Back to school, Back to school....

Well maybe not back to school but she is definitely starting today. I dropped Alexis off for her first day of preschool today. My little baby is gone and there is a toddler wearing her shoes!! She picked out her very own Tinkerbell backpack yesterday and has been singing about preschool for a full week.
She did so well getting dropped off, ran right up to the playground and the kids. She tried to get me to come but when I told her I was leaving she just shrugged her little shoulders, gave me a hug and a kiss and said "Bye Mommy!!!". She couldn't get rid of me fast enough. A little preview of her preteen years. I fared slightly less well and got a little choked up but succesfully held back the tears. She goes 2 days a week from here on out as I go back to school also. Big happenings. Here are some pictures of my girl heading off to her first day!

s'getti

Here's my little girl doing what she does best, making a gigantic mess!

Maude and Poppy's visit

I just dropped my mom off at the airport, which makes me sad, but we had a great visit! My dad flew in a couple of days before my mom and hung out with the baby and me. When Mom got here we went to the circus then Matt and I hightailed it off to a Mommy and Daddy only cruise vacation! It was so nice to get away just the two of us and know that Lexi was well taken care of! When we got back Poppy was gone but we had a few days with Maude. We went to the Orange County Super Fair which was a lot of fun and watched the US Open of Surfing down in Huntington which was impressive! Now it is time to regroup before Mavs comes out in 10 days, yiippppeeee!!!

Water baby

Lexi's new favorite thing to do during bathtime is lay on her back with the water covering her ears. She is getting so good about learning to blow bubbles and hold her breath while sticking her face in the water. She is also doing well with swimming, as long as she has her life preserver and swimmies on. She floats all on her own and can actually "swim" from point A to point B.

Happy 4th!

Happy Independence Day and happy I Finally Got My Darn Camera Back Day. After a month without my life-line and two trips to the Best Buy repair facilities my camera has come home to roost (or shoot in this case). Let's start this month off with a bang, fireworks should do nicely. Yesterday was The Fourth Of July and we had quite the busy day! In the morning we got Matt up at 8:45 and hoofed it around the block to a parade close by us. Major letdown. The parade consisted of a firetruck, which Alexis loved, followed by 3 convertibles carrying the city planner, a councilwoman and someone else... maybe head of the neighborhood watch? Who knows, she didn't have an 8 year old carrying a piece of posterboard with her description on it. After the convertibles there was an antique firetruck which was pretty neat and then a parade of the neighborhood kids on their bikes and scooters decorated in red white and blue. It was a nice little neighborhood parade but we were hoping for something a little bigger, I'm sure we would have appreciated it more if we actually knew any of the people in the convertibles or kids on the bikes. Next year we will be attending the parade in Huntington, THEY have jet planes with red white and blue smoke and street performers.

After an anticlimatic parade we went home and made PB&J sandwiches, jumped on our bikes and rode down to Huntington Beach. As we were having a nice ride along the beach, a demonic kite caught me in it's sights. It plummeted to the ground at just the right angle to affectively close-line me and remove me from my bike seat. I tried keeping the bike up right at the same time as detangling the kite string from my neck before it severed a major artery, keeping the bike up lost the battle. Alexis, bike and picnic lunch went crashing to the floor. Luckily all 25 of the people that had stopped to watch the Crazy Lady on the Bike vs. the Kite came rushing over to pick up baby and bike. I think Alexis might have been upset about it if all of a sudden she didn't have 25 concerned people fawning over her. Instead of crying about the scrape on her arm she just turned on the mayoral charm and, I kid you not, started shaking hands and saying hi! My two year old shakes hands in greetings. After checking her over for injuries and assuring the alarmingly growing crowd that we would survive to see another kite we were back on our way.

We stopped and got some deeeelicious freshly squeezed lemonade from the middle-aged lemonade stand manager and set up our blanket on the grass overlooking the ocean. I don't think we were sitting down for more than 30 seconds when Alexis had a glimpse of the little boy next to us' toys and she was off like a cannon. She barrelled over there, all grace and charm and started pulling his toys out of the toy bag. Like any other child reacting to our painstakingly shy and introverted daughter he ran straight away and to his mom. Luckily they were a very nice family and had no problem with Alexis commandeering their picnic. She ate all their goldfish and played with all their toys and being the selfish parents we are, we let her... Hey, she was wearing herself out, don't expect me to stop anything that will eventually lead to a two hour nap. After lunch we rode around the neighborhoods surrounding downtown and got an apartment hunt underway, we didn't make as much progress as we hoped but there is always next time, we still have a month before our lease is up here at Spring Break Coronado.

