Sweeter Words...

Yesterday, I was getting Alexa up from her nap when she announced: "Mama, Bett nass."  (Bed wet.)  I said, "oh, sorry, sweet girl, let's put some dry clothes on you and then Mama will put clean sheets on your bed."
After I was done changing her sheets, I said, "Look, Lexi, now your bed is all clean!"
Lexi: "Gaga, Mami."  (for danke ... thank you.)
And then: "I love ee, Mommy."

Sweeter words have never been spoken. :-)  I'd change sheets 10x per day for that.

Alexa Belle at 2

David and I keep saying how much we're enjoying this age.  The last several months have been really fun with Alexa, watching her express herself more and more and seeing her little personality develop.  She, like any other little person at this age, is a sponge for all new things and LOVES to do whatever her sister is doing.  If her sisters are gone for whatever reason (playing upstairs without her, or at Open Gym), she asks every five minutes: "Whe Whea?" Me: "At Open Gym." (or whatever) Alexa: "Whe Cia?"  Etc.  She tries hard to keep up with them, and the dynamics between the sisters are rather different.  Lucia, partially because she's older, is a wonderful caretaker and entertainer for Alexa.  She is very thoughtful, figures out whatever Alexa needs or wants and caters to her in almost any way.  Rhea, though at times she can also be a motherly big sister, is usually more of an equal playmate, and therefore also a competitor in all things. :-)  The two younger ones have made great strides in their playing together, though, and are becoming very close friends.
Personality wise, Alexa is an interesting mix of Lucia and Rhea.  She is overall pretty even keeled, like Lucia, and LOVES books and pointing at letters.  She frequently says, "Mom, come!  Book wead!"  But she is also vivacious and LOUD and goofy like Rhea.  She (I kid you not) is making up her own potty jokes at less than two years old.  I have a feeling that is Rhea's lovely influence, but despite its impropriety, it makes me laugh.  Her jokes may go like this:
A: "Knock, knock."
- Who's there?
A: "Poopie."
Usually Rhea: "Poopie who?"
A: "Hey, Poopie Poopie!"

Or: A: "Socks off. ... Socks in potty.  Hahahaha, socks yucky! Potty yucky!"

So... we're trying to help her explore other avenues of humor... we love to laugh, and I love having another little jokester in the family, but, you know... we need to broaden her repertoire a little. :-)

Reading to baby.

Alexa also loves all things loud.  Where Lucia shied away from noise, Alexa seeks it out.  Here, David was running his air compressor.  In public restrooms, she will try to turn on the hand air dryers... :-)

And... she loves having some quality time with Papa, whether she manages to talk him into letting her play Angry Birds (she'll go get the phone and say, "play game? please?")

 ... or reading a book on his lap in the sunshine.  She also LOVES to ride in the Beetle with him.  A perfect Papa-Alexa date would be strapping her car seat in the Beetle and going for a little spin.  Every time she gets to ride in it, she is over the moon.

 This was taken on Halloween, but that's coincidental, because chances are the girls may look like this any other day of the year too. Rhea loves having another little person to dress up, and Alexa loves to do whatever Rhea is doing.  Win win.

 A picture of my three princesses on Halloween.

Alexa is temporarily also obsessed with ghosts (thanks to Lucia's initial costume of choice, a big old sheet with two holes cut into it for eyes).  She kept draping her blankets over her head and saying, "I ghost, roar!" (I didn't deem it quite necessary to practice boo-ing.  "Roar" is fine.  Not an essential life skill.)

And she's busy, busy, busy.  Even as a baby, it was nearly impossible to hold her still when she wasn't sleeping or nursing.  She's always pushing, pulling, exploring, twisting, turning, climbing something. Go, baby, go!  (Also, I see myself in this picture.  Of the three girlies, I feel like Alexa resembles me the most.)

We love our silly, happy, little girl!

"I Just Need More Money"

At bedtime tonight, Lucia happened to glance into Rhea's treasure drawer and spotted a couple of $1 bills and a $1 coin.  Immediately, she asked Rhea: "Rhea, did you take this from my treasure drawer ?  You know if you take my money that's STEALING!"
Rhea at first said she didn't steal the money, but when I asked her where it came from, she said: "From Lucia's drawer."
Her explanation: "I just need more money!  So I saw it in Lucia's drawer and took it to put in my piggy bank."
Lucia didn't get all that upset with her.  She took the money back and put it away, and then sat down on Rhea's bed where she was already tucked in for the night.  Lucia started stroking her hair gently and said, "Well, Rhea, if you need more money, then I can tell you what to do.  You need to get a JOB.  That's how you can earn money.  But no more stealing in the mean while, ok?"
Rhea: "But I already DO jobs in our house."
Lucia: "Yes, but jobs in our house are just, well, house jobs, like vacuuming.  What you need is a job OUTSIDE of our house, like... vacuuming a stranger's house.  Then you would get money for that.  Oh, and remember when I hired you for my pet sitting business?*  That's another way you could get money.  But no more stealing, ok?"
Rhea: "Ok."
*after a thoughtful pause*
Rhea: "Maybe tonight a nice robber will come.  I would like that.  A nice robber maybe would take the golden pennies out of his sack and put them in my treasure drawer for me.  Then I would have more money."
Lucia: "Yes, but he would probably take a treasure of yours in return.  So you would have to part with one of your treasures.  Would you like that?"
Rhea: "No."
Lucia:  "That's another way you could make more money!  You could trade a treasure or a toy, if someone wants to have it, for money!  You give them the toy, and they give you money!"

