Ready to go Mom

Alexa helpfully got my purse today so we could go to therapy..doesn't she look innocent?I love the many ways she is starting to imitate us.

Fun on the porch.

When I went out to take pictures of yarn Friday Alexa wanted to be photographed..she was being extra adorable too.

My beautiful girl

I really thought Alexa looked beautiful sleeping yesterday. Aside from the diaper she could be a sculpture or something. Too bad I inherited no artistic skill whatsoever from my father. And for supper I cooked up a great big pot of yarn.
It turns out that you can dye animal fiber with Wilton's icing dyes.
If you really want to read about my fiber obsessions you can see my other blog where I ramble on about various knitting, spinning and dying stuff.

Fun in the kitchen

Alexa, who loves the kitchen lately, took all the pans out of the cupboard and put them on the stove yesterday. Lids too. I have been busy trying to feed us with food grown locally..and as part of that effort, making jam, freezing berries, and canning tomatos. Here is the tomato sauce I made yesterday.
Alexa loves this whole thing. Yesterday she ate a bunch of fresh green beans, blueberries, and a diced tomato for supper. At home it is easy to feed her. When we travel it is more complicated..

Trip to Tri-Cities

We went to the Tri-Cities, WA this weekend to see David's grandpa, and this is the only picture I have because the camera battery went dead after this. What is this you ask? This is a picture of the flowers in the median strip in Albany. There was a major traffic halt and it took us 1.5 hours to get from our house to the Jefferson exit...this should take about 25 minutes. There were times when we were parked on the freeway for five minutes at a time without moving at all. And after all that, we finally get up to the place where the problem is, and we can't even tell what happpened. Just a big truck..jacked up, but no other car seemed to be involved. Yet they had one lane blocked off, and were stopping traffic in the other lane periodically. So there is the reason I noticed and had time to take pictures of the flowers. David's grandpa Woodie is in the hospital with pneumonia. He has been in the hospital about 4 times in the past 6 months. He wasn't eating, and was sleeping all the time. He perked up quite a bit when he saw Alexa and David. He kept saying how cute she was and that "grandpa loves you." She sat up on his bed and cuddled up next to him on Sunday. She stayed there for 10 minutes or more. She is such a sweetie!
It seems like Woodie will probably be going back to his his rest home place and going on hospice if the diagnosis meets their criteria.

Yesterday we went to Eugene to the neurologist. We were still hoping for some sort of diagnosis for Alexa that would meet the insurance company's requirements to cover her speech therapy. However, there is no physical explanation for her developmental delays that is visible in the MRI. The neurologist says that this is common. Approximately 50% of kids with DD have no known cause.
We stopped by to see our friends Tayler and Reese and Carleen. Alexa and Reese were playing together very happily.

Tea Party

Lisa had a tea part for the girls last Saturday. We had a fun time. I did not do very well photographically speaking however. I am going to have to beg photos from Carleen Here are Alexa, Marissa and Taylor. Taylor drinking strawberry lemonade.
Alexa suckered Margo into reading with her for a very long time. Thank you Margo!
Reese really enjoyed the food!

Reading in the Bathroom again

Alexa has been a lot of fun lately. This morning I heard her giggling in the bathroom. This makes me instantly worry that something is being dunked in the toilet - but this morning she was just reading a Dr Seuss book on the closed toilet! She is doing so many fun new things lately. When she gets up and we don't serve her breakfast immediately she points to the kitchen and makes her ah ah sound (which is the best start she has made at saying want). When David went in the kitchen she got the oatmeal pot out of the cupboard and put it on the stove. Sometimes when she wants to eat she gets her bib and waves it at us.
She is also frustrating at times (of course). Sunday I made peas for her as part of Sunday lunch. Since she loves peas so much, once she starts on them she won't eat anything else, so we gave her some mashed potatos first. When she wouldn't try them, we added peas to the potatos and mixed them...but she would not eat any pea which had touched the potatos. We had a maj0r battle over this involving a time out and lots of crying. Finally she got down without eating them. An hour later she went to the table and started eating it. Then yesterday for lunch she ate mashed potatos with no peas in them.
Potty training is sort of at a slow point. Sometimes she tells me when she has just gone potty, so she does sort of get it..this morning I caught her on the red chair grunting, so I rushed her to the toilet (some poop in diaper at this point) and we sat there, and nothing happened, so I put her diaper on, and she finished pooping in it. Stage fright or something.

Fourth of July Weekend

For the 4th of July we went to Grandma's house. Penny's neighbors Wayne and Joan came over and Wayne helped Alexa build a megablock tower. A very patient man! We ate outside by the lake, it was perfect weather and yummy food.
Here are Daddy and Alexa dressed up for meeting.
And Alexa wearing her backpack. She also likes to carry mommy's purse around her neck.

Trip to Seattle

Alexa and I went to Seattle this weekend and stayed in a motel with Nana and Auntie Holly. Alexa got to play with Nana who spoils her rotten of course. And Aunt Holly know she loves monkeys and contributed a new monkey to the collection. Alexa loves this one too.


We ate a lot of yummy food, the room service and restaurant at the hotel were fantastic. We went swimming in the rooftop pool on a sunny day in Seattle. We went shopping a bit. We got to visit the cousins for an hour or so on Tuesday morning, and then we drove home. What should have been about a four hour drive evolved into a 7 hour extravaganza involving me trying to feed Alexa a bazillion foods she would not eat, me stopping to nap at a rest area because I couldn't stay awake, Alexa screaming mad when we left the rest area because I didn't let her get out, Alexa sticking her fingers down her throat and throwing up and rubbing it all over her face and in her eyes, us stopping at the outlet stores to clean it up with wet wipes, Alexa fighting me and mad again when I made her get back in the car seat and finally, Alexa falling asleep about five minutes later and us arriving home late in the afternoon-me tired and grumpy.