April Already?

It sometimes seems like I miss whole weeks, so I'd better try to update here. We have sold the house, we signed the closing documents Wednesday. There was a bit of a problem with water under the house, so we had to hire a guy to dig a drain around the house before the sale went through, but it did finally. We will be moving in June to an apartment about a quarter mile away from us. Some of the big news: Alexa is toilet trained! We spent two weeks working on it very hard, but now she really seems to have it. She still wears pull-ups at night, and she has an accident every 2-3 days, but she wears underwear all day every day, and her accidents are always at home, which tells me they are actually within her control..

We had her parent-teacher conference and Alexa showed me all the things she has learned so far. She can write her name, with a little prompting. (She loves to write A's) She can read about 10 words. She knows all her colors, all her letters, numbers 0-3 very solidly, 4-6 sometimes. She can pronounce quite a few letters now, so I believe she will begin to have some speech in the next year or so. Her a and e sounds are beginning to sound different from each other, and she can say c, h, m, g, y, all the vowels, (although they still sound somewhat alike, and she isn't very good at o.) She has also managed to jump now and then. This has taken a long time to learn, so like toilet training I am very excited by this.

I made her another pair of Unmentionables (that's the name of the pattern for these pants.)

She outgrew her shoes last month, and we got her a pair size 11, and then a few weeks later she didn't want to wear those either, so these are her summer shoes and are size 12. If anyone wants last year's Keens (purple size 10) let me know!

A few more fun February photos

Alexa is really great at riding her tricycle now. She routinely rides in a mile long circle around our neighborhood. She goes very fast sometime too. It seems like it took a year or two to get to this point, so we are really proud of her. How often have you seen a really great milk moustache?

I am again trying to let her hair grow out. It is really cute in pigtails! Every time I get out the camera to take a picture she goes to stand against a door or the refrigerator. This is how they do it at school. I began volunteering at her class one day a week. My first day was last week, and I am so excited about it. It was very fun, and I learned a huge amount on my first day. I think it will help me be a better mom, and will help me know how to work on reading and writing at home in a way that does not conflict with the methods they use at her school.

We went to Seattle this weekend to visit the auntie and cousins. Alexa had a fever all day Saturday, but bounced back to normal on Sunday.

We played at the park a bit before the long car ride home.

I think I can safely say we have sold the house. There is always a slight possibility that something won't work out, but we have accepted an offer, and are hoping to close midway through March. We will move out in May..we worked out a plan with our buyer to stay in the house until then. We still don't know about the post-doc position David has applied for, but if it doesn't work out, we will move into an apartment here in town until something does.

And February

Once again I have let more than a month go by and no blog entry, so I am sure I will forget things, but here's my best effort at catching you up. Alexa finished another session at The Little Gym, and so there was another "Show." This is always highly entertaining. Alexa has learned some great skills here, but the funniest part was where she ran to another family after every performance for congratulations and high-fives. Since she is so friendly, this other family was happy to oblige! Valentine's day brought a huge amount of candy to the house. Alexa is a part of two classes, and received Valentines from both groups. Some of her teachers also made some lovely cards, and one made a beanbag Valentine!

We stayed home for Valentine's day, and I made a nice meal. Alexa even ate the same food as we did, garlic mashed potatoes and the last of my frozen corn from last summer! She didn't eat the tri-tip of course.

I met with Alexa's teachers today to write her IEP for the next year. They are great people, and I wish we could stay in Corvallis so she could be in that classroom for three more years. (Among other reasons..we don't want to move away from all the folks we love who live here.) Unfortunately there is still nothing to share about David's job hunt.

We are getting close to selling the house, but I'll wait to share until everything is worked out with regard to that. I'm sad about that too, I have loved this house.

We have had two weeks in a row of horseback riding lessons together with Tayler and Reese. So much fun for all!

I have been going to Pilates classes for a few weeks now at my gym. I have done it before from videos at home, but now I am doing the hour long classes. If you haven't ever tried it, you should, it helps my posture and keeps my back and hips and shoulders in good shape. It's one of those things that produces noticeable results quickly!

