Halloween

This year we took Lexi into Huntington Beach again. I really enjoy doing this, they shut down the entire downtown to traffic and have blow up toys for the kids and all the stores and restaurants handing out treats. It's well lit and safe and if you get there early enough the kids really make out well with the candy ( Don't worry I confiscated most of her chocolate, you can never be too safe hehehe). Alexis had a blast sliding down the jumbo slide, she really is such an adrenaline junkie, I love it! She may have a fear of monsters and a super picky eater but throw her from any heights and she is game! Anyway, she was the cutest little kitty I've ever seen. I may be a little partial since she is my offspring and I made her costume but, whatever, she was DARN CUTE! After we got back from Trick-or-treating, we went to a Halloween Party! Matt was a cowboy and I was Smurfette, the blue paint lasted way longer than I thought it would, about 2 hours before I got sick of it! We had a great Halloween, I think my favorite part is how it was 70 on October 31st! Love it!

good night

Slow motion good night brought to you by the sleepy kitty in the back seat

Goldfish Toss

I love Lazy Sundays. Today we were planning on driving down to Sand Diego and spending the day at Sea World but Matt was still feeling sick so we took the day off of activities and spent the day cleaning (well, I cleaned) and watching some PGA golf and some Giants Football... GO G-MEN!!!!! Alexis is a huge Osi Umenyeiora and Eli Manning fan, she's a Mama's girl. Matt also took some time to show Alexis how he tosses goldfish in the air and catches them in his mouth, as you can guess it took turn pretty quick and there was goldfish throwing and baby giggles galore. Here's a silly little video of the two kids playing with their food!

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...