Catching up...Christmas with both families

I know, I know -- its been a LONG time since my last post. Things have been pretty busy for us - for me at work, for us as a family, and a lot has gone on over the last month or so.

Where do I begin? Well, since my last post was last year, I'll start there. December came & went with something keeping us going every night it seemed. Alexa spent the first 3 weeks of December 2009 like normal, going to Alicia's every day to play with Eli (& Andrew). Then starting the week of Christmas, due to the major Blizzard they were predicting for our area, Alexa's babysitter had to leave early to go home for Christmas. So Alexa got to spend the week with Daddy & with Auntie Coby & Uncle Kris (& the rest of her Aunties on the Schouten side).

We spent Monday night watching the football game with Uncle Kris & Auntie Coby, Grandpa Schouten & Aunt Kiley since my volleyball game was cancelled.

Unlce Kris feeding Alexa ice cream :)

Coby & I on the couch, Kris, Alexa & Kiko in the recliner eating ice cream :)

Then came the 1st & 2nd days of the "Blizzard" & Christmas Eve with the Schouten Family.

All the Schouten kids, their spouses & Alexa :)

Micah, me, & Alexa, Kiley & Jill opening - opening presents at the Schouten Family Christmas

After opening presents we all were sitting around enjoying some treats when Bobbie & Eric made a big announcement ;) - it looks like we're going to be an Aunt & Uncle & Alexa is going to have her 1st cousin on the Schouten side :)! Congrats to Bobbie & Eric! :)

Then on Christmas morning we opened presents with Alexa at home before going to my sister Sarah's house to open presents with the Fennema side of the family.

Alexa sitting in her new chair - a present from Mom & Dad :)

Alexa unwrapping her presents from Mom & Dad

Mommy helping Alexa & Grandma open Alexa's next gift

Alexa & Grandma checking out her new learning cards

Daddy & Alexa with her new puppy from Uncle Joel

Pictures :)

Eat the duck Uncle Eric! :)

I'm a big girl! I climbed up here all by myself - now feed me! :)

Aren't I cute with my morning hair & cheesy grin & don't forget about my DORA PJ's! :)

Life...

I know, I know its been a while!

Life has been busy, with the typical day-to-day things & the extra things like holidays thrown in there, life hasn't slowed down at all...and come to think of it, neither has Alexa! :)

She seems to change each day, growing "older" somehow. From the words she says to the things she does, it never ceases to amaze me what she can come up with! A couple days ago Micah caught her climbing up the bar stools so that she could reach the cookies that were sitting on the counter. Then last night while I was making cookies for our church cookie exchange on Saturday morning, Alexa wants to sit & watch. Micah was out helping his dad so I picked her up & let her sit on the counter next to the mixer & she just loved watching it spin. Every time I added something she would look at me and say "cooking Mommy, ooooohhh YUMMMMY!" with this goofy grin on her face & she'd pat her tummy. When the mixer was done she decided she was bored watching me roll the dough into logs so she moved off the counter & stood on the bench next to it. I have an old crystal cream & sugar set, that I picked up at a garage sale,sitting next to the coffee pot on the counter & she instantly found this entertaining. She took the spoon from the sugar & in the empty cream pourer she started swirlling the spoon as if she was mixing things together. After each mix she would taste the spoon & then she'd pick up a pen & pretend to jot notes onto the pad that was also laying on the counter. I sat watching her do this for about 10-15 minutes before she caught me looking at her & had to offer some to me "taste Mommy taste, yummy yummy," she'd say. We certainly have a little goof-ball on our hands!

The other side of Alexa, however, is definetly a stubborn little girl! She will NOT say sorry! At just about 18 months old, she has the strongest will of anyone I know! (Could it possibly be due to the fact that both mommy & daddy are stubborn too? Nah!) :)

All I can say is based on her current ability to apologize & admit when she's been naughty & wrong, we are in for a LONG road ahead of us! The silly part is -- it is NOT as though she doesn't know how to say the word, or that she's not old enough to know it -- as some people have tried to tell us -- she is simply too stubborn. When we catch her being naughty we will call her on it & say "Alexa, what did you do?" Her answer..."Naughty, I trouble, I trouble, naughty!" Hmm...if she can say those words & know that when we are upset with her she's been naughty & is in trouble...please tell me, what reason, other than her stubbornness, is there for her inability to say sorry? None that I can think of!

Here are a few of the latest pictures we'd snapped of her, boy does she think she is funny! :)

Something new every day!

Alexa is at the stage where it seems like every day her vocabulary is doubling. She thinks she has to repeat EVERYTHING we say! This was at first very cute & amusing. That was until the day I called in to the other room for Micah to come help me with something. The next word out of Alexa's little mouth I hear is "Micah" -- AHHHHHH!~

Her other new thing is stairs. She has been going up stairs for a few weeks already. However, she has recently started to try going down - which is part humerous & part terrifying! She sits on her bumm & slides down, step by step. Only thing is that is not "fun" enough for her - - so instead she has to bounce down step by step on her bumm. This makes for a very amusing experience for her, for her mommy, however, it is terrifying! Her accuracy is not so great and many times she has needed mommy or daddy there to catch her!

