Thursday, June 28, 2012

My Alexia

Lexi is now 15 months old and going on 16 years. She's so sassy and funny and opinionated nowadays. Here's what she's been up to:

She's got her 8 front teeth and most of her one year molars are in, though they're taking their sweet time to come all the way through, causing her to constantly gnaw on her fist, which then causes her to have tons of tiny cuts on her hands.

She sleeps through the night and has been since she was about 10 or 11 months old. When she does wake up, it's only her grunting a bit or rolling over to get more comfortable.

She's a goooooood eater. I mean the kid can hoover food and if she's really hungry, she finishes her own meal before I get through a quarter of mine and next thing I know she's grabbing my meal. But if her teeth are really bugging her (or if Stasa distracts her), she won't eat at all and instead shakes her head no and dances in her chair.

She says a few words, mostly mama or mommy, dada or daddy, DAH-DAH (for Stasa), bah (for ball), uh-oh (for when she wants to drop something lol), bubble, and baby.

She love love loves her big sister and runs right to her room after I get her out of the crib in the morning. If Stasa's somewhere, Lexi's not far behind. We drop Stas off first at daycare and Lexi always stops and gives Stasa a big kiss and hug. She doesn't even give us a kiss goodbye.

She's so loving toward her baby doll and carries that thing around everywhere. Apparently she takes responsibility for all of the baby dolls at daycare, too. She'll walk her baby around, put her baby to bed, pat her back, and wrap her in a blanket.

She HATES the pool for the first 30 minutes and then slowly warms up to the water. And even after she's warmed up, she still hates any and all floaties and inner tubes.

She's so smart. I know every parent says that about their child, but really, she is. She understands a lot of what we say and follows directions really well. When we come downstairs in the morning, she sits down and tries to put her shoes on. Same thing when we come home. Plops down on the landing and takes off her shoes AND puts them away.

She's a serious daddy's girl and calls for him all day at day care. DAAAAAAADDY! DADA? DADA? DAAAAAADDDYY! If he's downstairs cooking and we're upstairs playing, she stands at the gate calling down to him.





Friday, June 22, 2012

Bedtime routines

Totally off the subject I intend to blog about, but little Lexi has sooooo many nicknames and you never know which one Stas is going to insist we call her. She's referred to as My Sister, My Lexia, Lexi, Alexi, Lexia, boo-boo, and so many more. Oh and if you ask Stas what Lexi's name is she yells AH-LEX-EEE-AH!

I digress.

Putting Lexi to bed has never been easier. Scratch that. It's never been more fun. It was definitely easier when all I had to do was nurse her to sleep. But now she's a participant in the bedtime routine. And she follows direction so well. After bath and pjs and teeth brushing, I tell her to get a book and her baby. She grabs a book and her baby and heads down the hall to her room and starts climbing into the armchair for story time. We read and then she flips through the book on her own. After that she climbs down, throws her friends in the crib, marches over to turn on her sleep sheep, and then stands under the light switch, waiting for me to lift her up to turn it off. Once the lights are out, baby wants down in her crib. She lays down, waits for her blanket and book and then is ready to be alone.

I mean, could that get any more fun? And easy? I love it.

Bedtime for Stasa is a bit different. She starts out bartering for two or twenty books. Once we finally land on a single book (which is almost always a Berenstain Bears book - why, oh why do those books have so many ever loving words?), we all have to cuddle up in her bed. Usually at this point it's just her and Tom and I join them after I've finished putting Lexi to bed. Is that weird that we do Lexi's bedtime 1-on-1 and Stasa's as a group? Maybe. But I think we do that because that's how her bedtime routine was when she moved to the big girl room and we didn't want things to change once Lexi arrived.

Anyway, by the time I arrive, Tom and Stas are mid-story. After we finish the book, it's lights out, music on, and sayonara daddy. Every single night Stasa asks, "Mommy can you stay with me for a coupla songs?" And every night I do, though most nights it's more like 5 or 8 songs. During that time we lay in her bed and talk about our days. Sometimes we change it up and play shadow puppets with the light cast from her night light. Lately we've been watching short You Tube videos of fireworks displays to prepare her for the big show on July 4th.

After I leave her room (with lots of "No stay! I need you!"), she comes out maybe 5 minutes later to announce that she needs to go potty. Every.single.night. Now we just tell her to go on her own and she does and then trots back to her room.

I think things are definitely going to have to change once Lexi's in a big girl bed, though we have quite a long time before that happens.

