Easter Parade

I took Alexa to the Frankfort Avenue Easter Parade with my friend, Waveney, and her kids. It was cold that day, but we had a fun time and the kiddos got a ton of candy!! So much for buying Easter candy!! We'll know for next year!

Birthday Week Finale

Thank you to my wonderful husband for making my birthday week a fabulous one. He left me notes each morning and then surprised me with a real date on Saturday night. We went to a fancier restaurant, Porcini's, on Frankfort Avenue. It's one we've been wanting to try but needed a special occasion to justify it! Turning 30 was definitely a special occasion!! Anyways, the food was great and my date was everything I could ever ask for. I love you, Kevin!

16 Months Old!!

Well, we have a full-fledged toddler on our hands. Alexa turned 16 months old today and she's such a little girl. It seems like only yesterday that I was holding her for the first time, yet it feels like she's always been a part of our family. We can't imagine life without her. She keeps us very busy and very entertained!! She's walking, running, climbing, talking and hamming it up!! As of today, she's able to say many things...to an extent anyways, mostly I just understand her....for example: zooz (shoes), peez (please), ite (light), hi, bye bye, ba-ba (baby), mama, dada, dis (this), uhzat (what's that), oh yeah. She's definitely getting quite the vocabulary and even though it's still limited, she understands sooooo much more! She makes us laugh all the time and then realizes she was funny and so she laughs herself, it's quite cute! We hope you all enjoy the pictures from the last few weeks!

Random Pictures

Happy Birthday to ME!!

I have had THE most wonderful day!! Turning 30 has never been so fun! Okay, so I've never turned 30 before but if I were to do it again, I couldn't imagine a more perfect day, despite the incessant rain! It started out with my fabulous friend Waveney taking me out for brunch. After some tasty stuffed french toast at IHOP, we came back to my place and my friends, Rachael and Erin, showed up with some birthday treats/surprises. We had a fun visit while the kiddos played and then my friend Amanda came over in the afternoon. She bought me a super cute skirt that I can't wait to wear! Anyways, all day long, I had phone call after phone call from family and friends, not to mention emails and cards. Thank you to everyone near and far who shared in my big day! You all are wonderful!

My most favorite part of the day was spending time with my two most favorite people in the whole wide world! Kevin and Alexa had scoped out a fun little Greek restaurant on Frankfort Avenue last week and so Kevin took us there for dinner. He said Alexa picked it out especially for Mommy's birthday! Kevin also surprised me with the beautiful tulips you see below and two very funny cards, one from him and one from my sweet baby girl! We enjoyed a yummy dinner and then came home for some family bonding time before Alexa went to bed. I am truly blessed to have them in my life. And to top it all off, Kevin made me a cheesecake (my fave) which we enjoyed a nice slice of this evening. Mmmmmmmm, I'll probably dream about it tonight!

Alexa was very excited for her Mommy!

Enjoying some family bonding!

Thank you again to my handsome husband, my darling baby girl, and my wonderful friends and family. You all have brightened my day and made this a very Happy Birthday to me! Go Thirty!!

Pre-Birthday Celebrations!!

As many of you know, I am hitting a pretty big milestone tomorrow....yeppers, the BIG 3-0!! Now, I have absolutely NO problem turning 30 as it means I get another birthday and I LOVE birthdays! AND... my life is sooooo much better at 30 than it was at 20!!! Anyways, my girl Nancy from Calgary came to visit me (she leaves tomorrow morning) and we have been having a grand time. Her birthday was March 6th and so we celebrated for her and then she's been spoiling me for mine. It's been fabulous. Nancy....a quick shout out to you...THANK YOU so much! It's been so fun having you here. We're all going to miss you! On Friday night, we went to the Michael Bublé concert. This is us being...well..."us" right before we left for the concert. Nancy is friends with the guys in Naturally 7 who was opening up for Michael Bublé and so we were able to get tickets on the floor, row 14!! It was awesome. Thank you to Rod for that!! Anyways, if you don't know who either Michael Bublé or Naturally 7 are, you NEED to check them both out. It was an AMAZING concert!! We had so much fun. Naturally 7 on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6RkXM4dIos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5MkNOXSdkA Here are a few pics of our evening:

The boys of Naturally 7!!

Us enjoying Naturally 7! Yes, Nance blinked but doesn't her eye makeup look amazing???!!! :-)

Ahhhh....Michael Bublé, he's definitely one of my new faves!

And us again, this time enjoying Michael Bublé!

