Horne Family Chronicles

42:2011

2011-10-16T21:03:00.011+10:00

The only way to get Alexis to take a church picture today was to let her hold a dinosaur. What I didn't realise was that she wanted to take a picture with each individual dinosaur, so we ended up with about 20 pictures. It was so funny to see her go and pick out each dinosaur and then set them down in a row on the chair after each picture.

We took Alexis to the park yesterday morning. She had a ton of fun, as usual. We are loving the nice weather.

Hogle Zoo

2011-10-14T19:21:00.001+10:00

We got to go to the zoo today with some of Alexis' cousins (Keana and Lilly). Alexis had so much fun. Her eyes were practically popping out of her head the whole time. She couldn't believe all of the animals she was seeing. It was really fun to watch.

Alexis riding the train around the zoo:

Looking at the monkeys with Keana:

Watching the elephants:

There was a mommy elephant with her baby and the baby was learning to do tricks. It was so cool to see the elephant do a hand stand and shake it's head on command.

Alexis loved riding the carousel. While we were waiting for our turn she told me that she wanted to ride the giraffe. She didn't want to get off when our turn was done.

It was so cute to watch Lilly and Alexis run around together. They were holding hands the whole time.

We had so much fun. Thanks cousins!

41:2011

2011-10-09T20:13:00.003+10:00

Yesterday, we took Alexis to Temple Square. Grandma came too. Alexis had a lot of fun running around and was very excited to see the temple (we recently learned about temples in Family Home Evening).

It was cold, but sunny. Alexis hates to have the sun in her eyes (she always yells "it's bright, it's bright!"), so she wanted to wear her sunglasses.

Alexis and Daddy in front of the temple:

Alexis seeing the Christus for the first time:

Added 20 October 2011:

We drove by Temple Square today and Alexis (with no prompting) pointed out the window and said "temple, temple." It made us so happy!

Snow!

2011-10-06T14:31:00.008+10:00

We have had awesome weather since we've been in Utah. It has seriously been sunny and between 85 and 90 degrees everyday. We knew a storm was coming this week, but we had no idea that it would snow! On Monday, it was still sunny and 90 degrees, and then it started to cool down on Tuesday and Wednesday and today (Thursday) it was snowing. This is the view outside of the house:

The snow isn't really sticking, but still. It's snow!! I am so excited to be in Utah for the winter.

40:2011

2011-10-02T20:28:00.026+10:00

This weekend was General Conference, so no church picture . . .

But we took a drive up City Creek Canyon on Friday for a picnic lunch and this was our view:

The leaves are just starting to turn. It was a beautiful drive.

We drove all the way to the top and then stopped to have some lunch. It was about 90 degrees (F), so the cooler canyon weather was nice. Alexis of course had to touch the water.

We've been in Salt Lake for a little over a week and so far so good. We're pretty much over our jet lag and I've almost finished unpacking our suitcases. Alexis is successfully sleeping in her "big girl" bed and has gone swimming everyday that we've been here (except for Sundays). She is in heaven with all the swimming and playing with her cousins. Next on the list is getting her back in her "big girl" panties.

39:2011

2011-09-25T20:35:00.048+10:00

Alexis and Mr. Grizzly:

Alexis is loving all of the fun new toys at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

She loves to give Mr. Grizzly hugs:

Alexis is adjusting really well to her new surroundings. She even started sleeping in a "big girl" bed (a twin bed). The nursery at John's parents' house has both a crib and a twin bed in it. When we got here on Friday, the crib level was too high and we didn't want Alexis to fall out, so even though we were both ridiculously tired, we spent about thirty minutes adjusting the mattress level to the lowest setting. A few minutes after we put Alexis to bed later that night she started crying. Assuming she was scared in her new bedroom, I went in to check on her. As soon as she saw me, she started saying "big girl bed, big girl bed." The twin bed is a trundle, so I pulled the trundle bed out thinking she would sleep on that and since it was on the ground, it would be ok if she rolled off. She didn't want the trundle bed either, she wanted the true "big girl" bed. So Alexis ended up sleeping on the twin bed the very first night we were here. I left the trundle bed pulled out just in case she rolled off the bed and then put a bunch a pillows on the ground on the other side.

Because of jet lag, we all woke up in the middle of the night. After about two hours, we put Alexis back to bed (in the twin bed). She started crying again, but this time it was because she wanted to sleep in the trundle bed. What a cheeky monkey! By the end of the night, she had used all three bed options (the crib, the twin, and the trundle).

Last night she slept the whole night in the twin bed. Alexis isn't even two yet and she's already sleeping in a regular bed. What a grown-up girl we have.

One last time

2011-09-24T09:38:00.001+10:00

Well, we made it! We survived our last trans-Pacific flight. We arrived in Salt Lake yesterday. Our travel went amazingly well. Alexis was absolutely perfect, all of our flights were on-time, and when we had to go through customs in L.A. we got through first and then our bags were first off the plane. One of our bags didn't make it to Salt Lake from L.A., but we got it the next day, so it was not a big deal at all. Here's a few pictures from our trip:

Our last view of Townsville, taken from the airplane window:

Alexis asleep on the flight from Townsville to Brisbane:

Our alarms were set for 4:00am (we had a 6:00am flight), but Alexis woke up at 3:30am, so she pretty much conked out as soon as the plane took off.

We totally lucked out with our seats. We only bought two tickets but on both the Townsville to Brisbane flight and the one from Brisbane to Los Angeles, we had an empty seat next to us. That meant Alexis got her own seat and we all had a little more wiggle room. Alexis loved having her own "big girl" seat and loved to buckle the seat belt herself. We had booked premium economy tickets, so Alexis got a big leather seat all to herself! She also had her own T.V. and headphones which were lifesavers. She loved watching cartoons, as seen below:

Having the extra seat was also nice for nap-time. John and I could relax while Alexis was sleeping because we didn't have to hold her the whole time. She took one four-hour nap:

And another two-hour nap:

I'm sure that we looked hilarious going through customs. We had so many bags (13, including our carry-ons and the stroller) that we each had to push a cart. John pushed one cart and then pulled the stroller backwards:

And I pushed the other cart:

It hasn't really set in yet that we aren't going back to Australia. We are used to coming to the States for four to six weeks to visit our families, so I'm interested to see how we feel a month from now when we would normally be preparing to go back to Townsville.

But we are happy to be in Salt Lake and very happy that we had such a good travel experience.

38:2011

2011-09-18T17:09:00.000+10:00

I can't believe how big/old Alexis looks in this picture!!

This has been a big week for us. We had a massive garage sale, sold our car and moved out of our Australian home. (We're staying in a holiday apartment for our last few days in Townsville). Alexis got her first ear infection this week and she also went potty for the first time while we were not at home. She went three times while we were at church today (once during Sacrament meeting and twice during nursery). We are so excited. Before this, Alexis has been scared of using other toilets. We are so proud of how well she is doing with potty training. She now always wears panties during the day and only wears diapers for naptime and bedtime. Even though she rarely has accidents, when we go out I usually put her in a pull-up (which she calls "princess panties" because they have the Disney princesses on them), just for my piece of mind. We still call Alexis "baby girl," but she really is turning into a big girl.

Fashion Choices

2011-09-12T23:17:00.000+10:00

Alexis is already becoming opinionated about what she wears. This outfit was her choice:

You can't see it that well in the picture, but she only has one slipper on (she flat refused to put the other one on). She is wearing blue panties with flowers on them, but no pants. And after I put her hair up in a ponytail, she then added a leapord print headband.

Luckily, by the time we were ready to leave the house, she consented to putting some pants on.

37:2011

2011-09-11T18:57:00.000+10:00

No church pictures today. Alexis has had a fever since Friday and a bit of a cough, so John stayed at home with her. It was weird being childless at church. I tried to enjoy being able to fully pay attention to the talks and lessons, but at the same time I couldn't relax. I kept feeling like I was forgetting something. But it was nice. I appreciated John staying home so that I could go.

When I came home I found John and Alexis playing "Nephites and Lamanites." They were watching Book of Mormon Stories on DVD. Then John dressed Alexis up in one of his t-shirts and gave her the whisk. Alexis the Nephite would then chase John the Lamanite around the room with the whisk. Thank goodness for a silly Daddy. Alexis had fun, that's for sure.

Mackay Recap

2011-09-08T20:08:00.000+10:00

Last weekend, we drove about 4 1/2 hours south to Mackay to visit the Atkinsons. We first met Seth, Steph and Eliana (she was only about 7 months old at the time and now she's 4!), when they moved to Townsville a few years ago. We were so sad when they moved to Brisbane just over a year ago. But since then, baby Noah has joined their family and they recently moved to Mackay which is driving distance from Townsville. We knew that we couldn't pass up one last visit with our friends before we left Australia. So, here's our Mackay recap:

Friday

We left Friday around 11:30am with the hopes that Alexis would take a nice nap in the car. She did sleep for about an hour, but not nearly as long as we were hoping. But because she has so much experience being in the car (from our Western Australia adventure), she was a good sport most of the time. We ran into some bad construction traffic, so the trip took a little longer than we were expecting, but other than that, it was a good drive.

Alexis loves to sing songs and one of her favourites to sing is the ABC's. Alexis usually sings most of it with us, but we didn't know she could sing it all by herself until she started singing it in the car. Luckily, our video camera was within easy reach.

We can't believe that Alexis can sing the ABC's and she's only 22 months old!! We definitely have a smarty pants on our hands.

While we were driving, I tried to teach Alexis how to say everyone's name. She would say "Seth" for both Seth and Steph (they are pretty similar), but she could say "Noah" and "Ellie." It was so funny when we got to the Atkinson's house because Eliana came running out and Alexis yelled "Noah!". Being at the age where she doesn't know the difference between boys and girls names, we thought it was pretty funny. We got to Mackay in the late afternoon and decided to head out to the beach before dinner.

