Where Does the Time Go?

Sorry that it has been over 2 weeks since my last post! Life in the Ritchey household is as busy as ever!!! The past two weeks have been filled with "play dates," a trip to Perry, food poisoning, plans to make a playroom, shopping, and family fun :)

These two photos were taken right after my last posting (mid-Aug). Finding Alexa standing in her crib is pretty normal now. In fact, it's kinda becoming a nuisance because she would sometimes prefer to stand then sleep...










Our mischievous monkey girl :)~ ("Monkey Girl" is what Daddy calls Alexa, and I think she looks so ornery in this photo).










Daddy - Daughter Day. I went to Louisville on Aug. 15th for a pre-Bachelorette Party for Tiffanie, so Alexa had 28 hours of fun with Daddy! They played, went to the grocery store (where Daddy was proud of all the compliments he received about Alexa), made chicken wings, and hosted dinner (Sean and Tim came over).










While Daddy & Alexa were busy at home, I was enjoying my lil road trip to Louisville. We ate dinner at Hard Rock Cafe and hung out in 4th Street Live. It was a lot of fun!! Pictured: Erin (the other MOH), me, Tiffanie, Andrea (bridesmaid), and Stephanie.










When I returned on Sunday, Daddy had set up the pool for Alexa. Here are a few shots of the 2 of them enjoying the water on a HOT day!










After searching at Once Upon A Child for WEEKS, I finally found a Leap Frog Learn & Groove Musical Table. Brand new in the stores it is $45, I paid $19 for it gently used. Alexa LOVES it. When I first got it, she really needed to be placed standing, but now she pulls herself up with ease!! On the right, Alexa is enjoying a Wheat Teething Biscuit - she makes a mess with these things!










Another photo of Alexa with her table. My parents had sent Dan & I a gift card to Olive Garden for our anniversary, and we finally used it last week (picture is Alexa and I at dinner). Alexa was soooo good at the restaurant. She just loves looking around wherever we go (she is definitely a people watcher like her Daddy, haha).










Last weekend was a Perry weekend :) As soon as we got into town, we went to the Lake County Fair. Auntie did 4H with a pig this year. She has been caring for Ollie since April (I think), and the pig weighed a massive 268 pounds! Danielle took 1st Place for Showmanship & 4th Place for the pig itself (I have no idea what criteria they use to determine what big is the best). The auction was on Friday night, so we went to support Auntie sell her pig.










Here is Alexa enjoying her Noni & Papa, as always :)










During the auction I started to feel a little nauseous, so as soon as Ollie was sold, we went home. I immediately fell asleep and woke up throughout the night. I felt worse all day Saturday. I won't go into details about my "symptoms," but Danielle started experiencing the same things on Saturday night & Sunday morning. As we were discussing what we both ate at the fair, we realized we had both eaten stromboli from the same place (me on Friday, her on Saturday)... yup, we had food poisoning. It was awful. The only perk to being sick, I lost a little over 4 pounds ;-)










Danielle with Ollie during the auction. Before we came back to C-bus on Sunday, Mom made homemade pasta for dinner that Alexa got to enjoy with us! You could tell she thought she was so cool eating the exact same food that we all were (or I should say, Noni, Papa, Daddy, & JaJa were, Auntie & I were both having problems eating still). It was sad to say good-bye, particularly because I still felt sick and Noni had been WONDERFUL taking care of Alexa all weekend for me!!










Daddy took Monday off of work to spend the day with us :) We went to the grocery store, out to lunch, and did some yard work. After being too sick to enjoy anyone over the weekend, it was nice to have some QT with Dan and Alexa! On Tuesday, Alexa and I had a "play date" with Avery... it was actually more of an opportunity for my friend, Jess, and I to hang out (while the girls looked at one another) :)~

Here's a movie clip of Alexa playing with her Table - she loves the "open/close" thing, obviously. This table is a great combination of lots of fine motor skill development activities, as well as brain-building stuff.


See the mess our family room has turned into? See how mobile Alexa has gotten? For these two reasons, we have decided to turn part of the basement into a playroom for Alexa. We are going to hang a ceiling, paint the walls, buy some kid furniture, and create a safe space for Alexa (and future children) to play and learn! We are going to do a Weather/Outdoor theme that I found in a Kidspace Decorating Book. It's going to be really neat and will definitely open doors for imaginative play, learning, and lots of fun!!!


