2 years & 5 months

Well we've had a giant boom of development recently!

(yes, this is what happens when you try to take a photo..)

alexis' talking has really come along recently, she's added a whole heap of verbs - like singing, dancing, playing, bouncing, balancing - and some adjectives too - like big, little, small, scary... and of course a big bunch of new nouns.. she's also stringing together 4-6 word sentences too.

she's learnt a few new concepts too, like big, little & the same, counts 2-6 in order & likes counting on her fingers.. she recognises when there are two of something, and matches two objects to two other objects (ie holding two stars up to her two eyes & explaining it to us), and she likes doing colour matching too.. she can recognise the numbers 2, 3 & 4, and the letter C, she even wrote a C to show me! and the cool thing is, we haven't actually *taught* her any of those things, she has just picked them up from our day-to-day activities & her play :-D

shortly after eli was born frank & yvonne came over to see the kids, and to take alexis out for some fun! (and give me a rest!) So that meant some fun trips to Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World...
a fun playdate..and some parks & the museum... she had a fantastic time, and came back exhausted & happy every day!

We've just started going to a Steiner playgroup, which alexis loves! They do lots of singing (with actions), and storytelling, the kids knead bread dough for buns for their morning tea, and all the toys & equipment are made from all natural materials - wood, wool, cotton, silk - which are SO nice to play with! She has been really enjoying playing with the other little kids too :-)

some other recent things have been... dressing up in a very posh new outfit from our friend vicki (including heeled cowboy-esqe boots!)

helping demolish our kitchen bench for the new dishwasher...

and working very hard at becoming a very definite 'daddy's little girl'! ;-)

she's been doing some fantastic art too! :-D

Trees For Babies

since we planted Eli's TFB tree today, we thought we should get an updated photo of Alexis' tree too! check out the difference two years makes....17 may 06 - the tree is just taller than the stake, and alexis is pretty tiny..

24 may 08 - the tree is off the top of the photo! and alexis is, well, still pretty small compared to the tree, but a lot bigger than she was!

face painting...

by alexis.... not sure what 'look' she was aiming for though..

and by a professional at Trees For Babies - a butterfly! she wasn't too impressed with the process though...

busyness...

helping wash the car...

her first creme egg...

got the technique down..

helping daddy with his Uni technology assignment..

polystyrene. yes, well.

what can you say...

to that?!

*sigh*

but she did pack everything up again neatly once she was finished! lol...

Our little girl is doing amazingly these days, she is learning heaps of new words every day, and is using longer sentences too.. she is adding to her collection of numbers, eight and nine have just joined 1,2,3,4 and 6.. and loves counting things too..
she has learned a bunch of colours now, and can tell the difference between a number and a letter..
she spends ages every day reading books to herself, many of them she has learned some of the dialogue, or the basic storyline, so we can guess what she is reading by listening to her.. she is also always bringing books to us to read to her too, which is really nice to see!
she has recently taken a real liking to Thomas the tank engine, and has worked out how to put our wooden track together.. she loves pushing the little engines around, and particularly likes "taba, purses an gordoh" (thomas, percy & gordon)

and yes, she really likes drawing too.

big girl fun!

The 6th of january again...

1.5 days old...

one year old...

two years old! (and being mischievous!)

Alexis' 2nd Birthday!

2 Years Old Today!!

Had fun playing....

and eating...

and eating cake...

and eating icing...

and dressing up...

and plotting household domination...

A good day all round! :-D

pic of her birthday cake here

"Critical Mass!!" or "Dressing Up!"

Ok, let me preface this by explaining.. To make the most of end-of-season sales, i have a stash of clothes for alexis to grow into.

which she discovered today...

Dressing Up Time!!

She started the day off wearing a skivvy and a t-shirt, which progressed into...

Her best strongman impression!

So on top of her skivvy & t-shirt, she added (with my help, but she did insist..)
a white t-shirt
a pink hooded jumper
another white t-shirt
a pink Tweety & Sylvester singlet
a dark blue t-shirt
a light blue t-shirt
a white muscle tee
and a pink long-sleeved tee...
thats when we couldn't fit any more over the top! lol (and you can't even see her hunchback caused by the hoodie getting crammed in there!)

so i stripped them all back off her, but now she's just brought me 3 new ones so that she can start again!!

oops!

ok, fair enough dad, it has been awhile!


Well alexis is now 22 months old, and is doing great!

important stuff first, she now has 12 teeth, all her incisors, and one full set of molars.. there is a tiny hint of a single canine, but it's taking its time!

She is using lots of words now, and is starting to join words together too! She particularly likes learning the names body parts at the moment, she's mastered (sort of ;-) ) "eye" "no(se)" "mou(th)" "chick" (cheek), and can point to heaps of others if you ask her... today she asked for "peeech" (peaches!) and "bread" (toast) for lunch :-) and we hear far too much of "dohwadoo!" (say it fast & grumpily and you should be able to work it out!) but it is constantly amazing us how well she picks up new words & sounds!

As far as fun goes, she is really keen on books still, most days we have to read "Fox In Socks" "Mr Brown Can Moo" "Marvin K Mooney Will You Please Go Now!" "Seahorse's Wild Ride" "Funnybones" "How Does Your Garden Grow" "Caterwaul Caper" "Hairy Maclary's Bone" "Five Useful Engines" "Meg On The Moon", at least once each, plus a good smattering of others! We hear "book? book? book?" all through the day :-) and when we aren't reading to her, she reads her books out loud to herself, which is very funny to listen to!

Apart from books, she likes carrying her babies around & giving them cuddles, prompting us to go to sleep (by very pointedly shutting her eyes!) then shouting at us to wake up, tearing around on her little ride-on car, picking flowers in the garden, dancing & playing Ring-a-rosy, and throwing all the cushions off the couch then stage-diving off onto them!


And last night we discovered a local school was having a fireworks show, alexis' first fireworks experience, since paul has always been working instead.. so after dinner we walked around to see it! There were *heaps* of little kids running around & squealing, which alexis found very exciting, and she played on the playground, which was also exciting. She also had undoubtedly too much candyfloss! Starting to get a bit of a picture forming here?
yup, over-excited, sugar-fuelled toddler up past her bedtime... :-o
then throw some very loud noises, lots of bright lights, and lots of people shouting & clapping...

oh my gosh the tears!!

She screamed, and she howled, and she wailed, and she buried her head into our shoulders, and tried to get away! :-(

After a little while we realised that she was *not* going to warm to the fireworks whatsoever, so had to leave... as we walked home we tried turning round, several times, to watch from further away, but every time she would burst straight back into tears! So home we went...

Of course now if we say fireworks to her, she gets a big grin on her face, points outside, and says "boom!" while making boom type actions with her arms! She likes the fireworks now! a *wee* bit late now baby! ;-) maybe next year huh?