinks it is so much fun to help grandma get the mail. She knows exactly which mailbox is grandmas! Alexandra also is a great helper around the house for mommy and daddy. She insists on helping with laundry and it
is perfect because she can get things out of the dryer much more easily than either of us. She also likes helping to sweep and clean. I wouldn't be surprised if she asks Santa for cleaning supplies for Christmas!


Today we went to breakfast and then Grandma Sara came over for a visit. She will be taking care of Alexandra tomorrow. Alexandra has had quality time with both grandmas this month. In October, we went to the Queen Mary for brunch to celebrate my mom's birthday and Sara, Lorel and David also joined us. Then one weekend Sara came over and watched Alexandra so that I could get some much needed grading done.

Speaking of grading, I have been so overwhelmed with it that I just finally got around to posting Month 19. Please check it out today as well. I think that is it for this month and I need to get back to my grading.

Nineteen Months

As usual, I am late in posting the blog...a whole month late this time! Miss Alexandra had her 18 month doctor's appointment and weighs 22 pounds. She is 32 1/4 inches tall. She is wearing 18 month tops and some bottoms, but for the most part the 12 month bottoms still fit better.

The big milestone this month is that Miss Alexandra can eat using a fork. She eats strawberries and melon this way. She is also getting more proficient with the spoon and likes to feed herself yogurt. I am sad that all the summer fruits are basically gone because Alexandra has loved eating strawberries, melon, peaches and grapes. She does like apples so that is something she can continue to eat. She has not really added any new foods this month.

Alexandra had her first sleepover with Grandma Sara this month when Dave and I went to the Blake Shelton concert. They had fun together, Grandma Sara has a nice long hallway where she lives and Alexandra had fun running up and down it and pushing her baby doll stroller! The next morning was breakfast at grandma's house along with Grantie Lorel and Uncle David.

Swimming lessons have continued every week and Alexandra has really progressed. She launches herself off steps and swims to whoever now. She has decided the swim instructor, Ginny, is nice and now lets her hold her all the time. Last week she even got an extra half hour of a private lesson.

Grandma Janet's backyard is one of Alexandra's new favorite places. She loves running around, helping grandma clean the spider webs and looking at the flowers.

This month, Temecula was the host to the Moving Wall, a small replica of the Vietnam Wall. It has the same names as the real one, but it is about 1/2 the size and portable. We went to visit and I just love this image of Alexandra touching the names.

Considering how late this post is, I probably have forgotten several things. But for now, I will leave you with this picture of Miss A waving bye to all her loyal readers!

Eighteen Months

A year and a half! How is that possible? It seems like yesterday that she was just turning one year old. And now six months have flown by and she is half way to two!

Alexandra is quite the talker. While there is a lot of babbling, she does use lots of real words,some in the correct format, while others are good attempts. Examples of words she can say include: eye, ice, mom, dada, duck, uh-oh, oops, hi, bye, ball (ba), more (momom), up, down, open (op), close (clo), and oh. She loves to say Hi to people wherever we go. I swear once she said monkey, but she hasn't repeated it. Same with bottle.

She absolutely loves books and is getting better about sitting through an entire story. She has favorite books that she wants read to her over and over again. The current favorites include: The Crack on the Track, Pajama Time, Brown Bear Brown Bear, Good Night Little One and The Cuddliest Cuddle in the World. Often, the first thing that she goes to in a room is her box of books.

She is a good eater. She LOVES fruit and eats strawberries, all kinds of melon, grapes, blueberries and banana. She also likes bread, hot dogs, cheese and her fruit/veggie pouches. She is funny though and picky about eating certain things with certain people. With Marivel, she will eat chicken, but when I offer it to her I get a look like "Mom you can't seriously expect me to eat that?" She is now doing the same thing with her milk and oatmeal....only with Marivel. If Dylan (Marivel's 8 year old son) is having it, Alexandra wants to try it. Thankfully she is getting plenty to eat, but I hope this is just a phase since Dylan can't be with us 24/7!

She knows many parts of the body and can point to them when asked. She knows eyes, nose, cheeks, tummy, foot, chin, bum, mouth and toes. Every night we read Good Night Little One and as I get to the part in the book, she touches the appropriate body part. So cute!

