It's official!

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

Bubbles!

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

27:2011

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

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

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

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.