All About Alex

Here are a bunch of pics of my nearly five month old little man!

Alex LOVES hand-me-downs.  About 95% of his clothes and toys are hand-me-downs.  Here he is with Amelia's old piano and his outfit belonged to Jimmy's co worker's son.

Alex is on my knees "flying" in the air

Alex Giggles (videos)

My family keeps requesting more videos. 

Here are two clips of Alex:

Giggles

More giggles

Tennessee Love

Things I love about Tennessee so far:

SPACE.  OMG, there is so much open space around here!  The scenery is beautiful and everything feels so fresh an airy.  We have a small house, but it just feels like a mansion compared to our DC apartment. 

DRIVING.  No traffic.  No road rage.  No freaking out while doing an unprotected turn.  No fighting for a parking spot.  It takes less than 10 minutes to get anywhere. 

SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY.  The people are so helpful and love to chat.  People smile and wave at you even though they don't know who you are.

NO CROWDS.  When you go out, you don't need to worry about large crowds.  The grocery stores, gas stations, shopping areas... pretty much everywhere is not crowded at all.  It's so refreshing.

I know there's more, but I can't think of any right now!

Alex, 5 Months

Well, he doesn't officially turn five months until this Sunday, but close enough, right?

Here's a short update:

Loves playing in his exersaucer!

He's sleeping in his own room in his crib now ;0)

At night, he sleeps from about 8:30pm-3am, wakes for a feeding, falls back to sleep, and then is up for the day around 7am.

Takes short naps (less than an hour) throughout the day. 

Loves loves loves it when Amelia plays with him.  I get warm fuzzies when I hear them giggling at each other.  Amelia is good at giving him toys when he's sad and playing peek-a-boo.

Grabs and pinches at everything in sight.

Enjoys kicking all the time, especially in the bath.

Excited

Scared

Sad

Happy

It's Raining, It's Pouring

We never really got a chance to allow Amelia to play out in the rain.  Living in an apartment made it hard to get out during a storm.  Now, since moving to our house in Tennessee, we've had two large storms. Amelia was able to rock out her raincoat (thanks Auntie Jessica!) and play outside on the deck. 

She got really scared of the thunder and it really started to get bad out, so she only played for a few minutes.  However, I'm so glad she will have more opportunities to play out in the rain, as all kids should have!

Next time, if there is no thunder and lightning, I want to take her puddle jumping ;0)

On a side note:  The storms here are very scary!  The wind is insane.  The sounds it makes is terrifying.  I'm paranoid about tornado's...

Running and splashing on the deck.

Her facial expression right after loud thunder.  It was time to go back inside!

Randoms...

She picked out every single piece of her outfit.  She was soooooo proud of herself.  Thankfully, we didn't leave the house on this day!

"Up Down" Shades

Me trying to take a picture of Alex and I

Watering her "flow-dads"

"All done!"

Our Gymnast

Amelia found her Little Gym leotard and medal in her closet and insisted on wearing it.  She looked so cute, we just had to take some pictures!

Now that things are almost settled around the house, we are looking for another gym for her to have special daddy-daughter time.  We found a class on post that Jimmy can take her to after work.  Hopefully, she will love it just as much as The Little Gym!

Adorbs

Very upset about bedtime

Friend Dating

Jimmy is back to work, so I need to muster up some courage and venture out.  I need to figure out a routine for our new life here.  Most importantly, I NEED to make new friends. 
Now that Jimmy's gone during the day, reality is starting to sink in. I'm starting to get lonely.  It's just so hard. I'm so bad at "firsts," but it's good just to get it out of the way and move forward. 

Meeting new friends is just like dating.  You just need to put yourself out there.  It's not like new BFF's are going to just fall into your lap, ha ha.  I'm so nervous!  I always feel so vulnerable and insecure around new people.  I'm not exactly shy, but I'm not super outgoing either. 

The "friend-dating" scene is so complicated!  Do they like me?  Do they like my kids? How long do you wait to call to meet up?  Do you meet at their place, yours, or a neutral location?  Am I talking too much?  Am I too dressed up?  OMG.

Our neighbors all seem to have young children and from what I've observed, all the moms in our cul de sac stay at home and almost all are military.  I've already met a neighbor who has a three-year-old and nine month old, so it looks promising.  The whole time Amelia was playing with the three-year-old I kept praying that she wouldn't hit him, ha ha.... and she didn't.  Thank goodness!

 I've also signed up for a play group, but I haven't attended any events yet.  I'm also going to start taking some classes at the gym, so that might be another place to meet people.  I'm also hoping Jimmy's new coworkers are cool too and will want to hang out.

We will see what happens...

A Conversation. Well, sort of...

The last few weeks, I've noticied that Amelia and I actually have "conversations" with each other. 

Me: "What do you want to eat?"

Mimi: "Pizza, Pizza!"

Me: I start singing the pizza song.  "P-I-Z-Z-A... spells pizza!"

Mimi: She joins in the singing.  "P-I-Z-Z-A..." Then she realizes she also wants rice.  She screams, "Rice, rice, rice!"

Me: "Do you want milk?"

Mimi: "Okay."

Mimi:  After examining the piece of pizza, she holds it up and says,"It's a triangle." 

Me:  "Good job!  It is a triangle.  Do you like your pizza?"

Mimi: "Mmmmmmm" Then she proudly points out everything on her plate: " Peas, rice, pizza, cheese, strawberry.  Want a bite?"

Me: "No thank you.  Eat your peas Mimi."

Mimi:  Pulls off a pepperoni from her pizza.  " It's a circle."

Me: "Good job! You are right!  It is a circle."

Mimi: "All done!"

She eats pizza upside down for some reason

Counting and Playing (videos)

Counting the Bouncing Ball

Jumping and Counting...

Amelia's two favorite things

Playing with Baby Bros Feet