Here's the gang walking to the beach:

It only took us five minutes to walk to this beach from Seth and Steph's house:

Noah had a ton of fun playing in the wet sand:

And Alexis and Eliana had lots of fun in the water:

Saturday

We went on a little driving tour of Mackay on Saturday morning. Alexis thought she was such a big girl, because she got to sit next to Eliana in the car.

Smile!

This was a beautiful lookout by the Marina:

Alexis had fun eating her first whole apple. I was surprised that she could even bite into it!

We stopped by a playground to let the kids run around. Alexis and Noah had fun on the swings:

And Steph had fun on this:

I don't know what it's called, but it was a little seat that you could sit on and use your body weight and momentum to spin around really fast. You can tell that Steph was going fast by looking at her hair flying around.

After some nice nap time, we headed out to the beach at Shoal Point for some beach cricket. Amazingly, in the almost five years that we have lived in Townsville, John and I have never played cricket. It was so much fun!! We never understood the appeal when we saw cricket matches on T.V., but beach cricket was a blast. We wish we would have known about it earlier. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of us playing (Steph and I were the best!), but here's the beach:

It really reminded me of Mission Beach.

Sleeping Noah:

Alexis had fun digging in the sand and even took a turn with the cricket bat!

We had an indoor BBQ back at home with another couple from the Mackay Branch. After the kids were in bed we played an exciting game of Spoons. It came down to just me and Seth, but I won in the end.

Sunday

Sunday was Father's Day and we celebrated with a nice breakfast before church. The afternoon was spent relaxing and taking naps. After a nice dinner, we packed up and headed back to Townsville.

The weekend went by way too fast. We all had fun, but especially Alexis. She was in absolute heaven to have friends to play with all the time. She followed Ellie around everywhere, and thankfully, Ellie didn't mind. Every time we took Alexis away (to change her or something), she would start crying "play with friends, play with friends." It made me excited for her to be able to play with all of her cousins in a few weeks.

This is a picture of Alexis playing with Eliana. So goofy.

Thank you Atkinsons for a great weekend! We miss you already.

36:2011

2011-09-04T16:40:00.000+10:00

"No . . . I don't want my picture taken!"

"I'm still fussy, but Happy Father's Day Daddy!"

Today is "Father's Day" in Australia. We are in Mackay visiting our friends the Atkinsons for the weekend. We served John and Seth a special breakfast (pancakes with fresh strawberries and yummy croissants with ham and cheese) before heading off to church. More details from our fun weekend to come soon.

We love our Daddy!!

Friends

2011-09-01T20:37:00.000+10:00

We had some friends come over for a visit today. While Olivia and I had a nice chat, her daughter Sprinkle and Alexis had an absolute ball. Sprinkle is just one month older than Alexis and they play so well together.

You'll probably notice from the pictures that Alexis and Sprinkle are dressed similarly. This was half coincidence and half on purpose. I dressed Alexis in purple and then Sprinkle came over wearing her pink tutu with a purple shirt. I got Alexis' tutu out so that they could have fun dancing. It was so cute!

Building towers:

Playing with the scooter:

Being silly:

They seriously ran back and forth for at least 10 minutes!

I think this picture is so adorable:

We're certainly going to miss Olivia, Sprinkle and all of the good friends that we've made here.

Anything you can do, I can do better

2011-08-31T16:09:00.000+10:00

John and Alexis like to have handstand competitions. Well, John likes to show off by doing handstands and Alexis tries to copy him.

I took these pictures of Alexis practicing, while John was at school today.

Alexis also loves to do a one leg downward dog yoga pose. She does it randomly all the time.

(Did you notice her bright green "big girl" panties!?)

Home-ing

2011-08-29T14:25:00.000+10:00

John has to work late tonight, so today we had family home evening in the morning before he left for school. Alexis gets so excited to have family home evening and loves to sing "I Am A Child of God." She calls it "home-ing." No matter how many times we say "family home evening," she just says "home-ing" back to us. It's adorable.

Twinkle, Twinkle

2011-08-29T14:19:00.000+10:00

Alexis has been able to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" all by herself for quite some time, but I have been unable to get it on camera. It's just so adorable to see, but every time I get the video camera out, she stops singing.

Yesterday while I was cooking dinner, she was playing with John and started singing. So I got the camera out and made sure to cough loudly when I turned it on (the beeping noise it makes always gets her attention). She didn't seem to notice me, and this is what I got on film:

During dinner she started singing again, this time the whole song. I asked her if she would keep singing if I got the camera out and she said yes!!

35:2011

2011-08-28T13:46:00.000+10:00

Alexis is getting very opinionated about when, where, and how you can take her picture. The last few weeks I have struggled to get her to take a nice picture on Sundays. This morning was more of the same.

Me: "Time for pictures!"

Alexis: "No."

Me: "Do you want to take a picture with Mommy?"

Alexis: "No."

Me: "Do you want to take a picture with Daddy?"

Alexis: "No."

Me: "Do you want to take a picture on the rocking chair?" (Like we used

to when she was little).

Alexis: "No."

John: "Do you want to take a picture with Piglet?"

Alexis: "Yes."

Daddy to the rescue! I have no idea why he suggested Piglet (I probably would have suggested one of her babies), but I'm glad he did.

Potty training update: Since our post on Thursday, Alexis has gone poop in the potty everyday! She only had one small accident where she pooped a little on the floor (we were letting her run around naked), but other than that, she has done great. She still hasn't gone pee in the potty, but we're working on it.

I'm a "Big Girl" now

2011-08-25T20:16:00.001+10:00

As Alexis was getting out of the shower tonight (she's in to showers at the moment, she flat refuses to take a bath), she told John that she had to go poop. So John quickly put her little potty seat on the toilet and guess what? She went poop in the toilet! Not only was this the first time that she went poop on the potty (like a "big girl" she says), but it was the first time where she initiated using the toilet properly. She tells me all of the time that she needs to go poop and I put her on her potty seat, but then nothing happens (she never tells me when she has to go pee). We are so proud of Alexis. So proud in fact that John wanted to take a picture of the toilet bowl before I flushed it. Don't worry, I didn't let him. Yeah Alexis!

Relaxing

2011-08-24T14:30:00.000+10:00

Alexis loves to relax. Before bedtime last night, she got herself a blanket and "relaxed" on her bedroom floor. She probably would have slept like that if we let her.

34:2011

2011-08-21T20:23:00.000+10:00

(This is Alexis' fake whiney face.)

When I put Alexis to bed I always give her a cuddle and say "Mommy loves you so much," repeated a few times. Yesterday I left her with John to go run some errands and before I left I said to her "I love you." She then said "so much." It made me smile.

Matching with Mommy

2011-08-17T14:58:00.000+10:00

I painted Alexis' fingernails for the first time today. I didn't really want to (I didn't want her chewing on them), but she saw me painting mine and wouldn't leave me alone. I had already painted her toenails. She held so still and was very excited to have matching nails with me.

Showing off her pretty nails:

Look at those chubby little fingers:

Matching nails with Mommy:

Alexis fell asleep in the car on the way home from playgroup (she usually does). She woke up right before we got home but was still pretty sleepy. She went straight to the couch and snuggled up with the blanket. She sure looked cute, but I moved her to her own bed for a proper nap.

Of course when I put her in her crib, she decided that she was really awake and has been playing in there for over an hour. As I'm typing this, I can hear her singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" to herself. Oh, how I love my adorable girl.

Miss Mischief Maker - Part 2

2011-08-15T13:59:00.000+10:00

I neglected to mention in my post yesterday that Alexis is also obsessed with clean diapers. She always runs around the house yelling "clean diaper." She loves to pretend to change her babies' diapers and when she wants her diaper changed (even though it isn't even dirty), she will get out the changing pad, lie down on it and say "clean diaper" over and over until I come and check her.

This is what John and I found when we got up this morning:

She was smiling and of course saying "clean diaper." We have no idea how she took off her footie pyjamas all by herself.

33:2011

2011-08-14T20:23:00.007+10:00

Alexis dancing in her new tutu:

Thanks Nana!

Big news . . . today Alexis went to nursery with no crying! I got her all set up at the table to colour and then I left. She watched me leave, but just kept colouring. We are so happy. The nursery leader commented to us about how Alexis is so helpful (she helps to put the toys, etc. away). That makes us feel good. The nursery leader also told us that Alexis put her lunch away in her cubby hole all by herself. What a big girl!

Funny things about Alexis: She is obsessed with pimples. We have no idea why. Every mole or freckle she sees, she will point to and say "pimple." I have a mole on my face that I grew up calling my 'beauty mark.' Alexis has called it a pimple in the past. The funniest thing happened last week when she pointed to it and said "nipple." (Nipple!?! -- this is on my face, remember.) When I said "no," she then said "pimple." I said "no" again and taught her how to say "beauty mark." Hopefully, she'll call it that from now on.

Alexis is also very interested in "big girls" that go potty on a toilet. Every time I use the bathroom, she says "Mommy, big girl." Sometimes, she even says "Daddy, big girl" when John goes to the bathroom. We tried to teach her "big boy," but she still calls John a "big girl." Hopefully Alexis will learn to be a "big girl" that uses the toilet soon.

Miss Mischief Maker

2011-08-09T19:12:00.000+10:00

This is what I found when I went to get Alexis out of her bed after her nap:

It's normal for her to take off her sleepsack by herself; it is not normal for her to take off her diaper. Or pee all over the bed, herself, the bumpers, her blankie and her stuffed dog.

While I was stripping her bed down, she pulled the bumper insert into the hall and decided to read herself a book:

She sure is cute.

32:2011

2011-08-07T13:38:00.005+10:00

This morning, Alexis didn't want to get her picture taken, she wanted to "cuddle Daddy." Five minutes later she still didn't want to take a picture (and we needed to leave), so she got to take her pictures with Daddy.

On the way home from church today, Alexis said "fun, nursery." Success! Alexis still cries when I leave her in nursery, but only for a few seconds. I think it helps that one of the new nursery leaders is a mom from our playgroup, so Alexis has been around her a lot. And the fact that she said "fun, nursery" (with no prompting from us), says it all.