When we got home Alexis spent a nice afternoon making mud pies out of Matt's beautifully landscaped lawn and after hosing her off we headed across the street to see the fireworks. For some reason, unknown to me, Alexis associates fireworks with Mickey Mouse. All the people around us were treated to an energentic rendition of "Mickey Moouuuse Cluuub Tooouse" everytime she was swept away by the spirit of the lights. You have not lived until you have heard our daughter sing Mickey Mouse Club House. She definitely will be carrying on all the singing talent that we have to give her, which boils down to approximately, none. She is currently sleeping on the couch because despite all her activity yesterday she was still up at 6:30 this morning, yayyy. Well I hope everyone else had a great Fourth too, I have to go put neosporin on my war wounds from the Battle of the Kite. bye!

Get off the road!!

Camping

Saturday afternoon we drove up to Ventura to go camping with Keith and Steph. I had never been camping before (outside of good ole Camp Sassacus overnights) so I didn't really know what to expect. We rented a couple of bedrolls from REI and spread them out in the bed of the truck and Lexi slept in the back seat. Aside from Alexis being overtired and cranky, but not wanting to miss anything it was a lot of fun. Steph and Keith spent Friday night there also and they found a great spot! we were literally right on the sand with the ocean about 100 yards away. There were big rocks allover the beach that Lexi had a great time moving and throwing into the water. We BBQ'd and had S'mores, yum!!! When we finally got Alexis to sleep it was adult time, although we were all so tired adult time lasted about the span of 1 beer and we all hit the figurative hay. Actually sleeping in the truck bed was a lot more comfortable than I thought it would be and you gotta love Southern California weather, it was warm enough that we just needed a blanket to keep cozy all night! I definitely think there will be more camping trips in our future, maybe when Alexis gets a little older though, so I don't have to spend the whole time chasing her around and keeping her from climbing into the fire.

Summer Dress #1

One of my favorite things about having a little girl - besides the love, cuddles and feeling of accomplishment blah blah blah- is that I get to dress her up in the cutest outfits! We got a package from Aunt Ro this week and this is one of the dresses from that package, how cute is this dress. We also went to the outlets on Wednesday where I got ton more cute clothes for her. It's a good thing for me that she is a girly girl and a huge ham because she loves putting on the ridiculous outfits I find for her and hamming it up for the camera, now if I could only do something about her unruly hair. We will be going through our entire new summer dress wardrobe over the next couple weeks so stay tuned!

Yesterday was Mother's Day and Lexi surprised me with some chocolate and an Elmo card... Well maybe not a complete surprise since she found them the day before and brought the chocolate out to me, begging me to open them up. HA! After we had a breakfast of chocolate (hey, it was a holiday!) we had a nice relaxing day around the house. Matt and I watched The Doors and when Alexis got up from her nap her and I went on a walk with her new stroller. She loves that thing! She pushes it around every waking moment of the day and ants to bring it everywhere with us! great buy! Hope all the other Moms out there had a great day!

Happy 2nd Birthday Alexis Leigh!!

Alexis turned 2 on April 26th. I don't believe my sweet little baby girl is two years old! She is getting so big, it's like a toddler ate my infant. and boy oh boy has she hit the ground running with the "terrible two's". I swear the morning she woke up on her second birthday her eyes opened to a new found attitude. She tells me "Mommy, NO!" all the time. She makes messes on purpose then says "Clean, Mommy" She has started throwing herself bodily on the floor kicking punching and screaming if She doesn't like what I have to tell her. She is a piece of work and it is taking every shred of patience I have some days not to put her out by the park with a 'Baby $5.00 or best offer' sign. I kid I kid, but if this is any indication of how she is going to be once she hits her teenage years then maybe I should consider it.


For her birthday we had promised her to take her to Disneyland to see Mickey Mouse so we got all loaded up in the car and went to Anaheim to go see The mouse and his friends. We got there and it was a beautiful day. We walked around the park and Matt and I were sorely dissapointed. We kept asking where all the characters were? Where all the rides were? This was NOT the Disney of our youth (wow, that made me sound like a crotchity old lady). We just couldn't believe it! There were almost no rides or shows and the park was so small! After walking around for a few hours we sat down to eat some lunch and started talking to the family next to us. She mentioned something about taking a train ride with her kids, which sparked my interest and I asked her where that ride was and her response... it was at Disneyland! Apparantly we had spent the whole day walking around California Adventure Park (not an entirely accurate name, not much of an adventure) thinking it was Disney. Matt and I had quite the head smacking moment.


