Beach Bum

Today, my mom and I took Alexis to the beach for the first time.  Alexis has been to the Strand a lot, but usually only for walks, dinner, or to play at the park.  We've never actually taken her down to the sand or the water, until today.

Alexis had a ton of fun playing in the sand.  She didn't even try to eat it like I though she would.  She wasn't sure what to make of the water.  She loves water and loves to go swimming, but the waves made her a little nervous.

MTQ

Yeah, Nana is here!  We're so excited to have Nana visit for a few weeks.  Our first stop was the Museum of Tropical Queensland. We had fun learning about the HMS Pandora and its attempt to recover the HMS Bounty, the corals that make up the Great Barrier Reef, and the local Daintree Rainforest.

Our little mutineer. 

('Pandora's Box' was the nickname for the small prison on-board the Pandora that held the mutineers from the Bounty.)

9 months!

Believe it or not, but Alexis is already nine months old! I took her to the self-weigh clinic just to see how she's growing, and our baby girl now weighs in at 7.7 kg (17 lbs) and is 69.5 cm (27 in) tall.  Here are some fun things about Alexis at nine months:

Alexis loves to eat cheerios!  When I first tried to give them to her, she would always choke, so I ended up biting them in half first.  She's gotten a lot of practice and can now successfully feed herself whole cheerios.  She loves them so much that she will cry if you take any away from her that are still on her tray, even if she's already stopped eating them!  This picture is of the first time that Alexis used her big-girl highchair.

I bought an exersaucer on E-bay and it has been a life-saver!  Alexis loves to sit in it and now that she's crawling, it's nice to have around when I don't want her exploring the floor and getting into trouble.  She's also discovered that she can use it to practice pulling herself up.

Alexis loves to read books, especially with Daddy.  Her favourite book is Where is the Green Sheep? by Mem Fox.  Alexis has absolutely loved this book since she was three weeks old.  Even at that age she would respond to the bright pictures.  You can see in the photos how captivated she is.

Soon after learning to crawl, Alexis started trying to pull herself up to stand.  She can't pull herself all the way up yet, but she can successfully and easily pull herself up onto her knees.  She has even learned how to lower herself back down (I think she got the idea after hitting her head a few times).  She loves to pull herself up to the edge of the coffee table and chew on the corners.

Alexis also loves to clap.  She loves it so much that she will stop crawling or put a toy down to clap.  She also claps in the middle of the night.  It's really cute, except when she won't go back to sleep afterwards.  (It sounds like this video was taken in the middle of a downpour, but it's actually John taking a shower.  I didn't think about the sound until I was already filming.)

Alexis is learning so many new skills, we can't wait to see what she can do in the next few months!

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Waving to the camera:

Daddy-Daughter Date

Last week Alexis and John went on their first official daddy-daughter date.  I had some major housework to get done, so John took Alexis to ReefHQ (the local aquarium) for a few hours.  They both loved it, so much so, that John is already planning on taking Alexis back next month.  John said that the sharks were Alexis' favourite.  At the aquarium there is a walkway through the main tank so that it looks like you are walking underwater.  Every time a shark swam overhead Alexis would reach up and try to touch it.

(I love that Alexis has so much drool on her chin that you can see her chin glistening in the pictures.)


This next picture was taken on a different day, just before we were going to a church party. It's such a good picture of Daddy and baby that I had to post it.

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Alexis learned to clap yesterday. She does it so softly, it's cute to watch. She'll stop in the middle of crawling somewhere and sit there and clap and then look at you to see if you're watching what she's doing. She was clapping when this picture was taken.

Progress

One week ago today Alexis started crawling.  She's progressed from this to this in just one week.  Amazing!

Jump!

The Johnny Jump-Up is a huge hit in our house.  Alexis absolutely loves it.  It's very handy to have around when John and I have to get ready in the morning and we don't want to have to worry about Alexis getting herself into trouble.  As you could probably tell from Superbaby and the look of delight on Alexis' face when she gets thrown up in the air, she loves anything that will make her go up and down.  She's going to love rollercoasters.   

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This is what Alexis looked like when we tried to take pictures of her.  Someone was having a rough day and had been even more clingy than usual . . .

. . . so we decided to take some pictures with Mommy.

The above picture is a good example of her smug, but cute "I got what I wanted" look.

Boo-boo

Alexis banged her head today and got her first bruise.  It's not that big (you can hardly see it in the picture), but something I wanted to remember anyway.  She was sitting on the tile floor and tried to scoot down onto her tummy and ended up banging her forehead. I wasn't home at the time and John said that she only cried for a minute or two, but later that morning we noticed the bruise. 

Crawling

Alexis crawled for the first time today!  Well, technically she has crawled one or two times before, but never a significant distance (usually only one of her body lengths).  Not only did she crawl a longer distance today, but we got it on camera.  It was so cute.  It took her about five minutes to crawl three feet.  You'll see why in the video.  I'm sure that in a few days there will be no stopping her.  (The video is kind of long, so skip to the last 30 seconds or so to see the best crawling.)

Superbaby!

A few nights ago while I was cooking dinner, John brings Alexis downstairs with a blanket tied around her like a cape. They had been playing "Superbaby." She looked so cute:

I'm not very good at taking action photos, so I took over throwing Alexis up in the air, while John took the pictures.

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Happy 4th of July!

In celebration of Independence Day, we had a picnic dinner at the Strand with our friends the McCandlesses. Of course, it happened to be the first day all winter that was actually cold. Alexis was also super tired. But it was a fun outing.