It's Been Forever

Well, to call us slack on updating our family blog would be terribly generous. But finally an update has come.

For those who do not already know, we're excitedly awaiting the arrival of Alexa's little sister. She's set to make an appearance around August 18th. Her Poppy (Matt's dad) is hoping for a few days delay so they can share a birthday. With the recent heat though, I'm willing to accept an early birth.

Matt started a new job with DHEC this time last year. He's the Director of Art and Photography for the state office of DHEC. This spring he was recognized by the Public Health Association for his contributions to their many projects. We incorporated the banquet into a week long family vacation at the beach.

Alexa has grown exponentially. It's amazing to look back and see the difference in her. Next week she will be 2. A very active 2. "Go" is one of her favorite words. It's something she seems to do non-stop. Go go go.

We are finally close to wrapping up renovations on our backyard. When we purchased the home it was the biggest drawback. Only a small portion of the actual yard was fenced in and what was there, was overgrown, very shady, hilly and was nearly unusable for a child. Because of the constant shade it stayed damp and mosquitos took over. Our front yard is a hill, so poor Alexa had practically no where to play outside. After a lot of hassle and unneccesary aggravation, our backyard is big, open, flatter and has sod. We're in the process of getting the beds established. For her 2nd birthday, we got her a swing set which I'm fairly sure will mean we'll be spending a LOT of time outside.

Life has been so busy over the past year. We haven't gotten to see and talk to our friends and family as often as we would like. This is something we're working on. If you're on Facebook and we haven't connected, feel free to "Friend" Matt or I either one. We're both on there and we try to keep some sort of updating on there, including pictures.


Alexa prancing around the beach.


Out to dinner!

We love you all!

Time is Flying

Hi Everyone!

Time is wizzing by at what feels like warp speed. Last weekend Matt's brother Patrick married his long time sweetheart, Kelly. We're so thrilled for them and we look forward to seeing them enjoy a long, happy marriage! I have pictures from the wedding, but sadly that camera cord is temporarily misplaced, so I won't be able to post them here until Monday when I get to the office with the camera in tow and can slip the xD card into the printer slot. But I will do it. I promise.

Today, we discovered that little Alexa is finally getting a tooth. You can barely see the white of the corner of her top right tooth. So maybe she'll have a tooth by her 1st birthday!

In other news, Matt accepted a job with DHEC so he will be starting to work July 2. We'll miss having him around every day because he has been doing freelance work out of an office in our office, but I know he's happy to gainfully employed again. He will continue doing freelance work and building that business. His new boss(s) encouraged him to continue doing it, so that was wonderful news.

Other than for that, we're plodding along and working on lining up a 1st birthday celebration on June 27th. Anyone interested in celebrating with us is welcome to come. It will be held at our home, just email us for more info (april dot alsup at yahoo dot com - no spaces, of course).

Okay, I'm going to go spend some quality time with Matt while Alexa sleeps snuggled with her bunny upstairs. I promise to post pics next week!

Love,
April

Oops

It's said that time flies when you're having fun and that's definitely true for us. I recently had it pointed out to me that this blog hasn't been updates since March and I'm terribly sorry about that.

So I'm going to do a quick run down and get to posting some pics.

Alexa is now crawling, everywhere including up the stairs. She also crawls over to stuff and stands up. A couple of nights ago she let go and lasted a full half second before she sat down. Maybe three quarters of a second.

Alexa also went to a birthday party. It was for Anna, the child of some good friends of ours, Eric and Sara. Anna turned 2, but she was so sweet to share a ride on her big gift with Alexa. A picture of them in Anna's new wagon is below. Alexa thought it was great!

She took her first dip in her Oma and Poppy's pool today. I have pics, but not on here, so I will get some here.

This Saturday she gets a new auntie. Okay, Kelly, Patrick's (Matt's brother) fiance, is already called Auntie Kelly, but on Saturday it becomes offical. So we're gearing up for that celebration.

Alexa says "Mama" and "Dada" but I don't think she really gets it. Although she does point at Matt and say Dada sometimes. But it still seems sort of random.

She's finally getting hair. Enough that we gave her a cute mohawk in the bath tub one evening.

We're working on birthday plans for her first birthday. I can't believe it's coming so soon!

Ok, that's all I have for updates right now... So here are some pics:







This was Alexa's first real attempt at standing. She did a great job. The electrical cords the box is blocking are a great motivator to get her moving. She likes electricity.

Spring is in the air...