Alexandra is a good sleeper, at night. It is a funny thing that during the week at Marivel's house, Alexandra will point to the pack n play indicating she is tired and go right to sleep for a nice long nap. On the weekends or a day off, she cries and cries and cries if I try to get her to take a nap. It seems my only luck is when she gets really tired and we go for a car ride. Then most times I can bring her into the house and put her in her crib for a nap. But trying to encourage her to nap on her own just isn't happening. Marivel must have a special touch, because she does not want to nap for my mom either. Sometimes she will get so tired that a walk will also do the trick, but often that is later in the day than we would like. She is pretty good about getting to sleep at night, but we have to lie down on the floor with her in her room and transfer her to the crib after she falls asleep.


Alexandra has finally gotten to the point at swim lessons where she lets the instructor hold her without fussing. She is now the pro in the parent-toddler class. My mom really enjoys taking her for these lessons. I can only imagine how great a swimmer she will be by our next vacation in March.

She also got to spend extra time with Grandma Janet as I unfortunately got a nasty back to school bout of bronchitis. Dave was out of town visiting his dad so he could not help out. We did also spend a Sunday in Redondo, having brunch with Grandma Sara after she got back from her trip to Florida and New York. Grantie

Lorel and Uncle David also came to breakfast so it was fun to see them.

We had a neighborhood watch party at the park near our house and Miss A had fun with the slides. It was so fun to see how excited she got when she saw Dylan. She started shouting and clapping. Marivel tells me that this is the reaction she gives every afternoon when school is out and they go to pick up Dylan. In the morning, she apparently cries when he leaves.

Alexandra loves playing outside and I am looking forward to cooler weather (its been 105 the last few days) so that we can resume

walks in the evening and maybe even go to the park. For now, she really likes the backyard. Since it has been too hot to play outside, Alexandra's days include coloring, dancing (especially to Latin music), reading, playing with her little kitchen and playing with her toys. Some of her favorites right now are her little car, the baby stroller and she still loves all the musical toys. She finds several ways to amuse herself.

Miss Alexandra has decided that she likes to clean. One day, she started pulling out wipes and cleaning our hardwood floors with them. Today, she wanted to sweep the steps at my mom's house. I will have to nurture this love of cleaning, since it is something I definitely do not enjoy!

A few other fun facts about Alexandra at 18 months: She loves sitting in the big chair at the dining room table (although it is only for a short while). Alexandra gets so excited over technology and loved when Grandma Sara let her play with her laptop (it did not matter that it was old and would not turn on). She loves to dance. Her favorite song is a Latin song called "Lento." When she hears it she starts bouncing up and down. And finally, she has started giving kisses to people. She blows kisses to almost anyone, but saves her sweet little kisses for a select few.

Here are some other fun pictures from her 18th month!

Seventeen Months

Alexandra turns 18 months tomorrow, so I am still in the window for the 17 month update. Going back to school has meant less time to get on the computer for anything other than school work. So here is what happened between July 16 and August 16.

Alexandra is a water baby. She continued to have weekly swim lessons, getting better and better each time. She tries to be Miss Independent and does not always want to follow instructions, but likes all the activities and games that they play at swim class. She really loves the water and we spent lots of afternoons at our own pool too.The water table is also a favorite of Miss Alexandra. She had fun on a few different afternoons splashing around. One day she even had the chance to run through the sprinklers and thought that was pretty fun.

Mommy went to seminars for school during the last two weeks in July, so Alexandra got quality time with both grandmas and Marivel during those days. In addition, we spent one night at Grandma Sara's in early August.

Right before I went back to work, we spent a few days with Grandma Janet in Palm Springs. We stayed at the Westin Mission Hills Villas. There was lots of swimming and Alexandra loved seeing the ducks on the property!

On August 9th, we helped Jake Allen celebrate his first birthday. There was a pinata there and while Miss A was too young to help with the breaking of the pinata, she was a great helper cleaning up after all the kids got as much candy as they wanted. It was so cute to watch!

Alexandra has so many great facial expressions. She has even started crossing her arms. At the above mentioned birthday party, she was trying to play with Jake, but he walked right passed her so she crossed her arms and made a look as if to say, "What do you mean you don't want to play?

