A Photo a Week in 2016 - #9

This week's photo was from our vacation to Santa Barbara. We took the train and had a great time! It was not only Andra's first Amtrak train ride, but possibly mine too! What a relaxing way to travel!

A Photo a Week in 2016 - #1

This week's photos were taken at the Westin Mission Hills in Palm Springs where we spent a few days right at New Years. I love Miss Alexandra's pose and smile on the left. The jacket she is wearing is red and white with pandas, which is perfect since those are my sorority's (Alpha Omicron Pi) colors and mascot. Since our Founder's Day was January 2nd and Alexandra is a Legacy, these pictures are perfect!

A Photo a Week in 2015 - #48

Today was Alexandra's 18th flight! We flew 1st class home from Seattle. This was her 5th trip in 1st class and she looks quite comfortable doesn't she? The upgrade was just $50 per person and we decided to spoil ourselves since it was Thanksgiving!

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.

A Photo a Week in 2015 - #33

This week's photo was taken in La Jolla over the weekend. It was about 107 at home, so Grandma Janet, Alexandra and I escaped to the coast for a night. We spent much of the time in the pool.

A Photo a Week in 2015 - #30

This week's photo comes from Rancho Mirage. My mom, Alexandra and I spent a few nights in the desert. Most of our time was spent in the pool. Alexandra had a great time. One of the pool attendants gave her this inflatable frog for free, which she thought was pretty fun to ride around in.

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.

 

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A Photo a Week in 2015 - #13

This week's photo is from Maui - Alexandra has loved all the pool time and thought getting her feet wet in the ocean was something she would like to do more of. She says both Maui and Hawaii, but has not yet picked up Aloha (despite efforts from all of us to teach her)!

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!

13 Months and a Few Weeks

I planned on doing this blog update on Easter, which was exactly 400 days since Alexandra was born, but time slipped away from me. I wrote this weeks ago, but now here we are one week from 14 months and I am finally ready to post it. There is a lot to report since Alexandra's last update on her 1st birthday, but I will save some for next week. Here is what happened during her 13th month.

Alexandra loves climbing up the stairs. If left to herself, she would spend all of her time doing this, but it is quite tiring for the adults to chase after her. She is very comfortable walking now, although she still falls often. The first time that I put shoes on her, she cried and cried. Soon she became comfortable with them and now puts out her foot to help me put them on her. She has really cute sandals that she wears most of the time.

We had quite a few nights where we were up with her a few times a night, but that was because several teeth were coming in at once. Alexandra now has 8 total and is back to sleeping well most nights.

Alexandra earned the first stamp in her passport on March 28th when we arrived in Cancun, Mexico. We spent a week at the Westin Lagunamar in a great room that overlooked the pool and ocean. She enjoyed being able to look out the window at the view. Her favorite activity was definitely swimming, which she got to do every day but one. She really had picked up a lot at the swim lessons and would kick a lot when we tried to get her to float on her back. She also was really good with getting her face wet and even started using her arms to swim.

One of her favorites was the fountain in the lobby of our resort. Every time we would walk by it, she would get excited. She really liked being able to reach out and touch the water. It became a daily activity for her.

While in Mexico, Alexandra discovered that she likes bread. At a couple of different restaurants we gave her a small slice of bread which she ate. In addition, she loved re-fried beans! She is not really into finger foods yet, but has sampled string cheese, pasta, cucumber and melon. We give her little samples for her to try, but she still really likes her purees! In Mexico, we were able to expose her to lots of tropical juices including mango, which she really liked. She seems to like all juices. However, when we got home, I bought some pineapple, orange, guava juice which she refused to drink. Both daddy and I thought it was wonderful. And yet she drinks prune juice. She can be a silly girl sometimes!