The weather the past few weeks has been up and down. But the spring bug has bitten us. With a week of 70 degree weather, it's no wonder though. Matt has been working hard. Hopefully with the local St. Patrick's Day event over he'll get to relax a little more. He's such a wonderful hubby and daddy. No matter how busy he is, how crappy his day was, he always makes time for me and Alexa.

Alexa and I have been busy trying to sell houses. She's such a wonderful little assistant. If I get a negative phone message she knows exactly what to do with it... rip to shreds :o). And if it's a good message she'll slobber all over it which is her quivalent to kisses for now. :o)

I finally found a few minutes to upload some pictures from our camera. I don't have the little videos from the other camera yet. Maybe one day.

Next month we head to Tennessee for some pre-wedding events for Patrick and Kelly (Matt's brother and his wonderful bride-to-be). I think we're all looking forward to the chance to get away! I'll have to make sure and get the other camera all emptied up before then. I also found my tripod this week, so I'm planning to try and find some time to play with it and Alexa. I promise, having a child won't make me into a photo nut. Not a major one at least.

Okay, here's some of our recent photos (Don't worry, I know you skipped all of my rambling and went straight to the pictures, I'm not offended)

Our little Gamecock.










She loves Daddy and his hat.









She also loves bath time.










In these two she's posing for the camera in the dress Auntie Kelly got for her while we were in VA.

Our Trip to Grandpa's House

Alexa finally got to meet her great-grandpa. Matt's grandfather, whom we lovingly call Papa, was thrilled to finally hold and hug his first great-grandbaby and she was equally thrilled to be held by her Papa.

The trip was shorter than we would have liked, but filled with family fun. Here are some pictures:

Papa and his very first great-grandbaby. Alexa loves her Papa!



Alexa and her cousin Tabitha.



Alexa and her cousin Cindy.



Alexa and har cousin Amanda.



Alexa and her Great Aunt Janice.



Kelly, Tabitha and Miss Maggie relaxing :o)


I promise to get better about posting quicker. I promise!
Love,
April

Snow Days...

We finally got some snow. It was light, short lived, and gone before lunch time. So we got Alexa up so she could get her first sight of snow.

Other than that, things have been pretty quiet here. She's sitting up pretty well, sleeping great and eating baby food at least for one meal. We're really blessed!




Note: I originally started this post just after the snow the end of January. But I just got the pics uploaded. Sorry it took so long!

6 Month Checkup

Today Alexa went in for her 6 month checkup. The doctor says things look great and she's right on time with her growth and development. I thought I'd share her stats:

14lbs, 2oz (6lbs, 2oz above birth weight)
26.25 inches (6 inches longer than birth length)

She's a growing baby, that's for sure!

He said we can start exploring more solid foods and she can have some finger food now. She tried sweet peas last night and loved them.

She also had to get more shots today. That is not fun! But she handled them pretty well, considering and other than for a little tiny bit of fussing she's done well today.

That's all I have for now.

Love,
April

Going to Memaw's House

Last week we ventured on Alexa's longest trip to-date. We traveled to my Memaw's house in Tennessee. She is my dad's mom. I was so thankful Alexa got to meet her. She's the only grandmother I've ever known and she's a very special lady. They had lots of fun together.

Alexa also got to meet her other family members (not all, but most!). She had a lot of fun playing and interacting with everyone.

Memaw and Alexa


Memaw and Alexa having some fun!





Alexa in her first high chair


Alexa and her beautiful cousin Erica.


Nutty cousin Phil providing some entertainment!


Sweet cousin Lisa and Alexa getting some snuggles in.


Erica and her hot rod!


Daddy snuggling Alexa after a long and fun day!


Memaw, Alexa and me.

Where's Alexa?????

There she is! (Alexa's favorite game)

Happy New Year!

Matt and I count 2008 as our most Blessed year. We look forward to what 2009 will bring!

Celebrating our first Christmas with Alexa and CJ was very special and extremely fun. They are both growing so fast and getting to the age where they are more interactive. Each day seems to bring a new mannerism of trick, if you will. While CJ was raspberrying for a while, she has since tossed that over for the squeal of delight. Alexa on the other hand has discovered the joys of quickly shaking her head no and in the last 2 days she's started doing this funny sniffing thing while scrunching up her face.

They have also started discovering each other more. An especially cute moment happened at Christmas dinner at The Campbell's house where CJ's squeal of delight caught Alexa's attention.