Here are some favorite photos from Alexandra's 17th month!

16 Months

What a busy 16th month it has been for Miss Alexandra as you can see from all the photos! Let me try to cover everything that has happened from June 17th to July 16th.

In June, one of our neighbor's was moving so we were able to acquire Miss A a toddler picnic table, a slide and a little kitchen. So far, she has really only played with the kitchen and she likes it. It came with tons of plastic food and cookware. She can't reach the top "cupboard" yet, but enjoys opening and closing the bottom portions. She also has a "new" water table thanks to her nanny, Marivel. We played with it the other night and she loved it.

This "month" involved a lot of travel with visits to Northern California and Nevada. We even had several little trips within Southern California.

On June 22nd, we went to visit Grandma Sara after she returned from her cruise to Iceland. We went out to brunch with her and some of her friends who were visiting.

On July 2nd, Alexandra had her 10th flight as we flew to Oakland to meet daddy and Grandma Sara for the beginning of our road trip to Redwoods National Park. For the first time, she had her own seat on the plane as it was not full. She had three more flights before we finally got home on July 11th, each time having her own seat! There is a cool website called Flight Memory that allows you to keep track of flights. By the end of her 13th flight, Miss Alexandra had flown 14,111 miles since she was born. She is definitely on track to becoming a world traveler like much of the rest of her family.

July 3rd to July 6th we were in Arcata, CA for the Troy Family Reunion. Alexandra finally got to meet her cousin Stephen and also saw all of the rest of her cousins, aunts and uncles. Cousin Darren was even there all the way from South Africa. It was a great time. Alexandra loved spending time with Grandma Sara, who rode in the back seat with her all the way to and from Arcata. Cousin Sarah introduced her to a pay phone (it might be the only one she ever sees) and helped her push her stroller around. Everyone enjoyed seeing her and how much she had grown in a year.  Most of the family had not seen her in a year (except on Instagram and Facebook of course). We finally put the baby carrier to use at both airports and in the national park when we went on a short walk through the redwoods. Daddy carried her back pack style and she seemed to enjoy it!

On July 6th, we drove to San Francisco, where we spent two nights. We introduced Miss A to Ghiradelli, although she had strawberry ice cream. She did get a taste of mommy's mint chip sundae and daddy's shake. She loves ice cream!

On July 8th, Alexandra and I flew to Reno, NV to meet up with my mom and see my Uncle Bob and Aunt Sarah. We spent three nights there visiting with them, as well as going to Virginia City and Lake Tahoe. Alexandra LOVED Lake Tahoe. At first she just put her feet in, but soon it became clear she wanted to really go in, so we took off her clothes, put on her rash guard and she had a blast! While in Reno, we did lots of swimming. Alexandra LOVES swimming and is getting very good at it.

Twelve! That is the number of teeth that Miss Alexandra now has since her four 1st molars all came in. Alexandra has added a few more foods to her list including pizza. She loves fresh sliced strawberries and got upset with me the other day when I did not have any more for her.

She is now back to sleeping really well....sometimes almost 12 hours! While on vacation, she was a great sleeper because of the dark rooms. The only challenge was that she did not want to go to sleep until 10:30. We are going to have to fix that when mommy goes back to work.

Favorite things to play with include her musical teapot, credit cards (or any plastic cards in mommy or grandma's wallet for that matter), walking her stroller (so we bought her a baby doll one finally), car keys and as always her stuffed animals. I am so thankful that Alexandra loves books and hope it continues.

Alexandra has several words that she now says besides her favorites up and uh-oh that she was saying a month ago. Last night she said "ice" in context. She also is close to saying bath, dog. She says "mom" for more and "eye" for her ear. I think the letter "r" is a challenge for her. When asked, she can correctly point to her ear and tummy. She touches my eye while saying "eye." She also says "hi" while waving at people.

She is very smart. We have given her some expired cards and call them her "credit cards." The other day when she found her "card," she went and found her purse and put it in. She understood where cards go. She also can find a ball in another room. She also is quite proficient with zippers now, frequently opening both purses and her diaper bag.

Here are several more photos from this month of fun!