We ate at Hooters a couple of times. And even though I am not normally a fan, I have to admit the food was good and the service was very good. The second time was for lunch and one of the waitresses was Alejandra. She was quite excited to meet Alexandra (whom we had been calling Alejandra all week) and not only took photos with her, but let her wear her name tag. It was very cute. All of the wait staff oohed and aahed over her. She was quite the center of attention!

Here are more photos from Mexico:

Alexandra attended her first Easter Egg Hunt when my mom's neighbors hosted one for all the kids on the cul-de-sac. She loved the eggs with money in them more than candy because of the noise they made when she shook them. She mostly seemed to enjoy watching the other kids. When we got home, I put cheerios inside them and now it is fun to shake them. She loves to grab them all out of the basket!

That is all I can remember from month 13. I promise to be more timely in the month 14 update! Here are more photos from this month:

Weeks Thirty Six and Thirty Seven

I am a whole week behind and then some behind!  I guess that is what happens when we are busy having fun! So I will do my best to recap the last two weeks. So much has happened and Alexandra is already another 1/2 month closer to one!

Highlights of Week Thirty Six:

• Alexandra stood for the first time in her crib! She was so proud of herself. Now she is pulling herself up all the time and even starting to cruise on the furniture!
• She had meat for the first time (pureed). Alexandra likes both turkey and chicken. She loves the chicken with apples! 

A Trip to Reno (Part of Both Weeks):

• Alexandra, Grandma Janet and I went to Reno to visit my Uncle Bob and Aunt Sarah. What a great time we had. Alexandra not only earned her 5th state (10% already at just 8 months), but she also met two Labrador retrievers and played (well more like tried to crawl in) the snow! While in Reno, we weighed her and she is 17.4 pounds! 

Highlights of Week Thirty Seven:

• Mommy was off all week which meant lots of quality girl time! Daddy had Thursday and Friday off so Alexandra got more time with him as well. 
• This week she celebrated her first Thanksgiving by sleeping through dinner! Yep, a two hour long nap right before dinner meant she missed it all. She did get pureed turkey, sweet potato and grains. We gave her a taste of cranberry and a taste of pumpkin. She did not seem interested in either.
• Alexandra went shopping with mommy and daddy on Black Friday. Don't worry, we did not even start out until 9 AM! She was a trooper and thankfully we did not really have any lines to wait in or big crowds since everyone else seemed to shop on Thanksgiving (which we refused to do).

Eight Months & Week Thirty Five

Dear Loyal Readers,

Eight months just sounds so much older than seven months! It has been a very exciting month for this little girl. I celebrated my first Halloween, went to the pumpkin patch and learned more new things. I smile all the time, but just did not want to for my official 8 month photos. Finally, mommy was able to catch these:

Halloween was an interesting event. I went as Minnie Mouse and only "trick or treated" at one house (our neighbors Rick & Tina). They gave me an unwrapped sucker to play with. It was fun to chew on the paper. Then all these strange people kept ringing our doorbell and mommy would give them candy. She gave me the empty candy bag and I had so much fun with it. It made some really cool noises.

We visited the pumpkin patch this month and it was such fun. At first I did not know why I was sitting among all of these strange shaped objects, but then I decided it was okay and gave mommy and Grandma Janet lots of smiles so they could take my picture. They even gave me a short ride in a wagon. What fun!

Pictures of Halloween and the pumpkin patch were on previous blog posts, so please go check them out if you missed them!

I still love my toys, but mommy and daddy have so many fun things that I want to play with. My favorites are restaurant menus (which taste so good), TV remote controls, phones and water bottles. Mommy did just get me my very own remote control that plays music and will help me learn the purpose of a remote control. It is so much fun, but I still like the real thing. Tonight we are going to Chili's for dinner to celebrate my 2/3rds birthday! I am sure there will be a fun menu to chew on!

Look at me sitting up in my crib in this picture at the right. Mommy just caught me doing it for the first time a few minutes ago. She has never seen me do it before! I am also working hard on trying to stand up by myself and am getting much better at crawling! What a big girl I am!

