Alexis is a Year Young!

Baby girl turned a year old last week. Still can hardly believe it. I spent that day and those leading up to it remembering what was happening at the same time last year. How awful I felt, how nervous I was. Then on the 18th, after our normal trip for a Stress Test, we were sent to the hospital to "have a baby"! Such a crazy, exciting, stressful,amazing and life changing time! By 11:18 that night we were holding our little girl.

It has been an awesome and challenging year. It's a year that started out rough when she wouldn't sleep and cried more then not (and so did I!). But once her little system worked itself out, it has been so much fun! She is truly a delight. A joy to our family and others around her. She smiles willingly. Giggles. Makes funny noises and faces. She's determined yet so super sweet. We all adore her!

At a year she is:

*Still wearing size 3 diapers, all of her 6-9 month clothes and most of her 9-12 month ones. Still in size 3 shoes but almost ready for size 4.

*She is WALKING EVERYWHERE! Pretty much right after the 11 month post she stopped crawling and started completely walking. She loves to walk! All day long she will walk back and fourth...so cute to watch her!

*In addition to walking she has also learned how to climb this month. She crawled up onto Jacob's little toddler bed and thought that was the best thing ever. So she decided to try something even better...the stairs! One day I didn't see her walking around, went around the corner, and she was already half way up the stairs! I let her finish and she made it all the way up. Now that's all she wants to do and we are constantly having to block the stairs or she won't stay off of them. She can go up great...but not back down. She is keeping us on our toes!

*She has her 1 year appointment this Friday. It will be interesting to see how much she has grown since her 9 month visit and sad that she has to get her shots. I hate when my babies have to get shots!

*She still has quite a few nicknames. I think that I have somehow forgot to write about one of the top ones I came up with. One of the sounds she makes all the time is, "Tee-tee". Stemming from that I somehow started calling her "ti-ti Roni" (R0-Knee) and now sometimes it's just Roni or Rone. The whole family has picked up on it. Tyler, awhile back, started calling her Pexy and the other boys will too. When she gets into everything I like to call her a Lex-a-soraus! There's also Joy Bear and Mama Girl!

*She still has just 4 teeth although it had seemed like she may be teething last week. She has such a cute smile with those 4 little teeth!

*She loves playing and plays so well on her own. She has really been into the magnets on the refrigerator. We have the Leap Frog Farm and Letters on it and they are constantly being spread throughout the whole house! She always has something in her hand, walking from room to room. A baby doll, an item from one of her new play purses, or a magnet! So cute!

*She likes to try and put hats and other accessories on. This is one of those things that is already different then the boys. She wants to do it all of the time. When she finds one of our hats she is instantly trying to put it on and then will walk around with it...adorable! Yesterday she wanted Grandma's sunglasses on and yelled when they were taken from her. Today she took a stethoscope and hung it around her neck...so cute! She loves the sets of bead necklaces we got on vacation and will play with those forever. And she also loves shoes! She will get into our shoe bin everyday and walk around with them, spreading them all around the house!

*As far as talking she babbles a lot. It sounds like she has said "hi" a few times. It doesn't seem like she pointedly calls any of us anything yet but there has been quite a few times where it's sounded like it.

*She waves hello and good-bye almost anytime you say it now...one of my favorite things!

So that is Alexis at a year. I am so happy that I have all of these memories written down at each stage of her life. I plan to keep doing her updates every month since they still change so much. Let me know if anyone is still reading these...good to know you are out there! I hope to get to a post on her First Birthday party within the next few days...it was a lot of fun!=0)

Quote of the Day Returns!

So in an attempt to get more memories down I am blogging from my phone for the first time. I just had a conversation with Zachary and Craig that went like this.
Me: Who is taking charge of this platypus?
Zachary: Me.
Craig: isn't it a duck?
Zachary: No! It's a platypus!
Me looking at the tag: Oh it says Daffodil the Duck.
Zachary (after pausing a split second) Tell you what, I'll just call it a platypus!

The First Day

The first day of school is always extra exciting. I remember the way I felt as a child. Nervous. Excited. Apprehensive. Sad to see summer end but eager to see what the new year would be like. And now as a parent I felt...nervous. Excited. Apprehensive. Sad to see summer end yet eager to see what the new year would be like! So strange! Same emotions but now through a mother's eyes. I had been feeling super anxious about Zachary going from half day Kinder to full day First Grade. Especially with the school hours changing and the kids now getting out at 2:57 instead of 1:57. That just seems so much later! And I think having two big, school age children is throwing me for a loop. I spent the whole night before their first day asking myself, "How did my babies get so big?! How did my babies get so big?"

So, ready or not, Wednesday August 21st arrived. The boys got up super excited for the day ahead. I had gotten everything ready the night before. Clothes laid out, new backpacks out, lunches and snacks packed. Before leaving we made sure to go out front and get our traditional first day of school pictures. Then we were off to school.

