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!