On a side note, Alexis has been taking four hour naps all week (1pm-5pm). I have been loving it! Maybe she's going through a growth spurt? All I know is that I hope it lasts.

First Haircut

2011-08-05T15:57:00.000+10:00

I took Alexis to get her first haircut today. The back of her hair was looking really scraggly and was growing quite uneven. As always, Alexis was such a good girl. She didn't cry at all and held pretty still. The hairdresser cut it shorter than I was expecting, but it will grow out. And it makes Alexis ' hair look a lot fuller, which is nice, because her hair is so fine. Alexis was so excited afterwards because she got a sticker with a dolphin on it. And she learned how to say "haircut."

Before & After

31:2011

2011-07-31T13:45:00.000+10:00

Yes, that is a nasal spray bottle that she is holding and no, she wasn't spraying it (she was playing with the cap) . . .

She's just tall enough to reach the doorknob, but thankfully she's not strong enough to open it (yet).

Left: Alexis' "smile" face, Right: Alexis' "silly" face

Alexis said her first complete sentence this week! She said "I did it!" when we were at swimming on Friday. She kept saying it over and over when she would do something good. Later that day she also said "I do it" and "I get it." What's even more amazing is that the very next day (Saturday), she switched to saying the proper pronoun "I'll do it" and "I'll get it." She also says the phrases "oh dear" and "poor baby" all the time (John also says them all the time, so we know where she learned them). She can also say all of the names of her friends from playgroup and nursery without any prompting (about eight names). When she sees one of them, she will just point to them and say their name. We are so amazed at how well Alexis is talking and at how quickly she is learning new words.

30:2011

2011-07-24T19:23:00.000+10:00

You can see from last week's picture and this week's, that Alexis has become very attached to her blankie. We used to only give it to her when she was sleeping or really, really upset. But now, she asks for it all the time (or she just goes and gets it herself) and carries it around with her constantly.

Yesterday, John took Alexis on another daddy/daughter date, this time to the Strand.

Isn't it beautiful? (That's Magnetic Island in the background.) This is one the places in Townsville that we will miss the most.

Also, last night was the Townsville Branch's (our church) 3rd Annual Connect Four Tournament. Yes, that's right, connect four tournament. The last two years John has come in second place. He was determined to win this year (even practising online). Sadly, he was knocked out in the third round (there were five rounds total) by one of the young women. I only made it to the second round.

Western Australia Adventure - Part III

2011-07-22T21:32:00.003+10:00

This is the third and last instalment about our holiday to Western Australia. Haven't read about the beginning of our trip yet? Read part I here and part II here.

Day 10

Exmouth/Ningaloo

Our plan while we were in Exmouth was to pretty much just go to different beaches everyday and do a lot of snorkeling. Our first day was spent at Turquoise Bay which is famous for it's drift snorkel. Meaning you enter the water at a certain point and then you just float in the water while the current carries you across the bay and over the coral. We had the same problem in the morning here as we had at Coral Bay - there was almost no beach. So while John went snorkeling first, Alexis and I played outside the campervan. When John came back he reported that the snorkeling was on par with the best he had ever seen. He was able to see an octopus, turtle and shark. I wasn't too keen to go once he mentioned the shark, but I did it anyway. I'm not as strong a swimmer as John is and the current was a little too much for me. It probably didn't help that I went in right at high tide. So I didn't stay in too long (I was too nervous with the strong current, the possibility of seeing a shark and the fact that I was in the water by myself). I too was impressed though. To my untrained eye, the coral didn't look like anything special, but John assured me that it was. My favourite part was the large groups of fish. Instead of seeing a few of each kind of fish, there were tons of each kind and I also saw a huge unicorn fish.

After lunch, we walked to the other side of the bay and played in the sand. I am so mad at myself because I left the camera in the van. And Alexis and John built some great sand castles. Afterward, Alexis and I headed back to the van so that she could take a nap. I sat outside and read while John did some more snorkeling. It was a good day.

Day 11

Exmouth/Ningaloo

First on the agenda for our second day in Exmouth was a glass-bottom boat tour. We thought this would be a good choice to enable us to do some more snorkeling farther out on the reef and still be fun for Alexis. We were right. John and I were able to take turns snorkeling and I was a lot more comfortable because there wasn't a strong current and they provided us with fins, which always help. And Alexis absolutely loved sitting on the floor of the boat and looking at all of the fish through the glass. She especially loved it when her daddy swam under the boat:

After the boat tour, we headed over to Lakeside, another beach in the Cape Range National Park and on the Ningaloo Marine Reserve.

We all had fun playing in the sand.

First, Daddy got buried.

And then, Alexis got buried.

After the fun in the sand, I took Alexis back to the van for a nap and John went snorkeling. It took me over an hour to settle Alexis down for a nap, but I was eventually able to get in a little reading. Lakeside wasn't quite as nice as Turquoise Bay (it would be hard for anything to be better, it was that nice), but still a good place to spend the afternoon.

Before heading back to town, we drove up to the Vlamingh Head Lighthouse to watch the sunset. Up until this point in the trip I had yet to see a sunset over the Indian Ocean because I was always in the van cooking dinner. So I especially enjoyed it.

Being on top of the hill that the lighthouse is on gave us a great view of this:

John and I had never seen anything like it before and when we drove by it the first day (it's located at the end of the peninsula between the town and the national park) we couldn't figure out what it was. There was a huge barricade at the entrance and 'no trespassing' signs everywhere. It turns out it is a large Navy communication base to communicate with submarines. Interesting.

After enjoying the sunset we headed out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Exmouth. It wasn't anything special, but it was sure nice to have a break from cooking in the van and doing the dishes.

Day 12

Exmouth/Ningaloo

The original plan for today was to make a nine hour drive west to the Karijini National Park. Karijini is famous for it's stunning gorges and was highly recommended by our friends Peter and Dorothy. On the return trip from Karijini our plan was to head south and drive thirteen hours overnight. Once we got an actual road map in our hands that listed all of the petrol stops, we saw that there was no way to make the trip at night (none of the petrol stations were open overnight) and we didn't have enough time in our itinerary to make the drive during the day. We also thought that we probably wouldn't be able to take full advantage of the gorges and the hiking because of Alexis, so we made the decision to spend an extra day in Exmouth and drive south for an extra day in Coral Bay instead. We were very happy with our decision. After all, the main reason for the trip was so that John could snorkel on the Ningaloo Reef!

So we headed out to a beach called Oyster Stacks, because you guessed it, there are lots of oyster stacks there. Or at least there are supposed to be; John didn't actually see any.

As you can see from the above picture the beach was beautiful and there was lots of coral. Also, it was the narrowest part of the reef, so John was able to swim all the way out to the reef shelf which he loved. Because the beach was all rock, Alexis and I watched the Wiggles in the van while John snorkeled.

After John's snorkeling, we headed over to Sandy Bay. This beach didn't have any coral for snorkeling, but was recommended as a nice, sandy, shallow bay for families.

Alexis took an early nap and John stayed with her so that I could go lay out at the beach and read. I couldn't believe my luck, but I had the entire beach to myself! It was so nice and peaceful.

After lunch, we brought Alexis out to the beach to play in the sand.

We then coaxed her into the water. Up until this point, Alexis had not gone in the water further than her toes. Even though Alexis absolutely loves the water, it was a lot more chilly than she was used to (remember she's a native North Queenslander).

Day 13

Exmouth to Coral Bay

We knew our trip was coming to a close when we started heading south. Up until now, we had always been driving north. We were so impressed with the beauty of Coral Bay that we decided to spend another night there.

Guess what arrived in town about twenty minutes after us? That plague of locusts we had seen earlier in the week.

It was amazing to look up and see so many huge insects. They weren't too bad of a nuisance except when one landed on my head as I was walking to the toilets. Gross!

John of course was eager to do his last bit of snorkeling. Alexis took a nap and I enjoyed some more reading time. I couldn't resist snapping a picture of Alexis' bedhead when she woke up.

There was just so many interesting things to look at out the window (mainly locusts).

Day 14

Coral Bay to Geraldton

Today was our longest driving day. Up until now we had only driven between 2.5-5 hours a day, but the drive from Coral Bay to Geraldton took us 7.5 hours, including our 30 minute stop for petrol and lunch. Alexis did amazingly well and never fussed once. Do we have the best baby or what? Once we got settled at the caravan park in Geraldton, John took Alexis out to the playground for some much deserved playtime. The caravan park was at Sunset Beach, so I thought I might as well take advantage of the great location and go watch the sunset. It was beautiful and very peaceful to spend a quiet 15 minutes on the beach by myself.

Day 15

Geraldton to Perth

We had originally planned to spend the day in Geraldton and then drive back to Perth the following day. We thought we would need a break from driving after our long drive the day before. But both John and I woke up with a great urge to just be finished with our trip (mostly to just be finished with our campervan). So we decided to return the campervan a day early and check into a hotel in Perth for the night. We spent a good two hours packing up the van and cleaning it out and by 10:00am we were on the road to Perth. It took us about five hours and we got to the rental depot just before it closed. Perfect! We checked in to the Holiday Inn Burswood and enjoyed room service for dinner and having access to a bathtub (we don't have one in our house).

This was the view of downtown Perth from our hotel room. We were amazed at all of the construction going on! You can see five cranes in this picture and there were more that were out of the shot.

Day 16

Perth to Townsville

Our flight back to Townsville didn't leave until 11:00pm, so we spent a leisurely day at the hotel. We enjoyed a wonderful buffet breakfast at the Intercontinental Hotel next door and then let Alexis run around a bit in their ginormous lobby. We took quite a long walk around the Burswood Entertainment Complex and then went to the playground across the street. Alexis was in heaven this entire trip because she got to play outside so much and got to go to a playground everyday.

We all enjoyed a nice afternoon nap and then spent the evening relaxing in our hotel room and packing up the odds and ends. Alexis got a hold of one of the hotel pens and coloured on herself for the first time. This is her showing me where she coloured (there was also some on her cheek).