I wish I could've captured their entire conversation on video... it was the best.  I will let them continue their brainstorming, and when they have come up with the answer to "I Just Need More Money", I will be glad to help them make it happen (... for a commission). :-)

* The pet sitting business was one of Lucia's ideas one day. She made a sign, complete with our phone number, advertising her availability to pet sit.  In her head, she wanted the pets to be brought to our house, "gerbils, dogs, cats, mice, but not big pets."  Oh, and you had to call in advance so she could get everything ready (buy appropriate food, etc.)  The fee was x (I think $3?) for one day, and double that for more than one day.  (I tried to get her to understand that she could just charge a daily fee and that the total cost would then depend on how long she pet-sat, but she thought that figure would then get too expensive and deter her customers. :-) )  Then we lost the poster. :-(

Happy 2nd Birthday, Baby Girl!

Hard to believe that Alexa turned two today.  In some ways, the past two years have absolutely flown.  It doesn't feel like we've been living in Texas for that long, but evidently that's the case!  I remember well arriving here hugely pregnant and scrambling to find a birth center and midwife to deliver our baby in less than a month's time... And here we are, and Baby is TWO!
As a birthday gift to herself (and me, sort of?), Alexa decided today that she's ready to potty train!  I still had her in a diaper, but it was the same diaper all day!  She was dry after her nap, and told me every time she had to go, BEFORE going (major step in the right direction ;-) )!  So... it looks like our diaper days are numbered!  Wow.  Can't believe this day is so near... after 6.5 years of almost constant diapering. :-)
Yay for Alexa!

Here are some pictures of her (our) day.  We divided the celebrations into early morning and evening, so Papa would be able to be there for the special times.

Here are the invitations we made for her party on Saturday.  We have invited three friends (plus siblings/parents... whoever wants to come), and filled them with "Crayon" pretzels.  I'm sure you've guessed the theme by now. :-)

Birthday Eve... everything's ready. :-)

Papa got baby girl out of bed (at her request... you wouldn't know it from this picture :-) ) and she's still trying to figure out what's going on.

 That didn't take long!!  Here she's exclaiming: "MINE!!!!"  She been patiently awaiting her birthday for a while now... "Happy DEEPEE!"

 Birthday breakfast... chocolate chip pancakes.  We had to go wake up the older two (which we NEVER do) because Alexa was SO excited about her presents and wanted to open up everything/something/right-now!!!  Didn't want them to miss out...

Rhea handing Alexa the gift she wrapped for her.

 Rhea and Lucia each got a little something in the package from Oma and Opa too... Rhea was obviously enamored with her little Playmobil people. :-)

 Lucia giving Alexa her gift...an outfit for her new and very own baby!

 Yay for "Baggi" - her word for backhoe/excavator/front loader ... pretty much any construction equipment out there. :-)

 Feeding baby.  The days of fighting over babies are over, hopefully... :-)

 Bottoms up.  The birthday girl is thirsty.

 Happy Deepee days are so much fun!  :-)

 After Papa went to work and Lucia started her school work, the other two went to play outside for a bit. Of course today was the coldest day of the year so far, so some bundling up was required.  Rhea LOVES wearing  mittens and hats (I'll post some evidence of that soon), so she was happy to finally have a real reason to do just that!

 Tomato soup and goldfish for lunch to warm up their tummies... somebody loved it!

We saved a couple of gifts for the evening - here's her own little camping chair.  Now each girl has one. :-)

 Excited about her "muffuh" (almost with a French nasal pronunciation of the -in at the end of muffin. ;-) )

 And playing with a new puzzle from Uncle Mark and Aunt Julie.  All three girls really liked it and spent quite some time figuring it out.  Thank you so much! :-)

All in all, it was a fun day. Too bad "deepees" only come once a year.  Or maybe that's a good thing. ;-)
I'll try to do another birthday post one of these days, capturing her little personality and posting some more pictures.  We love our (not-so-)baby girl!

I Didn't Do It!

Didn't think this day would come, but then again, I have been naive before. Found several locks of hair in the bathroom trash. Hmm... which child's hair, and which child wielded the scissors?
We had a little interrogation in the living room. Both Lucia and Rhea adamantly insisted that "It wasn't me! I didn't do it!" Then I began holding up the locks to each of them, trying to figure out whose hair it was. I said: "Hmm, I think it's Lucia's hair."
Rhea: "No, it's Alexa's." Me: "Oh, yeah?" Rhea: "Yes, but I didn't do it." Me: "So ... how do you think the hair got in the trash can?"
Rhea, with a completely serious face: "I don't know. Maybe it just jumped in." 

I think we found our culprit. 
(She may have a future in hair styling, though, because you can hardly tell Alexa is missing hair, and quite a bit was cut off. Rhea later confessed that she just had "too many wispies".)