Firsts

 FINALLY growing some hair!

8-13-12 (25 weeks)

 

 First time rolling from back to belly

8-21-12 (26 weeks)

 

 First baby brother battle wound (bitemark from Lexa)

8-24-12 (26 weeks)

 

 Pushing up with his arms for a better view of the world living room

8-24-12 (26 weeks)

 

First taste of sweet potatoes 

8-24-12 (26 weeks)

 

 First taste of watermelon

8-25-12 (26 weeks)

 

 Holding his own bottle full time now

8-25-12 (26 weeks)

 

Sitting up alone

8-26-12 (26 weeks)



26 months

My baby girl is acting more and more like a big girl these days. Most recently she has started putting two words together and it makes her seem so much older. Every once in awhile Abby catches Alexa in a copycat mode and she can get her to copy just about everything she says. The latest has been Abby trying to teach Alexa to answer someone who calls her name with "What Mommy?" It cracks me up every time.

Abby: "Alexa?"
Alexa: ".........."
Abby: "What are you supposed to say?"
Alexa: "Whutt Sitsy?"

Abby: "When Mommy calls you what do you say?"
Alexa: "Whutt Momma?"

My girls.

Some of the other things that melt my heart with all of the cuteness...

     -Every morning she follows me into the bathroom. I get my contact case and solution out and put it  on the counter. She says "Tontacts?" And I say yes and she puts her finger on the top of my contact solution and then puts her finger to her closed eye and pushes her finger into her eyelid. I standby and laugh...that is of course after I put my contacts in and can actually see her!

     -If I threaten her with time out she immediately stops doing what she's doing and says "Saw-eee" aka sorry.

     -She loves blowing bubbles in her milk with her straw bowl

     -The first word out of her mouth every morning is "Baby?". Then we go into my room to see baby sleeping in the cosleeper.

     -Anytime someone gets her or if she does something wrong to them she says "Ki?" aka kiss and kisses their boo boo or just kisses them to make them happy again. Recently when she has had an accident and wets her panties she comes up to me and says "Saw-eee" and kisses me.

     -She loves to play doctor with her doctor kit. She brings me the doctor coat and says "Doc-terw PEP-perw" Once when we were in the grocery store I was going over our shopping list. One of the things on the list was a 2 liter of Dr. Pepper. She immediately repeated after me. Since then when she wants to play doctor she says Doctor Pepper.

     -Every time we go to the Marple 10 shopping center she sees Petco and screams "Feesh" because she wants to go see them.

     -She has started saying "lah-ouu" for love you

     -She is obsessed with her PipSqueek Markers. She loves to draw on her "pay-pah". She has filled an entire marble copybook in one week!

     -She has taken a real liken to her kitchen set and shopping cart this month. She cooks food and brings it to us to eat. I love watching her imaginative play!

Some other Lexa facts:

-I'm buying her size 3T clothes for fall
-She wears a size 5 diaper at bedtime and naptime and a size 2T/3T pull up when we go out in public
-No longer sits in the high chair. She uses the booster seat that Mom Mom bought her for her birthday.
-Loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (Mou), Yo Gabba Gabba (Dabby), and Sesame Street (Melmo)
-Steals Jackson's mimi's every chance she gets
- Is putting two words together "What Momma?", "Hi Baby", "Baby Cat"
-Can drink using a regular cup
-Weighs 30lbs
-Naps for 2-3 hrs everyday
-Had her first visit to the aquarium
-Says "huh?" after everything I say and it drives me BONKERS!

 This is the face she makes when she's pretending to nap

 

 Her first haircut....Mommy's Hair Cuttery

 

 My little gymnast! She loves doing tumbles and cheer pyramids

 We spent the day at the park with friends and she's finally beginning to play with her friends instead of just alongside her friends.

This little daredevil kept going down this slide head first even though she slid so fast that every time she fell onto the ground!

 

 

I find myself laughing at this little girl all day. She is just generally a very pleasant and happy little girl. Everyone loves spending time with her! Sometimes I still can't believe she's two already because I'm still waiting for the terrible two's to kick in. She's a real keeper!

Breakfast photoshoot

I have to say I'm totally obsessed with learning how to use my new camera in manual mode with no flash. The one thing I've learned is that our house has really crappy lighting! I have however found an amazing place to take beautiful pictures in the morning. That place is our dining room table. It also happens to be a time when Alexa is pretty distracted and lets me take lots of pictures without her making her famous camera face. Read sticking out her tongue!