We then tried to go over to Disneyland because we had promised our daughter Mickey for her second birthday and had bought the 2-fer tickets (you pay for one park visit and can go to the other for free on another day). So we moseyed our silly behinds over to the correct Disney park, only to be told that we couldn't do both parks in the same day. Matt went over to talk to the people at customer relations and they told him "Tough Luck". So we spent the rest of the day at California Adventure and headed back to Disneyland the following weekend with Keith and Steph and it was MUCH more like the Disney we remembered. Lexi got to see Mickey Mouse, although like the awful mother I am I wasn't standing on line for a half hour with an impatient toddler to take a picture, we'll go back during the week one day and take pictures with the characters when it isn't overrun with tourists. We got to go on It's a Small World (lucky Matt got to ride it twice, by the end of the second go around he was clinging to the shred of sanity he still had intact). We also took her on a safari boat ride and quite a few others! Matt chowed down on a... no kidding honest to goodness whole turkey leg. After round two at Disney we went out to dinner at Cheesecake Factory which was fantastic as always, we all had to be rolled out of the restaurant and Alexis didn't even make it through the meal, she fell asleep in the booth. Our second weekend was a much more succesful birthday celebration than Lexi's actual birthday weekend and we all had a great time!

RI Visit Part II

On the last day we were in Rhode Island I dropped my camera and haven't been able to upload any pictures... Gasp!!!! This is the first day that I have been able to rig up the camera to the computer with duct tape and some crossed fingers! After we got over being sick we had a nice visit! We got to spend some quality time with Jane and we got to see most of our friends and Rhode Island family. Unfortunately, because we spent so much time being sick we couldn't get to everyone. It was so nice to see everyone, I really miss our people so much being out here, but I sure don't miss the 45 degree weather and rain (it obviously rose to the 70's and was sunny the day after we left) We finally got to meet Emily and visit with the rest of the Norris clan. Alexis and Madison picked up right where they left off, grabbing dolls out of each others hands in the beginning of the visit but giving hugs and kisses by the end!

sick in RI

We had a great first day in RI, Lexi was happy and cheery, playing with Grandma and her RI toys. The weather was warm and then the second day the clouds rolled in and Lexi came down with the sickiest sick that ever sicked. She threw up almost all night and into the day. We spent 3 hours in the walk in clinic waiting to see a doctor, and she started to feel a little better as we were waiting. She kept trying to play with the little girl with pink eye (I nipped that in the bud, Mommy would NOT be happy with the two P's, puke and puss). We finally got into see the doctor and his conclusion was that post nasal drip was making her sick, apparantly a west coast address includes zero tolerance for the pollen we normally could live with. Well hey, if thats all the doctor thinks it is then I was heading out to dinner with the girls "Wooohooo!! Margaritas!!"


Needless to say post nasal drip was 100% without a doubt NOT the cause of her vomiting. The cause of her vomiting was a vicious evil virus clearly created by the devil himself that sits in wait for you to get relaxed thinking that you won't get sick, it waits for you to let your infected daughter throw up allover you 5 or 6 times, making it's way to your brain first where it whispers to your subconscience "doooon't worrryyy. it's just pooost nasaaal drrriiippp". From your brain that whily little virus works it's way down to your partying bone where it whispers "yesssss 5 beers are a grrrrrreat idea, just go for a run in the mooorrrning, you will be okkkkk". It works it way very much out of your SUB-conscience into your super-conscience the next afternoon. It starts to hit you conveniently during your daughter's 2nd Birthday Party so that you think maybe the run wasn't a great idea and causes you to second guess that second serving of spaghetti and meatballs. Well by 6 o'clock that night you can not even move because if you twitch or take a breath too deeply you are hugging the bowl. Jane and I are both on day 2 of this evil sick and are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, who knows by this time tomorrow maybe we will be eating giant bacon cheeseburgers, and then again Maybe Not... here are some pics of our RI visit that weren't spent in the bathroom...

Secrets to traveling with a toddler

The only secret to traveling across the country by yourself with a toddler is feign insanity so that all the people around you will avoid getting in your way, chances are by the end of the day you won't have to fake it anymore and you will be genuinely crazy. If the airport staff is on their game they might even have a padded van waiting for you to get off the plane straight-jacket and a room at Butler with your name on it!

