Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! We have had a busy couple of days... Alexis was just happy to have mac 'n cheese/cupcakes/brownies/cake/presents four days in a row.

On Sunday, we celebrated Alexis' birthday at Gramma and Grampa O'Shea's house, and also exchanged Christmas gifts. Here is Alexis having yet another cupcake...

New tiny table and chairs!
Alexis convinced all of us to sit with her...

Uncle Scott gave Alexis a giant stuffed tiger... big enough for her to ride on! It is a little scary... very lifelike and his eyes follow you around the room...

But Alexis isn't scared!

Max wasn't scared either...

Christmas Eve outfit...

Santa visits our Christmas Eve party every year. We promised Alexis that she didn't have to sit on his lap, so she was just a little scared... but at least she didn't scream this time. She wouldn't even look at him! But she did give Santa a high five when he first walked in!

Christmas morning... Santa came!

The Big... 2

Happy Birthday to Alexis! Today she turned 2 years old. Quite the milestone! Alexis started her birthday off with a bang by throwing up her breakfast this morning. Sort of reminiscent of my 21st birthday... or rather, the morning after my 21st birthday. But luckily she seemed to recover by the evening and was able to knock back a bowl of mac 'n cheese and two pieces of chocolate cake.

Opening presents...

Uncle Scott came over to join in the festivities... and gave Alexis a rubber chicken! She LOVES that creepy little chicken! He also gave her some play-do that we are saving for a rainy day.

The big gift... a doll house! Let me just say that doll houses have come a long way since my day. I am pretty sure the one I had was made of lead, and definitely had lots of sharp, dangerous points. This one is like a plantation house and I am pretty sure it has more square footage than our townhouse.

Note the rubber chicken sleeping on the couch... lifelike, isn't he?

Making a wish...

Alexis really should look into being an interior designer... check out the top two rooms of the mansion. Yes, that is Frosty the snowman sleeping in the baby cradle, in the attic, wearing both baby blankets to keep warm. Drop down a floor and the rubber chicken is taking a snooze on the couch in the living room, which also houses the swingset. All other furniture in the house goes on the terrace outside.

Stay tuned for year #3...

Stats

Today Alexis had her two year checkup. I thought her stats were funny, so I wanted to share... She is 33 1/4 " tall and 24 lbs 14 oz. That puts her somewhere in between the 25th and 50th percentile for height and weight. BUT... her head size falls into the 95th percentile! So basically, we are raising a very short, very skinny bobble head doll. The O'Shea genes strike again. I think she appears to be proportionate, though... right?!!?

Here is Alexis putting on her face before we left this morning... She isn't naturally cute, it takes hours and hours of makeup application to look that way.

Early Birthday

The birthday week has begun... today Alexis got to celebrate her birthday at Beth's house. She will be two years old on Friday! Unbelievable. Where does the time go? It seems like only yesterday we were looking at this tiny little baby and wishing she could tell us what she wanted... and now we have a very stubborn toddler bargaining for just one more cookie... or one more story... or one more "fill in the blank" that will push back bedtime a little later! On Saturday she visited Santa, and screamed and clung to my shoulder the whole time. This morning Laura (our sitter's daughter) asked her if she sat on Santa's lap, and she said "No... I cried!" Honest little thing, isn't she? It is a lot of fun to see everything through her point of view. Tonight she yelled at the cats for wrestling under the Christmas Tree... "No Max! No Stormy! Bad cat!" Too funny! We are definitely enjoying every second.

Here she is showing everyone how old she is going to be...

Make a wish!

Gingerbread Man

Yesterday at Beth's house, Alexis got to decorate a gingerbread man! Take a look at her masterpiece...

We have been working on the alphabet song this week, and Alexis is getting really good. You can watch below... she gets a little tripped up right around JKL, but like a true pro, she just mumbles some nonsense until she gets to the part that she remembers again.
That's our girl!

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Ring Around The Rosie

Alexis learned a new song this week...
Here she is performing with her Teddy Bear.

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Talk Talk Talk

Alexis has become quite the talker these days, so we thought we should share some of her favorite big words with you...

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Thanksgiving

Happy Belated Turkey Day! We hope you had a good holiday. We were very fortunate to be able to spend our holiday with close to 60 family members!! That is definitely something to be thankful for.

Here is a picture of most of us... only a few are missing.

This is the best shot I could get of Alexis in her dress before she decided to run wild and free...

Our Florida relatives (Uncle Pat, Aunt Clare, Caitlin and Sean) came in to celebrate the holiday... and look what happened in the two years since we have seen them... 6 new babies!


Here are the 6 new ones... (L to R) Ellen, Johnny, Nolan, Alexis, Jack, and Kylie (trying to sneak away). Don't they all look thrilled to have their picture taken? Alexis was a good girl and held Nolan very nicely!

Hope you all had a great holiday!

Getting Ready For Thanksgiving

Look at all of the turkeys that got into Beth's house!

Uncle Brian

Uncle Brian was in town today! We went over to Gramma and Grampa's house to visit with him. He has a talk/interview on Friday at the University of Chicago. Good luck!!

Meeting Nolan

Yesterday Alexis and I had the day off together for Veteran's Day, so we went over to visit our new cousin Nolan. He is so cute! He is such a good baby and mostly slept the whole time we were there, except for during the major poop emergency he put his Mommy and Daddy through! We all got a good laugh out of it, except for Alexis, who was very unsure of what was going on!


Take a look at the picture below. Nolan is pretty much the exact same size as Alexis when she was born... can you believe the difference? In no time Nolan will be big enough to play with all of his cousins. Second cousins once removed? If anyone can shed some light on the exact relationship of Alexis and Nolan, now is the time to chime in!

Sedona Trip

Go figure, we went to Sedona for a week and returned to find out that we have ANOTHER new cousin! Nolan Ryan Leonard was born on Friday, November 2nd, at 6am. He is 8lbs 1oz. Congrats to Meg and Rick on their new arrival! We can't wait to meet him.

Stormy tried to sneak along in my suitcase... what is it about an empty box that forces cats to jump in?


We spent the last several days on vacation in Sedona, AZ. Sedona is in a red rock canyon and is gorgeous.

Here is the house that we stayed in. The balcony overlooked Oak Creek... very nice to fall asleep to the sound of the water rushing by!

Views from the balcony...

This is the driveway going up to the house that we stayed in... notice how the creek flows right over the road?? That was more than a little intimidating to drive through when we arrived at 11pm in total darkness!!!

Alexis with Gramma Debi enjoying the view...

Cort and I went on a jeep tour... the ultimate off road experience!

In Sedona, everyone goes Trick Or Treating around all of the little shops in town. It was a lot of fun and we saw tons of kids dressed in their costumes. Lots of dogs in costumes, too, which Alexis was really excited about. Here is our little clown...

A few more pictures from the trip...

Alexis was a really good traveler, and did us a huge favor by sleeping the entire flight home.... YAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!! She was very excited to go on an airplane and see all sorts of new things. Her language skills are getting better and better... she is speaking in 5 or 6 word sentences a lot of the time, and we are loving having so much insight into what she is thinking. She wants to do everything by herself... her favorite sentence is "Noooo ME do it!" She has an amazing memory and only needs to see something once before she knows how to do it... so if we show her something new, we need to make sure we show her exactly how we want her to do it, because like it or not, that is the way she is going to do it from now on.