To Finish off 2009

I knitted Alexa a mommy and baby sock monkey. They will complete her family, since she has loved the now one-eyed, nearly bald daddy monkey nearly to death. She is starting to understand about presents, but never tried to open the packages before Christmas.

We were at the beach in Florence again with David's side of the family for Christmas. It was sunny and gorgeous this year, and Alexa loved it.

We had them all to our house for New Year's eve, but they left before midnight, all except for Carolyn, who spent the night with us.

Vacation was fun, but Alexa is glad to be back in school. We have put our house up for sale. Since David is looking for a job, and it is unlikely to be in Corvallis, we have decided to put the house up for sale in hopes that it will sell before we have to move somewhere else. We will then live in an apartment until that time comes. Keeping the house clean and neat enough to show almost all the time is hard, even though we will show by appointment, we have to keep it almost ready all the time.

David has a part time post-doc for three months with a professor at OSU. He has been a voluteer post-doc for a few months already, but it will be nice to have a little money coming in. We are hoping that the experience and references from this will help him find a paying position soon. He does very well working from home, although would do better if we could manage to leave him alone more.

I am still cooking from my new Julia Child cookbook. I made a cake last night with 4 eggs and no baking powder. It was called a butter spongecake, and turned out very well. It is gone already. It gets fluffiness from the whipped egg whites instead of baking powder or soda. I also have made a wonderful quiche, every bit as good as the ones at the French Bakery. (Not due to any great prowess as a cook, I just followed the directions.) I am working out often, and so far not getting fatter, but I am keeping a careful watch on the weight!!

I hope you all had lovely holidays and will have a terrific 2010!!

Some fun with Grandma

Nana came up to help us for a week just before Christmas, and it was awesome to have her. She helped us get the rest of the painting done so we can sell the house. Here are the mitten cookies sent home with Alexa, I don't know if another parent made them or what, but they are awesome, with licorice ties and everything! She also brought us a cute ornament with her photo in it, and a tealight holder she painted, and a Winnie the Pooh calender.

Alexa decided to play with Nana's Christmas present, and she looked so funny and cute with a fancy scarf and no pants, that we had to take some pictures.

I realize that Mom isn't actually in any of these pictures, but she was present, and Alexa loved playing and reading books with her!

I have more pictures from Christmas, but I just wanted to note here that I got the first Julia Child cookbook for Christmas (anybody else in a bit of a French Cooking mode lately :)?) and made my first recipe from it tonight. It was cream of mushroom soup and though it took about 1.5 hours, it was amazing, and Alexa tried it, even though she hardly ever tries new things, and decided she liked it! She didn't like the mushrooms themselves, and it was hard for her to eat such a runny soup, so she ended up drinking it from the bowl with our permission and encouragement. I was so excited to get something with that much cream and butter in it into her, not to mention the homemade chicken broth!

Turkey

Here is one of the Thanksgiving art projects Alexa brought home.

And here is the outcome of a collision with the playground. She scraped her nose up and cut her forehead open. She got two stitches, which are coming out today. This was not very fun. David and I had to hold her down while he did them, and she was screaming bloody murder the whole time. We had a lovely Thanksgiving here with Adam and Lisa, Conrad and Marissa and Brendan.

This is Conrad's third Thanksgiving at our house, and we love to have him, so we're glad we haven't scared him off yet!

November so far..

I hope I soon click back into blogging mode, meanwhile you all are getting very sporadic updates, but we are still here and still healthy. We have missed getting the swine flu, we got vaccinations before it hit Alexa's school, several of the other schools in town got it big time. I have been knitting busily to get some gifts done, here are Sophia's gloves, dyed in her choice of colors.

Here is one of the pictures Dana took of us.

We are having Thanksgiving dinner at our house again this year. I like it that way despite the chaos because I love to cook all the things that are traditional for our family.

I can't think of what to tell you all because life has been busy, but not terribly newsworthy! I hope you have a terrific Thanksgiving!