And here we are with the group. They all signed my CD and then they even sang Happy Birthday to me! It was so fun. I'm kicking myself that I didn't record it on my camera but oh well! Thanks to Hops for getting the other guys to do it! Nancy is super jealous since she's the one that's friends with them and they didn't sing her Happy Birthday even though her birthday was just a couple weeks ago!! Tee hee hee! Anyways, it was such a fun night and a great way to kick off the birthday week celebrations!

Snowy Day!

Winter Storm 2008

This is by far the most snow we've seen since moving to Louisville almost 3 years ago. We were spoiled with our first two winters here but have now had a more typical winter so far this year. It's pretty humorous to us though to see everyone's reaction to weather like this. For those of us from Canada or have lived in Canada, this is NUTHIN'....but to the majority of Louisville-ians (native and transplant), this is insane. The roads get pretreated ("brined") about 2 days prior to the anticipated snow, people stock up on food, sand, shovels, etc., and schools/businesses get cancelled before a single snowflake falls from the sky. We just sit back and chuckle! Anyways, I digress....we took Alexa outside to experience the snow firsthand for the first time. We aren't well equipped in the snow apparrel, but we seemed to do okay. And as long as Alexa wasn't in super deep snow, she seemed to enjoy it. We'll post a couple of the videos so you can share in our experience!

Tackled!

Get him! Got him! Good! All tuckered out!

Playing with Daddy is fun to do, fun to do, fun to do...Playing with Daddy is fun to do, to do, to do, to do!

You've Got Mail

Two of Alexa's favorite things each day: 1) When Daddy comes home and 2) When the mail comes!

Mmmmm....chocolate!

Who doesn't love a little chocolate now and then?

Can I Have This Dance???

Alexa LOVES music and she LOVES to dance! She'll point to the stereo to let us know she wants us to turn on the music and then she immediately starts pumping her arms and bouncing as she hears the music start. It doesn't matter what kind of music really, although her favorite is definitely anything with a good beat to it. In this video, she's doing the majority of the bouncing while Kevin is holding her...he has a hard time keeping her in his arms. It's pretty funny!!

A Close Call!!

Okay, I promise this will be the last post today! But I just really need to verbally express my thanks for Alexa being watched over and protected last night. In one corner of our dining room, we have her nebulizer (breathing treatment machine) plugged in all the time for whenever we give Alexa a breathing treatment. Well, this is also the same corner we put her highchair in and she thinks it's a fun place to play. We constantly watch her whenever she's in that corner and continually tell her not to touch the plug in. Usually she listens. Last night, however, I was trying to get dinner made and Kevin was upstairs studying...so Alexa was on her own in the living room playing. I saw her head to that corner and told her to be careful when all of a sudden I hear "bzzzzzzzzt" and the lights flash. I immediately drop the veggies I'm chopping and head to Alexa. She's standing in the corner but I can tell she'd pulled on the plug as it was bent towards her. I tried to straighten it out and it sparked at me and more lights flashed and then went out. Needless to say, I dropped the plug like it was a hot potato and grabbed Alexa to get her away from the danger.

I then called for Kevin and he came down to see what was going on. We tried all the breakers thinking the short in the plug had just flipped one of them - it was weird though, it only affected 1/2 of the plug ins in the living room, dining room and kitchen. We called maintenance (one reason to be thankful we're only renting!!!) and they said they were on their way. Kevin then tried the breakers again and this time there was another, even louder "bzzzzzzt" and lights flashing! It was pretty scary. The outlet where this happened was charred black by this point. I wish I had thought to take a picture before the electrician came....but you can at least see how the wall had charred a little bit as well.

Anyways, my point of the story is to count my very many blessings! When I think of what COULD have happened....I just can't even go there. Alexa was obviously protected and I am very grateful for that huge blessing! Lesson learned...we no longer keep the nebulizer plugged in all the time, we'll just plug it in when we need it and leave the protective cover on the rest of the time.

Just Her Size!

I went to a kids consignment sale on Friday and found this steal of a deal, the white wooden rocking chair, for only $10!!! I was sold! Alexa loves, loves, LOVES it! She has been sitting in it constantly since Friday. She'll even get all her toys to try and sit with her, then realize they all can't fit, so the toys go off. Then she'll get a blanket to cuddle with while she sits in it, it's pretty cute. I also got her this Dora papason chair for only $5 and she loves it too. We can tell she feels like such a big girl having something that is just her size! If anyone wants more info about the consignment sales, go to www. KidStuffSale.com, they have more sales coming up!

All About Kids!

We went to a fun place, All About Kids, last week. We've been there a few times before, but this was the first time I remembered my camera. Alexa is really starting to enjoy the ball pits, slides and other fun things. We haven't quite graduated into the large area where they have foam pits, trampolines, gymnastic bars and BIG slides...but we'll get there soon, I'm sure!