We put Alexis down at 7:00pm, her normal bedtime, since we didn't need to leave for the airport until 9:00pm. The flight back was mostly uneventful, thank goodness. It took Alexis quite a while to get settled (probably because we let her sleep for two hours before we left), but eventually we were all able to get some sleep. Unfortunately the flight from Perth to Townsville was significantly shorter than the one going the opposite direction. The Perth-Townsville flight only took four hours (and was a night flight, so we all wanted to sleep), while the Townsville-Perth flight was six hours (and was a day flight, so we had to fight Alexis to get her to take a nap). It would have been perfect if the flying times were reversed. By the time we got Alexis settled on the night flight, it felt like we were landing an hour later. So we were pretty exhausted when we got home.

We were exhausted, but happy. Happy to be home and happy that we got to go on such an awesome trip before we leave Australia. We know that this is a holiday that we will never forget and always be grateful that we could take. Forgive me for writing about it in such detail, but we wanted to make sure we remembered as much as possible. We would highly recommend traveling to Western Australia if you ever have the chance. We would go back in a heartbeat. There's so much more that we didn't get to see.

Western Australia Adventure - Part II

2011-07-21T18:56:00.005+10:00

If you haven't read part one of our adventure yet, read it here first.

Day 6

Monkey Mia

(pronounced my-ah, not me-ah)

The day we spent in Monkey Mia was John's 30th birthday. We started off the morning by going to see the dolphins. They come into shore a couple of times during the day for a feeding. We thought that we would all be able to go in the water with the dolphins and feed them ourselves. We learned that this is what they did in the past, but now only the staff go in the water and everyone else just watches from the beach. It was still cool to see the wild dolphins so close up (and Alexis loved it), but it was a bit of a let-down that we couldn't go in the water as well. And it was super crowded. You kind of had to fight your way to the front of the group. It was nice, just not exactly what we were expecting.

It was windy and cold on the beach (it was only 7:30 in the morning).

After seeing the dolphins, John and Alexis spent some time colouring, while I got breakfast ready.

We had booked a wildlife cruise for later in the morning. This is Alexis waiting for the boat. It is one of my favourite pictures from the whole trip.

And this is the catamaran that we went sailing on - the Aristocat 2.

The best part of the cruise was that there was only one other family of four on the cruise with us, and it was nice to just be out on the water. The main reason we booked the cruise was because Shark Bay is famous for the large amount of dugongs, dolphins and sharks that reside there. We didn't see any! Correction, we saw four dolphins at the last moment before the cruise ended. I was really looking forward to seeing the dugongs, so it was disappointing. Alexis had fun though, which is important, though it was stressful for us to keep her away from the edge of the boat. By the end of the cruise she was so tired that she fell asleep standing up!

Because of her catnap on the boat, Alexis wouldn't take a proper nap later that afternoon, so we went to the beach instead.

There was lots of wildlife around the resort. By the end of the day Alexis had learned how to say "dolphin" and "emu."

Day 7
Monkey Mia to Carnarvon

As we headed out of Monkey Mia, the rain set in. We didn't mind too much because we had about a five hour drive ahead of us and weren't planning on doing anything big. We had had perfect weather up until then. We drove through Denham which is the main town on the Shark Bay peninsula. It was very picturesque and on an absolutely gorgeous bay. If we ever go back, we will definitely stay in Denham instead of Monkey Mia. The highlight of the day was stopping by Shell Beach, also on the Shark Bay peninsula. The entire beach is made up of tiny shells, instead of sand. We only stayed for about 15 minutes (because it was raining), but we loved it.

Once we got to Carnarvon, we headed straight to the Woolworths (grocery store) to get supplies. Carnarvon looked liked a nice country town, just a bit (or maybe a lot) run down. But the caravan park we stayed in was fabulous. It was super clean and we had tons of space. It was still raining when we went to bed and we were just crossing our fingers that it would pass over night because we were heading to Coral Bay the next day.

Day 8

Carnarvon to Coral Bay

We woke up and it was still raining. We started our drive to Coral Bay and took a detour out to Quobba Point to see the blowholes. There was also supposed to be a great calm lagoon for snorkeling. The cliffs were gorgeous, but we didn't actually see any water go through the blowholes. And because it was so windy and rainy, the snorkeling was out of the question. Even though it was beautiful, we don't think it justified the additional hour it added to our driving time.

I couldn't resist posting this picture of John wearing his "mantyhose" (that what he calls them). They're really just a pair of my old leggings. He woke up feeling a little unwell, so he relaxed in his pj's while I did the driving.

When we got to Coral Bay, the rain had stopped but it was still overcast. Luckily for me, John was feeling better, because it was my turn to get sick and I mean really sick. John took Alexis outside to feed the birds and run around. He was so helpful to take care of dinner for the two of them and then lucky Alexis got to sleep with her daddy up in the loft.

Day 9
Coral Bay to Exmouth

We woke up to sunshine! And I was feeling weak/tired, but otherwise a lot better. Coral Bay is a small tourist town located on the southern end of the Ningaloo

Alexis was such a good traveler in the van. She never fussed in her car seat while we were driving (not even on the long seven hour drive we did later in the week). On the days we had a long drive to do, we would start Alexis off in her seat and then once she fell asleep, we would move her to the bed in the back because she would sleep longer if she was laying down. The drive to Exmouth from Coral Bay was only about 2.5 hours, so we decided to just leave Alexis in her car seat. But her head kept falling down at a weird angle so this is what I came up with:

I just rolled her sleepsak up and tucked the ends into her car seat. It ended up working pretty well.

On the way to Exmouth we drove through a plague of locusts. I had never seen a locust before. They were huge!

We arrived in Exmouth feeling energised and excited. The main reason we wanted to go to Western Australia was to go to Exmouth to see the Ningaloo Reef. Exmouth is on the west side of a peninsula and the Ningaloo Marine Park is on the east side (in the Cape Range National Park), about a 30-60 minute drive from town depending on what beach you are going to. So we just settled in for the night so that we would be ready in the morning.

. . . Western Australia Adventure - Part III (the best part)

coming soon, hopefully tomorrow night . . .

Western Australia Adventure - Part I

2011-07-19T22:18:00.008+10:00

I know that we've been home for almost a month, but it has been a busy few weeks. We had such a wonderful time in Western Australia. We booked the trip to celebrate John finishing his thesis and his 30th birthday. We knew that if we didn't get out to Western Australia before we moved, then we probably never would. John was dying to see the Ningaloo Reef (the largest fringing reef in the world). It was an adventure, that's for sure.

Day 1

Townsville to Perth

The first day of the trip was mostly traveling. We flew from Townsville to Brisbane and then on to Perth, arriving in Perth in the early afternoon. One of the best decisions we made was to get Alexis her own seat on the airplane. She is such a wiggle worm and the extra room made a huge difference. We had to wake her up at 4:45am to make our first flight and then she ended up only sleeping for about 45 minutes total for the rest of the day. Even low on sleep, she traveled well. We did end up with a few war wounds though. My toe was first. I tripped getting out of the taxi at the airport and stubbed my middle toe so bad that the whole toe turned black and I was limping for the next two days. Alexis was next. She kept tripping (maybe because she was so tired?) and ended up hitting her forehead twice in the exact same spot. By the time we made it on the plane in Brisbane she had a pretty good scrape/bruise on her forehead and one on her knee too. Lucky John made it through the day unscathed.

Once we were in Perth we headed straight to the depot to pick up our campervan. We were a little nervous to start driving such a big vehicle, but John did great. The smaller size vans we were originally looking for didn't have allowances for a car seat, so we had to get a larger one, but in the end we were happy to have the extra wiggle room. Here's a look at the van:

(We set up our dinner table over Alexis' car seat and the front seats swiveled around to face the table. Alexis and I slept in the double bed in the back and John slept in the loft over the front. The net in the picture stopped stuff from falling out of the loft while we were driving. Even though we had our own toilet and shower, we tried to use the bathrooms at the caravan parks when possible because cleaning out the toilet was not fun!)

We made a quick stop at the grocery store on the way to our first caravan park in Coogee Beach (just south of Fremantle). Our priority was familiarising ourselves with the van and getting settled in so we had pizza delivered to us at the park. The lady at the local pizza shop was so nice. Their delivery driver didn't start for another hour, but we were starving and tired, so the lady delivered us our pizza herself. How's that for service? And the pizza was delicious. After our yummy dinner we headed straight to bed.

Day 2

Perth/Fremantle

Alexis woke up at 4:00am Perth time. We couldn't be too upset because it was 6:00am Townsville time, but we were pretty tired from all of the traveling the day before. The biggest problem was that it was still dark outside and wouldn't get light for another three hours (and it was freezing)! Trying to keep her happy in the campervan was a big challenge. We were grateful for the extra room that the larger campervan provided. And thank goodness that it had a T.V.! We couldn't get any reception for the channels to work, but we were able to play the Wiggles DVD that we had brought with us. It was a lifesaver and would continue to be throughout our trip. I think that John and I now have that whole DVD memorised. But, the sunrise was well worth the wait:

This was the sunrise at Coogee Beach. It was my first time seeing the Indian Ocean.

As you can probably gather from looking and us, Alexis and I were freezing! I had both of the sweatshirts on that I had packed. I definitely didn't factor in the wind when I was packing. Everywhere we went was windy, which made it feel a lot colder. Thankfully, the farther north we traveled, the warmer it got.

Later that morning, we met up with our friends Peter and Dorothy who live in Fremantle. They picked us up at Coogee Beach and were our tour guides for the day. We started off with a driving tour of Fremantle and Perth. We stopped at the Swan Bell Tower:

The Bell Tower was built to house the twelve bells of St. Martin-in-the-Field. A gift from the UK and the only known royal bells to ever leave England.

We also stopped at Kings Park and the Botanical Gardens. We saw the famous boab tree and Alexis had tons of fun running around.

