More than the leaves are turning!

For the very first time, Alexa turned over from her back to her tummy last night... TWICE! She's been turning on to her side, but has not been able to make it the rest of the way over. Until last night that is.

Matt and I were sitting her watching Ghost Hunters and playing with her. She was laying on her play gym Uncle Patrick and Auntie Kelly gave her. And next thing we knew she was pushing her giraffe out of the way and rolling on over. We tried to get the camcorder out in time to film it, but we didn't catch the rolling. Just the end result.

Another recent change is that she's laying on her side to sleep. It's so precious. We put her down on her back like the doctors say we should, but once she's asleep she's on her side. We have an Angel Care monitor. It was expensive, but worth the piece of mind. It detects movement. It's sensitive enough to pick up her breathing and heart beat. So if it goes 20 seconds without detecting any movement an alarm sounds. Since we can't do anything to stop her from sleeping on her side, it's given us some reassurance. So now we just get to enjoy how cute she looks sleeping.

She's been doing a pretty good job of sitting up. She can't do it on her own yet, but she's attempted it much to mama and daddy's panic! She can sit against the back of the couch. We make sure to protect her from her own ambitious attempts to fling herself forward. And she loves sitting in her bumbo. We're just enjoying each day with her and trying not to anticipate what is next for fear of missing the present with her!

This is one of Matt's favorite recent pictures of her:

Alexa's Christening

This past Sunday Alexa was christened at our church. It was a wonderful day and we welcomed her into the church family. She did so well. Life is never predictable with a four month old, so we weren't sure. But she was soooo precious. She didn't protest a bit when the priest poured the baptismal water over her head. Her eyes got big and she looked at her daddy and the priest as if to say, "What's going on?" But not a peep.

Thanks to Alexa's Auntie Kelly, we have some great pictures of the day. And her Uncle Dale did a fabulous job of videotaping it, but I have not yet figured out how to convert that so it's viewable on the web. I'll put it on my list of things to do, I promise.

In the meantime, hopefully this will suffice:



Granny and Poppy entertained Alexa before service began.



Alexa's Momma, Oma, Poppy, Daddy, Granny (Godmother) and Uncle Patrick (Godfather) all got to participate!



Mommy's finger was a terrific snack while Alexa waited for the fun part.



Alexa isn't so sure about what's coming next...



And finally, the moment we all waited for.



Getting baptised takes a lot out of a girl!




Auntie Kelly and Uncle Patrick with Alexa



The precious Campbell family.











Our precious nephew and niece, Smiley and Christabelle. He's such a loving big brother and cousin!













Proud mama and papa.










The Alsup Clan.

















The Hall Clan.








Everyone together. Left to right: Granny (my mom), Smiley, Lisa holding CJ, Dale, me (April), Patrick, Alexa (being held by Matt), Kelly, Poppy (Matt's dad) & Oma (Matt's mom)






Whew... that was a lot of uploading. Remember: if you want to save and print a picture, click on the picture. This will take you to a larger version of it. Then right click on it and click on Save as... or Save Picture as.... Then save it where you want to on your computer.

Love,
April

Pictures...

Here are the Halloween pics we had taken. I finally remembered to post them. If you would like to save them for printing, just click on an image. It will open in a new screen and be a higher resolution file. Then right click on it and click "save".

It was a Spooktacular Halloween

After a traumatic episode early in the week in which a motorcyclist terrified Alexa at a pumpkin patch, we decided to take her in for pictures with a pro. I promise to post some of those tomorrow. I forgot I don't have the files on this computer. But I do have some other pictures.

We celebrated the evening by decorating and handing out treats. Matt really got into the spirit and made the house look great. The precious little 3 year old a few doors down calls it the spooky house now, but it looked great just the same and I think the handful of Snickers and M&Ms will convince her we're not terrible people.


Then Oma and Poppy (Matt's parents) came by, on their way to Patrick and Kelly's, to see our little pumpkin and get in some sugars. Oma even dressed up for the occassion! We took Alexa over to see her Uncle Patrick and Aunt Kelly, but forgot our camera. Hopefully her sweet and leveable aunt will send me a copy of the ones we took with her camera =).

On Saturday I took her to her Granny's house where she got to play with her cousin CJ. Ok, they just look at each other and wonder right now. But playing is just around the corner. Lisa and I decided to dress them up for a group picture. They made a really cute bunny and pumpkin, I must say.

They also took a picture with their delighted granny! Then they and we got to relax. Matt was at the game for the evening. So Alexa and I shared dinner with mom, Lisa and CJ then headed home, with a stop by our good friends, Cam & Timmy's house so Alexa could get in some last minute trick or treating. Once we got home she of course wanted to watch the Gamecocks clobber TN (sorry to my lovely family in TN). Obviously Alexa is going to be a daddy's girl since she loooooves football.

I promise to have her little glamour shots posted soon.

Love,
April