catch up...

The holidays came and went, and with the whirlwind of excitement, my blogging seemed to come to a halt. And, seeing as this blog serves two purposes (one being pure entertainment for me and my readers, and second being that it serves as my baby book), I'll need to put out a full on recap of the past few weeks.

- Alexis is walking 100% of the time with no crawling at all anymore. She always has one arm up in what looks like a left hand turn signal, but I'm hoping in time that'll come down. While it's fun for her to be walking, and easier when we're out somewhere, she's so dead-set on meandering on her own that when you do try to carry her, she gets mad. And "come on let's go this way" falls on the ears of a child that doesn't understand that collection of words yet.

- Christmas tree hunting was a blast. We had our usual field excursion, and as is always the case, it was ridiculously cold and windy. We found what looked like the perfect tree, but of course when we got it home and we finally popped it open, I began to wonder if they'd switched it out in the baling station. Enough strategically placed ornaments filled in the gaps and tah-dah, it looked pretty snazzy. Surprisingly, Alexis and the dogs actually left it alone.

- When we were attempting to sell our home (it's back off the market), de-cluttering suddenly made our little house look a bit bigger. Then came Christmas and a slew of toys of all sizes, shapes, and sounds. The living room has now returned to its original tiny state, and the dogs are in heaven. There's a never-ending number of blocks, random veggies from the plastic crawl-thru farm, etc for them to pick up, chew, and discard somewhere else in the house. We found a finger puppet in our bed last night. Lovely.

- Our little piglet that loved any food we put in front of her suddenly became picky, complete with a matter-of-fact "no" to let us know what she thought of what we were putting in front of her. Things she likes one day are suddenly gross the next. It has nothing to do with the food. It has everything to do with testing mommy and daddy.

- Her vocabulary is ridiculous. We're constantly told that she is advanced in her communication skills, and from what I observe, I can proudly agree. Here's a list (though not at all inclusive) of what she says (and can clearly point out or identify, so we're not just making things up). If only I could add her sweet tone interesting syllabic accents to what I write:
Mommy and Daddy
Doggy
Apple
Banana
Face and Body parts - Eye, nose, ear, chin, knee, elbow, belly
Outerwear - Hat, socks, shoes
Thank you
Not Nice (complete with an angry finger point) and No (of course)
Sippy
Elmo (even though she really doesn't like him)
Etc.

She learns something new every day, surprises us regularly, and also tests us on our patience and our yet to be determined disciplinary skills...and we're loving every minute of it.