One of the views of the Swan River from Kings Park:

There were some absolutely amazing views of the CBD, but unfortunately I didn't get pictures.

A trip to Fremantle would not be complete without a lunch of fish and chips at the famous Cicerello's. They had great fish tanks inside the restaurant (and even in the toilets). Alexis loved them.

After a stop at at Cottesloe Beach and Mosman Park, Peter and Dorothy dropped us back to Coogee Beach for a much needed afternoon rest. It happened to be Dorothy's birthday, so that evening we met up again for a birthday dinner at the Mexican Kitchen in Fremantle. It was nice to go out to reasonably authentic Mexican food, especially compared to what we have available in Townsville. We had a lovely time sightseeing and spending time with our friends.

View of the Swan River from Mosman Park. That sandbar is a amazing!

Day 3

Perth to Cervantes

Day 3 started off with Alexis waking up at 5:00am throwing up. Lucky for us she was only sick for a few hours. Unlucky for us, a sick baby in a campervan makes for a very gross mess. Before leaving town, we stopped to do some more extensive grocery shopping. Which was lucky, because I forgot to get laundry soap and when we got to Cervantes, the town was so small they only had a small (and I mean small) general store. It made me wonder where the residents got all of their food/supplies. It took us about three hours to drive to Cervantes from Perth (on the beautiful and just recently finished Indian Ocean Drive). But it was a very picturesque town right on the ocean. On the way to Cervantes, we stopped to see the Pinnacles at Nambung National Park. The coolest part was that we were allowed to walk right through them.

Those black things are flies. They would not leave us alone!

After our stop at the general store, we set up the van in the caravan park. John took Alexis to a playground that they had right at the beach while I made dinner.

Day 4
Cervantes to Kalbarri

On our way to Kalbarri, we stopped in Geraldton to have lunch at the beach. Alexis was in heaven because there were swings.

This was our view of Kalbarri driving into town:

When we got to the caravan park in Kalbarri, they had a nice playground and pool. John took Alexis to the playground so that I could make dinner, but once Alexis saw the pool, she didn't want anything to do with the toys. That girl just loves to go swimming. We knew it would be cold, but she was persistent, so John got changed and I put Alexis in a swim diaper. It was hilarious; she put one toe in and wouldn't go near the water after that. It was freezing!!

Day 5
Kalbarri to Monkey Mia

After waking up at 5:30am asking for milk, Alexis went back to sleep until 7:30am! It was heavenly. She probably would have slept even longer than that, but John got up to use the bathroom and she woke right up. Before we left Kalbarri in the morning, we made a quick stop at Back Beach. It was beautiful.

We also stopped at the park in town for Alexis to go on the swings. The Murchison River meets the Indian Ocean at Kalbarri and the park was right on the water, so that was fun to see.

On our way to Monkey Mia we drove through Kalbarri National Park. We stopped at the Ross Graham lookout. Alexis had fun walking down the trail:

The view of the Murchison River from the lookout:

Monkey Mia is located on the Shark Bay Peninsula. Also on the peninsula is Nanga Bay. We stopped there for lunch. It was a beautiful beach, but there were so many flies that we ended up eating inside the van.

This picture is deceiving because the beautiful turquoise water looks so warm and inviting. The weather was quite a bit warmer than in Perth, but the water was still freezing! At this point, we were just crossing our fingers that we would be able to go in the water at Ningaloo.

Once we got to Monkey Mia, we wasted no time in setting up the van (hooking up the fresh water, waste water, power and gas) so that we could explore the beach. The Monkey Mia Resort was a huge let-down (way overcrowded and dirty), but the beach was beautiful.

I'm so glad that I brought those sunglasses for Alexis. I've had them for a long time, but she's never wanted to wear them. I just threw them in the bag while I was packing. Once she saw John and I wearing our sunglasses all of the time, she wanted some too!

. . . Western Australia Adventure - Part II coming soon . . .

Me, cute!

2011-07-19T07:43:00.001+10:00

When John went to get Alexis up this morning, she started yelling at him "me, cute!" over and over again.

Other fun Alexis things:

She has also started to wiggle her pointer finger at us while saying "come here."
She likes to yell "coming" when she is going somewhere.
She is obsessed with scrapes. Any time she sees a mark on her (even if it's just a freckle), she says "scrape" over and over again. If she really does get a scape (for some reason it's almost always over her birthmark on her right knee), then she takes every opportunity to point it out to us.

29:2011

2011-07-17T19:45:00.000+10:00

Picture of the week:

Taken during John and Alexis' daddy/daughter date to ReefHQ.

Alexis and I drove up to the top of Mount Stuart this afternoon. We went to see the peacocks that roam around the lookout, but when we got there, there were no peacocks! This was our view:

We will miss living here.

Funny Girl

2011-07-14T20:48:00.001+10:00

Every morning without fail, after I get Alexis dressed for the day, she will go and look at herself in the mirror (her closet doors are mirrored). "Ooooohhh" she will say in a sing-song voice as she turns her head back and forth, "pretty." This always makes me smile. Then yesterday and again today, she started doing something new. After looking at herself, she started blowing herself kisses in the mirror and waving and saying "bye" as she walked out of the room. Oh that girl makes me laugh!

It's official!

2011-07-12T15:39:00.000+10:00

We're moving! I just booked our tickets online. We'll be leaving Townsville on the 23rd of September and heading to Salt Lake for a few months (we're still unsure where we will end up after that). I have mixed emotions. We will have lived in Australia for 4 years and 9 months (10 months for John). Townsville will always be a special place for us. We celebrated our first wedding anniversary here, Alexis was born here, John got his PhD here. We've had so many wonderful (and a few not so wonderful) experiences here and have made so many friends. This really has become our home. It's weird to think about going to the States permanently and not just for a visit. It will be sad to leave our life here behind, but we're really looking forward to being closer to our families. John is working hard on his grant applications and hopefully we'll be starting our next big adventure in early 2012!

28:2011

2011-07-10T19:55:00.000+10:00

Bubbles!

2011-07-07T19:57:00.000+10:00

Alexis absolutely loves bubbles. She cried for about twenty minutes, non-stop, when we made her come in for dinner.

27:2011

2011-07-03T20:07:00.000+10:00

I was a little frazzled this morning, hence the crazy colour of the picture. I just didn't have enough time (or patience) to fool around with the camera setting. But Alexis looks cute, as always. She looks so grown-up! You can see the scrape/bump on her forehead that she got yesterday when she tripped on some pavement.

This picture is classic Alexis. This is her "don't laugh at me, I'm mad" look. She was mad because I wouldn't give her the camera.

I'm still working on the big holiday post, so hopefully I will have it done by the end of the week. I want to get it done before I forget all of the details.

Alexis update: At around 19 months old, Alexis learned how to count to ten (with help). Now at 20 months, she can count all by herself. I've been trying to get it on video, but she hates the video camera at the moment. She will be doing something adorable and as soon as we get the camera out, she stops and frowns, or she comes super close in an attempt to grab the camera. She doesn't know what the numbers mean, but it's so cute to hear her count; she always shouts "9" and "10."

Leaning Tower

2011-07-01T19:46:00.000+10:00

Alexis is really into her blocks at the moment. When we first got her some blocks a few months ago, John would build the towers and Alexis would knock them down. Now she likes to build the towers.

Alexis built this tower all by herself:

She wasn't quite tall enough to add that last block:

26:2011

2011-06-26T14:10:00.002+10:00

This is Alexis about to make a silly face:

And this is Alexis smiling up at her daddy

(who was standing above me trying to make her smile):

Alexis adores her daddy.

We just got back from our great Western Australia adventure on Friday. We are still recovering (Alexis has been taking 4-6 hour naps and sleeping for 12-13 hours at night -- none of us slept that well in the campervan), but everything is unpacked and all the laundry is done, so hopefully we will get back to our old routine soon. I have a huge post in the works that details all of our trip, but it will probably take me a week or so to get it finished. Something to look forward to.

Something funny Alexis is saying at the moment is "nooey" for "noodle". She loves pasta/noodles, but only long spaghetti. I made a bowtie pasta last night and she wouldn't eat any of it, even though I used the same sauce I always do.

Alexis is 20 months old today. It never ceases to amaze us how fast she is growing and developing. I made a long list of the words she could say at 18 months and two months later I couldn't even begin to make a list. She has easily tripled or quadrupled her language skills in two months. She is now starting to put two or three words together into coherent phrases. I commented to John today that when she was first learning to talk we would have to actively teach her a word by constant repetition. Now she learns words by just listening to us. Today at church she was looking at books with John and should could name the zebra, tiger, rabbit and puppies (she only used to say "dog"). Even though we've read these books before, she's never said these words before. And on our trip, she learned words like dolphin, emu, and snorkel. It was so cute to hear her say "Daddy snorkel" when John was in the water and we were on the beach. Alexis amazes us everyday with how much she is learning. She loves to be goofy and silly, and is also very stubborn. She has already developed her "glare" that she gives us when she is mad or doesn't like something. She has also been known to glare at strangers who get too close to her. We love her.

23:2011

2011-06-05T14:49:00.000+10:00

This is what Alexis did when I told her to make a funny face:

Side note 1: We've tried to teach Alexis to be polite and say "please" and "thank you." So far it has seemed to work because most of the time she will say those things without any prompting. Whenever she tells me "thank you," I always make sure to say "you're welcome" so that she can learn that next. Well, she has learned to say her version of "you're welcome" (she just says "welcome"), but she doesn't quite get the meaning, because she has started saying to me "thank you, welcome" in one go. It always makes me laugh.

Side note 2: We're off on a holiday for the next few weeks, so there won't be any posts for awhile. But you can expect some nice vacation posts when we get back.