We spent Christmas eve with the Alsup clan. Thankfully the temperatures were unseasonably warm, since we had a snafu and Alexa had to ditch her pants. By the time the temperatures had cooled, she'd opened a precious gift from her Aunt Kelly and Uncle Patrick and had cute little overalls to put on. Then Uncle Patrick saw to entertainment. She also spent some quality time banging on her new Leap Frog drum her Oma and Poppy gave to her!

On Christmas day, we slept in a little bit and then enjoyed Christmas morning at home where Alexa got to jump in her new jumper, which her Granny (my mom) gave to us early so she could have it in the morning. Then my mom came by to exchange presents, before we all headed to The Campbell home for fun and dinner. Yummy dinner.

Since I usually spend half an hour trying to get the photos in line and end up failing miserably, I'm going to just post them below with little snippets of what they are.

Christmas Eve:

Oma and Alexa having some fun.


Alexa opening her first Christmas gift.


Uncle Patrick "flying" Alexa in her new overalls.



Christmas Day:
She had plenty of fun jumping in her jumperoo.


Granny and Alexa having some Christmas day fun.


Smiley and his Christmas camera.



New Year's Eve:

Alexa in her "little black dress" compliments of Granny.


Matt and Alexa "sniffing". Well, she WAS sniffing until she saw the camera, then she started mugging, like always.


Matt and I rang in the New Year together while Miss Alexa slept snuggled in her bed, upstairs.

Holiday Times

Our poor camera is loaded with pictures and I'm way behind on updates. But I'm going to make an attempt to catch everyone up.


Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We got both sides of the family together at our house. It's so nice to get to share Thanksgiving with both of our families! Alexa even got to meet her Aunt (cousin) Deborah, who just stole all her sugars!







We all ate way too much and poor Buckley was exhausted from chasing everyone around and begging for food. We slept super well that night.

Speaking of sleep... We've been getting a pretty good amount of it around here lately. Alexa has been going 9-12 hours between feedings at night. She averages 10 hours straight. And once she's eaten in the morning, she's usually ready to go on back to bed for another couple of hours. Seems like maybe she is taking after her daddy's need for sleep. You'll get no complaints out of me!

This past weekend, on the 13th, my very sweet and beautiful cousin, Megan got married. It was a beautiful wedding and we enjoyed the short trip very much. Mom, Lisa, Christabelle, Smiley and Dale made the trip too. Here's a cute picture of mom with Lisa and CJ. CJ was wearing the most precious little cap! Alexa spent most of the ceremony chewing on her shiny black shoe. She's so enamoured with them, I figured what doesn't hurt her will only make her stronger. Then we got to enjoy a small family reunion and yummy dinner in celebration of the union. It was so nice to see our family. Some whom we haven't seen in many years. Hopefully we'll be able to see each other again before so many years have passed!

Alexa's great-grandmother (Matt's grandmother) celebrated her 99th birthday on Wednesday and Alexa went to share a round of hugs and kisses with her great-granny. It was fun to see the two of them together. She's a very blessed little girl to still have two great-grandmothers and a great grand-father still here to share her hugs and kisses!

On Thursday her Oma had surgery and she was filled with excitement all day because I kept telling her we were going to see her Oma and give her a kiss that evening. We are so thankful everything went well. When we got there to visit, it turned out her hospital room was the one next door to ours when we had Alexa in July. And we got there just in time for a meeting with Santa! That's right, Santa. He and the Chik-fil-a cow (dressed in santa gear) came around to see everyone. We managed to snap a picture of them together with my cell phone.

Elfen Christmas

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

Miss Alexa in for some fun Christmas photos this week. We even managed to put ourselves together enough to get a family picture. It was a lot of fun.

We had to take her shiny black shoes off mid way through the session because she was too enamored with them to look at the photographer. Oh the simple joys of young life!


She's been doing so many new things... Attempting to sit up is at the top of that list. She wants to sit up on her own so much. But usually she ends up trying to fling herself forward. Scary! But we're always near by to try and prevent any injury!

I can't wait until she and CJ are old enough to play together. For now they check each other out and go back to chewing on anything within 2 inches of their mouths. But they look so cute together. Lisa and I hope to take them for pictures together sometime in the new year.

Matt and I ventured out to dinner with Alexa tonight. We made an attempt at it when she was 5 or 6 weeks, but we didn't make it through dinner. She was NOT having the whole sitting in her carrier doing nothing routine. But she did great tonight. I fed her then we left. She sat in her carrier chewing on her toys, eyeing our food and flashing a smile at anyone who looked her way. We had a really nice, relaxing dinner. It's amazing what a good mood getting to go out to eat with your family will put you in!

Love, April