A few end of 2010 pictures

I wanted a picture of Alexa in her sock monkey skirt and legwarmers. These were made by a cool etsy shop owner for Alexa at my request and she loves the outfit. She's really into pockets lately, they're kind of distraction actually, when she's supposed to be doing something else she's trying to put stuff in them. We did some gingerbread house decorating with some friends, and Alexa showed Sally her new storytelling app Pictello.

Surprisingly she like eating some of the candy.

Tayler did a great job on hers.

Christopher spent about 30 minutes longer than everyone elso on his. Very carefully planned and executed.

I made a bunch of hats this fall, and Alexa has decided she like wearing them, so she is a willing model.

This is the one she wears to school every day.

We are all recovering from a flu that gave Alexa a fever on and off for 2.5 days. David and I got lighter symptoms, but we were all stuck at home for the whole weekend.

Alexa continues to learn new reading words and is able to read whole sentences now in Cat in the Hat. Her talker has been an amazing tool for her. Unfortunately it had to be sent in for repair when the speaker quit last week. I have let her use my iPod some, but I am a bit protective of it, so I didn't let her take it to school today. She does use a different talker at school for her reading. She's amazingly adaptive, and her sign language vocab is increasing rapidly as well. She's getting to be so independent and thinks she can do anything. Specifically she has been getting milk out of the refrigerator, but her aim for the cup leaves something to be desired, and we have been cleaning up a lot of spilled milk. I am trying to remember that this is a good thing, that she is growing up, but sometimes I really want to yell, and sometimes I do.

In other interesting news, she is beginning to be able to be reasoned with a bit. She will sometimes finish her plate of cold supper in order to get ice cream, and the other day when she said she didn't want to go to school, she changed her mind because she wanted to go to her dance class after school. These are the first signs of her being able to understand consequences and to look ahead that far into the future. Unfortunately she is also starting to be unwilling to get dressed in the morning, and too big to be forced into it. Now I often have to sing to her as a bribe to get ready for school. I am happy that she thinks singing is a good reward. Now I just need to go learn all the words for Teddy Bears' Picnic.