Happy Girl

2011-05-31T20:36:00.000+10:00

Alexis is such a happy girl. And about 99.9% of the time, she wakes up happy. She went through a phase where she was regularly waking up between 4:30-5:00am, so I bought a music play-station that I could hook onto her crib in an attempt to help her amuse herself at that early hour (and let us get a little more sleep). She loves it so much that even now that she sleeps in a little better, when we go to get her up she often starts crying when we try to take her out of her crib because she wants to stay in it and play the music. I took this video of her dancing to the music with one of her babies.

22:2011

2011-05-29T20:06:00.000+10:00

More pig-tails:

Smile!

2011-05-26T19:57:00.000+10:00

Alexis is in the stage where she makes funny faces when I ask her to "smile" for pictures.

Modeling her new pj's and slippers:

Wearing pig-tails in her hair for the first time:

P.S. Today, Alexis is 19 months old!

21:2011

2011-05-22T19:14:00.000+10:00

This is what John and Alexis do most days while I'm cooking dinner:

Alligator Creek

2011-05-21T18:54:00.001+10:00

This morning we went to Alligator Creek to spend time as a family and get out of the house. We didn't stay for too long, but Alexis had fun going on a little nature walk, playing in the creek and looking at all of the animals (mostly the bush turkeys and a kookaburra we found in a tree). John and I both love to see how excited Alexis gets about everything she sees. When we were walking to the creek, she would stop about every two steps and point at something and say "ooohhh" (in her singsong inflection).

Bigger and Better

2011-05-16T20:14:00.000+10:00

As Alexis continues to get bigger and bigger, our laundry room sink seems to get smaller and smaller. We've been using the laundry sink for her baths ever since she was born, but it has just been getting too impractical. I came across this ingenious collapsible tub by accident while I was browsing the aisles at Toys R' Us. This is what it looks like collapsed:

And here is Alexis enjoying a big tub that's just her size!

20:2011

2011-05-15T19:54:00.000+10:00

Alexis was being her normal, goofy self this morning while I was trying to take pictures of her in her church dress. This is one of the silly faces she was making:

And this is the face that Alexis made when I asked her to smile:

In good news . . . Alexis stayed in nursery all by herself for the whole third hour of church today! I took her in at the beginning of the second hour and she was very clingy. I stayed with her for all of Sunday School, but then I left to go to Relief Society. She was already crying before I left the room, but they were able to calm her down eventually. When John went to pick her up at the end of church, she was happily playing. We are very proud of her. Hopefully in a few weeks time we'll be able to just drop her off and she'll feel comfortable being in nursery for the whole two hours.

A Love Affair

2011-05-10T20:32:00.000+10:00

Alexis absolutely loves The Wiggles. We have a few of their DVDs and they are lifesavers when I really need to get something done and I need Alexis to be temporarily distracted (like today when I was trying to get dinner ready for the missionaries). This is a video of Alexis dancing along to her favourite song "Rock-A-Bye Your Bear."

19:2011

2011-05-08T20:07:00.000+10:00

Happy Mother's Day!

I for one, was very spoiled this Mother's Day.

I got these beautiful flowers:

And John made this yummy dinner:

(Barramundi Burger, homemade Sweet Potato Fries, BBQ Prawns,
and Threadfin Ceviche)

I also got a very nice card with some coupons inside for things like an extra-long sleep-in, an ankle rub, and a whole day off (!). And I got to take an extra-long nap after church.

The only negative was that I didn't get any pictures with Alexis. We tried to take some before church, but she would have none of it. Below is the best picture we could get of just her; the pictures with me were disasters.

Zombie Alexis ready for church:

Funny Girl

2011-05-06T18:41:00.000+10:00

Alexis is a funny girl. Within 15 minutes of waking up this morning, she had her shoes on and her jewels (while still in her pj's of course).

Thanks Nana for the new jewels!

First Go

2011-05-02T20:11:00.003+10:00

Today, Alexis and I had a first go at toilet training. It was . . . interesting. During the two hours that she was in panties, she went pee five times and four of those times was in her panties/on the carpet. However, the one time that she did go on the toilet was the first time that she had ever done that, so we definitely celebrated. Alexis passed the "readiness test" in the toilet training book that I have, but as soon as we started, it became apparent that she's not really ready. She is very interested in the toilet and she loves to read all of her books about other "big girls" that use the potty, but I think it would be better to wait a month or two for her verbal skills to increase even more. And we need to focus more on helping her understand when she goes pee. She always tells me when she goes poop, but never pee. We're also going to help her understand the difference between wet and dry.

I'm glad that I gave it a go. It will definitely help me to know what to do better next time around. But it was exhausting and stressful! Alexis was only in panties for two hours and both of us were wiped out by the end. I was planning on trying longer, but after two hours, Alexis was a basket-case and I ended up putting her down for an early nap.

Here is a picture of Alexis in her training panties:

(That pose is all Alexis! I did not prompt her to do that.)
(I love that her left thigh still has a roll of baby fat!)

(And she's wearing John's watch - one of her favourite accessories.)

18/2011 (formerly known as Church #65)

2011-05-01T13:41:00.002+10:00

Today was Alexis' first day in nursery. She did pretty well. I took her in and stayed for about 30 minutes. And she was doing well until John went to check on her about another 30 minutes later. She saw him and after that she wouldn't stop crying, so the nursery leader had John come in for a bit, but every time he tried to leave again she would start crying, so he just stayed in there for the rest of the time. Next week I think that one of us will still stay for a bit at the beginning until she's settled, but after that, we'll stay away unless someone comes to get us. Still, I think the first week was a success, because I didn't think that we would get to leave at all.

Also, you'll notice I changed the name of this church post to "18:2011," meaning the 18th week of 2011. I really like having a weekly photo of Alexis. It's amazing to go back and look at the previous weeks and see how much she changes in such a short time, but for one reason or another (sick, on holiday, crying baby that won't hold still, etc.), we don't always get a "church" photo, so by labeling them by week, I'll be able to post a weekly picture regardless. It also means that I can post non-church pictures that I like from the week that don't really belong in a post all by themselves. Example:

Alexis at the Missionary BBQ at the Strand this past Friday.

I hope that you enjoy the weekly pictures as much as we do!

18-Month Stats

2011-04-28T21:33:00.001+10:00

We took Alexis to her 18-month check-up today. Everything went well and she barely cried after her one shot. She was so brave. Here are her 18-month statistics:

Weight: 10.35 kg or 22.8 lbs (25%)

Height: 76 cm or 29.9 in (10%)

Head circumference: 46.5 cm or 18.3 in (50%)

18 Months

2011-04-26T20:51:00.006+10:00

Well, if you can believe it (we can't!), our baby is 18 months old. Alexis is such a happy little girl, we are so glad that she is a part of our family. It's fun to see her personality come through and watch her learn something new every day. She is very silly/goofy; we are constantly laughing at all of the funny things she does. Alexis is also very affectionate, which we love. She is always willing to give us hugs and kisses. It is the best when she wants to give us a hug or kiss that we didn't ask her for. And every time she sees us being affectionate, she doesn't want to be left out. She will come over and start hugging our legs until we pick her up for a big family hug. It is so cute.

Alexis is also very sweet and is quite good at sharing for an 18 month old. She loves to play with other kids and she almost never fusses when someone takes a toy she was playing with, she just picks something else. She will also willingly give up her toy when someone else asks for it. She is still a great sleeper. Up until last week, she was still taking two naps. Now, she just takes one nap in the afternoon, but it lasts anywhere between three and four hours. Then, she's usually in bed between 7:00-7:30pm and will sleep until 5:30-7:00am. We can't complain!

Funny things that Alexis does:

Alexis loves to pretend to talk on the phone. When she is pretending, she babbles a little conversation to herself. When she is talking on the phone for real, she is dead silent.
Alexis loves to play "mommy" to her baby dolls. She often tries to share her food with them, or dress them up in her bathing suits. She also likes to brush their hair and teeth. Recently she started trying to change their diapers (well, really she uses her wipes on them, since they're not wearing diapers). It is adorable.
It seems that Alexis equates the word "mommy" with "want." When she wants me to do something, she says "mommy, mommy, mommy" over and over again until she gets what she wants. She does this with John too. Even though she can say "daddy," she says "mommy" to John when she wants something from him.
Alexis mimics almost everything she sees us do or say. She is really good at trying to say new words she hears us use. It's so funny to see her rubbing her arms after I put lotion on in the morning or digging in my make-up drawer for my hairbrush, using it to brush her own hair and then watching her pull off invisible hairs from the brush and putting them in the rubbish. She also loves to relax on the couch (lay back on the pillows) and sit up at the dinner table on a regular chair (we don't let her do this while she's eating).
Alexis almost never says a plain "no." She usually draws it out and turns it into two syllables like "noo-ooo." Somewhat annoying, but also really cute.
If Alexis gets her hands on some toilet paper (which isn't very often), she rubs it between her legs and then drops it in the toilet. It's hilarious to watch.
Alexis loves to clean up and help keep things tidy; unfortunately, just not where her toys and books are concerned. If she sees a drawer or door open, she closes it. We used to leave a drink out for her on the coffee table, but now, after we give her a drink, she wants to put it back in the fridge. She is also really good about putting her dirty clothes in the clothes basket and putting her diapers in the diaper genie.
Every time she hears "Rock-a-bye Baby" playing on one of her music CDs, she wants me to pick her up and rock her (but only for as long as the song lasts). I love it!