Crazy bed head!

Milk bubbles

PRUNES...yum!

Nothing better to do at 2am then update the blog

I should know better...no searching pinterest before bed. It gets all the creative juices flowing in my brain and makes it almost impossible to sleep! I'm researching (that's what I call it when I waste time on pinterest) ideas for Cindy's Very Hungry Caterpillar themed baby shower. I've volunteered to be in charge of the decorations and I'll probably volunteer to be in charge of the games too. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy planning parties?

We've been keeping busy. Will that ever not be the case?



A whole lot of this going on around here...

A lot of this seemed to help until his teething necklace showed up in the mail...

Now we have tons and tons of this.I love this happy boy!

I'm trying to make blogging in bed on my phone a new habit for myself. It seems that that's the only time I get to update these days. I have to say though that seems to be changing. This past week has been brutal with Mr. Jackson. I've really struggled to find happiness is holding an 18lb baby 10 hours a day. Fortunately we have reached a happy place with him. On Thursday I checked the mail and happily found that my friend Kristen had sent us her extra amber teething necklace. Now I must admit that I had my doubts but we were desperate for something to work. I mean this boy would never learn to roll over or crawl or sit if he only spent time in our arms! I put the necklace on him immediately. He looks like a little surfer dude and I love it! By Friday morning I was noticing a difference. He was actually content being in his exersaucer. As the day progressed I was able to put him in his jumperoo and he actually smiled. Every day he seemed to be a little bit more pleasant. And today? Well he has been a perfect angel! He hung out in his saucer, jumperoo, high chair, and playmat. He just played and it was amazing!! Thank you creator of the amber teething necklace. I owe you one!!

The chaos continues

I sat down two days ago to make a to do list. I filled up two notebook pages front and back. It seems the list never gets smaller. I cross something off and add two more. I used to pride myself on being organized but I'm learning that life with four kids is anything but organized and little by little I'm becoming ok with that.

Summer vacation is coming to an end. It's time to hit those summer reading books hard and complete those math packets. The big kids haven't been asleep before 11pm in almost two months. I don't fight them too much about it because they always sleep until 10am or later. These next few weeks will be filled with finishing up some things from our summer bucket list and just enjoying our time together. They're growing up too fast and I have to make the most of these days we have together during the summer.

Alexa is doing amazingly well with her potty training. I bit the bullet and invested in some pull ups for potty training on the go. I also bought a travel potty and I try to remember to frequently ask her if she has to use it when we're out and about. She is pretty good at asking to use it herself. She is still wearing pull ups/diapers during nap an bedtime. I just don't think she's capable of conquering that one yet. When she wakes from her naps she let's me know her "panties" are wet and then says "nap" and tilts her head to one side as she tries to explain that her panties are wet because she was sleeping. God I love that kid! I've been enjoying her so much these days. She is quite the comedian and keeps us all smiling. She has just started saying "lo-ouh" for love you. And it melts my heart every time. She has also been saying "sar-ey" for sorry. Too stinkin cute!

As for my Jackson boy...he's been giving me a run for my money. This past week has been awful. He's been drooling up a storm and just ALWAYS unhappy. Sometimes I wonder if he'll ever smile again. He wants nothing to do with his walker, his play mat, his bumbo or anything other then my arms. He even bumped it up to an extra annoying level when he decided that he not only wanted to be in my arms but wanted to be walking around. He does know I have three other kids and a house to run right?! On July 31st I put my finger in his mouth to feel his gums and sure enough I felt a sharp edge of his first tooth coming in. It's hard to believe that the pictures I'm taking these days could be the last images of his toothless smile. Yesterday I received a nice present in the mail for him. My friend Kristen had sent me her extra amber teething necklace for him. I immediately put it on him and today I feel was a bit better. He didn't need to be held all day and actually cracked a few smiles. I'm not fully convinced that it's a miraculous recovery but every bit of improvement is success in my eyes.

I finally treated myself to something I've been wanting for awhile. I went out two weeks ago and bought myself a new camera. It's a Canon Rebel T3i and it's the new love of my life! I bought two great books on photography and have been reading every night. I'm excited to really learn to use this thing! I regret not getting a better camera when Alexa was born but am so thrilled to have been able to get one now.

So my eyelids are getting heavy and my thumbs are getting sore from typing on my phone. I think it's time to turn off the light and get some shut eye. Jackson will be awake for his morning bottle in ummmmmm 4 hours. Thankfully he'll go right back to sleep afterwards.