Monday, June 18, 2012

School and dance pictures

Let's start with the dance pictures. The official dance pictures. We didn't purchase any. I know, shocking.



Those were the best of the bunch. Seriously. And $25 for each digital image. So Tom suggested I try getting a few shots on my own. Here's what I was able to capture after some bribery.






You just died from cuteness, didn't you? Well, get ready for some ridiculousness. Official spring school pictures, complete with the amazingness that is class pictures.



Stasa's class picture - her face kills me


And Lexi's class pictures. She's transitioning between the Infant and Toddler classes. Poor Ms Khadija. They should have taken another picture.


She's *clearly* thrilled to be in this picture. Even though one of her favorite teachers is holding her.



Summatime

It's officially summer, although I suppose it's been summer for awhile now and I'm just so far behind in everything, but whatareyougonnado, ya know?

June has found us outside as often as possible, usually at the pool or just playing in our cul-de-sac.I really want to get Stasa swim lessons this summer since she's become so independent in the pool and only ever wants to play in the big kid pool. I thought this would be a huge problem because of Lexi, but really that kid has zero desire to be in either pool unless I'm holding her. I'm also surprised at how well Stasa listens at the pool. She doesn't fight us when it's break time - she tells *us* when it's time to get out and just hops out on her own. She knows to wait for the lifeguard to be in the big chair before getting in and asks our permission first, too. I'm really impressed with her big girl behavior.






After watching both girls ride around the cul-de-sac we had a reality check about their "rides." Stasa is in desperate need of a bigger bike. She's long outgrown her trike and it's almost time for Lexi to start using it. At least Little Sister thinks she's ready.



We stopped by a local bike store this past weekend to pick up new inner tubes for one of our joggers. While we were waiting we had Stasa fitted for a bike. Size 16"! I was expecting 12ish, not 16" going on 18". I spent that afternoon scouring stores and craigslist for a deal and couldn't find much under $75. The bike store had a used bike in great condition for $90 and we just might get that since it'll need to last for all of our kids. 


Stasa and Lexi have also embraced getting down and dirty outside. If there's a dirt pile to play with, they'll find it. Last summer we picked up a few old metal Tonka trucks with the intention to clean them up and repaint them. We haven't quite gotten around to the restoration yet so we let the girls play with them as is for now.



Stas LOVES piling in ash and dirt in the dump truck and while she was digging she found a new-to-her bug. ROLY POLY! We taught her how to pick it up to make them roll up into a ball and she loved it.


The girl loves pretty much every bug with the exception of spiders. I have no idea how she became so spider phobic because I've tried to do everything I can to not act scared when I'm around them and her. But seriously, I can't blame her. Those suckers are frightening. And I'm fairly certain they carry weapons. I digress.

We're looking forward to hosting our friends for the July 4th holiday and Stasa is already wound up about having her friend, Avery, here. She's already declared that she and Avery will go to the pool, and has decided where Avery will sleep and eat and play, and she and Avery will take a bath and watch a movie, and she and Avery are best friends. I can't wait - it's going to be a blast!

For now, I need less work time and more this time:

Monday, June 11, 2012

So tired

I was going to do a Random Ramblings type of post, but I'm so brain dead I don't think I could even put together a bunch of random thoughts. Pretty pathetic, right? Plus it's just so hot outside and that makes me extra lazy. And plus it's Monday night and I'm still sulking because the Sunday blues bled into Monday.

So I'll leave you with an outtake from a mini session I did with Stasa in her recital costume:

Thursday, June 7, 2012

The Recital

Last Saturday we went to Stasa's first dance recital. I was originally thinking that since her group was the second one on the program that we'd be able to see her dance, then grab her and go. Not so much. These dance companies are strict. They didn't really want anyone leaving mid-program unless it was an emergency. I guess they wanted everyone to stay so other dance routines wouldn't be interrupted. No big deal.

The recital was actually relatively short and quite entertaining. The little little girls were the absolute best. Hands down the best. There were a few older groups, but mostly it was the littles dancing. My favorite group, besides Stasa's, was this pseudo gymnastics tumbling group. They did some really awesome jumps and flips and kicks and were just so well coordinated.

They didn't allow any videography during the actual recital and things were so hectic backstage before and after the show I didn't get any pictures before Stasa decided to get out of her costume. I did, however, manage to get a video of the dress rehearsal the night before. Warning: you'll probably die from the cuteness.