Alexis loves to:

play outside - specifically go in the swing at the park, look at the birds, and push her babies around in her stroller
climb on anything and everything
use the kitchen stool to reach things
play dress-up with her swimming suits, hats and shoes
read - Alexis absolutely loves books

This is a video of Alexis doing the actions to From Head to Toe by Eric Carle, one of her current favourite books:

walk up and down the stairs like a big girl
run - Alexis rarely walks anywhere, she is always running
sing

This is Alexis and John singing "I Am A Child of God." Please excuse John's big yawn, it was pretty early in the morning when I took this video:

go to sleep (Seriously! All we have to do is tell her it's "night-night time" and she starts going upstairs all by herself with no fussing.)
say prayers - she sits on her knees and folds her arms
play with her ball

brush her teeth - but she doesn't like Mommy or Daddy to help
jump and spin in her Johnny Jump-Up (It's a lifesaver when I need to shower!)

anything that involves water - she still loves baths and particularly loves to swim, she's even starting to like showers

Words that Alexis can say:

tha oo (thank you)
dah dun (all done)
more
cracker
bye
bur (bird)
mmaa (amen)
up
down
baby
boy
gir (girl)
truck
car
dog
cat
apple
bubble
nanana (banana)
grape
Mommy
Daddy
Nana
no
book
nose
cheek
eye
bum
poop
teeth
ball
blocks
dis (this)
dat (that)
night-night
nope
hat
hot
boom
shoes
bug
dee-daw (ding-dong) (says this when she touches her bellybutton)
corn
beep beep (we've always said this to her when we wanted her to move out of the way and now she says it to us)
boo
one
two
wee wee wee (from "This Little Piggy")
pop (popcorn)
tick tock (from "Hickory Dickory Dock")
whoops
cookie
cheese
peas (please)
why (even though she can say it, she doesn't know what it means)

We are totally biased, but we think Alexis is ridiculously smart!

We love our little Missy!

Church #64

2011-04-24T13:33:00.000+10:00

Happy Easter!

Tooth #16

2011-04-19T14:28:00.001+10:00

Lower left canine.

Church #63

2011-04-17T16:30:00.000+10:00

Tooth #15

2011-04-13T15:04:00.000+10:00

Lower right canine.

Church #62

2011-04-10T17:24:00.000+10:00

So Stylish!

2011-04-08T15:45:00.001+10:00

This is another one of Alexis' stylish outfit choices. She was in heaven when we went to Mission Beach, because she got to wear her bathing suit all weekend!

Tooth #14

2011-04-08T15:44:00.003+10:00

Upper right canine.

The beginning of the end

2011-04-07T19:32:00.026+10:00

John turned in his PhD thesis today!! We are so proud of all his hard work and dedication. Now the waiting game begins. Hopefully his reviewers will be prompt.

A funny side note:

When John called me today to tell me the great news, he asked me to book him in at a local spa for a celebratory back massage. For some reason I thought he said back wax. I don't know how I could confuse back wax with back massage. I thought it was weird that he would celebrate by getting his back waxed, but I made the appointment and was even able to get him in today. When he got home this afternoon, he asked me if I thought his back was too hairy. I looked at him like he was crazy. "Does it matter?" I asked him, "you're getting your back waxed." His response: "What do you mean back wax, I'm getting a massage!" Whoops. Luckily we were able to switch the appointment and John will be getting a full body massage first thing tomorrow morning.

Tooth #13

2011-04-07T15:34:00.000+10:00

Upper left canine.

Monkey

2011-04-05T14:54:00.001+10:00

We have a little monkey living in our house and her name is Alexis. As she gets stronger and bigger, Alexis loves to climb on anything and everything. She did this today for the first time:

I'm going to have to scoot our coffee table back so we don't have any serious accidents.

Church #61

2011-04-03T16:40:00.002+10:00

Fun with Daddy

2011-04-02T20:37:00.001+10:00

John took Alexis on another daddy/daughter date to the aquarium today. They both had a lot of fun and I was able to take a nap in a quiet house. Thank you John!

The end of an era

2011-03-28T20:35:00.001+10:00

Alexis is officially weaned. She turned 17 months old on Saturday, and I breastfed her for the last time a few days before that. I have mixed feelings about it, as I'm sure most moms do. I really enjoyed breastfeeding and the quiet time that it allowed Alexis and I to have together. But I also enjoy the flexibility that I now have, especially at night time. Now that I'm not breastfeeding her, if I need him to, John can be solely in charge of putting Alexis to bed. I think I need to organise a girls' night out!

I'm really proud of myself for lasting so long. I had the goal to exclusively breastfeed Alexis until she was six months old (I practically did this; she didn't have any solids until she was six months and only had formula for the first time a week before that), and then the goal to continue to breastfeed as needed until she was at least one year old (I definitely surpassed that one). I wanted to write down how I weaned Alexis, because I'm pretty sure that by the time I have to do it again I won't remember exactly what I did:

I started introducing Alexis to cow's milk just after she turned one. Even though I knew I wasn't ready to wean her, I wanted her to get used to the idea of drinking milk from a cup. But, she hated it. Every time we tried to give her cow's milk, she would spit it up and start gagging. I guess I wasn't too surprised, because she never really liked formula either. She took a goat's milk based formula in a bottle about once a week (usually at church) from age six months until she was about eight months, and then after that, she decided she didn't like formula or bottles. After eight months I couldn't get her to drink any formula (and I tried them all - regular, soy, lactose intolerant, etc) from a bottle or a cup and I also couldn't get her to drink breastmilk out of a bottle, which she did all the time for the first five months of her life. But, we persisted with the cow's milk and eventually Alexis would drink a tiny bit from a cup. At 14 months, I was breastfeeding Alexis when she woke up in the morning (before breakfast), before her morning and afternoon naps,* and then at night, before her bedtime (total of 4 feeds). I dropped her morning feed first (at 14 months) and just tried to get her to drink some milk with breakfast. I waited until she was 15 1/2 months to drop a second feed (her afternoon nap) and then two weeks later I dropped a third feed (morning nap), so by 16 months old I was only breastfeeding her before bedtime. I thought I would wait another two weeks and then drop that last feed, but the time arrived and I wasn't quite ready, so I waited another week and a half. I think that I had to psych myself up for it. Even though I was ready for the "freedom" that awaited me after I finished breastfeeding, I didn't want to give up that special bond that we shared. So, I really tried to enjoy and savour the time I spent putting her to bed that last week. When I finally worked up the courage to say to myself "ok, this is the last time," it was a few days before Alexis turned 17 months. Alexis didn't complain at all. The first night without breastfeeding, I just put her to bed like it was one of her naps and she went to sleep without any complaining. It made me realise that I could have probably stopped breastfeeding her earlier, and that I was the one that wasn't ready. Luckily for us, Alexis slowly started to drink more cow's milk, but even better, we discovered that she absolutely loves oat milk. John and I only drink oat milk (well, not really drink, but use in cooking), but we had never given it to Alexis. After comparing the nutrition panels on both products, we determined that it would be ok to give to her. With cow's milk, Alexis would only drink maybe one whole cup a day (on a good day), and now she drinks usually two to three cups of oat milk.

So there you have it, how I weaned Alexis. I truly enjoyed breastfeeding my baby and I'm so grateful that it was such a positive experience for both of us. I can only hope that things will go so smoothly with our future children.

*Just as a side note, I didn't start breastfeeding Alexis before her naps until after she started standing up in her crib. Up until that point, I had kept her to an 'eat, play, sleep' routine. I found that once she could pull herself up in her crib, she would get too riled up, so I started nursing her to calm her down before nap time. As she got older and was eating more solids, I got to the point (at 14 months), where I was only nursing her before she would go to sleep.

5 Years!

2011-03-27T21:02:00.002+10:00

John and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary by spending the weekend (with Alexis) at our favourite holiday destination in North Queensland: Mission Beach. It was a great weekend. We were afraid that we wouldn't be able to go because of the damage caused by Cyclone Yasi (it crossed right at Mission Beach), but the holiday house we wanted to stay in was intact, so we lucked out big time. Even better, the house has new owners and we were the first guests to stay there since they renovated it. I stayed in the same house last year while my mom was visiting, but now it had a brand new indoor and outdoor kitchen and the bedrooms all had new linens. It was fabulous. And on top of that, we had perfect weather! Which is quite amazing because it had been raining so much that leading up to our trip the highway up north was actually closed because of flooding, so we really got lucky. It was both interesting and sad to travel up north and see the devastation that Cyclone Yasi left behind. Here is a picture looking at the beach from Sea-s-ta (our holiday house). The top picture is before the cyclone, the bottom one is after:

The pictures don't really do it justice. There was almost no beach left compared to what there was. Just to get to the beach, you had to slide down about a four foot drop off of where the beach had been blown/washed away.

This is a picture of what used to be the lush rainforest:

The rainforest used to be so thick that most of the roads around Mission Beach were completely shaded. They are all sunny now.

Even with all of the damage to the area, it is still beautiful. We are so glad that we got to visit one more time before we move. It was nice to spend some relaxing time as a family. Alexis absolutely loved that she could pretty much go outside whenever she wanted and that we would let her wander all over the yard (supervised of course).

We had lots of fun playing at the beach:

And even more fun swimming in the pool (we couldn't go swimming in the ocean because it's jellyfish season and there were no stinger nets up because of the cyclone):

Alexis loved to look down the filter and watch the water:

Another memorable moment was Alexis pooping in the bathtub for the first time:

John and I reminisced about anniversaries past where we could celebrate kid-free. But we really couldn't have asked for a nicer weekend. It was just what we needed. Here's to another five years!

New love?

2011-03-22T20:34:00.002+10:00

Ever since deciding to eat vegetarian/vegan, we have been trying a lot of new things at our house. Let me just say that I hate tofu! I'm not really a big fan of soy in general,* and tofu has always grossed me out (I think it's the texture, plus the soy taste). Everything I read about tofu says that is supposedly takes on the flavour of the seasonings you use with it; this has not been my experience. I have tried quite a few tofu recipes over the last few months and have barely been able to eat any of them. But, I am ever the optimist. I was sure that I could at least get used to tofu, if I could find the right recipe. We had this tonight for dinner (served as manicotti with their recipe for 'red sauce'). It was amazing!! If someone else had made it for me, I would have never guessed that I was eating tofu. Next on my list of tofu recipes to try is a tofu scramble (instead of scrambled eggs). Even after this good experience with tofu, I'm still not looking forward to it. Wish me luck!

*Except TVP, it's awesome!

