I want to be like Daddy!

Alexa was upstairs "helping" Kevin get ready for a meeting at the church and I was cleaning up dinner when she came downstairs like this!! It was pretty cute...she'll help Kevin pick out his clothes and ties and even tell him which ones he can't wear!!

This is what happens...

...when you only take a 20 minute nap!!!! It was 4:45pm and I was getting dinner ready when I looked into the living room and found this!! Why oh why won't she nap longer?????

Getting ready for bed...

This is how Alexa does it on her own!! After putting her pj's on, she saw her swim suits that I had yet to put away for the season and wanted not just one, but BOTH of them on. So she put them on!! It took some convincing to get her to take them off so she could actually go to bed!!

Looking for Squirrels

Lately, the squirrels have taken up residence on our balcony again. There are 3 of them and they love to just play and chase each other. They'll climb up the screen door, jump from the chairs, hide in the empty plant pots...and generally entertain us, especially Alexa. So when she gets a chance to go out on the balcony...she wants to look for the squirrels. She even makes a clicking sound with her mouth to try and call to them. I have no idea where she learned that!!

Balle on the Belle!

On Saturday, we attended Ball on the Belle, a shindig put on by the dental school each year. Well, it's supposed to be on the Belle of Louisville every other year so this was our year. The Belle is Louisville's big steamboat that goes up and down the Ohio River. I've been wanting to go on ever since we moved here so I finally got my chance. AND we got to dress up!! It was touch and go for awhile as to whether or not we were actually going to be able to attend...since we were without power ALL last week, but it worked out and we had a great time.

Here's everyone getting ready to load onto the boat.

And here's my honey!

The big group of us!

Thanks to the Romreill's, we had entertainment to pass the time since none of us were really into cuttin' the rug out on the dance floor!

And here's the view from the Belle as we're heading back into downtown.

It was a fun night, I'm glad we were able to go. Thanks Brinn for supplying me with some of the pictures since my camera was practically dead that night and I had no way to charge it!!! Yay, for power!

Blackout Louisville!!

Okay...so after 8 days and 7 hours (no, not counting at all!!!), we finally have power/electricity (aka life-sustaining juice) back on again!! A week ago, just as we were leaving church at 1pm, a nasty wind storm (I've heard the winds were equivalent to those of a category 1 hurricane) blew through Louisville. Honestly, when we moved to Kentucky, tornadoes were to be expected...but now we've had an earthquake AND a hurricane...what's next??? Anyways, the power went out during the storm and it was a VERY long week waiting and wondering if/when/how/would it ever??? come back on??!!! 70% of the city was without power and each day more and more got theirs back but not us!!! Try keeping an almost 2 year old entertained when there is no power. Actually, Alexa came through probably better than Kevin or myself. She didn't really seem to notice anything was different. Other than the first day when she wanted to watch Spongebob and I told her the TV was broken, she didn't really care. Kevin and I, however, got pretty tired of reading by the light of a flashlight every night!!

Here are a few pictures of the damage from the storm in our neighborhood. They are self-explanatory as to why we were without power!! These are all within yards of our apartment complex!

And here's Alexa on Monday morning, helping me clean up the leaves and debris that was left on our balcony.

We're just very grateful for friends who helped us out with places to put our food so it wouldn't spoil, places to do laundry, places to take hot showers, places to charge our cell phone, and just places to hang out and pass the time. Despite the inconvenience, we were very blessed and had a lot of help and a lot of offers of help. Thank you to everyone!!

22 Months Old!

Our baby girl is 22 months old today! Life is so fun with her in it...never a dull moment in our household. I've slacked off on keeping track of what new words she's saying, but she pretty much will copy anything we say now. Needless to say, we're having to watch our words more carefully so our little parrot doesn't learn the wrong things!! :-)

(As a side note, I was going on day 3 without washing my hair due to not having any power and not wanting to take yet another COLD shower...thus the scarf!! Who knew being without power could be so..."interesting"????!!!)

Welcome Callie!

This is my beautiful, wonderful, fabulous friend Taffney with her sweet new baby girl, Callie Nicole Carter, who arrived last night. Thankfully Taffney's power came back on the night before she had her so she didn't need to worry about taking a newborn home to no power! Congrats Taff, we're so happy for your little family!

CHEESE!!

Lately, Alexa has this new thing...she'll grab the camera and bring it to me saying "cheese" because she knows she's supposed to say cheese when getting her picture taken. Funny girl, she's not camera shy at all!!!

She's very talented!!

Not only is Alexa an accomplished pianist...she's on the fast track to becoming an accomplished drummer as well!! Here we are at Taffney's house. Her husband is in a band and has several musical instruments set up in their basement. Alexa LOVES it!! She was content to sit there bangin' on the drums for as long as I would let her!!

Ouchie!

If you're squeamish at all, you may want to avert your eyes. Okay, it's really not that bad...but seeing as this was the first real accident we've had to contend with, I had to post for all to see!

We were at the park today while I watched my friend Taffney's boys, Olan & Quincy, while she went to a doctor's appointment. My other friend Waveney also met us there with her kids, Rhys and Sydney. Well, we were enjoying a morning exploring the trails and the kids found a creek. Well, it wasn't long before rocks were being thrown into the water...that IS a fun thing to do after all. However, one rather largish rock decided to connect with Alexa's little noggin and this was the result. It actually bled quite profusely at first (head wounds tend to do that), but we got the bleeding stopped and even had several other moms at the park who helped me out. I was actually kind of a little panicked since I've never dealt with anything like this...I'm so glad Waveney was there! I ended up taking Alexa to her doctor to have them check her out, just in case...but all was well. She didn't need stitches or anything.

And as you can see, she appears fine...back at home, enjoying a cracker!

She does know what an "ouchie" and a "boo-boo" are now and has to kiss anyone else's ouchies and boo-boos better!

She loves the piano!!

This is definitely one of Alexa's favorite things to do. Usually, Kevin or I (or sometimes even both of us) have to be sitting right next to her....but this time I was able to capture her just having fun by herself!

Honestly, I don't think I can count offhand how many pictures of Alexa we have like this....where she appears under the influence of who knows what??!!!! She's going to LOVE these pictures when she's older!!

I want to go NOW!!

Apparently, I wasn't moving fast enough for Alexa!!!

Tea Party

A couple weeks ago, my friend Amanda let me know about a listing on Craigslist for a little kitchen set with all the different kitchenware to go with it. At first, I was kinda disappointed that I'd paid what I did for it as it ended up being only about 14 inches tall instead of the 3 feet it looked in the picture. However, Alexa LOVES it!! Here she is having a tea party...even putting the cups on plates. I've never even taught her that! Isn't it funny how they just pick things up?!

Tagged!!

Okay, I have been tagged several times in the past but have never followed through with any of them...mostly because they were just way too long to bother with (sorry to any of you who have been the taggers!!). But this one was pretty short so here goes Brittany!!!....

3 joys:

Kevin, Alexa, great friends

3 fears:

something happening to Kevin, something happening to Alexa (or any future children), my home burning down

My 3 current obsessions:

reading, dreaming of what life will be like once school is behind us, fun jewelry

3 surprising facts:

Even though I grew up in Canada, I was not an "official" resident until I was 14; I once was a member of a girls' choir; I used to dream of being a surgeon

I tag: Rachael, Amanda Graves, Tiffany, Erin