A few days prior we had found out the kids teachers and who would be in their rooms. We are so pleased that they both seem to have gotten really wonderful teachers! Zachary's teacher is Mrs. Cromwell who is the one everyone seems to want. She is the head of First Grade and we are really excited to have her! Quite a few of the kids he had last year are also in his class so it's nice to see the familiar faces! When I asked Zachary how he liked his teacher he said, "She's really cheerful. She's cheerful all the time!" So cute! Tyler is paving the way for our family so we didn't know anything about the Third Grade staff. So when we saw he had Mrs. Helmer that didn't tell us much. But after just 4 days of school, we already think she's great! He is so excited about being in her class and I'm excited because she already thinks Tyler is great! =0)As an added bonus for him his little buddy Nolan is in his class again after they were separated during 2nd grade!

We were able to go into class With Zachary, see his desk and take a picture with Mrs Cromwell. As we said good bye I felt the stinging begin and as we got into the hallway...the flood gates opened. I tried not to cry, but I was just so overwhelmed with emotion. I'm not exactly sure why I had such a hard time considering he is my second in full day school. The days seem so long with the time change and school not getting out until nearly 3:00. I hate not knowing what they are doing during the day but look forward to helping out in both of their classes as much as possible. I already spent some time in Tyler's and love seeing him in class!

When I went to pick up the boys they were so excited and both had great days! We are off to a good start to a new school year!

San Diego Vacation

I have been wanting to write so many things and yet there is never enough time. Last week we had our family summer vacation to San Diego. I really want to get down all of the fun things we did and am happy to be here finally getting that done!

Our trip was Sunday July 25th to Thursday July 29th. Since our Honeymoon we have gone to San Diego nearly every year in the summer. Most trips have been about the same. Find a hotel, go to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, maybe head over to Coronado Island. We kind of get stuck in the rut of doing the same things. This trip was very different. Yes we went to Sea World. And the Zoo. Even drove around Coronado one day as the kids slept. But what was so different about this trip you ask? The FOOD! Yep, food defined this vacation.

Before leaving on our trip I began researching good places to eat in the area. I learned about Yelp for the first time and it was very helpful. We had recommendations from friends and I made a list of places to try and eat at. These were places that had been highly rated, been on the food network and other television shows. I was excited to try this out! And those that know me well know that I typically like to stick with the familiar. I usually gravitate towards a chain because I know what to expect and that they don't serve cat there!;0) But I have been becoming more adventurous and was truly excited!

We started our trip by eating at Souplantation. Not exactly new as it is one of our favorite places to eat but new in that we ate there for breakfast for the first time.
We got to our Hotel,the Westin, which was in the Gaslamp district of downtown San Diego. Afterwards we set out to spend the evening at the Zoo.

The next morning I started to get bummed because the weather was so unusually cold for this time of year. While on our vacation we had planned to go to the beach, Soak City and swim in the hotel pool...and it was barely in the 60's! So we decided to go to Sea World. It was a fun day doing different things then the norm. We saw the new Dolphin show for the first time, and all 3 boys went on Shipwreck Rapids for the first time. They loved it! That afternoon the kids napped in the car while we drove the length of Coronado. We tried going to a famous BBQ for dinner that night only to find it closed on Mondays. So we headed back towards the hotel and ate at Bucca Di Peppo's.

The next morning we were finally able to start in on our list of great places to eat! And a great way to start it was! We ate at the little Cafe 222, which was just a few blocks from where we were staying. We have heard the wait can be long but we were seated on the little outdoor patio fairly quickly. Their peanut butter banana stuffed french toast is their famous item. We ordered that, pumpkin waffles and pancakes. Everything was delicious! From there we went back to the zoo for a few hours and then attempted the beach for about a half hour. The kids loved it even though it was freezing! We wanted to try Phils BBQ again since it had been closed the day before. We knew we had to get there early since every review had stated "lines around the building". We got there right at 5, waited in line, and in about 20 minutes had ordered, found a table and got our food. I am not usually a ribs kind of person but wow...that was some good food! Super tender and tasty! Craig really loved it and has already talked about going back more then a few times!;0) Oh and when we left...lines around the building! That night we went back to our room and then walked to the Ghiradelli chocolate shop. oh my goodness....the sundaes and malt we ordered were wonderful! Good thing that shop is not closer to home!

Wednesday we walked to another yummy restaurant for brunch, The Broken Yoke. Great French Toast, Breakfast Burrito, Blueberry Pancakes and Eggs Benedict. We then decided to brave Soak City since it was our last full day and the sun had started to peak out.
It was our first time at this location and there were no crowds so we hardly had to wait for the slides. We had a great few hours there!

On our way to Sea World for the night shows we stopped for dinner at El Indio. I looovvve Mexican food so was particularly excited to try this place out. It had been recommended by friends and has been featured on television shows. It did not disappoint and was so yummy! We had tacos, taquitos, chips and quesadillas. Mmmm Mmmm good! With full bellies we headed to Sea World and enjoyed "Sea Lions Tonight" and "Shamu Rocks"! We were able to watch fireworks as we were walking out. Another great day!

Thursday morning we packed up, swam a little and then left the "home-tell" as Jacob calls it. The kids are always sad when we leave...they love staying in hotels! For lunch we stopped at a pizza place called Giovanni's. We found it on our own just driving around last time we were in San Diego. They have some of the best pizza and breadsticks I have ever had. So, so good! And the perfect way to end a great vacation!

So even with the cool weather we had a great trip. New memories were made and lot's of new favorite restaurants found! We can't wait to go back!