This little movie clip demonstrates why Alexa amazes me... I can hardly believe that the baby I carried for 39 weeks & 4 days, labored with for 8 hours, pushed for 1.5 hours, and got up with throughout the night for breastfeeding sessions has become a child who explores her world, dumps out toys, and absorbs everything around her like a sponge. It is so AMAZING watching her turn into a little person :)


The past two weeks Daddy & Mommy have taken Alexa on two long walks. The first time we walked to Dairy Queen, and yes, Alexa did taste a teeny amount of my vanilla cone :) The second walk was only a walk for me & Alexa because Daddy rode his bike. We went up to the school to play. Just like before, Alexa enjoyed swinging! It's amazing how much stronger she has gotten in the past 6-7 weeks since we last went up there.










She just kept laughing...


Alexa & Mommy at the park -- Alexa & Daddy playing on the slide










Alexa and I have been doing a TON of shopping lately. With fall approaching and Alexa growing, she was in dire need of a wardrobe update (she still needs some more stuff, but I need a break, haha). We also were in search of the perfect, complimentary outfits for Maureen & Dan's wedding weekend (which is in 3 weeks!). I'm so excited to wear our cute matching outfits! Like I already said, Alexa really enjoys observing what's going on around her, and all the activity at Easton thrilled her. She stared at the fountain (so it was really hard to get this picture) and the Tiffany's store (uh-oh Daddy, lol) the entire time she ate her lunch on Wednesday :)













Alexa making sure no part of her body is too clean :)~










Alexa has finally gotten the hang of a sippy cup :) I'm going to start transitioning a couple of her bottles over to the cup so that by her 1st Birthday we'll be bottle-free! The picture on the right is our 10-MONTH OLD!!!










Just this morning, Alexa finally braved letting go... she stood for about 2-5 seconds. She's improving... this afternoon she was standing for about 5-10 seconds! I think it's time to get that walking toy out to see what Alexa can do. She has gotten the hang of "walking" along the couch, so the walker seems like the next step. I'll be sure to take videos to share with y'all!

No teeth yet. I think her gums must really be bothering her though because it is effecting her sleeping patterns. Some days she will sleep past 8:00 am, yet other days (like today) she's up before 7:00 am. I'm having an increasingly difficult time getting her to fall asleep (for both her naps and at bedtime). I thought at first that maybe she was ready to transition to one nap a day, negative. She was so irritable they day I attempted that, I promised Dan we wouldn't try again for at least a month!

Oh ~ I started my Master's program on Monday :) It felt so great to be back in a classroom! I've had this professor before, and she is awesome. I'm really excited to begin working on some projects and to update myself on what's going on in the world of education! I only need 6 more classes for my Master's in Literacy so I'm just gonna take a class here-and-there until I'm done. Shouldn't take too long... Hopefully though Dan will finish his undergrad before I get my Master's! He has 4-5 classes so it's going to be a race for the finish ;-)

That's all I've got for now, y'all. Enjoy your weekend :) We will be super busy (surprise, surprise) between our Playroom Project, seeing Maureen & Dan (who will be in town), our church picnic, etc. I will post again soon. Ciao.

She wants to be Ms. Independent :-)

So let me start off with a story from last night... the three of us are sitting at the table eating dinner. I'd been feeding Alexa some pureed food when she started fussing, so I went and got the ever-faithful slice of bread. I tore off a few small pieces and put them on Alexa's tray. She went right to work devouring her carbs! When I went to try the puree again, which she will normally take easily after a "break," Alexa started FAKE crying so I would give her more bread!!! She got all worked up, her face turned red, and she even had tears... then she busted out laughing :-) They say babies are not born with the ability to manipulate, and I believe that to be true, but I also believe that somewhere along the way they learn to manipulate and Alexa is there now. Dan said, "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" - my response was, "I don't like to think of it as manipulation so much as I don't take no for an answer." Haha~ fun times ahead for our family!!

Well, we've been BUSY BUSY BUSY since my last posting! We went to lunch and shopping with Stephanie at Easton last Wednesday. Last Thursday morning, Alexa and I met my friend, Sarah, and her two sons, Daniel and Joseph, at the Columbus Zoo. We walked around North America and Africa - it was a lot of fun! Daniel talked my ear off :) I hadn't realized how much I miss being around children that ask lots of questions and can carry on a conversation - I cannot wait until Alexa reaches that stage! One of my favorite exhibits was the tiger. You are only separated from it by a piece of glass, that is maybe 2" thick!










Here's Alexa posing with the tiger statue (Sarah has one of the boys each summer with it so she can see how much they grow... so I figured I should do that too, lol). Alexa & Mommy watching the elephants.










