Our Visit Home- Part One

We had a chance to get back to Auburn to see Macette, Papa, and Uncle Bill. Despite our little girl missing her afternoon nap, she persevered and had a good time at the grand'rent's place.

Alexis with Uncle Bill... what a natural!

It took some convincing, but once I told Bill she'd be ok, it was funny to see him let go. It was as if he was letting his own go for the first time. I think he was a little nervous.

Alexis trying to share her sweet potato puff with great grandpa, Papa. For some reason, Papa wasn't accepting this nice gesture.

Macette and Alexis spent much of the day cuddling. I was convinced she was going to fall asleep while Macette was holding her.

This was back at Mom's house. I thought it would be funny to stick her in a wagon in which she's obviously much too big for. I wasn't disappointed.

She's way too cute- Riding Steph's original horsey for the first time.

Here are a couple of videos to entertain you:

Birthday, Birthday, Birthday, Cabinets

It's Thursday, November 6th and Alexis has this strange look on her face. She must've been thinking, "I think I was born a year ago today, but where's my big party that Mommy has been telling everyone about? The only people here are Grammie and Papa and they only have one present with them. This is a major bummer for me as I thought these birthday things were actually supposed to be fun. Oh yeah, Mom has wrapped up a few presents I've already seen wanting to try to make this day a little more special for me. Good one, Mommy. Why don't you go and pull something out of the trash and wrap it up for me. It'll be just as special to me. If I had to grade my parents efforts for this party, it would be an F-. Is there such a thing as an F-? Who cares. I'm not happy and I'm going to let everyone know it. Me, spoiled? Yeah right."


Here's the infamous party Alexis was just thinking about. Looks fun, doesn't it?

Have you ever seen a more disappointed kid in your life? What could she have been thinking here? I won't get into that again, but it would probably be something like, "They can't even bake me a friggin cake on my birthday? And nothing says love more than one candle in the middle of some overcooked brownies. F- again on the cake substitute."

This is beginning to look a little more festive...


Papa Eldred didn't disappoint constructing the perfect little fairy or tinkerbell or princess (whatever the theme of this party was) cake.

Now we're talking! I bet we're getting in our child's good graces again after presenting her with this cake.

Some of my favorite pictures to follow. I guess the fork was optional...

After cake, it was time for some presents. Mommy didn't even have to wrap up old stuff as there were way too many presents.

Uncle Nick and Aunt Marty pretending to be parents.

Uncle Nick could be one of Alexis' all time favorite people.

Good thing Wyatt was around to help with the chores after the big party.

Why are fake babies always so popular? Look at the size of the head. Thing is enormous.

There wasn't much time to recover as Addy's birthday was the following weekend. We did somehow fit in one more birthday celebration at the great-grandparents house (not sure where those pictures are) a week after her original party.

Papa Eldred worked his cake magic again for Addy's cake.

Alexis was confused as to whose party it was. She was so used to opening presents, it became instinctive.

She was also so used to having something fun and exciting to do every weekend that when we finally got a weekend to ourselves, she had to find new ways to entertain herself.

She may have gotten into the flour. Keep the fat girl and flour jokes to yourself, Ronald.

Halloween and Party

Even though Big Poppi was laid up for the weekend, it didn't stop JL and Alexis from having a great time.

For Halloween, JL first went to Ally's where she dressed our skinny child into her Russian Spider outfit. She met the circus tiger there (a tiger that primarily stood on his hind legs) and also a very tricky costume worn by Olivia. She was dressed as a cow which was in a costume of a dog. I know, it's confusing. But just think of it this way, even though she looks like a cow, she's really a dog.

The Russian Spider and JL headed to the Eldred's where they encountered a little ladybug and a big scary scarecrow.

By the end of the night, Alexis was left to wonder what all of the talk about candy was. She knew she was supposed to get lots of candy on this night, so she began searching everywhere for this mysterious candy everyone was talking about. As she's only a bit under one, she thought someone may have hidden all of her candy in this flashlight. Needless to say she wasn't happy as she never found the stash of candy... maybe next year.

After a great Halloween, JL and Alexis then took off on Sunday for Alexis' first big girl birthday party. I'm not really sure where all of the other kids were, but Alexis loved the ball pit. She was a great climber, went down the slide, and then played happily in the balls for a long time. She's such an unhappy kid, isn't she?

JL said that Alexis loved this hat until she began to play with it. I guess she thought the elastic was kind of cool, until she let go and it snapped back into her face. I guess she didn't think the hat was so cool after that.

Only four days until her very own birthday. I hope JL didn't get any of these dangerous hats for the festivities.