I am learning Spanish. Miss Marivel has taught me so many words in Spanish and even mommy speaks Spanish to me sometimes. I am excited to become bilingual! My favorite word is "leche," which means milk! But I am learning all sorts of other words. I gave Marivel a hug the other day because she takes such good care of me while mommy and daddy are at work!

I am now wearing 6-9 month clothes. Some of them are huge on me so I have to wear pants over the onesies to make them comfortable. It is fun to transition to new clothes. I can still wear the 3-6 months, but mommy says its time to outgrow them since I have been wearing that size since July!

A funny story from tonight. Mommy was trying to change my diaper in preparation for bed and she decided to do it on the floor since I had been wiggly earlier. Well, I thought it was far more fun to roll around than to get a diaper. Mommy had to get daddy to hold me down in order to get the diaper on. All three of us were laughing!

Mommy entered my photo in the Gerber Photo Contest. Please vote for me! You can vote for me every day at https://www.facebook.com/Gerber?sk=app_586462271392312&app_data=234200 Thanks! Speaking of photos, we took some professional pictures at the end of October and mommy forgot to post them, so here are a couple of my favorites!



Since mommy usually does her weekly update on Saturday, she asked me to include some stories from this week. Last weekend we went to Redondo Beach and Hermosa Beach and spent time with Grandma Sara. We had a great time seeing grandma's new apartment. With no furniture I was free to crawl almost anywhere I wanted. We also went out to eat several times. I love to people watch. I usually stare at the waitress or waiter for a long time. A walk on the pier and boardwalk was fun. When we were walking into the sun, mommy put the shade down and it was hard for me to see so I used my feet to kick it up just enough to see out, but still be out of the sun. The crib that I had to sleep in had bars and was smaller than my crib. It was "baby jail." On Monday, I went over to Grandma Janet's and got to sit in the new high chair she got for me. I decided it would be fun to put my feet on the table since it was there.

Here are some pictures from this week:

Well, that is all for now. I will see you on December 16th and will be able to update you on my 1st Thanksgiving. I am so excited. Mommy says I can try meats now that I am 8 months old and that means turkey!!!

Love,
Alexandra

Week Thirty Four

I am so behind this week! Blame it on the three day weekend that we spent at the beach with Grandma Sara! Week 34 was a good week for Alexandra and it is hard to believe that Saturday she will be writing her 8 month blog. That is just crazy!

Now back to week 34. This will be a short post since it is already Thursday and I have forgotten some of the things that happened last week! Our Alexandra is now sleeping in fleece pjs every night as it is getting colder. Apparently though she figured out how to escape one day last week, because in the morning I found her with her legs completely out of the pjs! They were button up and I know I had buttoned them before I put her to bed! She sleeps on her tummy all the time now and I have gotten more comfortable with it, even though it is not my preference for her.

Alexandra seems to be teething again. She had really bright red cheeks one day. You can see them in this photo. I have not noticed any upper teeth, but they must be coming. She loves to chew on anything and everything. One of her favorites is menus. We go out to restaurants and she grabs it. The other day she had her own menu in front of her, but tried to grab mine too! Dave and I talked about making her a menu so that we can take it with us and she won't get the germs and dirt from restaurant menus! Here are a couple of photos:

On Saturday, we went to Redondo Beach for the long weekend. More about that will be in Saturday's 8 month blog, but I will say that Alexandra had a great time hanging out with Grandma Sara and crawling around in our hotel room. She did not care for the crib provided by the hotel and it took her until 9:15 to finally settle down and go to sleep! Here are a couple of pictures from Saturday:

That is about all to report for week 34. We submitted Alexandra's photo to the Gerber Photo Contest. Please vote for her every day until December 1st at: https://www.facebook.com/Gerber?sk=app_586462271392312&app_data=234200 Thanks!