The best shot I got of the baby elephant was its butt - sorry! Alexa LOVED the aquarium!!!










After walking around for almost 3 hours, Alexa was exhausted!!! She fell asleep in the stroller walking back to the car. Then, we went and had lunch with my friend, Jess, and did a little shopping at Once Upon A Child (a used baby/kids' stuff store). I've gotten in the habit of taking the camera in the bedroom when Alexa wakes up to try to capture her standing... lately though, we've only found her hanging out on her tummy.










Listen to Alexa say "book" it sounds more like "buk" with a very soft -k sound.


I'm reading Alexa her favorite part of her favorite story - watch how she smiles!

Look how great Alexa can turn the pages of a book - she's so smart!

Practicing how to pull herself up to stand (which she now does using our hands, the coffee table, her crib, etc.), and "walking."


A simple text message from Mom ("Wow...it is going to be a great jet skiing weekend! Love you!"), triggered a change of weekend plans --- we got to go to PERRY!!!! Here is Alexa on Friday night hanging out with Noni & Aunt Chris :)










On Saturday morning, Alexa hung out with Auntie and slid across the kitchen floor in her walker. Saturday was a rainy day - so we ran a few errands and stayed inside - so much for "great jet skiing" weather huh?










Alexa LOVES to hang out with JaJa in his bedroom cave :) Aunt Kelly came over for a visit before heading back to Kent.










The whole fam went out to dinner at Joey's (an Italian restaurant in Madison) on Saturday night. Alexa kept looking at the lady next to our table, so we figured we should ask her to take the photo, and of course Alexa turned away right when the shutter went off!










Alexa fell asleep on the car ride home from dinner, so I carefully took her outta her carseat and brought her inside. This is the first time in I don't know how long that she snuggled me, and I LOVED it! I didn't want to put her to bed :)~










Great jet skiing weather never came, but it was sunny & hot on Sunday so we went down to the lake anyway. It was really choppy being out on the skiis from the wind and other boats/skiis being out. We enjoyed our time in the water with Alexa though. It was the first time she enjoyed playing in a natural body of water :)










Auntie took Alexa out to play in the water too!










And so did Noni & Papa. Just a picture of our set-up when we spend the day at the beach (on the right).










Daddy & Alexa spend a good amount of time under the tent (although, Alexa is tanner than Daddy). Aunt Denise, cousin Angela, and Mom/Noni hanging out.










Playing in Lake Erie with Daddy & Mommy.


Playing in Lake Erie with Noni.


We returned to C-bus late on Sunday. It's always hard to say goodbye to the family, but I cherish the moments we do have with them. The 3 of us always have a great time when we are "home" (even Dan refers to Perry as "going home"). I'm so thankful that he has fit in so well with my family :) One day, when we are all living close together... I just can't imagine anything better!

Alexa is saying "What, Mom? I'm trying to play!" on Monday morning in her pink, ruffly, girly dress. For dinner on Monday, Alexa tried some black beans. She really liked them! We've continued to introduce her to self-feeding solids, and she does great with each of them. Alexa has tried black beans, green beans (she only sucked on 'em), fresh peach and plum, cantaloupe, pasta, carrots, etc. I love watching her independent face show triumph when she does something like "a big girl!" She is so proud of herself and so are we :)










Yesterday, we ran some errands (including going to a fresh produce market, yummy) and hung out with Tiffanie. We were finalizing plans for her Bachelorette Party #1 in Louisville this weekend!!! It'll be my first night away from Alexa... I'm sad about that, but also kind of looking forward to a break. I know she will have a ball with Daddy-Daughter Time :)

This morning we ran errands (notice a trend here?), and then did lots of playing at home (both indoors and out). I finally caught Alexa on camera standing in her crib after morning nap! Look - I got the piano from the garage sale to work! She loved playing it while standing on her own. Let me reiterate, she is Ms. Independent :)~ And look how dark her eyes are finally getting!!! It was the one thing I really wanted my baby to have, my deep brown eyes!










Well, that's all I've got for now. Hope you guys are having a great week - we are! For the inquiring minds, Dan and I worked out a resolution ourselves for his sister's wedding. We are all going to NC, but Dan will be attending all events (rehearsal dinner, breakfasts, pictures, reception) solo. Alexa and I will attend the ceremony only. This is a compromise that satisfies the two of us, and it allows us to still make the trip together (and get to see Auntie Kathy, Uncle Dave, Rox, John, Bella, & Jack beforehand). So that's it... I'm gonna enjoy the last few moments of Alexa's afternoon nap. Ciao.