Alexis and I left for RI yesterday morning at about 9:30 and we were "blessed" with the most unhelpful cab driver in the world. Luckily he came to pick us up in a van so there was room for our gigantic suitcase and the gigantic jogging stroller that I brought under the false hope that I would be going for runs this week, not going to happen. Well the van was the last of our lucky streak with the cab ride over there. Not only did I have to fold the stroller and put Lexi's carseat in the car (which I fully expected having to do) but I also had to figure out how to fold down the back seat of the van and load the suitcase in because apparantly the driver had never had to do this before. I wasn't put off at all at this point because no biggie, I don't mind lifting the suitcase and putting down the seat, whatever. But when we got to the airport I told him our airline then watched him drive right by it, keeping the meter running, and letting me off about a 1/4 mile away from the check-in spot I needed to be at. Did I mention I had a huge suitcase, a huge stroller, a huge very bulky toddler carseat, a computer bag and an overstuffed purse? Bye-bye taxi driver. Alexis obviously at this point refused to get in her stroller (this became a running theme for the rest of the day)I left the bag back where the cab dropped us off and walked over to the check in with the stroller computer, purse and baby where a very nice airline employee came back to help me with the suitcase and car seat. Once we got to check in we went to get our tickets, assisted by the same airline guy and turns out the reservations were made in my married name but my maiden name is still on my driver's license, courtesy of the friendly folks at the CA DMV. That was a 15 minute ordeal because the only piece of identification I had with the Caldwell last name was my Costco card and shockingly that is not considered a valid form of Identification, I mean come on, Costco doesn't just let any Tom Dick or Alicia sign up... right? We eventually got our tickets and worked our way over to security, Oh Security, the highlight of each and every trip to the airport, I was excited now. I got the computer out of the bag, our shoes off and the stroller folded up ( this was easy because I had no baby to remove before folding) just to be told that my stroller on steroids would not fit through the xray machine. I was unfolding the stroller when Alexis decided it was time for a game of round and round. As my energentic daughter ran around me in circles screaming "ROUND ROUND ROUND" I caught a whiff of the Diaper A La Alexis and immediately contemplated the merits of banging my head against a concrete wall and humming something soothing, but decided that the moment of peace would be short lived after I was ushered out of sight for a cavity search due to suspicious behavior. After we made it through with a quick check of Alexis' juice with the magic vapor wand, I think it was so quick because the people around us were dropping like flies due top the stench radiating from the toddler's bottom half, we were off in search of a bathroom. Whoever had the brilliant idea of putting a sink 2 inches from the changing tail should have to change my daughter's poo-poo diaper using said changing table as punishment. All I wanted was to get a fresh diaper on her and all she wanted to do was climb in the sink and make a gigantic mess, Lucky for me I outweigh her by 100 lbs (give or take, let's not get into numbers) so she was easily overpowered with pure braun, although she definitely won the attitude portion of the Battle of The Diaper. We then got a banana that kept her busy until it was time to board the plane, thank heaven for small miracles!

When we fly Alexis likes to consider herself The Mayor of The Sky. She turns on the charm and stops to greet every person on the plane, every person. I like to sit in the back with her because then people are less likely to sit next to us and she is less likely to kick those people and climb on top of them, it makes for a happier flight for everyone if it is just the two of us in a row, trust me. the first flight was a quicky and I do have to give it to her, she is an excellent flyer. Not a tear, she love love loves takeoff and looking out the window and peeking over the seats to do her mayoral duties keeping everyone seated by us entertained with games of peekaboo and shared raisins. Well we got off the plane in Phoenix, and staying true to her earlier decision, had a complete and total breakdown when she caught sight of the stroller. Well I think it was clear to everyone getting off the plane that the angelic toddler they spent the last hour playing with was not to blame for the out of control devil-child they were now bearing witness to, so I caught quite a few evil eyes as people passed us by, causing me once again to abandon all hope of a stroller ride. we went to the bathroom for a much less dramatic diaper change than the first then got some chicken nuggets and plopped her in front of the god-sent TV playing Scooby-Doo. She made friends with a woman in a wheel chair (which she reffered to as a big girl stroller) and played another exuberant game of round and round, effectively wearing her out so that she slept for an hour on the next flight. The rest of the flight was spent peek a booing with the girls in the seat in front of us and watching the critically acclaimed film, "Elmo in Grouchland". All in all we got to RI in one piece at 10:00 pm, brain activity in tact and our flight staff must have been distracted just enough because there were no men in white coats waiting to take me away when we landed hee hee hoo hoo haa haa!

Happy Easter!!

Alexis and I went into Huntington Beach today for an Easter Egg hunt and had a blast! Lexi got to search for Candy with the kids, sit on a fire truck, pet some dogs and play on the playground all in a cute dress!
Last night Matt and I went to a Red Sox game in Anaheim and I could kick myself for not bringing my camera because Shemar Moore was sitting two seats down from us. Even if you don't know who he is, if you know me you know about my obsession with crime dramas! He is on one of my top crime dramas; Criminal Minds. I was so excited an Matt had a fun time teasing me so it was definitely my favorite baseball game ever! well I hope everyone out there in cyberland has a great Easter, here are some pictures of Lexi searching for some candy!