Saturday we had quite the scare...Alexa was coming upstairs where I was at the top blowing dry my hair. I looked up to see her 3 steps from the top and she looks up at me & waves & giggles as she says "Hi Mommy, I cum up" -- and not a moment later I see her loose her balance & within a split second she has attempted to regain her balance, slipped a few steps and then rolled down the rest to the landing far below! I dropped the hair dryer & in sheer panic raced to the bottom of the steps to pick up her screaming body from the landing. She was crying so hard & would not calm down as she clung to me. Micah came from downstairs & gave her a huge hug but nothing seemed to help. She finally calmed down a bit & saw the cookies on the counter which distracted her enough to stop crying. I was sitting with her for a while & then I set her down to stand in the middle of the floor...only to find that as she tried to take a step her right leg seemed to colapse beneath her & she let out a sharp cry...much to my horror! I quickly picked her up & hugged her asking her where it hurt...but as she's only 16 months that didn't do much good! I of course feared the worse...something being broken or what not & a trip to the ER being in our future -- however, thankfully as the night went on she slowly went from colapsing with any weight on her leg, to limping and then to walking normal again!

Hopefully that's the worst drama we'll have at our house for the next many many months!

Say Cheese! :)

Someone likes the camera a little too much! -- I had it out the other day to go put it on the charger & as Alexa walked by me she saw the camera so she of course had to stop & say cheese! It doesn't matter if the camera is on or not - if its in her sight someone must be taking a picture of her (or so she thinks!) :) She will say cheese from the moment the camera is out until its finally put away! --Here's a shot I took of her on Sunday morning!

My little go-getter :)

Alexa is constantly running around like crazy - seeming to get older and older every time we look at her! She has to help make supper, open doors, buckler herself in, she wants to walk everywhere and always prove that she's such a big girl! Her vocabulary seems to increase more and more each week and we can't ever seem to get her to stop talking :) which I suppose is a good problem to have!

So I thought I'd add some pictures as I've actually been remember to snap some lately! ;)

Actually falling asleep someplace other than her bed!

(she has not done this since she was an infant!)

Enjoying supper with Auntie Kiley & Sean, Mommy & Daddy at Pizza Ranch :) Yum Yum!


Riding (or at least having mommy push me around) on my car is SO much fun! :)

Any time someone takes a camera out its "Cheese pease, cheese pease" :)

So what if I have my pretty church dress on, I'm still going to climb the stairs!

Kiko, are you coming with me? :)

Random thoughts...

Last weekend we went with some friends to Minneapolis for the weekend. The ladies left Saturday morning to do some shopping and the guys met us up there later in the afternoon. We planned to spend the night at a hotel & then go to the Vikings vs 49ers football game on Sunday. It turned out that despite not being fans of either team, it was a great game to go to - action packed the whole time - it was so close that the winning touchdown was scored with only 2 seconds left on the clock! The stadium was going crazy the whole time and with less than 2 minutes left most people thought the 49ers had won, there were even people who left the stadium at that point - something I'm sure they were kicking themselves for afterwards! We had a fabulous time, I found awesome deals at the outlet stores, and overall we just had a great time enjoying our friends and relaxing.

The only hard part about the weekend was it meant leaving Alexa overnight. In her 15 months we have really only had her stay overnight at someone's house one other time (without us being there) and that was only for one night because we had to be in Sioux Falls on Friday night & again early Saturday morning & all day for a wedding. There have been times I have left her home with Micah for a night or two over the last year, but at least each time I knew she was at home with Daddy -- this time she didn't have either of us and wasn't at home!

She did really great, despite my fears, she probably didn't even realize we were gone! Micah dropped her off at my mom's late on Saturday morning & she stayed there until we took her home on Monday night. Since I couldn't go THAT long without seeing her, Monday morning I even went there & spent a few hours playing with her before going into work. Apparently she didn't mind us being gone as much as I did!

Then, after having been away from Alexa all weekend, Micah ended up needing to go on a work trip to Northern Michigan and left again on Tuesday and didn't come home until Thursday! So I spent my 26th birthday with Alexa, my mom, and my sister Sarah and her kids. They were super sweet and bought be supper & they even had a cake for me :)! By the end of the 2nd day Alexa was standing at my mom's front door trying desperately to turn the handle crying out for "DaDa!" I tried taking a picture of it (as Mommy thought it was just too cute) but the moment I took my camera out she would walk up to me & say "Cheese momma, Cheese" until the camera went away, and then she would go back to crying for Daddy. So needless to say I was thrilled when Micah arrived safely home on Thursday night and so was Alexa!

Well, its almost 3 am and I'm starting to get sleepy again - well that or my back & body are ready for me to move to a new positions! No, for those of you who know me I am not turning into a night owl - I still need my sleep! I simply woke up around 1:20 this morning & was thirsty & hungry so I decided to go find a snack. Should have been harmless enough, but as I set my foot down and as sharp pain shot up!

I realized that what I had earlier thought was dry skin ended up being a metal sliver of some sort stuck in my foot! So I hobbled back upstairs and got out the tweezers. As I sat, bent over my foot, digging out the metal shard that felt like it was humungous (when really it was smaller than an eyelash) because I couldn't possibly get away with waking Micah up at this hour for a sliver when he has to work in the morning, I realized that I'm old! Although 26 may not be old, my body is telling me I'm old! At least, I certainly am not as limber as I used to be! After I had achieved success and freed my foot from its pain, I tried to stand up & walk back to bed...but in doing so, I felt like my back was going to shatter! I told myself just breathe and lay down -- after all its only 7 steps between where I was sitting & my bed...but as I eased myself back into bed to lay down, I felt like if I exhaled I would certainly crack every bone in my body! So what did I decide to do? I'm instead sitting on the floor with the heating pad on my back typing away at this blog instead of sleeping. And what final thoughts have I come to now...instead of my back being sore -- I think my butt is! :) Enough for tonight, or should I say this morning?