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 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.