the holidays

wow, back to school and work after 2 weeks off! the holidays were great - would have been much better if we hadn't all taken turns with the flu :(

we started off the break with alex sick first - in fact she missed the holiday party at school because she was sick with fever and all early. by christmas eve, alex was healthy enough to go to great-grandma's for her get together. the funniest part of that evening was alex was singing along with the christmas carols - she was singing gibberish, but she was singing along as best she could and holding the song sheet as if she could actually read it.

christmas morning was fun - she enjoyed her stocking and opening the gifts we had for her. then we went over to bopey and normy norm's house for christmas with them and matthew and jessica. alex did a wonderful job opening her presents, fitting in a nap, and helping with everyone's wrapping paper - helping it get to the garbage :) her big gift over there was her trike (she can't reach the pedals yet, but she'll get there. oh and she got a dora fold out chair that has been a wonderful napping and rest spot from uncle matthew. she received many other wonderful gifts too, including more dora stuff.

the next day grandpa jerry and uncle john made it up to cleveland and we had our christmas that night. her big gift that night was a play doh activity center - she really likes the garlic press toy part of it.

the day after that was alex's birthday party!! it was elmo themed with balloons and banners and cupcakes. we had ham and potatoes for dinner with homemade ice-cream and cupcakes for dessert. some notable gifts were the baby nursery center, a new baby, dora shoes, the tinkerbell dvd, a big stuffed penguin, little people learn about town, and a skooter! alex had a wonderful time and thoroughly enjoyed the rolls with dinner and her cupcake - she even did a very good job blowing out the candle! oh, one funny thing was that she didn't want to open the gift bag gifts at first - she even smooshed the tissue paper back into uncle matthew's gift and refused to open it until the end :)

on her actual birthday, she received a mickey mouse cash register and she received a doc set from aunt mimi.

other notables over break - she's really getting into dora and diego now. she loves to say "ohhhh mannnn" which is what swiper says when you stop him from swiping. and since we've been watching dora we've been watching Nickelodeon - well they have a character on there, in between shows for little bits, that i thought was a reindeer (mind you we just started watching this station) until last night i found out that he's actually a moose! well, i tried to tell alex that he was actually a moose, and she told me "no, i don't see a moose, not a moose...Reindeer!"

she's so funny - she's been starting with fuller longer sentences lately, and connected thoughts.

oh, and alex went to her first movie on friday! we went to go see tale of despereaux which is about a brave little mouse. she did a wonderful job - she made it through about an hour of the movie then fell asleep on daddy's lap. but this was of course after eating about a third of a large bucket of popcorn!