Purple Weed and a Fuzzy Baby

I don't know if I've written about this, but Alexa doesn't say 'Mama'.  She used to.  I still think it was her first word and she used to say it all the time.  But for some reason, since she has really started trying to talk, the Mama thing has disappeared.  She says 'Dada' and 'Daddy' with no problem, but never 'Mama'.  So when I picked her up from day care the other day, the strangest thing happened.  They were playing outside and when I walked out on to the playground, Alexa saw me and started walking real fast toward me saying 'Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama'.  She wasn't loud or screaming, but almost saying it to herself.  Of course, I was super excited to hear her finally say it!  She came up to me and I gave her a big hug and a kiss and asked her to say it again.  Do you want to know what she did?  Shook her head no.  That little crazy.  She can totally say it and flat out refuses!  Hmmmm.

The continuation of a super long post describing our week (or at least two days of our week) in pictures:
  

Oh, so many things to be said with this picture.  First of all, yes, that is our Christmas tree, still drying out and waiting to be turned into firewood.  Alexa picked out this outfit to wear and she thought she looked super cute.  Especially the shoes.  She threw an absolute fit when I tried to put her sneakers on her.  I told her that we have to have shoes on to go outside, so she went into her shoe basket and pulled out the purple crocks.  OK, kid, whatever, as long as you have shoes on.  She was probably trying to coordinate with the shirt.  It has Mickey on it and the shoes are Minnie Mouse.  I don't know how that all works.  I don't do fashion.  Obviously. Oh, and her hands are over her mouth because she's coughing.  We are currently working on coughing into our elbow, but it's proving to be slightly more difficult to learn.

 Playing with rocks.

 Now that is a handsome looking dog!

 Is it bad parenting to take a picture first before taking the rock out of your kid's mouth?

 OK, two pictures.

 And....she spotted a bird.

 Yup, there it is, in the tree.

 She's showing me her teeth ;)

 We went to the baseball park to watch Travis, Chase and Brayden play.  It was pretty windy! (Nice hair, Lex! hehehe)

 Just checking things out.

 Look at Hot Stuff climbing the fence!  Hopefully, she won't use this new love of climbing to get out of her crib!  I'm not ready for a toddler bed yet!

 I shall call this picture: "Purple Weed and a Fuzzy Baby"

 "Hey"

 Nick and Alexa planted two of the trees that we got on Arbor day.  And of course they had to use her car to transport them around the yard.  Actually, the pots fit very nicely in the 'trunk' of her car.  Have I talked about the car yet?  She's obsessed.  Every time we go outside she has to ride in her car and then most of the time throws a fit when it's time to go inside again (actually, the going inside part is getting better).  She just walks up to it, sits down in it and looks at you, waiting to be pushed around.  She loves it.  It's the best $3 my mom has ever spent...yay for garage sales!

Big helper girl. 

 Planting the dogwood tree.  See that black thing in the background?  That's our compost bin.  Nick got it for Christmas from his dad.  He loves it.  I fear it and call it the bear magnet, which Nick does not understand at all.  I'm not sure what there is to not understand.  We had a bear in our back yard who went all through our garbage (and ate the food).  So the obvious thing to do after something like that happens is to put a bin in our back yard that is full of old, rotting food.  Because that won't attract bears at all, will it?  Exactly.

 She found an extra tree to be planed.

 Lexi learning the fine art of digging with a shovel.

Tree #2 ready to go in the ground. 

Hi Glynniss.  Glyn says that she's embarrassed to have this picture up because of her rough hair cut.  I told her that maybe if she would stay still while she's being shaved, her hair would look beautiful like Minnie's.  Minnie looked at her smugly, then Glynnie gave her a look and walked away.  (what?  Not everyone has conversations for their dogs?  Because that is totally what happened!)