Church #60

2011-03-20T16:43:00.000+10:00

Alexis is getting very wiggly and this is the best picture that we could get of her this morning. That bracelet must taste good!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2011-03-17T15:52:00.001+10:00

Church #59

2011-03-13T14:59:00.000+10:00

Fashionista

2011-03-10T16:05:00.023+10:00

Alexis is a little fashionista in the making. She already has her own unique sense of fashion. You'll notice from this past post and the picture below that she tends to go for her swimmers and hats (and in this case, swimmers as a hat). She can even put the purple bathing suit bottoms on her head all by herself. Alexis has about four different bottoms to choose from, but she always chooses the purple ones to wear as a hat. She must like purple! In fact, Alexis likes the purple bottoms so much that she insisted on wearing them when we went to the mall the other day. How does a 16 month old baby insist on wearing something, you ask? By screaming every time I try to take them off. She got quite a few compliments on her fashion choice. I guess I better enjoy picking out her outfits while I still have the option.

Church #58

2011-03-06T15:06:00.000+10:00

Alexis has started to throw little fits and temper tantrums. She's only 16 months old and already the "terrible twos" seem to be making an appearance at our house. Thankfully, the fits are usually short-lived. This is what happened when I took her bathing suit bottoms away from her because she was trying to wear them like a hat and was about to mess up her hair:

John already had the camera out to take her usual Sunday pictures and we couldn't resist. These next pictures were taken after her little tantrum (when we gave her the bathing suit bottoms back to hold).

Too early?

2011-03-03T09:41:00.001+10:00

We don't think so. Alexis is super interested in the toilet right now; she especially loves tearing little pieces of toilet paper and throwing them in. So, we thought that we would give her little potty seat a go.

She sat up there for a few minutes and then when I got her down, she wanted to get back up, so she sat up there for a little bit longer. Nothing happened until I got her down for the last time. We were a little slow in putting her diaper back on and she peed on the carpet. If only she had gone a minute earlier!

We're not really going to start potty training her yet, but we thought we might as well get her used to the idea. She already loves her special seat, so that's a good start.

Gumboots

2011-02-28T16:38:00.002+10:00

I've mentioned before (see here) that Alexis developed an affinity for shoes at an early age. She's really into her gumboots at the moment. She goes straight to her closet almost every morning and pulls them out and then carries them around until I help her put them on.

Alexis has also discovered that she can walk around in Mommy's shoes! It's so funny because every time she goes into my closet, no matter what pair of shoes she chooses, she always gets the left one put on correctly and the right one backwards.

Church #57

2011-02-27T21:04:00.000+10:00

Tooth #12

2011-02-24T16:48:00.002+10:00

First molar, bottom right.

Tooth #11

2011-02-22T18:13:00.000+10:00

First molar, bottom left.

Strollin' Babies

2011-02-22T08:44:00.004+10:00

We recently got Alexis a small stroller for her to push her dolls around in. It's been a big hit. She loves to push her babies around the house, but loves it even more when we take her outside.

Church #56

2011-02-20T17:04:00.000+10:00

What a Difference!

2011-02-17T09:21:00.001+10:00

What a difference seven weeks make! When we left Australia to visit our families for the holidays, Alexis was just over 13 months old and now that we're back, she is 15 months old. Alexis grew up so much during our trip. Here's some of the things that she learned while we were gone:

how to walk backwards and sideways
how to spin in a circle (usually seen while she is dancing)
the hand movements to the song "Popcorn Popping" (see video here)
discovered a love of animals, particularly cats and dogs
the sign for "more"
how to fold her arms for prayer
lots of animal noises (tiger, lion, cow, duck, chicken, owl, elephant, sheep)
how to say dog, cat, and duck
how to draw (scribble) with a pen/pencil
how to say "all done" (her first two-word phrase)
how to give closed-mouth kisses (she used to only give huge, open-mouth slobbery ones)
how to follow directions (she is an exceptionally good listener for her age . . . hopefully this will last)
how to nod her head up and down for "yes"
how to blow her nose, and . . .

lots of body parts

(video taken 12 January 2011)

Alexis is learning new things everyday. It is so fun to watch her grow and change. Since we've been back she's learned how to say "apple," "bubble," and "amen," how to blow bubbles when she's swimming, and where her bum and tongue are. She's also learned the hand movements to the song "Three Little Monkeys." We can't wait to see what she learns next!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T20:41:00.000+10:00

Alexis is ready to give you a Valentine's Day kiss!

To celebrate Valentine's Day we took Alexis to the water park at the Strand and then had dinner overlooking the beach. It was the perfect weather for it -- not too hot and a slight breeze. We all had fun in the water and then Alexis had even more fun chasing all of the seagulls that were trying to eat our dinner. You can see some of the damage from Cylone Yasi in the sorry looking palm trees in the background.

Church #55

2011-02-13T20:13:00.000+10:00

(Somebody has decided that she likes to wear a headband, sometimes at least.)

Cyclone Yasi here we come!

2011-02-02T14:06:00.000+10:00

Church #54

2011-01-30T22:02:00.000+10:00

Someone got her toenails painted for the first time! She actually held very still while I was painting them, but it was hard to keep her little fingers off of them while they dried.

On a side note, we finally made it back to Australia! After postponing our travel due to some illness, we arrived home on Friday afternoon (a week and a half later than originally planned). We are trying to get back into a routine and catch up on some sleep. Alexis did amazing on the flights home. She gets tired of being on the plane of course, mostly because she can't walk around like she wants to, but she absolutely loves airports (good thing because we had three layovers). I think she likes being able to explore such a large space and she loves to people watch. Our travel insurance upgraded us to premium economy on the long portion of our flight and it was heavenly. We definitely enjoyed the extra space. We arrived home to two large cyclones looming on the horizon. If we had known that, we might have stayed away just a little bit longer! Hopefully, the destruction won't be too bad. We're so glad to have had so much time with our families, but we're glad to be home. Next on the agenda is getting John finished with his thesis!

Church #53

2011-01-23T19:29:00.016+10:00

John took Alexis to church today by himself for all three hours! (Well, technically his parents were there too.) We were a little worried, because we couldn't get Alexis to go down for her morning nap, but it was a great success. Both Grandpa and Grandma reported that Alexis was "a very good girl" and Daddy said she was "very well behaved." And I got to stay home and take a nap in the quiet house so that I can get healthy enough to travel back to Australia.

Church #52

2011-01-16T16:23:00.000+10:00

Sledding & Kissing Cousins

2011-01-13T21:20:00.001+10:00

We took Alexis up to the cabin in Big Cottonwood Canyon to go sledding for the first time. She loved it. We have some great video, but don't have the ability to upload it at the moment, so it will have to be posted later. But here's a cute picture.

We just took her down the small hill in front of the cabin's garage. She mostly sat on Daddy's lap, but on the last run, John sent her down by herself. She was having fun until she crashed (face-planted). She crashed on a little icy patch, so she ended up with a few little scraps on her face, but overall the sledding was a success.

After sledding, we headed over to John's sister Briony's house for dinner. We had a feast (homemade calzone and Boston Cream Pie)! And Alexis had a lot of fun playing with her cousins. She especially likes baby Keana, as evidenced by the photo below:

Alexis has always loved to give kisses, and Keana does too. Alexis is sure going to miss her cousins when we go back to Australia next week.

Church #51

2011-01-09T15:39:00.000+10:00

Art a la Snow

2011-01-07T22:00:00.000+10:00

Today, Susan, Alexis and I drove down to Provo to visit a special exhibit (religious paintings by Carl Bloch) at the BYU Museum of Art. Alan joined us there. The exhibit was beautiful and Alexis was a very good girl, especially after being in the car and then going straight to her stroller. Afterward, we had lunch at the Museum Cafe and then headed outside to let Alexis walk around for a bit before we put her back in the car.

The first thing she did? Made a beeline for the snow and started eating it. Someone (Daddy) has been giving her big blobs of snow to eat when she's in her highchair and she now knows just what to do. Except this snow was pretty dirty. We just couldn't keep her away from it! (At least it wasn't yellow!)

Walking through BYU campus with Uncle Alan.

It was a fun morning, and it gave John a quiet house to get lots of work done.

More Cousins

2011-01-06T21:41:00.000+10:00

Alexis got to visit with more of her cousins this week. While Teisa and Hannah were at school, we went to play with Alisi, Keana, and Lilly. Alexis has reached the age where she really likes other kids, so it was a lot of fun. She also got to spend some time with her Aunt Briony and Aunt Dayna too.

Alexis and Keana . . .

a.k.a. the future Dr. Horne and Dr. Fakatou.

Rocking out with Alisi and Keana.

Spinning in circles with Lilly.

Snow Fun!

2011-01-03T16:10:00.001+10:00

Today, Alexis finally got to go out and play in the snow. After finally getting over her major sinus infection, Alexis got a stomach bug the same day we got to Utah, so we have kept her inside the nice, warm house. Since her fever finally broke today and it was relatively warm outside (29 F -- a lot warmer than it has been), we ventured out into the background.

Alexis' coat is so puffy, it kind of reminded me of the kid from A Christmas Story. She looked like a little marshmallow and couldn't really move her arms. But she sure looked cute!

As soon as she could touch the snow, she tried to eat it. She wasn't too successful though, since it was hard to move her arms. She seemed to like the snow, but she would not walk in it. Even when we smoothed out an area that wasn't deep, she still would not walk. Oh well. It was nice to be outside. Hopefully she will be feeling 100% soon so that we can take her sledding at the cabin.

Making snow angels with Grandma.

She did not like lying down in the snow and was much happier sitting on Grandma.

Church #50

2011-01-02T16:41:00.001+10:00

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T09:36:00.003+10:00

And a big "Happy Birthday" to Gigi!

Church #49

2010-12-26T16:04:00.000+10:00

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T22:02:00.001+10:00

Tradition

2010-12-24T21:57:00.000+10:00

Walker Family Christmas Eve tradition?

New pajamas (that are matching, of course)!

Ready and Waiting

2010-12-24T09:03:00.000+10:00

Someone is ready for Santa to come . . .