Week Twenty

Where have all the weeks gone and how is it possible that Alexandra is already at 20 weeks! There is not much to report this week after all the excitement of Hawaii. We did go to Phoenix on Thursday. Alexandra and I flew there, so she now has been on 5 flights in less than 5 months! Our little world traveler in the making! We spent two nights there and then drove home with daddy today.

What's New: After all the new things to post last week, I was not sure we would have anything in this category. But we have two things, one thanks to mommy and the other of Alexandra's choosing. Alexandra tried peas this week and seems to really like them. While she does get far more on herself than in her mouth, she does reach her mouth to the spoon and seems to like peas better than she liked applesauce.

Alexandra also started sticking out her tongue this week, specifically at Grandma Sara. She had not done that before. She is becoming more and more interested in people's faces. She often reaches for my nose or chin. She even grabbed my lips on Thursday - thankfully she has a fairly gentle touch!

Visitors: Alexandra did get to meet a few new people - Jo, Quentin and Marion, all friends of Grandma Sara. They all loved her! She also got to see Gloria again. Alexandra enjoyed spending time with her Grandma Sara. Check out the picture below of the two of them "reading" the paper together!

Photos: Here are some photos of our sweet girl at 20 weeks!

Week Nineteen - A Hawaiian Adventure

I apologize for this blog entry being a little late, but I have a very good excuse - we were in Hawaii on the beautiful garden isle of Kauai! It was a week of many firsts for Alexandra and she was a wonderful little traveler. She has now been to 4 states in 4.5 months! But before I talk about Kauai, I have a little update.

About Alexandra: We visited the doctor this afternoon and found out that Alexandra grew 2 whole inches in 21 days! She is now 25 inches long and weighs 12 pounds 12 ounces. The doctor told us to change her formula because he thinks she might have an intolerance to the milk based formula so we are now trying the soy based. He also suggested we start her on veggies instead of fruits, so I bought some peas for her to try out this week!

Now for the good stuff - Kauai! We wrote Alexandra's name in the sand at our favorite beach in Kauai at Hanalei Bay and took this fun picture to share with her some day!

What's New: This section will be extra long this week. Alexandra had flown before to Colorado and back, but this time she was flying 3 times as far for about 6 hours each direction. We flew Alaska Airlines and were fortunate enough to upgrade for a very minimal fee so Alexandra had her first trip in First Class! She liked it because she could spread out!

Alexandra also had her first swim this week...and her second, and third, etc. She LOVED the water! We tried to take her in the pool for about 15 minutes each day. She would kick her legs and give us big smiles. Here are some pictures from her various swims.

Sitting in a high chair was another new experience for this week, as was trying applesauce. We found that Alexandra liked the high chair as long as we did not try to put her in it when she was hungry. Once she ate and we put her in it to free up our hands for dinner, she was fine. We tried a couple of teaspoons of applesauce and I don't think she really cared for it judging by the expression in the last photo!

No trip to the islands is complete without a luau. Alexandra LOVED the show. She sat on grandma's lap the whole time and followed the dancers and even started trying to dance to the music. She was wide-eyed and alert the entire time! Unfortunately I do not have a picture of that, but here is one from the luau.

And Alexandra put her feet in the sand for the first time at the beach. We did not take her down to the water, but she certainly found the sand to be strange between her toes!

A Funny Story:

We were in the Kauai airport when I noticed a woman who looked very familiar. I searched my memory and came up with the notion that I had met her at an "after loss" luncheon in San Diego last summer. I asked and sure enough, I had met her once before. We had to take a photo since I have been able to meet up with so many of the women from that group! Here is Theresa and Nicole with us. Nicole is 14 months old.

Photos: Here is an official 19 week photo taken on Saturday with her monkey. We named the monkey "Keko" which is the Hawaiian word for monkey. She loves both him and her Sophie Giraffe!

More Fun Photos:

There are a ton more photos of our vacation! Click HERE to check them out on Shutterfly!